Second Semester Final Exams (23)
"What in the world is going on over there?"
Luka, unable to make any sense of the scene in the footage, strode over to Jesl. He reasoned that since she had been involved from the design stage of the dungeon, she might know something about it. But Jesl was every bit as bewildered as he was.
"I have no idea."
She, too, had no explanation for why such a phenomenon had occurred.
The academy's artificial dungeon was, in the end, something made by human hands. No matter how meticulously it was prepared, there were bound to be flaws. She suspected this phenomenon, too, was some kind of error born in the process of constructing the dungeon—but why would such an error come into being?
While Jesl combed through the dungeon blueprints stored in her memory, the crimson mana seething outside the door gradually subsided. The Derelict's final desperate gambit was a grand spell meant to kill everyone standing before him. However high his stats had been set, no Derelict could sustain magic of that scale indefinitely.
The spell, having lost its target, scattered without shattering so much as a single thing. And by the time the outside fell silent, Lucy Aln, who had been clinging to her mace, kicked the door open to reveal the Derelict sprawled on the floor, utterly spent.
He glared at her as she landed in the corridor, eyes streaming bloody tears of rage and hatred.
'You—!'
'What?♡ You're the one who stopped casting, aren't you?♡ Why are you getting mad at me when you're the coward who froze up because you were scared of breaking your own precious stage?♡'
...Ah. So that was it.
Listening to Lucy, Jesl finally understood the situation. The door at the end of the corridor was the passage leading to the Derelict's stage. Destroying it meant destroying the stage itself—and since the Derelict could only exercise his full power while standing upon it, he could never bring himself to break that door. It was a trick that only someone who knew this dungeon better than anyone could pull off. She really is using every means at her disposal to clear it in the absolute shortest time possible.
Letting out a wry smile, Jesl watched the Derelict crumble into ash, then checked the time.
"Five minutes, forty-eight seconds."
"Pardon?"
"That is how long it took the young lady to clear the dungeon."
Most of the academy's students had struggled for a full week without managing to clear it—and she'd finished before even six minutes had elapsed. Lady Aln truly was not a person who could be measured by any common standard.
"Astonishing."
"Indeed."
Jesl agreed with the heat in Luka's voice. It was a real shame, she thought. If that girl weren't the sole bloodline of House Aln, she would have found some way—any way—to set her on the path of scholarship.
"Your Highness."
"Joy. And Lady Saintess."
"The reason the young lady is showing us this now is surely—"
"Ah, yes. No doubt it's a message to us. Nothing else would explain why she'd go this far."
"Hehe. Really, though. It's hard to believe she's the same person who threw high society into such an uproar. She's changed so much."
Five minutes and forty-eight seconds, huh.
Hearing my dungeon clear time from Grandpa, I jutted out my lip. Taking the safe route had padded my clear time. The real problem was the method I'd chosen to get past the boss's final gambit—if I'd gone inside and skipped the pattern entirely instead of blocking it with my shield, I could have shaved off dozens of seconds.
As I mulled over the regret, a whole cluster of alternatives came flooding to mind. With a better build and a few more tries, I could probably bring it down into the four-minute range. No, I couldn't be satisfied with this record. My pride as a hardcore veteran wouldn't allow it. Time to retry. I'd grind it until I set the perfect run.
<Enough. Enough, I say. What took the others a week of suffering, you did in six minutes.>
'Five minutes and forty-eight seconds. Be precise. This is a sensitive subject.'
<...Hah. Fine. Rendering everyone else's hard work meaningless in five minutes and forty-eight seconds should be more than enough—what more could you possibly want?>
That's because a speedrun is, by nature, a battle against yourself! In that world, people burn the midnight oil chasing down 0.01 seconds even after seizing first place—so how am I supposed to pass up a chance to cut nearly a full minute?!
I raised my voice, remembering the days when I'd clawed desperately at the Soul Academy speedrun record, but Grandpa didn't understand my feelings one bit.
<Anyway, stop here. There are plenty of people waiting outside to see you, no?>
At Grandpa's nagging, I reluctantly stepped out of the dungeon—and the moment I did, every eye in the examination hall locked onto me. Hmm. Everyone's looking at me like I've done something wrong. Where's the "incredible!" or "that's Lady Aln for you"? Even on communities seething with envy and jealousy, uploading a speedrun video gets you a comment section full of praise. How are real people more stingy with their reactions than forum dwellers?
