The Empty Altar
“……”
The teleportation circle's journey came to an end. Feeling both feet settle onto solid ground, Simon opened his eyes.
Before him stretched a dark, eerie forest even gloomier than before, shrouded in thick fog.
“Ugh.”
“……Ow, my head.”
Beside him, Eshu and Toto had landed flat on their backsides, and behind them, Loraine stood perfectly upright, opening her ruby-like eyes.
“Everyone all right?”
Simon approached and held out his hand. Eshu made a '?' face, then rose to her feet on her own with an oddly amused smile.
“Uhuhuhu~ Thank you.”
What even is 'uhuhuhu'?
Simon gave her a look that said exactly that, then took Toto's hand and pulled him up.
“Simon, look over here.”
Loraine called to him. There before their eyes stood the massive skull altar they'd only ever seen on screen. Inside it sat a gleaming red artifact.
“Wow! So this is the fifteen-point artifact!”
Eshu bounded over and reached for it. Simon and Loraine flinched at the same moment.
“Wait, Eshu!”
“If we move our own red artifact ourselves, it's a rule violation. We talked about this earlier, remember?”
“I know, I know. Just touching it is fine, though.”
Eshu gave a casual wink, then lifted the artifact out of the altar and waved it around. She really wasn't the cautious type.
“Oof, it's darker than I expected.”
Toto, meanwhile, was quietly staring into the shadow-drowned forest. Eshu set the artifact back down and waggled her eyebrows mischievously.
“Our little baby. Do you think you can walk around all by yourself without crying?”
Toto's face went crimson in an instant.
“O-of course I can! I'm a necromancer too!”
“Ahaha!”
Thanks to Eshu's antics, the stiff atmosphere melted away.
Simon was chuckling as he rested a hand on Toto's shoulder when the announcement sounded.
— The exam will begin in 30 seconds. Immediately summon at least one ghoul. —
— Once the exam begins, you may not leave the starting point. —
“You all heard that?”
All four of them opened their subspaces at once and brought out their ghouls.
In an instant, the area was packed with undead. The ghouls that had appeared in the exam field let out wailing cries as they looked around.
— Beginning exam countdown. 10. 9. —
“Everyone, move according to the plan I laid out earlier.”
At Simon's words, they all nodded.
— 7. 6. 5. —
“President, shouldn't we do a team cheer here? It's tradition, after all.”
At Eshu's suggestion, Simon immediately lowered his palm toward the ground. The other three stacked their palms on top of his.
“Let's give it everything we've got so we have no regrets. Squad 10, fighting!”
“Fighting!”
As the hands of the boys and girls shot up toward the sky, the countdown ended and a shrill whistle blew to signal the start.
“Uh, um.”
Toto, the only one still holding his hand in the air, muttered with an embarrassed look on his face.
“Weren't we supposed to bring them down after the cheer?”
Scramble!
Tap-tap!
Simon and his three ghouls were racing across the fog-shrouded battlefield.
Perhaps thanks to the footwork training Benya had taught them that morning, running alongside his ghouls felt remarkably smooth.
For now, let's head toward the destination and search for artifacts at a leisurely pace.
“Grek! Grerrk!”
The ghoul in the lead shoved its nose into the dirt and sniffed. It exchanged a single glance with Simon, then bolted.
When Simon hurried after it, the ghoul was digging a pit with both hands.
“Everyone, give it a hand.”
At Simon's command, the other ghouls joined in digging, and before long they really did unearth something — a shard of what looked like bronze, glinting with a bluish sheen.
The ghoul scooped it up in its mouth, scampered back, dropped it at Simon's feet, and panted happily.
When Simon knelt on one knee and stroked its head, the ghoul clearly basked in the praise, while the others watched enviously from behind.
So this is a blue artifact. One point.
Artifact retrieval, too, had to be done solely by ghouls.
Simon gave the order.
“Good work. Store it.”
At those words, the ghoul immediately swallowed the artifact whole. Objects of that size were something ghouls could swallow and spit back out at will.
“Next, let's move.”
This exam was designed to evaluate ghouls and ghouls alone.
How well could they use a ghoul's detection abilities to locate targets buried in the ground?
How well could they fight with their ghouls when they ran into monsters prowling the field during the search?
How well could they coordinate with the ghouls controlled by their teammates?
The examiner's intent was obvious. There was a real chance of a test where two whole hours slipped by doing nothing but hunting for artifacts.
But.
Somehow I doubt this exam is going to go smoothly.
Batababat!
Whip!
Through the thick darkness, nine ghouls were sprinting at full speed.
And among them was a ghoul whose shoulder skeleton was conspicuously developed, with blades of bone jutting out. Its forelimbs had been grown to grotesque size through black magic and drugs, and it moved like a gorilla.
These were Hector's ghouls.
……Wait for me, Simon Polentia.
Hector's eyes flickered with murderous intent as he followed behind.
“Hector!”
A student running at his side called out.
“A Grey Oak ahead—!”
BOOM!
In that very instant, the muscular ghoul launched off the ground and smashed the oncoming oak into the dirt with a single blow, hammering it flat.
The watching students clicked their tongues.
“Whoa, holy……!”
“That's the rank-3 in the whole school for you.”
The ghouls Hector had prepared for this exam possessed monstrous power and stamina.
He didn't spare the fallen Grey Oak so much as a glance, keeping his eyes forward as he ran.
“Everyone, stay sharp. We're about to enter Squad 10's territory.”
Squad 10 would surely be on guard as well.
If you had to pick the moment when inter-squad clashes were most likely, it would be an hour in, once the collection of nearby artifacts was finished.
