The Academy Entrance Exam (4)
Not a single soul spoke to me while I stood in line, waiting to be assigned a team for the dungeon run.
The people ahead of me and behind me muttered to each other about the exam, but none of them addressed me. The way their conversations died the moment my gaze happened to land on them made it clear — they weren't bullying me. They were afraid of me.
<And how exactly are you supposed to make a single friend in this place?>
'Don't poke at my sore spots, please.'
Friends? That sort of thing was a luxury for me. Unearthing every hidden piece and clearing Soul Academy at maximum efficiency — that was the duty of a true Hardcore Veteran. If I had spare time to spend on friendship, the right move was to swing my mace one more time with it!
I wasn't being isolated. I was choosing to be a loner! For the sake of game efficiency!
Even if, in Soul Academy specifically, the most efficient play actually required farming affection with a whole roster of characters.
Damn it all.
So there I was, trading idle chatter with Grandpa, and before I knew it, I'd reached the front of the interviewer's desk. Luka — one of the academy's Combat professors — looked at me and, instead of wariness, rewarded me with a smile.
"Good afternoon, Lady Aln."
He was the first person to smile upon meeting me since Benedict, so under normal circumstances I might have welcomed it. But I wanted none of Luka's attention. This man was a madman who believed talent only blossomed in the crucible of trial.
Luka approached the students who caught his fancy with honeyed words, planting trust in them. And then he used that very trust to shove them into the ordeals he had prepared for them.
If those ordeals were the kind a student could actually overcome, I wouldn't call him a lunatic. But that wasn't what Luka prepared. The trials Luka arranged were the kind where the instant you failed to endure them, you died on the spot. That was precisely why so many famed disciples had emerged from under his wing — those who overcame their trials had their talents in bloom and succeeded as a matter of course, and those who didn't were buried in some nameless grave and forgotten.
Every fiber of me wanted to expose this man's crimes right then and there, but it was impossible for now. I had no evidence, and the gap in our reputations was a chasm. If I tried to burn him now, everyone would just look at me like, ah, the crazy girl is spouting nonsense again.
Not right now, anyway. Before long, I would drag him down for certain. Luka's existence was a walking pile of variables, and the current me absolutely hated leaving variables unattended.
"I watched your duel with great interest. Quite impressive."
'Yeah, and what about it?'
"So what do you want, you creepy piece of trash?"
"Ahaha. There it is. You really are as sharp-tongued as the rumors say. I merely wished to offer a greeting."
Watching Luka chuckle left a bad taste in my mouth. Don't tell me this bastard is already eyeing me as his next project?
"Now then, please draw your slip."
I reached into the box and pulled out a slip of paper. Written on it was the number 13.
"Number thirteen. You've drawn a fine team, my lady!"
'Fine, he says?'
"Fine? What's that supposed to mean."
"You'll see when you get there."
Luka, wearing his gentle smile, offered nothing more. Fine. I'd find out when I got there regardless.
With that thought, I headed toward the flag bearing my number — and stopped dead the moment I saw the person standing beneath it with their arms crossed.
No way. I'm seeing things, right?
Look, I absolutely wanted someone to cover our rear with attack support, and yes, technically the person standing over there was the optimal choice for that role — but still, this was going too far!
Why was the Scatterbrained Young Lady over there?!
<Sleeping with the enemy, are we?>
'She's not technically an enemy.'
Sure, I had a bet riding with the Scatterbrained Young Lady, but I had no particular desire to win it, and I didn't actually hate her either.
...Ah. I'd called her "Scatterbrained Young Lady" without even thinking about it. This was all the Mesugaki Skill's fault.
Joy watched me shuffle over, raised an eyebrow ever so slightly, and produced a voice sharp enough to cut glass.
"Good afternoon, Lady Delinquent. It seems fate keeps binding us together."
'That it doooes.'
"It certainly does, Lady Scatterbrain."
I shut my mouth, dodging the glare Joy leveled at me. If I traded any more words with her, something truly irreversible was going to happen. We were about to enter a dungeon together — piling up any more bad blood meant a fireball might come sailing at my back.
Setting my personal grudges aside, a party of Joy and me actually ranked among the better compositions. A taunting-capable tank like me, paired with a mage who wielded both ice and fire — a textbook front-line and back-line pairing. On top of that, I was a warrior whose skill had earned recognition even from the Aln family knights after countless rounds of training, and Joy was treated as a top-tier character even within the Soul Academy game. We were both capable in our own right.
Whoever got sandwiched between us, the dungeon would go smoothly. Of course, whoever that poor soul was would probably have a stomach ulcer by the end of it — but that wasn't my problem. Call it a fair trade: a high exam score in exchange for their gut lining.
Before long, the final party member came walking our way. The boy was obviously an extra at a glance, and upon seeing Lucy and me standing there, pointedly ignoring each other without a single word exchanged, he froze. Then, comparing his number slip to the number on the flag planted near us a good half-dozen times, he collapsed to the ground with the expression of a man watching the world end.
Poor kid.
Look on the bright side, at least — to all appearances, he'd be spending the day between the coldly beautiful Duchess's daughter and, by Benedict's description, a doll-pretty Count's daughter. Think of it as a feast for the eyes. Neither of us was actually dangerous inside, anyway.
