A Native on Day One
The teleportation was complete for all 961 first-years of Kizen.
And the moment the Island Survival began—
"Kyaaaaaah! Bugs! Bugs! Bugs!"
"Why the hell did you poke the beehive, you idiots!"
"Can I not eat this? Why am I breaking out in hives?"
Chaos erupted.
Seventy percent of the first-year student body came from ultra-high nobility. Forget islands or jungles—these were hothouse flowers who rarely even set foot in their own family gardens.
Now those same students had been dropped, cold, onto an island with a tropical rainforest climate. Panic breaking out in every direction was only natural.
They had all come prepared, in their own way. Prepared to camp outdoors. Prepared to go unwashed. Prepared to eat monster meat.
But—
"A snake! It's a snake!"
"Something bit me!"
"The mushrooms are moving!"
Once they were actually dropped into the jungle, everything exceeded their imaginations.
"……Haaah."
It had already been thirty minutes since the survival evaluation began, and Meilin stood there with an expression stiff as a board.
She considered herself slightly better off than the other students. Thanks to Dick, she'd gotten her hands on the relevant information early, and she'd even spent the weekend learning survival skills from Professor Hong Peng. She'd done her homework.
Ssswish.
The moment she worked up the courage to take a step forward, her foot pressed down on the grass and a torrent of ants came pouring out in a flood.
"Eeek!"
She shrieked and scrambled backward like she was fleeing for her life. As the ants appeared, dozens of centipedes burst out of the ground in turn and began sucking the ants down.
Meilin's body turned to stone.
'I… I really can't move a single step.'
Physiological limits born of the environment she'd been raised in were not so easily overcome. And just as she retreated with her back pressed against a tree, she was five seconds away from discovering the fire ants climbing up over her shoulder.
"Kyaaaaaaaah!"
The other students' situations were every bit as grim.
It wasn't that they'd come unprepared, of course. The Island Survival was a well-known annual event at Kizen, and believing that the core of this evaluation was monster hunting and combat between Kizen students, they had sharpened nothing but their combat abilities before coming.
It didn't take long for them to realize that had been their mistake.
And under these terrible conditions, the students all converged on a single course of action.
"Let's join forces!"
"We're going all the way to the end, for real!"
The herd instinct.
Alone was terrifying, so band together first. Everyone started at zero points, so there was little fear of betrayal in the early going.
And so multiple students banded together, formed groups, and began pooling their collective intelligence for solutions. If a group contained even one commoner, that person invariably became the group's undisputed leader.
"……What on earth are you all doing?"
Lorena, a commoner from Class B, rested her hands on her hips and wore an expression of pure disdain.
Behind her, fully grown noble men clung to a tree in a huddle, arms wrapped around one another. Before them, a single earthworm was wriggling its way past.
"G-get that thing out of here, now!"
"Nanny! Nanny!"
Young masters crying for their nannies were already popping up everywhere.
An unfamiliar environment, sweltering humidity, the threat of creepy-crawlies and monsters on top of it all. Struggling to keep their condition up under the worst possible circumstances, their stomachs began to growl fast.
As if Kizen knew this would happen, supply drops had already begun. Magic circles unfolded in the sky, and crates began descending through them.
"Over there!"
"Let's go!"
Students who spotted the circles all stampeded toward them, every last one.
"Hah… hah… we made it!"
"We're first—!"
And the moment they pushed through the dense foliage and emerged onto a wide-open hill.
"……!"
By even the roughest count, more than twenty students were already warily eyeing one another, waiting for the crates to land.
'What is this!'
'……The competition is insane.'
"Everyone, get lost."
Right then, a single student of exceptional size was marching up the hill, footstep by heavy footstep.
"Unless you want to die."
Hector Moore of Class A.
At the arrival of a big name, several students faltered and backed away.
Then a boy leaning against a boulder snorted.
"Kid, you're really putting on a show. Who died and made you the Young Lord of House Moore?"
A wiry man with yellow-dyed hair hanging over his left eye, a long staff of unknown purpose in his hand.
Hector's face twisted.
"Special Admission No. 10. Malcolm Randolph."
"Oh, give it a rest. It's been over a month since enrollment and you're still on that 'special admission' crap?"
"The last-minute straggler's got a sharp tongue, I see."
Malcolm's eyebrow twitched.
Special Admissions numbered exactly ten. The tenth and final slot was mockingly nicknamed the Last-Chance Kid—a jab students threw around whenever they wanted to ridicule him.
Of course, almost no one said it to Malcolm's face.
"You're Class A, aren't you?"
Malcolm spat on the ground and rose to his feet.
"That 'No. 1' of yours doesn't seem to manage his kids very well, huh?"
This time, it was Hector's eyebrow that twitched.
"Forget the supplies. I'm going to tear you apart first."
"Ooooh, so scary~ Do it if you can."
The two spun up their Cores and lunged at each other. A clash of big names from the very start—thunderous booms rang out across the island again and again.
And not just here. Battles over supply drops were erupting across the island in rapid succession.
The 'Artifacts' randomly packed into the crates were certainly valuable, but the most important reason was, of course, food.
"I'm starving."
"……Do we really have to roast a monster or something?"
And so, on the first day of the Island Survival.
While the students at large wallowed in confusion—
One boy stood out.
Shff shff shff shff.
One shoulder stacked with kindling plants, timber, herbs, and fruit. In his other hand, a monster's leg, dragging along behind him.
