Dancing Through a Storm of Traps
Simon passed through the open iron gate and moved into the entrance area of the dungeon.
Before long, he came upon a long, narrow corridor. There were no traces of foot traffic, and no jet-black energy to be felt. Only the dank, musty smell unique to underground places stung his nose. Everything was dark enough that he couldn't see far ahead, but nearby objects were perfectly clear.
Simon cautiously took a step forward.
Thwoong.
Somewhere far off, a sound like a firing mechanism echoed. Simon stopped and stared straight ahead.
What came flying was a pure white arrow.
A Holy Arrow?
Just then, Pier's voice rang out.
[Its power is on another level from an ordinary Holy Arrow. Don't block it — dodge!]
Simon tilted his head exactly as Pier instructed.
The pure white flash streaked right past his cheek. He could see it in sharp detail, from the arrowhead all the way to the fletching.
The arrow that had passed him slammed into the wall behind. The stone cracked and splintered with a grinding noise — clearly a devastating amount of force.
So that's what it feels like.
[Khehehehe! If you've got the feel for it, then dive right in!]
Simon grinned and broke into a sprint straight ahead. This time: thoom. Thoom. Thoom. Three firing sounds.
First shot, same as before!
He tipped his head back to let the upper arrow sail past, then immediately twisted his body sideways to slip under the one at mid-height. The last, coming in low, he dodged by lifting his leg.
As Simon straightened back into form, his eyes grew serious.
The traps aren't even being stepped on — they're just flying at me. So this test has nothing to do with disarming them?
No sooner had Simon taken a step with that thought than he heard the metallic clack of a trap springing beneath his feet.
Without a moment's hesitation, Simon stomped down on his jet-black power and leapt into the air.
A cluster of metal spears burst up from the ground he'd just left. Their tips were coated in a purple liquid.
[Paralytic poison! If it pricks you, your body freezes up within a minute — and then the arrows get you!]
No Kizen uniform either, so even a graze would be fatal.
Hanging in the air was no guarantee of safety, either.
The moment Simon began descending toward the floor, lights flickered on the left and right walls as if sensing him, and magic circles bloomed into being.
Tch!
He couldn't afford to step on another trap here.
Simon calmly opened his subspace and drew out the spear he'd just purchased. He planted it into the floor and vaulted over it like a pole-vaulter — and flames erupted from both walls.
FWOOOOSH!
The searing heat stung his face. Simon hit the ground drenched in sweat, and immediately—
Tik. Tik.
The block under his feet sank inward.
Just how many traps are there?
Simon sprinted without pause. Spears shot up from the floor while arrows kept raining in from the front.
Tik.
Tik.
Tik-tik.
Tik.
Every stride set off a trap. There were more trigger blocks than safe ones.
If that was how it was going to be—
Forget looking for patterns. Just dodge everything — that's faster!
Simon kicked off the ground and leapt. He weaved this way and that, dodging the flying and surging traps with fluid, effortless control.
[Boy! Duck!]
Simon instantly flattened himself to the ground like a squid. WHOOOONG! A spiked log tore viciously through the air, sweeping just above his head.
When the log reached the end of its pendulum swing, Simon scrambled up and sprang forward.
Tik.
Tik.
Tik.
The traps fired off in an unbroken chain.
Ugh — isn't this a bit much?
Simon dodged the incoming Holy Arrows in a state of pure, mindless flow.
By now he was crossing red lines that triggered traps on contact — and one of them grazed his leg.
SHIIIIIIISS!
Poison mist sprayed down from the ceiling, clouding the air around him.
Simon stopped dead, deployed the mask magic circle he'd learned in Toxicology class and pressed it over his mouth, then pulled a flat wad of cotton from his subspace and held it in the mist. Poison residue seeped out of the cotton, staining it brown.
Red Mushroom spore poison. The antidote needs Myeonghacho.
A poison he'd been drilled on in Toxicology until he was sick of it.
He carried a generous supply of Myeonghacho for practical exercises too, so Simon immediately pulled two potion bottles from his subspace.
Pier! I have to mix the antidote — watch my front for me!
[Got it!]
Simon had reached the point where he could dodge cleanly using nothing but the sound of incoming arrows and Pier's running commentary.
He kept evading arrows from a standstill while setting the potion bottles on the floor. Then he poured solvent over the Myeonghacho, downed the mixture in one gulp, dismissed his mask circle, and strode boldly into the poison fog.
His throat and skin prickled, but that was all.
[Kheheh! So you weren't dozing through Toxicology after all!]
Of course not.
There was nothing better than getting to use what you learned in class.
At the same time, a thought crossed his mind: if he fully mastered Byeolya's poison-eating curriculum, he might one day walk through a Red Mushroom poison like this without even needing an antidote.
Almost there!
He could see it now — the red button that would let him through to the next gate.
He wanted to reach it staying sharp to the very last, without taking a single hit.
Simon pulled two skeletons from his subspace. The skeletons broke apart and clamped onto his two legs, transforming into a pair of Bone Boots.
Now — one beat of rest.
He waited for an arrow to come, and the instant he dodged it, he slammed his jet-black into the ground and charged.
Flashes burst from the walls, marking activated traps, while the floor clicked and clattered with more of them.
Simon just kept running. Toward the end, the difficulty spiked wildly — a storm of perilous holy blades fired at him nonstop — but Simon didn't fear the holy power one bit.
He couldn't let anyone watching catch on, so he calmly tracked each trajectory and slipped past them. Then, without warning, the floor ahead heaved upward and became a wall.
GUUUUUGUGUGUGU!
The way forward was blocked, and from behind came a tremendous rumbling and the sound of something rolling down. Without a doubt, a boulder trap.