<Did I not tell you? You made a week of their suffering look meaningless.>
'So I made it look disparaging, is that it?'
As in, "you struggled that hard to clear a dungeon this easy?" ...Well, nothing to be done about it. I can't exactly claim I had no such intention. I have to accept the karma I've sown. Yep.
While I was resigning myself to that, Luka appeared alongside the Dungeonology professor.
"Splendidly done, Lady Aln. What you showed us has left everyone speechless."
"That's right, my lady. I never imagined you'd get past the final gambit in such a manner."
Heheh. Right? See? I was amazing, wasn't I? As I preened and straightened my shoulders at their praise, a booming voice erupted from the middle of the crowd of students.
"I think so too, my lady! I was deeply impressed by what you showed us!"
Startled by the sight of Luchvi Kurten grinning as if he'd witnessed something magnificent, I barely managed to choke back the words that threatened to slip out. Calm down! If you answer him, something like 'Well, of course it impressed you—you've got nothing but muscle for brains, so obviously it exceeded anything you could imagine,' is going to come flying out!
I already have plenty of enemies; I don't want to add to the ranks of my haters here! I refuse to hand ammunition to all these people glaring at me right now!
As I stood there pressing my lips together with that thought, Kurten turned toward the back.
"What say the rest of you! Was the dungeon Lady Aln created not truly magnificent?"
Huh?
Hey. HEY?! Can you not see the mood of the crowd right now?! Everyone looks miserable! What kind of nice answer do you expect to get by throwing out a question in the middle of THIS?!
The crowd's reaction played out almost exactly as I'd predicted. They chose silence. They didn't care for me, but no one wanted to gainsay the young lord of House Ruhvi, so they simply kept their mouths shut.
Watching him blink in confusion at the frosty atmosphere—yeah, he really didn't read the room. His brain is pure muscle, no different from a video game NPC.
While I was looking down pityingly at the bewildered Kurten from the sidelines, a path opened through the students, and from it emerged Arthur, Joy, and Phoebe.
What? Why are you three suddenly popping up? Did you have something to sa—
Wait. Don't tell me you changed what you were going to make me do? You're planning to make me do something in front of ALL these people?! No, right?! Right?! No way that's happening! That's the kind of thing only a perverted, degenerate, sado-masochist, sex-offender, trash Chief God would come up with—there's no way you'd do it! Have I wronged you somehow... well, I haven't NOT wronged you, but! I trust you! I trust your characters!
"Lucy Aln."
'Yes?!'
'What is it, Pitiful Prince? Do you have something to say to me?'
"There was no need for you to go out of your way to demonstrate, in this manner, that our approach to clearing the dungeon was also a legitimate answer."
...Huh? What are you talking about, Arthur? Arthur? I only ran that speedrun because I was annoyed at a bunch of clueless scrubs yapping about my dungeon. I was just telling people to shut up unless they could clear dungeons better than me?
"That's right, my lady. Failing to notice the dungeon's proper clear method was our own fault, so there was never any need for you to defend us on that account."
Joy? Why are you doing this too? I didn't think that deeply about it, I promise! Just think about how I normally am! Do I look like someone that considerate?! I'm not, am I?!
'Whatever do you mean? What do you mean, you failed to notice the clear method?'
Perhaps sensing something odd in the words of Arthur's party, the first clearers of the final exam, Kurten tilted his head and asked. It was Phoebe who answered him.
"It's an embarrassing story."
Wearing an awkward smile unlike her usual self, she continued in that compelling voice honed through her years as Saintess of the Church of the Chief God.
"We never noticed the dungeon's gimmick. The very idea of returning to the starting point never crossed our minds."
"That seems strange, Lady Saintess. Then how ever did you clear the dungeon?"
"We faced the dungeon's boss head-on, and we struck him down."
"...Pardon? Is such a thing even possible?"
"It is. As Lady Aln just demonstrated—if only you overcome the final spell."
