The Master of the Battlefield
“We've been waiting for you.”
At Chatel's single sentence, Elisa's face went taut with tension.
Waiting? Why? So he wants to fight after all?
From where Elisa stood, that was exactly the kind of image Chatel carried.
In truth, standing inside his domain like this made her deeply uneasy. If he opened with a preemptive strike out of nowhere, she wouldn't even get a chance to react. As for Simon beside her, she couldn't tell whether he was confident in his own strength or simply careless.
Father told me once. Politics means preparing for every worst case.
She quietly hid her right hand behind her back and, spreading a small magic circle, began piloting the ghost ship remotely.
The cannon mounted on the ghost ship lying toppled on the ground slid silently into position, training itself on Chatel—
Thud!
Chatel reacted. The moment he raised one thick finger, the soil of the ground sprang upward and clogged every single barrel of the cannon.
H-he caught me!
Alarmed, she snapped into a combat stance—but Chatel didn't spare her so much as a glance.
He was looking straight into Simon's eyes.
“You said. You would take the Volcano Castle Lord. And save your classmates.”
“That's right.”
“I will cooperate. Simon. Polentia.”
“Thank you.”
“???”
Elisa's jaw dropped as she watched the two of them converse as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Hold on! Hold on just a second!”
She shot forward between them.
“Chatel! Weren't you on Asseraz and Merdiana's side too?”
“I received. That proposal. To attack Simon Polentia together.”
Chatel answered with a perfectly indifferent face.
“Such a proposal. Is meaningless. If someone stands above me, then only by overcoming them with my own strength. Does it mean anything.”
His pupils lowered.
“I will defeat Simon Polentia someday. But that time. Is not now.”
Simon smiled.
“Good to hear.”
Back in their first year.
Chatel had utterly demolished every opponent he faced in dueling evaluations, beating them down so thoroughly they couldn't rise again. It earned him a reputation as a 'tyrant,' but rather than innate brutality, it had been closer to a kind of self-defense mechanism.
Being different from everyone else was a crime.
His father, an ordinary man of modest stature, had been murdered by soldiers while trying to shield young Chatel from being treated as a monster.
It was because he was different from others—and worse, because he was weak—that his father had died.
I cannot be underestimated. I must make sure no one ever looks down on me again. That conviction had filled Chatel's mind.
But Chatel, now in his second year, had changed.
“Rosena Murray.”
Chatel's mouth opened.
“Donovan Tomlinson.”
“Elsum Penji.”
“Gavin Amatontea.”
One by one, the names of Dark Dynamics students spilled from his enormous lips.
“I came here. Looking for my friends. But before I could find them, they were swept away by the lava. And eliminated. I have to save them. That matters more to me. Than victory over Simon Polentia.”
Simon nodded.
“Same here. Let's fight for the same goal for now.”
Simon extended his hand, and Chatel clasped it with his massive one—a handshake, technically. Though it was closer to Chatel gripping Simon's hand between his rock-like middle finger and thumb and pumping it up and down.
“Your strength. Save it.”
Chatel pointed behind him.
Beyond the statues, enormous magic circles could be seen unfurled here and there across the area.
So holing up in here was to search the terrain and gather his power without being interrupted at the same time.
Simon nodded and turned to Elisa.
“Then let's move out, Elisa. Get the ghost ship running again.”
“O-okay! Where are we headed?”
Simon grinned.
“Where we're needed, obviously.”
Almost exactly the same moment.
The 'Castle Assault' team's plan had been going wrong from the very start.
Following Simon's suggestion, the assault team had intended to gather a somewhat larger force before setting out for Volcano Castle.
But the Volcano Castle Lord was not the sort to sit and quietly watch their strength accumulate. The moment she confirmed that students were gathering near the mountain, she redirected the flow of the lava to seal off their retreat, then marched her monster forces up from the base of the mountain.
With their only escape route buried under lava, the students had no choice but to begin their assault on Volcano Castle. All of them climbed the slopes while dodging the swarming lava monsters.
But this was not a battle the students had chosen—it was one that had started exactly as the Volcano Castle Lord intended. It was never going to go smoothly.
Magma surged up the mountain in a ceaseless tide, and lava monsters rising out of it opened their maws to attack the students.
“Keep climbing! If we stop here, we're all dead!”
“Are you blind? There's lava flowing right ahead—where the hell are we supposed to go!”
While the students' confusion refused to settle, Hector, transformed into his dragon form, soared through the sky breathing torrents of destruction.
[Damn it all—move faster!]
Everywhere his breath fell, lava monsters were reduced to ash.
There was no question that Hector was powerful. But the very fact that a fighter meant to be reserved for the Volcano Castle Lord was already burning through his Dragon Form was proof enough of how precarious their situation was.
“Hector! Incoming from above!”
At someone's shout, Hector looked up. A blood-red rock was falling toward him from the sky.
[Son of a—!]
He swerved desperately, but one of his wings caught fire. Grimacing in agony, Hector plummeted down the mountainside.