But Hector's squad had planned to depart the moment the exam began and ambush Simon's formation outright.
“We smash through their formation in one push, break through to the altar, and steal the red artifact.”
“Right!”
Their target was none other than Simon and Loraine's squad.
They'd let the top seat slip away in first year through half-hearted effort, but this time was different. He intended to tear into them thoroughly from the very start.
……
The corners of Hector's eyes, fixed straight ahead, twitched.
Something's here.
“Keeeeeek!”
A sudden shriek made everyone halt at once. A ghoul's screaming cry rang out, then faded into the distance.
“Kgh!”
One of the squad members grimaced and clutched his forehead.
“Damn it! We just lost one! When did that even happen?!”
Hector slowly raised his head. From somewhere up in the trees came a sound of something whipping back and forth — whoosh, whoosh.
Ratchers aren't tree-dwelling monsters.
Every student in the Summoning Department had built their ghouls from 'Ratchers', the monsters that lived in rocky terrain.
Which meant that whatever was moving through the trees right now was either a monster — or the ghoul of a necromancer with insane levels of undead control.
“Prepare for an ambush.”
Hector calmly listened to the sounds above, then suddenly thrust out his right arm — swish!
The muscular ghoul immediately lunged in that direction and slammed into a tree. The thin trunk wobbled, and a single ghoul tumbled down from a branch.
“Grab it!”
BOOM!
Hector's waiting ghoul leaped.
The fallen ghoul twisted mid-air like an acrobat, thrust its hind legs forward, then snapped both feet out ahead of it, catching Hector's ghoul square on the jaw.
“!!”
Everyone's eyes went round. The ghoul lightly regained its footing and slipped away into the forest.
“Did you see that?! That ghoul's movement just now!”
“It moved like some kind of freak.”
The corners of Hector's mouth curled upward.
So you were here, Simon Polentia! You knew I was coming, didn't you?
“Krrk!”
“Kegekek!”
Sinister laughter echoed from every corner of the thick fog. There looked to be far more of them than expected.
“Hector! We should fall back and regroup first—”
“No.”
Hector lowered his stance.
“That's exactly what they want. Follow me.”
Hector charged ahead with three of his muscular ghouls in the vanguard. The rest of the squad followed.
When the sound of rustling leaves came from the trees above, Hector smirked.
I've known for a while that only one person is guarding their altar. Come down.
Whip!
A ghoul leaped down from a tree.
In one motion it wrapped its legs around Hector's ghoul's neck, baring its fangs to tear at the back of its head —
CRUNCH!
Hector's ghoul slammed the attacker into the ground like a pestle grinding grain.
A speed-type ghoul built for minimal body weight. But in a straight grapple, mine has the advantage!
Hector made a hand signal. Go on ahead. The other two moved off with their ghouls.
“Guoooooh!”
WHAM!
One student's ghoul took a hit and went flying off beyond the fog. Through the mist, burly mid-tier monsters could be seen opening their eyes.
“Hector! There are way too many monsters ahead!”
His expression twisted.
Infuriatingly annoying.
“Hah. Hah.”
Loraine, hidden behind a tree, pressed a hand to her forehead.
Hector, seeing the dazzling ghoul control, had naturally assumed it was Simon — but the one holding the defensive line was Loraine herself.
She'd just lost a ghoul to Hector, and the regret stung deeply.
Next.
She pulled a fourth ghoul out of her subspace and sent it back into the fray.
Knowing Hector was coming, Simon had positioned Loraine as the defender along Squad 1's route of approach. The goal was to bog Hector down for as long as possible using her nine ghouls.
Toto had a part to play here as well. His original role was 'artifact search', but in the opening phase of the match, he was tasked with using his ghouls to lure in the monsters around them.
Toto had built a ghoul specialized in 'digging'. Once he'd lured a whole crowd of monsters into a pre-dug pit, the monsters would lose track of their targets and start wandering aimlessly around it.
That was how the natural monster barrier was created.
Loraine's disruption, and the defense formed by Toto's lured monsters.
Somehow, they were buying time well enough.
But Hector was no pushover either. He'd seen through the fact that Squad 10 had only one defender, and forced a breakthrough designed to drag Loraine's ghouls into chasing after him.
The moment her disruption-and-speed-specialized ghouls became predictable, they were easy prey. One after another, Loraine lost ghouls to Hector.
There it is.
Now Simon's altar was coming into Hector's view.
“Wait, Hector!”
Just then, a student shouted.
“We've got trouble! Look behind us!”
Hector's gaze whipped around. Far off in the distance, something like red powder was swirling through the sky.
A distress signal — the home altar was under attack.
The one defending Squad 1's home base was Pierre Buckler, the person Hector trusted most.
But right now.
“H-how could this…….”
Four of his ghouls were already sprawled across the ground.
Thud!
Another ghoul collapsed as its jet-black magic circle shattered. His head snapped around.
“Simon Polentia……!”
Out of the thick green fog, a blue-haired boy with glinting eyes was walking toward him.
“Sorry about this.”
And he, too, was completely alone.
“But I'll be taking your red artifact.”
The home base was under attack.
The moment Hector learned this, he pushed even harder.
“Out of my way!”
Hector's eyes blazed. Reno's Golden Line was drawn across the muscular ghoul's magic circle, and the Funerary technique activated.
With overwhelming strength, he blasted Loraine's ghouls aside and broke through, finally reaching Simon's altar.
So he came out that way. But even if you raid our altar, what does it matter if your home base falls too?
Hector walked toward Simon's altar with a satisfied smile.
“……?!”
But his face crumpled beautifully.
Squad 10's altar was—
What the—
—already looted by someone else. Completely empty.