With her clear voice alone, Phoebe made the entire examination hall her audience as she began to explain how they had defeated the Derelict. A Derelict relatively weakened, being a dungeon for first-years—and an Arthur's party that stood leagues beyond first-year level. Plus the infinite retries they'd been granted.
"After countless attempts, we arrived at one conclusion. If the spell cannot be blocked, then why not simply ensure it can never be cast in the first place?"
It wasn't the correct clear method, but Arthur's party at the time believed firmly in their own idea, and through desperate effort they succeeded in turning a wrong answer into the right one.
"Distinct from our success in clearing it, though, it was a failure as an exam. We hadn't even grasped the examiner's intent."
Right. Even Jesl had said she couldn't give them high marks. But what does that have to do with me running a speedrun?
"Professor Jesl."
As I filled my head with question marks, Phoebe turned to her.
"Before we entered the dungeon, the young lady clearly stated that she would show us how the dungeon was meant to be cleared."
"...Ah. Oh dear. That never even occurred to me. It seems that suddenly, a show of force counts as a clear method too."
Only after hearing Jesl's words did I understand what they were getting at. So they took my speedrun just now as a defense of their own approach—as proof that brute force was also a legitimate way to clear a dungeon.
...But that's NOT what I meant?! It kind of works, but it ONLY kind of works?!
"Ah, Professor Jesl. To be clear, we know we made mistakes. We know it is only right that our grades suffer for it. And yet we stepped forward because we wished to defend this clumsy girl."
"That's right. I refuse to watch the young lady earn everyone's hatred on our account."
At Arthur's words, thrown out while sneaking glances at me from the corner of his eye, Professor Jesl directed a fond look their way. ...Something about this feels like it's drifting further and further beyond the point of no return.
"As a dungeon, though, it was masterfully made. Vicious, certainly, but masterful."
As a familiar voice cut abruptly through the silence, I turned toward it—and there she was. Even with countless eyes besides mine snapping onto her, Avery shrugged with perfect composure.
"Why is everyone looking at me like that? I was merely answering young lord Kurten's question."
Why is she doing this now? Sweetie, saying nice things about me isn't going to improve how people treat you?
"It's true. Of all the countless dungeons I saw while with the mercenary company, this was among the finest."
Toby?! Why are YOU doing this too? Do you want something from me or something?
"I never imagined there would be that many clues."
Vishy? Did Adri put you up to this? Is this her way of getting me to owe her?
"Clearing it, I came to realize just how carefully it had been crafted."
And this next one is... wait, who even are you? Who are you and why are you praising me?
"It made me keenly aware of my own lack of experience."
"It made me ashamed that I'd ever complained about the difficulty."
What is WRONG with all of you?! Why is everyone who was glaring at me like I'd ruined their day suddenly saying nice things?!
...Oh. Don't tell me. Are you trying to curry favor with the people standing next to me?! You're trying to build yourselves a good image while you have the chance! That must be it! There's no way any of you would praise me with a pure heart!
"At this rate, no one can deny that the young lady designed the dungeon."
"That's right. Anyone other than the designer couldn't possibly have shown us such an extraordinary spectacle."
"...Well, I'm not sure even being the designer would have been enough to manage it."
"Well, the young lady's dungeon-clearing prowess is already famous."
It's a full prostration-and-worship situation. Well, fine, if you're going to praise me, I'll just take it quietly. Quietly...
I CAN'T take it!
I can't! How am I supposed to endure this burning, awkward atmosphere?! Just insult me instead! I set up that whole eccentric display precisely because only the designer would know—was that meant to jab at your own inadequacy? Call me mean! Call me cruel! HAAAAAH!
No! I cannot bear this suffocating goodwill one second longer!
Because I've lived under universal hatred ever since I set foot in this world, my resistance to praise was woefully underdeveloped, and I moved to make an emergency escape—but the Mesugaki Skill barred my way.
Why are YOU doing this to me too?! No wait—you've ALWAYS been like this! I should be asking why you keep doing this!
So a mesugaki, who must at all times be brimming with confidence and looking down on everyone, isn't allowed to flee from THIS situation?! Is that the deal?! IS THAT THE DEAL?!
<What's the matter? Weren't you the one hoping for praise?>
'I never asked to be praised THIS much!'
Somebody, anybody, PLEASE drag me out of this hell!