A Bolt from the Blue
A disgusting stench splashed onto her face. She twisted her head to dodge the monster's bodily fluids, but the tips of her reddish-brown hair became damp. With a sickening sizzling sound, her hair discolored and snapped off.
Arin cleanly snipped off the ruined ends of her hair and let out a sigh. The warnings of her Crisis Detection were always precise. The fluids of the frog-like monster she had just slain were pure poison. If not for Crisis Detection's warning, her face might have melted off.
"..."
She had survived one crisis, but the warnings kept coming. Arin steadied her ragged breathing and looked up. High above, the shattered sky was fracturing even further.
"It's too fast..."
The expansion speed of the Rift in Space was abnormally fast. For a crack of that size to form, it should have taken at least several hours. Yet it had expanded this much in such a short span of time...
"This is bad. At this rate, any survivors..."
Wherever she looked, there were only corpses. What were the chances of ordinary citizens, who had no power to fight monsters, surviving this? Even finding an intact corpse was a rarity.
"Ugh..."
Catching sight of a corpse with its abdomen torn open and intestines spilling out, Arin covered her mouth and gagged. Even with her relatively strong stomach, seeing such a sight made her nauseous. There were clear traces of the victim desperately trying to push their organs back inside even as they drew their final breaths.
Staring at the blood-soaked hands of the corpse, Arin's own hands began to tremble violently.
Screams. She could hear screams.
But seeing how Leo and Anastasia didn't react, they had to be auditory hallucinations. Thank goodness they were just hallucinations. Wait, was it really a good thing? Was it a relief that there were no actual voices crying out for help?
She didn't know. Her head spun. The alarm of impending crisis rang so loudly in her mind that it gave her a pounding headache.
Get a grip.
Five years. It had been five years. Five whole years had passed since that day. What have I been working so hard for all this time?
She slapped her own cheeks hard. She hadn't held back, bringing tears to her eyes, but it successfully snapped her out of her panic.
Ironically, her past experience helped. The disastrous field trip. Everything had been a mess, and she hated even thinking about it, but that very experience allowed her to maintain her composure in this sudden catastrophe.
"Whoa, so high. Scary. Tumble, tumble."
A fountain of blood erupted from the neck of a giant easily standing over four meters tall. Anastasia had leaped like a flying squirrel to pierce the vital point of a mid-tier monster, a Savage. Since she was using a worn-out sword stolen from the green imps, the blade was incredibly dull.
Piercing the thick hide of a Savage with a weapon that had practically reached the end of its lifespan was no easy feat. Yet Anastasia solved the problem by stabbing the exact same spot multiple times in a fraction of a second.
The giant's head fell with a heavy thud. Having accomplished her goal, the silver-haired girl plummeted alongside it. Seeing her fall flat on her back as if she had no idea how to break her fall, Arin frantically reached out.
The Anastasia before her eyes was a clone, not the original. A clone's durability depended on its distance from the original. If the original were nearby, it might be different, but far away from the main body, even a minor impact could cause the clone to vanish.
They couldn't afford to lose a valuable asset so pointlessly in a situation like this.
"Whoops. Careful there."
"Yep, thanks. Want me to pat your head?"
"No thanks."
"Hmph."
A gust of wind blew. His movement itself became the wind. Even though he was further away than Arin, he had moved faster than her to catch Anastasia.
"Arin, doesn't it feel like things are going sideways?" Leo spoke as he set Anastasia down.
White steam rose from his body, heated by the consecutive use of Acceleration. His sweat evaporated the instant it formed. Though his breathing was slightly ragged, Leo hid it as he spoke.
"The Rift in Space is expanding way faster than we expected."
Since the Rift would need time to expand, they had planned to split up and rescue people in the meantime. It was certainly a decent plan. At least, it had been until a moment ago.
"...This is no time to be split into two groups. We need to regroup immediately," Arin said with a sigh.
Her classmates from Class 1-A, though not here, were fighting elsewhere. Yujin. Aris. Lucia. They were all trustworthy friends. Yujin went without saying, and Aris was a girl whose sheer destructive power was unmatched. Even her weakness—her timid personality—completely vanished in actual combat, making her seem like a different person. And while Lucia lagged slightly behind them, she was only inconspicuous because of her quiet demeanor; her raw skill was easily among the top tier of the first-years.
"But we don't know where they are. Will they pick up if we call?" Anastasia tilted her head and asked. They had to be busy on their end too; would they even have the leeway to answer a phone?
"Yujin and Aris's Supernatural Abilities are highly conspicuous. If we look for those..."
Arin cut herself off. Her eyes widened behind her glasses.
BEEEEEEEP!
A piercing noise stabbed through her mind.
CRITICAL THREAT DETECTED
"Leo, Anastasia, watch out—!"
Leo moved faster than Arin could finish her warning. Activating his Acceleration, Leo grabbed Arin and Anastasia and instantly bolted from the spot.
It was a violent maneuver that would have snapped an ordinary person's neck, but fortunately, neither of them was ordinary. Still, it wasn't pleasant; unable to adapt to the sudden burst of speed, they gasped for air.
But they couldn't blame Leo. If not for his swift action, they would have ended up with several new holes in their bodies.
"SCREEEEEEECH!!!"
A monster shrieked as it tore through the fractured sky. A massive eagle-like beast roared, venting its fury at losing its prey. Its razor-sharp talons slammed into the innocent earth. A deafening BOOM shook the very ground.
"A-A Gryphon?!"
The upper body of an eagle. The lower body of a lion. That appearance was identical to a monster she had read about in the archives. No, it wasn't just similar—it was exactly the same.