His face was smeared with crushed incense grass to keep the bugs from biting, and heavy boots on his feet.
'Is… is that a native?'
'What is that look?'
Every student who saw him wore the same stunned expression. He'd been on the island for only a few hours, and he was already perfectly, completely localized.
'I heard there was nothing to eat here.'
Simon beamed as he stowed the ingredients into his subspace.
'There's plenty? This place is a paradise of ingredients!'
Simon had been sweeping the island clean—fruit, herbs, edible beasts and monsters, sturdy branches and materials—combing every direction.
'Doesn't he know his way around a jungle?'
'Is he an ex–treasure hunter?'
Maybe it wouldn't have mattered outside, but the sight of Simon hard at work stirred a strange envy in the students now.
A few of them approached, as if bewitched.
"Hey, want to join our team? I can handle all the fighting."
"If you're not interested, come with us instead—"
Simon shook his head with a smile.
"Sorry. I'm planning to spend the first day alone."
Having turned down every offer with surgical precision, Simon picked up an axe and gave a large plant before him a couple of experimental pokes.
CRACK!
The plant's body split open and a sweet, syrupy fruit burst out. Simon scooped it up and moved on.
Several students, having watched him do it, approached the fruit-bearing plant themselves. They gave the trunk a few hearty thumps—and suddenly the leaves split apart like a pitcher plant's, swallowing a student whole.
"Isn't this how it's done?"
"AAAAH! You lunatic! Don't just stand there, do something!"
All that came of the imitations was a fresh crop of casualties.
Simon's momentum didn't slow from there. Together with his skeletons, he marched through the island, raking in every useful material it had to offer.
"Oh, you can find this here?"
At a stream's edge, Simon scooped up great drifting clumps of aquatic plants. Called Buresari, they were plants sturdy enough to hold a person's weight on the water's surface.
Beyond that, he gathered wild coconuts bursting with sweet water, and even sorghum that could serve as a spice.
But strangest of all about Simon's movements was this: while the overwhelming majority of students pushed toward the center of the island, Simon was walking toward the sea.
His path was the polar opposite of everyone else's.
[Hey, boy.]
Pier had noticed it too.
[Your resolve to search for Big Kroom is admirable, but won't this put you too far out of sync with the center?]
"It's fine."
Simon flashed a grin.
"I'll catch up to everyone in one go tomorrow."
[……?]
Perhaps because he was heading the opposite direction from everyone else, signs of people grew scarce, and the traces left by other students faded away. In exchange, monster attacks became far more frequent.
Not that it mattered.
THUD!
SHINK!
The island's monsters were no match for Simon's summons.
Thanks to his training with Pier, Simon could currently control four undead simultaneously.
'A Grade 2 monster this time—a Wrecker.'
A monster reminiscent of a leopard, with an elongated snout and six legs, came charging in.
Simon flicked his fingers out, and a shield-bearing skeleton sprang forward to collide with the beast.
"Leg."
A spear-wielding skeleton thrust its lance over the shield and drove it deep into one of the creature's supporting legs.
"Arrow."
A Skeleton Archer's arrow buried itself in the monster's eye.
Blood streamed down from the wound, blinding the Wrecker's vision.
"Flank."
One skeleton slipped in from the side and swung its sword. The blade sank deep into the creature's neck, and it crumpled to the ground.
"Nice work, everyone."
Clack-clack.
Tap.
The skeletons rattled their weapons in celebration of their victory.
Simon walked over and crouched beside the dead monster's carcass. He pressed his Tongue Pad against it, and the tongue stretched out long, swallowing the monster's mana.
Two points added.
"Can't eat this one, huh. Let's move."
Pier's avatar, watching the whole scene, smirked. Simon's command of his skeletons was improving by the day.
Simon left the jungle behind and arrived at the shoreline—a small dock. Henchmen were hauling cargo, and two TAs stood guard over the place.
"What do you want?"
And one of those TAs was someone Simon had a bitter history with.
Brad, the Magic Combat TA, scowled and barked.
"Why the hell is a student coming here? Students are barred from this area. Get lost."
Brad waved his hand dismissively.
Simon gave a wry smile and lowered his head.
"Just passing through."
Brad pounded a fist against his own chest.
"Not enough students to bully, so you're here to challenge me to a match?"
"I'll have to decline. Have a good one~"
Simon declared his refusal cleanly and moved on, leaving the shore behind once more and heading for the deepest part of the forest.
'That guy came from around here, so it should be about this far in.'
As Simon scanned his surroundings, he spotted a place where spiderwebs hung in long, unbroken strands—strung together almost like a road.
Following the web like a path, he came upon the sight at its end: a massive web spread out across a clearing. And resting on top of it was a bracelet.
That was the subspace bracelet.
"About time we met, Pier."
[Kheheheh!]
Just in case, Simon scrutinized the area carefully.
Above the island, so-called Observers—magical instruments deployed by Kizen Headquarters—circled overhead, monitoring the situation.
Since this island evaluation involved the entire first-year class, it was being administered not by the professors, but directly by Kizen Headquarters itself.
'Okay.'
Perhaps because so few students came this way, no Observers were in sight.
Having confirmed no eyes were watching, Simon fastened the bracelet onto his own arm.
Then he clenched his fist three times and opened it—and the bracelet's subspace yawned open in the empty air.
[KEHAHAHAHA! We've waited long enough!]
And spilling out from within it came Pier and the legionified skeleton battalion.
The Legion had arrived on Kera Island.