Second-Term Finals (6)
Kurten of Lahvi, thrown out of the dungeon, stood glaring at the dungeon's entrance.
The sheer displeasure radiating from his back drew awkward chuckles from the party members who had entered the dungeon with him.
"Hey, Kurten. We're the ones who should be mad. Why are you the one fuming?"
"Right. You're the reason we got wiped, remember?"
It was a fairly informal way to treat the second son of a ducal house, but far from getting angry, Kurten simply hunched his enormous shoulders.
"Uhh... sorry. Now that it's all over, it just sort of came out."
"Hahaha. Well, at least you admit it was your fault."
He was, unbelievably for a man of a ducal house, that gentle.
Among those who knew him, Kurten was nicknamed a minotaur in human skin.
A frame so massive it was hard to believe he was the same species as everyone else, and physical strength so overwhelming that the current Academy had no one to compare him against. Pile on a temperament as docile as a fattened ox, and the result was a man who, despite his intimidating bulk, was adored by everyone around him.
Even though Kurten's mistake right before clearing the third room of the Dungeon Studies exam had reduced all their progress to nothing, his party members hadn't flown into much of a rage — and his character was a large part of why.
"That frustrated, huh?"
"Mm. Deeply. It felt like tiptoeing through a room packed full of baby chicks."
What lurked in the third room was a horde of golems.
The demon-shaped creatures were nowhere near as powerful as the knights of the first room or the wolves of the second.
No — comparing them to those two at all was an insult. The golems were fragile enough that even an ordinary Academy student could take one down with ease.
What they had instead, you might say, was a difficulty of an entirely different kind from the previous two opponents.
Specifically: you were only permitted to destroy the enemies marked with a specific sigil.
Every time you felled an unmarked golem, the remaining ones grew steadily stronger, until at some point they transformed into monsters you simply could not bring down. Which meant that in tackling the third room, careless attacks were strictly off the table.
And what made the third room a whole degree harder still was how the golems moved.
They knew how to distinguish between golems that must not fall and golems that could be sacrificed — and how to use that knowledge.
They would gladly throw their bodies in the way to shield the marked golems, and some among them would even charge headlong on purpose just to get themselves destroyed.
Thanks to that, Kurten's party had suffered considerably in this room.
How could it not be maddening, when golems that would shatter at a careless swing came sprinting at you screaming please, kill me?
Still, strength was strength, it seemed.
Through several rounds of trial and error, Kurten's party grew familiar with the third room and finally closed in on the very threshold of success.
The moment when all that remained was to dispatch the final three golems to pass through — that was when Kurten, blinded by the prospect of victory, revealed the power he had been holding in reserve until now.
His plan was to smash every remaining golem, the final three included, and clear the third room in one blow.
"Who would've thought the other golems would wall themselves around the marked ones to protect them."
The intention itself wasn't bad — but that didn't mean the outcome could be.
Kurten's attack failed to wipe out the remaining golems, and just like that, his party was booted out of the dungeon.
"Now that you've messed up proper, you won't pull something like that again, right?"
"Of course not. I couldn't possibly do something so foolish twice."
"Good enough. Let's go again. We'll clear it this time."
Just as Kurten's party was about to re-enter the dungeon amid the warm, friendly atmosphere —
the Dungeon Studies teaching assistant appeared at the exam grounds.
"Everyone! Please look this way!"
The assistant, amplifying her voice with a spell, called out, and those lingering at the exam grounds turned their heads. Confirmed that every eye was on her, the assistant held up an official notice and continued.
"Starting today, hints for the final exam dungeon will be provided to any who wish for them! However, receiving a hint will incur a penalty on your final exam grade — and you will also forfeit any claim to being recognized as a First Clearer — so please consider your decision carefully!"
The assistant went on to add a few more explanations.
That the penalty applied to the entire party.
That anyone who viewed a hint would be placed under a seal of silence, preventing them from sharing it with others.
And that the hints were, at most, a form of assistance — they would not walk you straight to the answer.
By the time the assistant finished her explanation, the students lingering at the exam grounds began exchanging wary glances.
No one could yet tell whether the hints' contents would be worth the penalty, so nobody stepped forward.
Into that delicate standoff, the first to come forward was a party of second-years.
"You've confirmed the penalty?"
"Yes. We couldn't care less about First Clearer anyway."
"Then please, take this. The moment you unfold the paper, only you will be able to see what is written there."
"Here's hoping it's something really game-changing~"
As the second-years unfolded their hints, the other students' eyes converged on them.
Sharing the contents of a hint was impossible — but observing the reactions of the students who'd read one was not.
So all anyone had to do was gauge the hints' value from those reactions, and then decide whether or not to take one.
Standing at the center of a dozen covetous gazes, the second-year party whistled a tune as they opened their hints.
