Uninvited to the Hero's Trial

He'd expected every manner of scheme and conspiracy the moment he declared he'd step onto the political stage. Strip the nobles of this world of their power, and all you had left were corpses.

Even so — wasn't this a little too soon?

Watching them casually commit an act that could easily be read as an attempt on the imperial family left him speechless.

Is there a single sane person in power in this entire world?!

And who had made it this way?

That's right. This, too, was X's own karma.

Suddenly saddled with ten students in tow, X pressed forward without hesitation toward the source of the scream. The training monsters they encountered along the way were simply overwhelmed by numbers, cut down in moments.

Reaching the place the scream had come from didn't take long. The moment they arrived, a thick, metallic stench hit them, and the whole group shuddered. Circe was the one who recognized it first.

"That's the smell of blood."

They rushed toward the source. Four students lay unconscious on the ground.

That's… Gausolt, isn't it? The count's heir.

He remembered the boy — one of the few high-ranking nobles in Class F.

"Tene, I need you to treat them."

Tene nodded without a word and went straight to work. X ordered the others to form a perimeter, then swept the area with Circe. It didn't take long to grasp how wrong this scene was.

"Those wounds on the students — those are from a blade."

"They look like they were attacked before they could even fight back."

Human work, at a glance. An assassin's work, specifically. Nobles lived under constant threat of assassination, but X had never imagined anyone would attempt it inside an academy whose defenses had been reinforced.

The motive was a secondary concern. If this had been a genuine assassination, there was no explaining why Gausolt was still alive.

…Bait?

Bait to lure whom? There was no one else it could be but X.

One thing was certain: they needed to get out of here, fast.

"Martial students, carry the ones who are down. We leave immediately after that. Everyone, follow me, and—"

"X, duck!"

Circe's warning came in the same instant something shot toward X's head. He dropped at once, ducking the projectile.

Gausolt's wounds had been blade-cuts, so the hidden weapon would be a blade as well — or so he assumed.

That was a mistake.

Whiiirrr—!

What came flying at him was no throwing knife. It was some kind of magical artifact, radiating a fierce surge of mana.

"X!"

"X! Get out of the way!"

Circe and Lola, both quick to sense the mana, came running. The artifact fired faster than either of them.

Before X could so much as react—

Fwoosh—!!

Light erupted from the artifact and swallowed him whole.

A complicated chain of events had led to this.

It had started when X falsely announced that he would contend for the throne — a lie designed to keep Leon bound to the academy. Imperial Faction and Noble Faction alike had convened in grave, exhaustive discussion over that declaration. Emperor Drakan's revival had finally stabilized the empire; the last thing anyone needed was a fresh wind of civil war.

And that was a prospect the Imperial Faction nobles found especially unwelcome. How brutally had they fought to crush the Noble Faction that had risen the moment Drakan lost his strength? Now that the Emperor had risen again, discord was the one thing they could not afford.

The first item on the Imperial Faction's agenda was this:

It was, for all practical purposes, impossible. X had already seized control of a portion of the Imperial Guard and was under their protection. A half-hearted assassination plot would fail, and the moment it was exposed, the house behind it would be finished.

Darius's silence in the face of X's declaration had left many Imperial Faction nobles uneasy. The hardliners clamored that a countermeasure had to be produced at once. The newly minted prince had no power base yet — he had to be crushed in the cradle. That much, at least, they all agreed on.

X was an adopted son, after all. Not a drop of true imperial blood ran in his veins. He was a mongrel of commoner stock, nothing more.

And then, as if on cue, a perfect opportunity to trap him presented itself. They drew up a plan at speed and put it into motion immediately. The plan was simple:

To that end, assassins cloaked in invisibility magic — deployed through an academy professor with Imperial Faction connections — went to work. To ensure the plan held, they ambushed Noble Faction heirs they encountered in the labyrinth and used them as bait.

X took the bait exactly as the assassins intended. While he was occupied with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠treating the wounded, they landed a teleportation artifact on him with a clean throw. The spatial transfer activated successfully.

All that remained was to leave the rest to the execution squad waiting at the destination. The three-man assassin team would simply withdraw.

What they had failed to account for was the Noble Faction.

Five years ago, after Emperor Drakan lost consciousness, the Noble Faction had clawed for power by every means they could. They had failed. Darius had survived their assaults with grim, stubborn tenacity and then turned the attack back on them. From that day, the Noble Faction's standing had been utterly shattered. The Imperial Faction that followed Darius had locked its position in place, and the nobles had grown weaker by the year.

Then X had appeared.

Seeing him as their sole remaining opportunity, the Noble Faction resolved to curry his favor, and they prepared a number of methods to that end. Among them was the sabotage of the Safety Devices.