“Ah. This is really bad.”
Dick muttered between ragged breaths.
“Was Simon actually right that the Castle Lord is a former professor? Why does it feel like we're dancing in the palm of her hand?”
“Hey, Dick! Got any more freezing potions?”
Malcolm beside him asked, spewing out doppelgangers as he spoke.
“At this rate we're going to be pushed ba—”
Dick turned toward Malcolm—and his pupils blew wide in an instant.
A deafening roar threatened to burst his eardrums, and Dick's hair whipped wildly in the wind.
Huh?
Malcolm had vanished from before his eyes.
Dick cranked his aching neck to the side and looked over—far away, he could see a massive fountain erupting from the lava.
[Malcolm Randolph has been eliminated.]
“No way. What—what hit him?”
Dick raised his head.
Volcano Castle, perched atop the crater. Blurred though it was, a human figure had appeared there and vanished again. Around it, faint red rings lingered in the air—traces of something having been fired.
No doubt about it. That had been the Volcano Castle Lord's attack.
“……She sniped someone from that far away?”
While Dick stood frozen in shock, a lava monster squeezed through a gap and swung its arm down at the back of his head.
“If you've got time to stand around with your jaw hanging, squeeze something useful out of that head of yours!”
Wham!
Cindy Vivace appeared like the wind and sent the monster flying with a kick.
“You're the last one left alive on the strategist line!”
Front, back, left, right.
Everything was packed solid with lava monsters. Their retreat had been cut off long ago, and lava was flowing down from above as well.
“And it's not a situation that thinking is going to fix.”
Dick said bitterly.
“All we can do right now is hold out until reinforcements arrive.”
“Reinforcements?”
Cindy yelled irritably between rapid-fire spirit magic.
“Everything's blocked off by lava! Where the hell are reinforcements supposed to come from!”
“Elisa's in the Top 10, isn't she? If Simon really did talk her and her ghost ship around, then somehow or other—huh?”
Dick's eyes went wide.
“The ghost ship!”
“What?”
FWOOOOSH!
A burning ghost ship was falling from the sky. It must have collided with volcanic debris mid-flight—flames were eating across its deck and sails.
“HAHAHAHA! Now that's a flashy entrance!”
Dick waved both arms at the assembled students.
“She's going down! Everyone get clear!”
KRA-KRA-KRA-KRA-BOOM!
The burning ghost ship crashed down right in front of Dick.
Dust billowed into the air. As everyone blinked, wondering what on earth had just happened, someone emerged through the shattered wreckage.
“Good work. All of you.”
Thud. Thud.
A colossal figure strode out of the dust. The instant its shoe touched the ground, the earth stained over like ink wash spreading across a scroll painting.
“From this point on. Leave it. To me.”
“Ch-Chatel Maer?”
The students' eyes turned to the figure behind him. There stood Simon atop the ghost ship's shattered mast, flashing a grin.
“Simon Polentia has returned!”
“And he brought Chatel with him!”
WAAAAAAAH!
A fervent cheer erupted. About damn time. Hector grumbled and spat. Beside him, Elisa—half-buried under the wreckage—muttered, Oh sure, nobody even sees me, huh.
<Domain Mastery>
Chatel cast his dark magic.
The ink-wash stain devouring the ground spread rapidly outward. The terrain smoothed and flattened around him, hardening into something like a solid carriage road.
And then—
Grrrrrrrr!
Even the magma that had been pushing down toward the students' charge began to flow, veering away from the direction they were advancing.
“You can redirect the flow of magma with the Dark Earth Domain?”
“That's insane!”
Until now they'd barely managed to dodge the falling lava—but at last, a proper foundation to fight from had been laid beneath their feet.
Hooo—
Then Chatel made a gesture of dragging his palm toward himself, and the ground began rising of its own accord from below.
With every step, the earth carried them up the mountainside. It felt like riding atop a flowing river.
“I will control. The battlefield.”
Chatel said.
“Everyone. Work.”
The overwhelming performance of the student ranked second overall sent morale soaring another notch.
“Chatel!”
Dick came sprinting over, out of breath.
“Really sorry to ask, but could you bring the stragglers in the rear into the fold? They're a pretty significant force too—!”
The assault team's formation, thanks to the Castle Lord's deception, had been cleanly split in two.
The students in the vanguard had made it this far, but those in the rear were surrounded and collapsing.
Cindy beside them wiped sweat from her brow.
“Isn't that asking a bit much? They look way too far off.”
“It's possible.”
Chatel stretched both arms back.
<Domain Surge>
Chatel's domain burrowed downward as well. Then, as he made a motion of pulling his left hand forward, the lower ground began to rise like a tidal wave.
“Ugh!”
“Eek!”
The earthen wave scooped up more than a dozen students in one gulp and deposited them safely among the vanguard.
“I will not let a single pair of hands. Be wasted. In death.”
Chatel's eyes gleamed.
“All of you. Work.”
At last, the center held. The Kizen students, steadied once more, began punching through the swarming lava monsters, and Chatel's domain spread ever wider, shielding them from the magma.
