The First Elimination
Just as Jane and Aaron had predicted, the students spent the early phase of the exam being extremely cautious.
They kept one eye glued to the volcano on the central island, worrying themselves sick that someone might attack them or the monsters might be too strong, all while hunting for shelter and scouring the terrain for spots with no sign of other people.
But somewhere along the way — whether by design or by accident — the students who managed to catch monsters and get their hands on regional points began to change their thinking.
One by one, the students started acting in earnest.
Some of them even figured out that this archipelago's environment wasn't all that threatening, and that fighting other Kizen students wasn't worth much — so they threw themselves into grinding points.
One student threw up emergency dwellings like mushrooms after the rain, bristling with every defensive measure points could buy.
Students sailing off toward the far edge of the archipelago. Others lounging back in deck chairs, savoring dessert while soaking in a gorgeous ocean view — volcano included.
Of course, only the very top ranks could afford that kind of leisure; the vast majority were still out there busy as bees.
And, as always at every Group Exam, one figure stood out.
"Alright! Listen up, guys — here's the core strategy! What do you do when you get points?"
Dick rapped his fingertips against his output device and pressed on.
"You buy bricks!"
With his sharp instincts and silver tongue, Dick rounded up the confused students around him and formed a group.
Survive together, that was the pitch. Group activity was the way through.
Under that banner, once the group was assembled, Dick realized that 'earning points' was easier than anyone expected — and had each member spend their points on bricks.
His goal was to claim the island's highest ground, then stack the point-purchased bricks one on top of another until they had a proper fortress.
"A single brick costs only 5P! We build the fort, hole up for 48 hours, and we're through! That's a free pass, folks — a free pass!"
The engineering and the blueprints all lived in Dick's head.
The students were skeptical at first, but the promise of a fortress all their own got them investing points bit by bit, and watching the thing actually take shape made them trust Dick more and more.
Students who saw Dick's fortress rising on the high ground started declaring, one after another, that they'd join too — and the group was swelling to a size nobody could ignore.
"Heh heh heh. We might as well have already passed the exam, honestly… hm?"
Krrrrrrrrumble!
The Dick group students laying bricks all looked up.
A chunk of the ground was rising into the air.
"That technique…."
Dick, watching the scene unfold, let a smile slide across his face.
"That'd be overall rank 2 — Chatel Maer."
⟨ Domain Inversion ⟩
A slab of earth, black-inked like a traditional wash painting, soared skyward. Before long the soil began moving on its own, assembling itself into a great mansion whose silhouette recalled a gaping skull.
Then a huge figure, presumably Chatel himself, stepped inside.
And there it held, anchored in place.
The students couldn't help but marvel.
"…So that's how you coast through this thing."
"But can he keep 'Domain Inversion' up for 48 hours?"
"If it's Chatel? Sure he can."
"Man, I'm jealous."
The students all gazed up at Chatel's floating skull island. Then Dick snapped out of it first and hollered,
"Hey, hey! That's a Chatel-only move! Don't even dream about climbing trees you can't climb! We've got our own game to play!"
"Yeah!"
All of it was playing out across the mana screen where the commentators sat.
From Dick's group raising their fortress to Serne lounging in utter serenity, indulging in luxury as if she hadn't a care in the world.
The commentator spoke in an excited voice.
"As expected of Kizen students — they adapt fast! We're still in the early phase, but the interesting scenes are already piling up! What do you think the shape of this exam will be, Professor Aaron?"
"Chatel Maer's skull fortress is floating in the sky."
Aaron rubbed his dark-circled, bleary eyes with his palm as he opened his mouth.
"From the starting point, it'll be visible from any angle."
"Oho. That's certainly true!"
"Watching Kizen's rank 2 commit himself entirely to 'survival' will lodge itself deep in every student's mind. They'll all start scrambling to secure their own safe zones — and the conflicts over points will escalate."
They'd assumed he was nothing but cold and terse, but here he was, answering step by step even as he grumbled about being asked. Conrad the commentator felt he was getting to know the man a little better, and turned to Jane.
"Staying up in the sky like that will certainly keep him clear of the magma! But won't he make himself a target for the other students? Professor Jane?"