A Safety Device was a spatial-magic artifact that, in an emergency, would whisk its wearer to a designated location. Disable those, and their plan could proceed. Manufacture a moment of danger for Prince X, then sweep in to save him — a shallow little scheme, but theirs.

The Noble Faction succeeded in interfering with the Safety Devices and rendering them inert. That this might become a problem never once crossed their minds.

And so both factions, each with its own objective, set to work inside the academy. Each had planted agents within the school, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠through those agents the plans were prepared. By coincidence, the timing of execution was identical — and the two schemes collided, each interfering with the other.

Crackle—CRACK—!!

"What the…?"

The instant the Imperial Faction assassins' teleportation artifact made contact with the Safety Device the Noble Faction had tampered with, an error erupted. Factor in the interference of some unidentified presence as well, and the result was this: two spatial-magic artifacts of different kinds disrupted one another, and the destination coordinates twisted into a snarl.

Which is how, in this moment, X found himself in a labyrinth.

"…Where is this?"

Not a training maze. A real one.

"Nothing ever goes right."

At this point, he had to wonder if his entire life wasn't just a tapestry of malice. The moment he'd started to think his life in the empire had stabilized, this was what he got. Was a little rest too much to ask? It wasn't as if he hadn't been putting in the work.

So where the hell am I, actually?

X got to his feet and looked around. Pitch darkness. Nothing to see. His nose caught the damp smell of moss, and the hand that had pressed the floor came away cold and slick with moisture.

He had no idea why the attackers had teleported him. Staying put, however, was not an option. The Cat's Eye spell had long since worn off, and X didn't know how to cast it himself.

I need to be able to see something before I can decide what to do next…

Kindling a light in unknown territory was a risk. He didn't have a choice. X formed a sphere of light with magic. The darkness receded, and the surroundings came into view.

…Brickwork?

Cut stone walls and floors, laid in rectangles. This was no natural cave. It was a man-made structure. Fortunately, nothing in sight looked immediately dangerous. X ran a quick inventory.

Mana Phone is… not working. I've got the Dragon Sword on me, but of course I didn't bring a teleportation scroll.

Who could have predicted he'd get swept into something like this in the middle of an evaluation? Not even a god would have seen this coming. If Elysia had intervened, the system would have said something — but the system was silent. So it wasn't her, either.

Just start moving.

Situation assessed well enough. X started walking. If this was an artificial structure rather than a natural cave, there had to be an entrance. Keep one hand on a wall and keep walking — that was the method.

A cold tension settled over him, and with it a quiet worry that other students might have been caught in this too. The thought of Lola and Circe running toward him in that last instant only deepened it.

This was not the time for that kind of worry.

Clank. Clank.

Something moved in the darkness beyond the light. The instant he heard the sound of metal plates striking together—

Fssshhhk—!!!

This time, the ambush came loaded with killing intent.

"What the—?!"

He dropped and rolled sideways, barely clearing the attack. The speed was too much to parry. After dodging the first volley, he looked at what had punched into the stone floor and recognized it as an arrow.

An arrow buried in solid stone… Is the attacker human?

If they were human, he could talk his way through this. X opened his mouth before the next shot could fly.

"Please wait! I ended up here unintentionally! I have no intention of trespassing. Stop attacking!"

The answer to his desperate explanation came immediately — in the form of another arrow.

Fsssshhhk—!!

"Just hold on—!"

He threw up a barrier spell, caught the arrow, and kept dodging. The force behind those shafts was so great that two of them embedded in the shield were enough to shatter it. A single hit would leave nothing to bury.

I really didn't want to have to say this…!

X reached for a card he would rather not have played.

"I am X de Dritania, Prince of the Dritania Empire! An attack on me can be construed as an attempt on the imperial family. Stop this. Now."

Coercion, backed by the weight of the throne. It might have sounded like impersonation — but there was not a citizen of the empire who would hear those words and fail to react.

"…"

The same, apparently, could not be said of whoever was shooting at him. After a brief silence, the other party answered — packing a fresh arrow with the intent to kill.

Fsssssshhhk—!!!

"You've got to be kidding me…!"

Barrier and dodge. This time a single arrow destroyed the shield. The speed was extraordinary; the shaft grazed X's arm, and that alone split the flesh as if it had been torn open.

They've been trying to kill me from the first shot.

Was this a shoot-on-sight policy for trespassers? Or an assassination aimed at a prince who had declared for the throne? If this mysterious spatial transfer had been their doing, that second guess wouldn't be far off.

And then a strangeness snagged in his mind.

Those arrows arrived at the same time?