Hector, back from his Dragon Form, stalked over toward Simon and Chatel and spat a ptoo of phlegm.
“For all your posturing, you were late, Simon Polentia. We lost a fair bit of strength waiting.”
Dick and Cindy glared at Hector with what is wrong with this lunatic expressions, but Simon just scratched his chin, utterly unbothered.
“I was on my way straight over, but so much lava kept falling from the sky that we ran a little behind.”
“Well, you made it safe and sound, so that's water under the bridge!”
Dick wedged himself between the two of them.
“Stick to the original plan, you two—conserve your strength. You're the Castle Lord team.”
“Hmm.”
Simon turned his head.
“I think that thing might be ours to handle too.”
KUGUGUGUNG—!
A tremendous roar rolled across the front line, and several students shrieked and fell back.
The output devices strapped to everyone's arms lit up in response.
[Boss monster: Lava Golem has appeared.]
As if to bar the road up to Volcano Castle, the upper torso of a monster made of living magma erupted from the mountainside.
When it swung its arm and heaved up a wave of lava, two students had their life gauges drop to zero simultaneously and vanished without a trace.
Slosh. Slosh!
Then, spreading outward from the monster's torso, a lake of lava surged across the ground, walling off Chatel's domain.
“Something. Is in the way.”
At Chatel's words, the students around him grinned and stepped up.
“On it!”
“Leave it to us!”
It was the first request from the man who'd turned the whole battle around. The nearby students dashed for the front line, eager to live up to it.
Grind. Grind.
Whish— whish—
And then Simon and Hector abruptly began loosening up as well. Cold sweat broke out on Dick's forehead.
“You two. You heard what I said, right? You're supposed to be saving it for the Castle Lord!”
Simon lowered into a stance with a playful smile.
“So long as we don't overdo it, we'll be fine, won't we?”
Tendons rose along Hector's legs.
“That one's mine.”
Tat!
Without so much as a starting signal, both of them broke into a sprint.
Their arms pumped violently, their heavily trained, iron-hard legs shoved off the earth.
BDUDUDUDUDUK!
The two of them tore up the mountainside fast enough to leave afterimages. The students running ahead were overtaken in the blink of an eye.
“Wh-what the—!”
“What just went by?!”
Click! Click!
As they ran, Simon and Hector transformed simultaneously. Bone Armor parts hovering in the air snapped onto Simon's body, while scales crawled over Hector's, reshaping him into something reptilian.
“You know better than to go Dragon Form!”
“You're one to talk—no pulling out that weird color-play technique of yours either!”
The two blew past every classmate ahead of them and reached the Lava Golem in seconds. Seeing them coming, it hurled globs of lava like artillery shells.
FWOOSH-FWOOSH-FWOOSH!
Neither so much as slowed—they dodged or smashed straight through every molten mass.
Simon, arriving first, slammed on the brakes in front of the golem, spun his whole body around, then extended his coiled knee and rocketed into the air.
CRRAAANG!
Simon's fist tore across the Lava Golem's jaw.
“Hngh!”
<Hector Original — Blazing Wave>
Hector came flying in from the opposite side and hammered the golem's temple. The monster swayed, its huge body lurching—and this time Simon, launching off the golem's own bulk, was already drawing back his fist.
<Simon Original — Tendril Blast>
BOOOM!
WHAM!
CRUNCH!
CRACK!
The two boys' bodies crossed and tangled violently, carving through the air.
Watching two men beat down a Group Exam boss monster with nothing but their fists while wearing their summoning creatures, every observing student stood gaping.
CRRAAANG!
“Kgh!”
But Hector, caught by the golem's violent thrashing, crashed to the ground. The moment the Lava Golem raised its other arm to smash down on him—
Gate, open.
SHAAAAAA—!
Overlord's blade burst out from the side, slicing clean through the descending arm. The Lava Golem shrieked.
“Finish it.”
Hector, still half-collapsed on the ground, raised his Jet-Black where he sat.
<Dragon Nail>
A dragon's tail erupted from beneath the earth, surging up like a tower and punching straight through the Lava Golem's chest.
The golem spewed molten lava from its maw like blood.
So he was hiding a technique like that.
Simon floated down to the ground, smiling.
He recalled Overlord into subspace, then took fresh aim at the Lava Golem, now pinned and helpless once more.
One more gate!
SHRRRRRRR!
SHRRRRR!
Overlord blades came flying in from both flanks, crossing in an X and shearing through the golem's neck. The colossal Lava Golem's head soared into the air, and the students' cheering swallowed everything around it.
[The Lava Golem has been destroyed.]
Simon turned to Hector with a grin, and Hector raised his middle finger in a lazy salute as he looked back.
“Now move, you lot! If you don't get me to the Volcano Castle Lord, I'll blow every last one of you to pieces first!”
It was roughly Hector-speak for give it everything you've got.
With morale blazing at a hundred times its former heat, the students vaulted past Simon and Hector and surged onward.