Our reputations were another matter entirely.
"Ah... a... a good afternoon! I am the eldest son of House Leeds — a barony! My name is Jacob!"
Jacob Leeds? Never heard of him. Not even as an incidental extra name. He really was a person with zero impact on the game's story, huh? No reason to pay him any mind, then. He was trembling so hard he clearly wasn't going to cause any trouble — I'd just leave him be.
"I am Joy Partran. You've heard of me, I trust?"
"Yes! Of course!"
'I'm Lucy Aln. You know my name, right? Loser? Crawl away if you do.'
"Yes, ma'am! Understood!"
Joy shot me a dirty look at the greeting, which could only be described as insolence graduating into outright arrogance. What do you want from me? The Mesugaki Skill talks however it pleases!
Joy let out a long, pointed sigh, then spoke up.
"We'll be entering the dungeon shortly. Who, exactly, will be commanding?"
'I'll do it.'
"I will, Lady Scatterbrain."
"You will?"
Joy's doubtful gaze bored straight through me. I could admit I didn't cut a trustworthy figure. Setting aside whether I knew dungeons or not, I was a suspicious specimen when it came to whether I could lead people at all. Still, give me one chance! I can genuinely do this!
"U-um, about that..."
I turned at the voice worming in from the side, and Jacob snapped his mouth shut in a panic.
Got a problem with that? Then why don't YOU take command of me and Lady Scatterbrain over here? Could you charge through an unfamiliar dungeon while shaking like a leaf, convinced that one mistake would end in catastrophe? When I glared at him, Jacob knew his place and retreated a step.
'Lady Joy...'
"Lady Scatterbrain. Have you ever cleared a dungeon before?"
She hadn't. I remembered this — it was baked into the game's setting. Once she formed a party and entered a dungeon, she'd say it was her first since the one from the academy entrance exam.
"No. And what about you?"
'I have. And...'
"I have, in fact. The Aln family knights even instructed me in the fundamentals of dungeon delving."
Joy, who hadn't relaxed her glare even while listening to me, perked up with genuine interest for the first time at the words Aln family knights. So she wouldn't trust me, but she'd trust the family knights? Those big scary-looking but dumb-and-kind uncles were apparently more impressive than I gave them credit for.
Well, fair. The men serving under monsters like Benedict and Forsell couldn't exactly be mediocre.
"Is that the truth?"
'Yes! Trust me!'
"And if I find that unwise, what then? Lady Scatterbrain. Surely I'm the better choice."
I fell silent for a moment, listening to the words the Mesugaki Skill had twisted. That was not what I'd meant to say.
"Aha. I see."
The crease between her brows was no misunderstanding. What was carved there was anger, and it was sincere. This was Joy — a girl who got genuinely angry maybe twice in the entire game — and the Mesugaki Skill had wrung true fury out of her. The skill's aggro-generating performance was no joke.
Except that taunt performance was supposed to be aimed at MOBS, not at allies, you trash skill!
"Very well. Go ahead and command us, then. I look forward to witnessing command every bit as magnificent as that confidence."
Was clearing up this misunderstanding with Joy actually impossible? With this many thorns stuck in her side, had I already turned pitch-black in the depths of her heart?
<Worry about a spell lodging itself in your head before you worry about her opinion of you.>
'She'd never go that far.'
Casualties during the academy exam meant instant failure, and sweet, gentle Joy would never do such a thing.
...Probably.
As I killed time in the frosty silence — not a single word exchanged between the three of us — our turn to enter the dungeon arrived before I knew it. The academy interviewer was droning through a list of precautions in our direction, and I let it all flow in one ear and out the other. Whatever this man had to say, my goal was the fastest clear record on record.
<Your team is steeped in distrust. Do you truly believe such a record is within reach?>
'It's fine. I'll just make them trust me.'
Where does trust come from? Results! Once they witnessed the dazzling command that had moved even the Aln family knights, deep inside this dungeon, no matter how much Joy despised me, she'd have no choice but to believe!
I ignored the nonsense spewing from the old-fogey Grandpa and waited for the interviewer to finish.
"One final reminder: should a dangerous situation arise, simply use the magic tool we have issued you to return to the surface."
With those parting words, the interviewer stepped aside, and the entrance to the dungeon revealed itself.
Perhaps because this dungeon had been artificially constructed by Soul Academy, it lacked the creeping dread that the small and medium dungeons of Evans carried. Was that eeriness somehow connected to Agra?
In any case, I stepped through into the dungeon's interior without hesitation, first through the gate.
Inside, multiple magic lightstones embedded in the walls kept the place surprisingly bright. Thanks to that, I could take my time surveying the dungeon's features. A floor strewn with unidentifiable wreckage. Gray walls blotched all over with dark, smudged stains. A table long ago snapped in half, the kind people had once actually used. Shards of glass dangling from its surface.
A laboratory where some catastrophic accident had clearly occurred — this dungeon of chilling atmosphere was one I knew well.
'Where the Alchemist Once Stayed.'
Among Soul Academy's practical exam dungeons, it ranked among the more difficult — and it was riddled with hidden passages. Exploited properly, a runner could shave the clear record down as far as they pleased. The moment I confirmed which dungeon this was, I licked my lips and began tracing the optimal route in my head.
This one, I could genuinely farm on easy mode.