"I don't think that will happen."
Jane gave a slight shake of her head.
"Because he's Chatel."
Chatel Maer had been lumped in with Loraine and Serne as a powerhouse ever since his first year, and no one wanted to fight him.
What's more, he wasn't even after points — so leaving him to live up there alone worked out better for the Top 10-grade powerhouses who might otherwise have to challenge him.
In truth, this was a strategy only possible because it was Chatel.
"Not a single student has been eliminated so far. Aside from the volcanic eruption, there don't appear to be any major variables."
Jane closed her eyes.
"Now that every student has finished adapting to the exam, once they start thinking this is manageable — that's when a dangerous situation will erupt."
"I see!"
The commentator's mouth curled up at the corners.
"We'll keep watching! And it just so happens there are some very intriguing movements on screen!"
Dick's group fortress.
The undead scurried busily about, ferrying bricks up into the ramparts. One student, steering them as they stacked the wall ever higher, heaved a deep sigh.
"Whew. The taller this thing gets, the harder the brickwork gets."
As time wore on, construction had bogged down. On top of that, unlike the earliest hours of the exam, competition had heated up and points were harder to come by.
But they'd already started, and with the volcano due to blow at any moment, there was no idle time to be had.
One more set to buy, that's all.
Buying supplies with points was simple enough: pick what you wanted on the output device, and moments later a magic circle unfurled right in front of you and spat the goods out.
He'd just lined up all his purchased bricks and was about to head back out for another monster hunt when—
"Hahk! Hah! Anyone got a free hand? Somebody help me out here!"
A student with lip piercings came sprinting toward them, shouting between gasps. One of the boys hopped down from the fortress.
"Cavinz? What's up. Everyone's out hunting for points."
Cavinz, the pierced student, wheezed and pointed behind him.
"I think… hahk! I think I found a boss-class monster! Too much for me alone!"
At the words boss-class, the student's eyes lit up.
"That'd be worth a lot of points, right?"
"Probably!"
"Lead the way."
The two of them took off at a run through the forest. Cavinz, guiding him along, slipped in a question.
"Hey — you're not putting every single point into the fortress, right?"
"Obviously not."
"Then we split whatever we earn fifty-fifty. Exactly half of it goes back into bricks. Deal?"
The student spread his palm open at the offer.
"Now that's a language I speak."
With an easy high-five, the two arrived at the spot.
Kreeeeek! Kiiiiee!
Sure enough, the sound of a monster thrashing came from behind a huge boulder. Cavinz pointed at it.
"It's in there. I weakened it with a curse, but I couldn't land the finishing blow."
"Leave it to me."
The student advanced, jet-black flame systems blazing across both palms.
"Alright, get ready to— huh?"
His eyes went wide.
The monster was nowhere to be seen. All that rang out was its cry, echoing from the magic circle.
⟨ Bind ⟩
⟨ Cravat ⟩
⟨ Trigger Chain ⟩
Curses erupted from every direction at once, freezing the boy where he stood.
"Wha— what the! Kgh!"
He crumpled to the ground. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw Cavinz strolling toward him with a grin plastered across his face.
"C-Cavinz! What the hell is this, you bastard!"
"An opportunity like this is too good to waste on mere survival."
He drew a cursed dagger from his belt.
"When else would I get such an easy chance to remove a competitor ranked above me?"
"What the hell are you?! You got an arrow to the head or some—?!"
Cavinz crouched down over him and raised the dagger. The student writhed against his bonds, shrieking a torrent of abuse.
Shhk!
At the feel of the blade carving into his skin, the student shook violently.
Strength drained out of his whole body in one long rush.
Real, genuine pain bleached his mind white, and he could see his Life Gauge plummeting at a terrifying rate.
"W-wait, wait, wait!"
The boy who'd been cursing a moment ago was suddenly trembling at the lips, his voice breaking into pleading.
"I'm sorry! Okay? I'll apologize, just stop! If I die here I get expelled! You know that!"
"I know. And there's no need to apologize. This isn't about holding a grudge against you."
"Then why—!"
Cavinz smiled and drove the dagger home one last time.