[Kahaha! Move fast or get flattened!]
Simon spun once in front of the wall, added the power of his Bone Boots, and hammered it with a corkscrew punch.
CRRAAAAASH!
The wall shattered apart with ease, and Simon plunged through the gap.
[Fire trap right in front of you!]
"Yes sir!"
Simon dodged the flames surging in from every direction, planted one hand on the floor, and kicked both legs up into the air.
Then he flung his feet forward in a scything kick — and the Bone Boots wrapped around them transformed back into skeleton form and bolted.
Ten meters to the button.
Right here.
Charge!
Simon's Absolute Order fell. Both skeletons invoked their Dash, punching straight through the traps in one bound, and stabbed the button with their swords.
KEEEEEING—
He could feel every trap going inert. Even the boulder that had been rolling down beyond the wall burst apart, its internal explosives triggered.
Simon pushed himself up off the floor and let out a long breath.
DRRRRRRK!
The wall split left and right, opening a path toward the next stage.
"WAAAAAAH!!"
The spectators who had witnessed Simon's performance erupted in fervent cheers.
While the other students flinched and hesitated at the incoming Holy Arrows, or painstakingly pieced together the traps' patterns and lost time doing it, the sight of a boy — Special Admission No. 1 — charging straight through while deliberately tripping every trap in his path could hardly have made a bigger impression.
"That's it! Him! HIM! That's my favorite kid!"
Byeolya, serving as guest commentator for the day, hammered the table and shouted along with the crowd.
The emcee, sensing a chance to wring some airtime out of her, quickly latched on.
"Mixing an antidote on the spot like that — he must really study hard in Toxicology!"
"Pfft! As if! That kid got a sixty on his Toxicology midterm! Academics? He's a total dunce, a certified dunce!"
As Byeolya cackled, the emcee laughed along amiably before tossing out another question.
"Then, Professor of Toxicology — what exactly do you like about Simon?"
"Honestly? At first I just saw the 'Special Admission No. 1' title and figured I'd poach him as my Direct Disciple. But he's grown on me more and more. His field's a lot like mine."
Like yours?
The emcee nearly let that slip out, but swallowed it like a professional and pressed on.
"That composed young man, you say?"
"Totally! The kid's got a verrrry wild instinct about him! And above all—"
Byeolya grinned, baring her shark-like triangular teeth.
"He's got a hell of a lot of personality!"
Simon threw himself straight into the Stage 2 exam as well.
Compared to Stage 1, the difficulty had been upgraded across the board. The passage was bigger and wider now, and the variety of traps had multiplied to match.
Above all, the traps no longer needed to be triggered — they simply fired at random, erupting left and right.
Holy Arrows, spears surging from the floor, flames spitting from the walls.
On top of that, holy lashes whipped wildly through the air, holy spears dropped from the ceiling, and every so often even Exorcism itself was invoked.
Holy power in a place like this too.
Simon clicked his tongue at Kizen's viciousness — even in an exam like this, it couldn't resist prodding a necromancer's deepest fears.
He rolled his body like a madman, spun like a windmill, and sprinted along the ceiling. Once you were in, there was no stopping.
And pretending to be hurt when the holy power struck him was a job in itself.
When Simon charged through the rain of Holy Arrows and several of them appeared to bury themselves in his body, the spectators watching the footage gasped in sympathy in real time.
Even as they showered praise on his unyielding will, the truth was that Simon was perfectly fine.
"Hah... hah..."
He cleared everything in the end. Having no time to rest, he'd actually made it through faster than Stage 1.
...Ugh, there really were some real arrows mixed in.
Every so often, an arrow came flying with holy power actually coating it. Those hurt enough to make his lips tremble.
Simon screwed his eyes shut and gripped the arrow buried deep in his thigh.
"Hnngh!"
Then he pulled. His thigh screamed as a burning agony flooded through it.
"AAGH!"
It had gone in far deeper than he'd thought. The pain spread across his entire thigh, as if one leg were engulfed in flames.
In the end, Simon let go and panted for breath.
It hurt enough that tears genuinely welled at the corners of his eyes. Who knew pulling an arrow out would hurt more than taking the hit?
[Trying to yank it out by brute force — of course that doesn't work!]
Pier chided him.
[You can manage a Jet-black Enchant, yes?]
Ah — yes sir. I can't match Dick, but I can do the basics.
[Feed in a thread of jet-black and coat the arrow's surface with it, then draw it out.]
Simon did exactly as Pier instructed. Sure enough, the moment it was coated in jet-black, the arrow slid free.
He poured a potion over the wound to treat it. The whole ordeal made his head swim.
Clink.
If this weren't an exam, he could have healed himself cleanly with holy power. Simon swallowed his frustration and cracked open one more recovery potion.
Only now did the pain begin to ebb. Simon stared through the gap in the opened wall at the next ordeal.
Stage 3's passage was larger still. And it was utterly bare — smooth, featureless. Both the bricks and the walls had been replaced with a sleek, polished material.
And at the very end of the corridor stood the red buzzer.
But there was no sign of any mechanism a trap could hide in.
Simon first pulled two skeletons from his subspace and sent them ahead. The skeletons walked forward without a hint of tension.
They had barely taken a few steps when—
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA!
Countless weapons burst from the ceiling. The skeletons' bodies were buried beneath the avalanche of steel in an instant, gone from sight.
[Kahaha! Now THAT is no joke!]
Tell me about it.
Simon opened his subspace with a tense expression.
What he drew out was the Golem Core. Setting the core on the ground, Simon rolled up his sleeves.
No way around it. I'm using Blood Golem, right here and now.