Not one person. Several, loosing as a unit. A stone structure of brickwork. The clank of metal plates. Volley fire that suggested a military formation.

A possibility surfaced. He hurled the sphere of light far into the dark.

The attackers hiding in the shadows were finally forced into the open.

"…It's really them? This can't actually be that place, can it?"

There were about ten of them. Some wore the crude armor of common soldiers; the rest were in proper plate, which explained the clanking. And the real problem was what they were.

Inside the helmets, where faces should have been, sat bare skulls with hollow sockets. Cold blue light stared out of those empty eyes. Arms and legs were nothing but long, fleshless bone, the whole frame held together by whatever force animated it, armor hanging off them as if it were in the way.

There was only one kind of being like this in the world.

"Skeletons…"

An armed skeleton troop. And fairly powerful ones, at that.

X assessed the situation at speed.

Skeletons form naturally, or they're created by a caster. In the latter case, you can communicate through them. They didn't — which means…

The skeletons in front of him were naturally formed. Naturally occurring skeletons weren't particularly strong on their own. They were closer to a phenomenon — dense grudges and mana clotting together and rising — which meant their danger was in their numbers, not their individual quality.

These, however, weren't numerous so much as incomprehensibly strong, one by one, as if many skeletons had been condensed into each body. A few of them even felt like they were on a knight's level.

One way or another, they were not opponents X could beat.

Run.

A fight with no chance of winning was a fight you didn't take. Divine power was super-effective against skeletons, but X hadn't trained his holy arts to a level he could use in combat. More to the point, ten of them was too many. Right now, running was the correct call.

He formed a fireball, intending to use the chaos of the explosion to break the other way.

Clank.

The sound of metal striking metal came from behind him as well. They revealed themselves a moment later: another skeleton troop, roughly a platoon's worth.

"Oh, for crying out loud — can a single thing go right?!"

Retreat cut off completely. He didn't have the strength to punch through either side. He was still wondering whether he ought to at least go down swinging when both troops slowly drew their bowstrings. The target was X, standing in the middle. The moment those arrows flew, he'd be a pincushion.

In this moment, neither his rank nor his silver tongue nor anything else he possessed would make the slightest difference.

Would it work?

They said that when a person was about to die, they raked through every memory they had looking for a way to live. One method flickered through X's mind. He had never attempted it. It wasn't the kind of thing you tried on a whim. But he was about to die — he had to try something.

Creeeak—

In the instant before the skeleton soldiers loosed—

"Hhk—!"

X dropped flat and made his last attempt.

Shhhhhhk—!

Black mist poured from X's body and wrapped him completely. For an instant the place where he had been standing went black, as if darkness itself had settled over it — a curtain of shadow that light itself could not touch. The demonic power of falsehood that he possessed.

I tried to copy what Berith did as closely as I could… but will it work?

He was adapting what he'd seen from Berith, the true Demon of Falsehood, when that being had unfurled the same power. The White Light Sword forged from demonic power — the Dark Walking Sword — had such a faint presence it was nearly impossible to notice. If a sword could be made that way, why not a body? He'd turned the idea over for a long time. This was the first time he'd actually tried it.

And his opponents were skeletons, running on little more than instinct. If it worked, he might slip the fight entirely.

He thought that, and then he checked the result.

Fwoosh—!!!

They're still shooting…!

Apparently this wasn't nearly enough. X had no choice. He drew his sword and prepared to fight. If it had come to this, he'd have to force a hole through one side and cut his way out.

And then—

The arrows crossed in midair. They hadn't been aimed at X at all. They flew toward the opposing formation, and they shattered the skulls of the skeletons on the other side.

"…Huh?"

That was the opening shot. The surviving skeletons drew their swords and charged with savage force. Jawbones dropped in soundless war cries as skeleton slammed into skeleton, and a vicious melee erupted. Not a single one of them paid X any attention. They fought like berserkers, existing only to smash the enemy in front of them.

"…So the demonic power worked? I should run while I can."

The judgment was fast; the action was faster. Still wrapped in black mist, X began to ease himself away from the battlefield.

Their fight ended sooner than he'd expected. The surviving skeletons whipped their heads around to look at him, and X felt the crisis in his bones — right up until they did something he hadn't anticipated at all.

"They… knelt?"

The five or so skeletons still standing dropped to one knee, facing him, like soldiers who had found their commander.

"Ha… why is it that the worst predictions never miss…"

In the face of that bizarre tableau, X became certain of where he was. This was a place that had appeared in the original novel. A place where simply passing through would grant you power — and an unfair dungeon that demanded a matching ordeal in return.

"Why am I in the Hero's Trial…"

This was one of the trials created for the Hero.