All Four Retrieved
The lecture hall on the 4th floor of the Magic Technology Hall was buried under a chill so biting it seemed to freeze a person to the marrow. A girl with sky-blue hair walked across a floor glazed over with thick ice, her faint breath misting the air.
Every plant guarding the Desolator had been neutralized or frozen solid by the extreme cold. Maylin glided lightly across the slick ice.
And then, without incident, she retrieved the Desolator at the back of the hall and tucked it away into her sub-space.
"Clear."
Exhaling another puff of breath, she pressed the small button beside her glasses frame. The plan was to signal Kajan with that button once a mission was successfully completed.
Having done her part without a hitch, she straightened up with a triumphant expression.
"Ah- achoo! Hk-choo!"
Then came coughing, over and over. She rubbed goosebump-riddled arms and shivered, legs drawn up tight.
"Ugh, I've caught a cold. Is ice magic really just not my thing?"
She'd completed the mission in style—right up until she fell apart at the finish line. Gathering herself, Maylin scurried out of the frozen lecture hall.
The storage room of the 1st-Year Boys' Dormitory.
"Come on, come on! More plants over there!"
Dick was shouting, clapping his hands. Inside the hall packed with plant-type monsters, nearly a dozen Kizen students were tangled together in ferocious combat.
And Dick, lounging comfortably at the rear and spectating, stroked his chin.
Tempting to get a little worked up about this.
He pulled a golden egg-shaped trinket from his pocket, tossed it toward a patch of vines, and called out.
"A golden egg! There's a golden egg worth five gold over there!"
"What?!"
"Where?!"
The students scrambled over one another in a mad dash. Vines blocking their path were hacked down by the sword-division students, and the plant monsters were burned to ash by the Jet-Black flame specialists. Kizen being Kizen, after all. Dick nodded in satisfaction.
"Ah, but why do I feel like the lowly errand boy here?"
A student weakening the plants with curses glanced over at him.
"Hey, isn't this setup super unfair to us curse-track guys?"
Dick shrugged.
"When it's over, go demand your cut. They're winning thanks to your curses, so I'm sure they'll toss you some pocket change."
"Hm."
With a dozen-odd Kizen students pooling their strength, the plant-type monsters in the storage room were getting cleared out fast. In the meantime, Dick put on Kajan's glasses and strolled along at his leisure.
While the students he'd so smoothly conned fought tooth and nail, he retrieved the Desolator hidden behind a perception-obstruction spell, placed it safely in his sub-space, and pressed the button on the glasses.
Heh heh, clear as a breeze!
"GWAAH! Hey! This stuff is actually poison!"
"Cough! Cough! I've got spots breaking out on my skin!"
Suddenly chaos broke out behind him. Dick grinned slyly and pulled out antidotes purchased in Rochest, lining them up on the floor.
"It's a plant-type monster—of course it's got poison! Come, come, ladies and gentlemen, have a drink each!"
The students came flocking toward the antidotes in a rush.
"Just so you know, these run 100 silver a bottle. You're all aware of that, right?"
"……You absolute maniac."
2nd floor of the Lecture Hall.
Shriek! THWACK! Crunch!
A one-sided massacre was unfolding here. And watching the whole scene, trembling as he pressed himself flat against the lecture hall wall, was a male student.
Toto of Class A, Year 1.
……What on earth is this person?
A boy wearing a crown on his head was striding along, tearing through vines and plant-type monsters with utter impunity. With that overwhelming power potentially pointed his way at any moment, Toto was sinking deeper and deeper into terror.
[Hey! Loner!]
The boy's gaze swung toward Toto.
[Run away and I swear you'll die by my hand!]
"Y-yes, sir!"
Prince was ripping the plant-type monsters apart with what looked like genuine anger, all emotion and fury.
[Of course I knew you'd stick with me! To think they'd make the Zombie Prince do grunts' work like this! Hmph!]
It was a period of one-sided violence. Barely five minutes later, the situation was over. Every plant-type monster lay sprawled across the lecture hall floor.