"This is Kizen, isn't it?"
[Jama Meander has been eliminated.]
The first elimination of the 2nd-Year Group Exam had occurred.
And the culprit behind it all, Cavinz, returned to the fortress with a perfectly composed face.
"……"
"……"
The moment he arrived, he found the group's students — all of whom had abandoned their monster hunts to gather — glaring at him with faces taut with tension.
And in the middle of them, Dick stood waiting with his arms crossed.
"Everyone saw the message?"
Cavinz immediately launched into his frantic performance.
"Jama's dead, so—"
"Cavinz."
Dick exhaled a sigh.
"You killed him, didn't you?"
"Wh-what?"
"There's a guy who saw you go into the forest with Jama."
Cavinz scrambled to answer.
"Th-that's… the truth is, I didn't want to get suspected for no reason, so I was playing dumb, but Jama was fighting a monster and…!"
"Cavinz."
Dick scratched his head in irritation and answered coldly.
"Doesn't it strike you as pathetic?"
"……"
Finally, Cavinz let out a long sigh.
"So what. You gonna kick me out? Weren't we supposed to pool our strength — every extra body counts?"
"Even so, nobody can live with a bastard who stabs his own teammates in the back."
He'd done it once — who's to say he wouldn't do it twice? Heads nodded all around, everyone seeming to agree with Dick.
"You knew failing this exam meant expulsion. So why eliminate a classmate from your own department?"
"Save the hypocrisy, damn it."
His true colors showing, Cavinz curled his mouth into a sinister sneer.
"Did none of you eliminate a single competitor on your way to this semester? This is Kizen! I did what everyone's always done — why the hell are you whining about it now?"
Cavinz's form blurred, gradually fading from view.
"This little fortress game? It's about to end. There's no unity on this stage."
Jama's elimination changed the students' mood drastically.
The first student gone — which meant the first expulsion in the making.
The students who had until now been gauging the island's monster strength naturally assumed he hadn't been taken out by one of the island's creatures.
And from the moment that first player kill surfaced, the eliminations began, one after another.
[Bweine Rodneck has been eliminated.]
[Ivan Varshani has been eliminated.]
[Aurore Serum has been eliminated.]
The output device showed only who had been eliminated — never who had done the killing, or how.
The instant that fact was confirmed, open warfare between the students began to escalate.
Before long the mid-tier students were banding together, going so far as to try hunting down the top-100 students they normally wouldn't have dared even look up to.
And amid all this chaos, two students who had foreseen the whole situation from the very start were moving briskly.
Veeeeee—
Veee—
Bees utterly out of place in this island environment were buzzing about with great urgency.
Hornets bearing lethal venom — Merdiana's hornets.
Asseraz was walking along, following one of them.
"Asseraz, over here!"
Merdiana waved her hand briskly. The sea spread out beside her, and a boat for the two of them sat ready.
"Joined at just the right moment, didn't I."
Asseraz stretched with a tired look on his face. Merdiana smiled.
You look worn out?"
"The others kept jumping me."
"Oh? Even you, a Top 10, got jumped? The mood has fully ripened, then."
Merdiana wore a satisfied smile as she went on.
"Excellent. It's the perfect timing to drop Simon Polentia."
"Did you pin down Simon's location?"
"Of course. Simon appears to have headed straight for the central island."
Just then, a single bee floated up in front of Merdiana's face. When the huge hornet — the size of the back of a person's hand — began to drone, Asseraz flinched before he could help it and took a step back.
"Ooh."
"What's the matter?"
Merdiana's mouth curled upward.
"Going by their positions, Jules will run into Simon first. She's found him."
Tension crept into Asseraz's expression.
"…Jules, the Dark Blade user? She's not planning to fight him alone, is she?"
"Who knows. Maybe her head's too far up her Dark Blade to think straight — that one never listens to anyone."
Merdiana produced more bees, one after another, from her sleeve.
"Let's hurry. We need to cut down Simon's allies before he gathers any— oh, hold on."
Another bee came buzzing up before her and hovered with a droning hum. As she received its report, her expression hardened.
"What is it?"
Merdiana swept her hair back.
"Hector is coming this way."