"This is the absolute worst..."
It was the worst-case scenario. A high-tier monster had finally appeared. It wasn't particularly surprising. With a Rift in Space of that scale, the emergence of a high-tier monster was an inevitability.
"I wanted us to regroup before things got this bad..."
In this Cherry Blossom Festival park that was rapidly transforming into a living hell, Yujin was the only one capable of fighting a high-tier monster. Arin frowned as the mental alarms blared so loudly they drowned out all external noise. She knew the terrifying strength of a high-tier monster all too well from her experience during the field trip.
Defeating it was out of the question. Escaping was also impossible. Since it had come to this, their only option was to hold out somehow until reinforcements arrived.
"Ha."
Leo let out a dry chuckle. His thoughts weren't much different from Arin's. Hadn't he broken his arm the last time he clashed with a high-tier monster? Escaping from a flying Gryphon was practically impossible, so they had to survive until help arrived.
A high-tier monster was too much, too soon. They were unprepared. They weren't at the level to face this yet.
"Perfect."
"What? What are you talking about all of a sudden?"
"I was starting to feel like Yujin was leaving us in the dust."
The achievement of defeating a high-tier monster. Honestly, he had been incredibly jealous of it.
He cracked his knuckles. His metal gauntlets clashed with a sharp, metallic ring. That was just how reality worked. Did it ever wait around for you to be ready? Whining about it being "too early" wouldn't change a damn thing.
"Speed is weight... Hey, birdbrain. Ever been punched at the speed of sound?"
Besides, he didn't feel like he'd lose. It was baseless confidence, but they'd manage somehow.
"Bravo."
A light patter of applause.
The girl in the Red Fox Mask clapped her hands, letting out a sweet, melodic giggle. The crackling, burning cherry blossom trees shed their final petals. Amidst the blackened cherry blossoms, Astaroth showered her unheard praise generously.
"Splendid. Truly splendid. I had a feeling, but to think you would actually win."
As expected of the Chosen One. Even if the opponent is stronger, he somehow survives. He somehow wins. The gap between the Black Knight and Yujin was far beyond what effort alone could bridge. By all rights, he should have died long ago, yet the victor and the vanquished had been reversed. Yujin, who couldn't even guarantee victory against a single high-tier monster, had defeated a Named Monster. Even if he wasn't alone, it didn't change the fact that it was an astonishing achievement.
Who would believe that just a month ago, this boy was merely a slightly talented student?
"Aris was quite impressive too. If she were a boy, I might have gotten confused."
The Chosen One is male. That was information gathered from previous regressions. It was a minor detail, but the other Mains didn't even have this much, forcing them to start from absolute scratch.
As if unable to contain her amusement, Astaroth doubled over, giggling like a mischievous child. She had truly just come out for a change of pace. She loved flowers, so she had taken a stroll to enjoy the Cherry Blossom Festival. Yet she had never dreamed she would reap such a priceless harvest. She wanted nothing more than to roll around on the ground laughing, but she held back to maintain at least a shred of dignity.
"It was you."
Lucia. Until now, she had only been a candidate. An unconfirmed, potential candidate. That was why she hadn't paid much attention even after ordering Regina and Seri to hypnotize her. She was just a candidate, after all. It might not have been her.
"It really was you."
Every time the Chosen One makes unprecedented growth, you are always there. One is a coincidence, but twice is impossible to ignore, isn't it? You're the one who brought Yujin here today, right? It couldn't have been Aris. Yujin has feelings for you. Perhaps more than just friends?
I didn't have any information on anyone other than the Chosen One, so I was doubtful until now... but I feel a sense of déjà vu. An instinctive intuition, entirely separate from the records of previous regressions. Lucia.
"You were the 'Wedge of Causality.'"
The wedge that anchored the Chosen One's causality. The contingency prepared by the Gods of the Four Seasons. One of the primary culprits behind the Mains' defeats in previous regressions.
She had finally found it. She had finally uncovered it.
"The Chosen One. The Wedge of Causality. Now that I've found the most important pieces..."
I can finally start moving in earnest for the 'Plan.' My own plan, entirely separate from Agares's.
"Well then~ Since I've gotten everything I came for, shall I head back?"
The cherry blossom trees had all turned to charcoal, so flower-viewing was out of the question. The Cherry Blossom Festival would likely never be held in this park again. That was a bit of a shame. She had quite liked the pretty blossoms.
Astaroth opened her parasol. Shading herself from the light, she spun around gracefully. She began to walk away, her heels clicking rhythmically against the ground.
RUUUUUUUMBLE!
But before she could take more than a few steps, Astaroth froze. A heavy roll of thunder echoed, despite the absence of storm clouds.
Flash. A blinding white bolt of lightning illuminated her Red Fox Mask.
BOOM! It was a bolt from the blue. Not metaphorically, but in the most literal sense. Though fractured like glass, lightning struck down from a cloudless, clear sky. Intrigued by this bizarre phenomenon, Astaroth slowly raised her head to look up at the sky.
What she had thought was thunder was actually a person.
Diamond-hard eyes. Untamed, spiky blonde hair. A man in a black military uniform, descending like a thunderbolt.
"Are you Astaroth?"
Karlad, Captain of the 2nd Division, spoke, his brow furrowed in a deep scowl.
Astaroth paused, staring intently at Karlad. A white coat. An endless torrent of battle aura. A crushing pressure that no Supernatural Ability user she had seen so far could ever hope to match.
Ah. Could this guy be...
"A Captain?"
The pinnacle of humanity. One of the strongest Supernatural Ability users.
Maybe I'll put off heading back for a bit. Something rather amusing has just shown up.