Before long, their expressions froze solid.
Partway through, they began scowling and spitting out curses.
And at the very end, they tore the hint papers to shreds — and that still wasn't enough, so they burned the pieces to ash.
Watching this, the other students thought: So those hints were useless, huh. Good thing I didn't step up first. And privately wrote the second-years off as idiots.
Yet the second-year party who had actually read the hints, paying not the slightest attention to the stares and muttering directed their way, turned toward the dungeon entrance with faces flushed scarlet.
"That son of a—"
"Ha. Damn it. It's honestly been a while since something pissed me off this bad."
"Then all we gotta do is show the little punk we're not cowards."
"Who's the pathetic one here — us or her? Let's find out."
Swearing their oaths through gritted teeth, the second-year party entered the dungeon — and not long after, their names, which had been languishing near the very bottom, shot sharply up the rankings.
The ones who hadn't even managed to clear the first room, wailing and flailing, had cleared it the instant they read their hints.
"...What in the world is written on those hints?"
"Maybe I'll take one too."
"If they could pass it, then so can I."
As the students unfolded their hints amid excited chatter, they came to understand, quite naturally, why the second-years had been cursing up a storm.
'...I'll stop here for today♡ You worthless trash-garbage losers are going to come back for more hints tomorrow anyway♡ Fuhahaha♡ Just imagining the pathetic sight of you crawling back to receive a hint even though you know you'll be mocked is hilarious♡ You losers♡ See you next time~♡'
'P.S. What, are you mad?♡ Did you want to punish the person who wrote this?♡ Then clear the dungeon all the way to the end and prove you're not pathetic♡ And I'll say so~rr~y~♡ Of course, there's no way hint-peeking pathetic-pathetic-dog-pathetic losers could ever clear the magnificent dungeon I made~♡'
'What, did you check the back because you thought something was hidden there?♡ Fuhahahaha♡ Too bad~♡ There's nothing~♡'
That day, every single person who viewed the Dungeon Studies exam hints made one solemn vow in their heart.
They would teach the wretch who wrote those provocative hints what manners were.
Before the Dungeon Studies teaching assistant appeared at the Academy exam grounds —
Arthur and his party, having arrived early in the morning, were already deep inside the dungeon.
"Maybe it's just because I've seen it so many times, but this wolf is actually starting to look cute to me."
Ignoring Joy's nonsense, Arthur kicked over the wolf's core body and brought it down, then pressed hard at the exhaustion-bagged skin under his eyes.
"Your Highness... did you not sleep well last night?"
Perhaps his state had worried her, because as Phoebe drew closer, Arthur gave a wry smile.
Between devising a strategy for the dungeon and preparing for the rest of the exams, sleep had simply refused to come.
Ordinarily he would have forced himself to rest for the sake of his condition — but every time he closed his eyes, it was as if he could hear a voice:
— and there was no way he could keep his eyes shut.
"Your Highness. Didn't we already figure out how to clear it?"
At the mention of strategizing, Frey, standing beside him, tilted her head.
"We did."
The previous evening, Arthur's party had already roughed out a strategy for the third room.
It couldn't be called perfect, but it was more than sufficient to pass through the third room.
Had they not run afoul of the entry time limit, Arthur's party would already have cleared the third room and been challenging the fourth.
"But here's the thing. We won't be visiting that room just once or twice. We'll be going through it dozens — maybe hundreds — of times going forward, so it's better to have it optimized."
"Oh. That makes sense."
"It does, so listen up. I'll explain what we need to do once we enter the third room."
Confirmed that the gazes of the other three were fixed on him, Arthur recited the plan he had hammered out over a sleepless night.
"First, the moment we enter, Joy, you prepare a spell to strike the entire field. And then..."
Joy, listening quietly to his explanation, frowned at a strange sense of déjà vu.
Hm? Where had she heard a story like this before?
Laying out the board in advance, then luring the enemy into it — this method was unmistakably...
"Joy? Are you listening?"
"Ah. This is Lady Alrn's style, isn't it?"
Yes. That was it. This was the method Lady Alrn used whenever she cleared a dungeon.
She planned everything out in advance as if she knew every last detail of the dungeon, then set her movements to match that design.
Having identified the source of her déjà vu, Joy's lips curled up slightly — and then she suddenly noticed the silence around her and cautiously lifted her head.
Arthur, who had been chatting away enthusiastically mere moments ago, had gone rigid, eyes stretched wide.
"Your Highness?"
"...Ha. I see. So I was unconsciously imitating her."
"Um—"
"It's nothing. Joy, don't worry about it."
He doesn't seem fine at all, though, Joy thought — but she didn't say it aloud.
Having realized he'd copied Lucy's methods, Arthur looked, for some reason, deeply irritated.
"Now then, to continue the explanation from before..."