Prince put on the glasses Kajan had given him via Simon, pressed the button, and spoke.
[Loner. Get over here.]
Prince beckoned. Toto, valuing his own life above all else, scampered over at once.
[Put this in your sub-space.]
Prince gestured at the empty air, and suddenly a black box popped into his hand. Toto's eyes went round as saucers.
[Hah? Got a problem?]
"N-no, sir!"
Toto did as he was told and stored the box in his sub-space. Prince smirked and threw an arm around his shoulder.
[Good. Keep being this obedient and you'll get out of this with your skin intact. Understood?]
"Y-yes, sir!"
[Next question. What's the sub-space you use?]
"It's this bracelet."
[Take it off.]
Toto clutched the bracelet to his chest in horror.
"No! This is my precious—!"
[Not handing it over?]
When Prince raised his fist and barked 'out with it!' in a fit of temper, Toto had no choice but to hand over the bracelet, tears brimming in his eyes.
[Oh, stop sniveling! I'm not stealing it!]
Toto was dripping big, trembling tears, and Prince snapped at him.
[I'm borrowing it for a moment, for your own safety. I'll come by this evening and return it.]
"R-really?"
[I promise. On the honor of the Zombie Prince.]
The what prince?
Anyway, as long as he got his sub-space back, Toto would take anything. But letting him walk off like this felt off, somehow.
He didn't seem like a truly bad person, but for some reason it felt like this guy would simply forget. And if he asked to hold the man's belongings as collateral, he'd probably get punched for it.
Resigned, Toto held out his pinky finger.
"Th-then, promise me. Please."
[……]
Prince let out an incredulous laugh.
[Kids these days, honestly.]
Prince crouched down and hooked his own pinky around Toto's.
Toto figured that with everything done up to this point, the man would surely remember now, and made to let go—at which Prince barked at him.
[Hey, what are you doing? You don't stamp the seal?]
"Pardon?"
[You promised, didn't you? Pinky promise, press thumbs together to stamp the seal, then you add a signature and get it laminated!]
"I mean, that's stuff only little kids actually do—"
When Prince exploded with a "GWAAH!" of fury, Toto toppled over flat.
"I-I'll do it!"
I've gotten tangled up with a total weirdo.
And so Toto saw through the whole bizarre promise ritual, exactly as Prince had decreed it.
Then, this time, Prince was looking him up and down, sizing up his clothes.
[Hey, though—that uniform of yours looks pretty nice?]
"Y-yes?"
That same moment.
Simon had finally rejoined Pier and Erzsébet on the campus grounds.
"I've been chewing my nails off waiting. Why is everyone so late?"
At Simon's question, Pier in his plate armor hardened his expression.
[Damnation! We broke through the fog only to find yet another barrier beyond it.]
Erzsébet nodded.
[Indeed, milord—a great barrier blanketing the entirety of the Kizen first-year campus. Even I, with my stealth, could not pass through it, so I suspect it is a type that seals out any intrusion from the outside altogether.]
The barrier was already that complete? Simon pressed a hand to his forehead, his face grim.
"Then we have no choice. We have to resolve this situation ourselves."
[Kruh-huh! Precisely so!]
Simon turned his head for a moment and stared toward the north.
Did Cami manage to get out safely?
If Camibarez made it to the Mausoleum and brought back the professors, a whole new option would open up—but for now, Simon considered it best that he and Kajan resolve this themselves.
Back inside the Poisonous Magic Hall, Simon descended to the underground level where Kajan was holding position. Passing through a dark corridor, they arrived at the Secret Hazardous Material Storage.
"There you are."
Kajan's voice drifted out of the darkness. The man who'd been clinging to the ceiling dropped soundlessly to the floor.
[Honestly, him again.]
Erzsébet muttered as if utterly fed up. Simon gave a wry smile and looked to Kajan.
"Where's Francesca?"
"Hasn't come out yet."
Kajan shook his head, then continued.
"And I've got one piece of good news. Every one of your teammates succeeded in neutralizing all four Desolators."
"That's a relief!"
Only now did they meet the basic conditions for facing Francesca.
Every Desolator was safely tucked inside each of their sub-spaces, cut off from Francesca's detonation signal. Threatening them with a bombing was no longer possible for her, either.
And above all, the simple fact that that catastrophic explosion would never happen now was an enormous weight off everyone's shoulders. Simon could finally breathe a deep, genuine sigh of relief.
The future where the great disaster occurred had been changed. From here on, depending on how Simon and Kajan handled things, they could steer the situation toward something far better still.
"Oh, and—I also found the diary and the professor's ID in Professor Lang's office."
Simon said, drawing out Lang's ID.
"I gave the diary to Camibarez and sent her off to the Mausoleum where the professors are. So now, with this professor's ID—"
"We go inside and arrest Francesca."
The two men nodded at the same time.
"Erze."
[Yees~]
Erzsébet spread her spider silk wide and draped it over Simon's uniform. The silk shifted and transformed, and Simon now wore a fresh suit of navy-blue clothing over it.
"Pier."
[To war!]
In an instant, Pier flung off his armor—his body breaking apart into hundreds of bones that snapped onto Simon's frame, piece by piece.
The cloak swirled around Simon's shoulders, the skull settled over his face like a helm, and Pier's greatsword fused to the finger bones of his right arm, landing perfectly in his grip.
Overlord standing by. All clear.
Every preparation was complete.
Drawing a deep breath, Simon pressed Lang's professor ID against the dark magic circle.
WOOOONG!
Lang's ID was swallowed straight into the wall, and with a heavy clanking sound the wall and its door transformed into hundreds of blocks. They rose and recessed over and over like the keys of a piano, until at last a gap yawned open and the space beyond revealed itself.
Tension flooded in at the knowledge that Francesca was inside. Following Kajan, who took the lead, Simon held his breath and stepped through.
So this was the Secret Hazardous Material Storage.
The name was perfectly apt. Everything dangerous in here was sealed behind dozens upon dozens of layers of alloy and locking wards. To the casual eye, it looked like nothing more than a room packed full of containers.
Then Kajan, walking ahead, gave a hand signal.
……?
As Simon turned to look, he saw four empty spaces where something was unquestionably supposed to be.
The dark magic seals had been wiped away. The surrounding surfaces were thick with dust, but only a rectangular patch of floor in the center was clean.
The trace of someone having taken something recently.
So this is where they grabbed the Desolators!
Seeing exactly four empty spaces filled him with enormous relief. He had worried, after all, that maybe they hadn't actually confirmed the explosions properly back in the future.
The two pressed on. Then Simon saw Kajan ahead of him raise his clenched right fist.
"Incoming."
VMMMMMMMM!
A black cross came slicing through the air, hurtling toward them.
"Down."
The muscles of Kajan's arm bulged as if they would tear. Without so much as dodging the flying cross, he thrust his fist straight into its path.
KUUUUNG!
The Jet-Black cross and Kajan's fist collided head-on. Cracks split down Kajan's arm one after another—but the cross crumpled like a crushed can with a dull crunch, then shattered into scattered fragments.
"Tch!"
Kajan grimaced and shook out his arm. Simon gaped at him.
"C-couldn't you have just dodged it?"
Kajan wordlessly pointed behind them. Where his finger aimed, Simon could see something like a storage tank.
Simon understood immediately. If that cross had smashed into the storage tank…… it didn't bear thinking about.
That's Kajan for you. His well of experience runs deeper than mine.
Marveling inwardly, Simon widened his field of awareness as well. Kajan spoke.
"Get low. Now."
"!"
Simon, Kajan, and Erzsébet dropped flat against the floor at once. Crosses flying in from three directions collided with one another above their heads, crumpled on impact, and scattered into nothing across the air.
Vicious, murderous attacks.
[……For a mere Priest to dare.]
Erzsébet lifted her head, murder in her voice.
[As if the likes of us would fall to such pathetic strikes. Show yourself, coward, and have done with it.]