The Trial of Strategy
The Hero's Trial.
A dungeon built as a plot device for Leon to gain power — each trial demanding its own unique strategy to clear. Finish one, and you received strength to match. Simple, straightforward plotting. Varied spectacle. Plenty of word count. The kind of thing the author reached for whenever the story started to stall.
Never thought I'd be the one stuck doing it...!
Of all the places a spatial collision could dump him, it had to be here. This was a trial even the current Leon would struggle to clear — and X, weaker than him, had just been dropped inside. A conventional clear was next to impossible.
If there's a silver lining, it's that this happens to be the Trial of Strategy and Tactics.
X looked at the five skeleton soldiers kneeling before him. With their officer dead, they were waiting for his orders.
"Start by repairing yourselves with whatever you can scavenge around here."
Clatter—
At X's command, the skeletons moved with snappy efficiency, stripping the parts they needed from the remains scattered nearby. Once they'd patched their damaged sections, they looked as good as new.
"They follow orders pretty well..."
The Trial of Strategy and Tactics was a dungeon where you fought the skeleton soldiers roaming inside and grew your forces as you went. The original concept had probably been something about showcasing the Hero's charisma and leadership while also letting Circe show off her tactical brilliance — or so the author had gone on about at the time.
At the far end of the dungeon, a massive army held the Fortress. Breaking through it was the only way to clear the Hero's Trial.
"...Impossible."
Unfortunately, X was no master of strategy. He'd done his military service, so he knew the basics — but medieval tactics were a completely different beast. He was a total amateur.
In the original story, Circe and Diana had been the stars of this trial. Diana sniped the officers. Circe handled strategy and tactics. Leon smashed through the enemy from the front.
Yeah, well. I can't do any of that.
His worry deepened. The one stroke of luck: time inside the Trial of Strategy and Tactics flowed differently from the outside world. Twenty-four hours in here was roughly equivalent to one hour out there. At least he didn't have to worry about taking too long.
If the prince's disappearance dragged on, the consequences would be catastrophic in more ways than one. There was the Holy Kingdom situation to consider, and Darius and everyone around him would spiral into extreme anxiety.
The food problem, though — that's fatal.
Skeletons only needed mana. People needed to eat. In a place where foraging was impossible, food was a matter of life and death. So first things first: find something to eat.
"Take point. We're scouting the area."
The five skeletons walked ahead of X without a moment's hesitation. Watching them march in formation at his every movement, he was reminded all over again that this was, indeed, the Trial of Strategy and Tactics.
You're supposed to start at the entrance with ten skeleton soldiers...
Of course he'd had the rotten luck of dropping into the middle of the dungeon instead, so he hadn't even gotten a proper starting force. He'd have to grow his numbers somehow if he wanted any chance of bringing down the Fortress.
He was walking with that thought when the skeletons suddenly stopped.
Enemies?
X ordered them to stay alert and carefully concealed himself. Using demonic power to suppress his presence, he could hide reasonably well.
Same as before — ten of them. About a squad.
To absorb skeleton soldiers, you had to kill the officer commanding them. The problem was that officers always stayed at the very rear, which made targeting them anything but easy. Spotting one was simple enough, at least. They carried flags, so you could identify them with the naked eye.
No idea how far this concealment will actually hold.
If he could just take out the officer, he'd acquire the soldiers without any losses. In the original, Diana's sniping had let them absorb squad-sized forces completely intact.
Can I pull this off...?
First, test the limits of his ability. If things went south, he'd run and order the soldiers to cover him. X slowly closed the distance.
The corridor ran about fifty meters. The enemy was thirty meters out — close enough that a bowshot would be hard to miss. And the skeleton soldiers were no slouches. Getting spotted wouldn't be an instant game-over, but it wouldn't be pretty either. Still, he pressed on.
At about twenty meters, there was movement.
Whoosh—!!
The skeleton officer snapped its head toward him. Apparently its detection was better than the rank-and-file — it was sensitive even to small disturbances. X considered running, then held his breath instead, going perfectly still.
Sure enough, the officer scanned the area where X was hiding, then turned its head away. He hadn't been spotted.
Getting any closer than this is going to be tough.
The officer's detection range was roughly twenty meters. X filed that away. At this distance, he could still launch a surprise attack.
He carefully drew the Dragon Sword and signaled his soldiers. Fortunately, they understood hand signals. Once they'd taken cover and nocked their arrows, X created four Dark Walking Swords. He'd wanted to form them behind the officer if possible, but the range was too far. So they would snipe the officer simultaneously.
X settled into position, tension coiling through him. The instant the officer turned its gaze fully the other way—
"...Attack!"
He launched the four Dark Walking Swords, and his soldiers loosed their arrows. There were no soldiers nearby to protect the officer, and it hadn't fully registered the attack. The arrows aimed true — at the neck, the spine, every vital point. Not a single miss.
"KRAAAAH—!!"
Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to drop the officer in one hit. Regular soldiers' arrows had their limits. The officer, still standing after taking the arrows, screamed from a throat that had no vocal cords — a sound sharp enough to freeze the blood.
But X's Dark Walking Swords were still in play. The enemy soldiers started forming a protective formation around the officer's shriek — and the blades struck first.
Shhk—!!
The keenly launched swords severed the officer's neck and punched through its entire body. The skeleton officer's head, stripped of will, tumbled to the floor and came to rest at X's feet. Without hesitation, he crushed the skull under his heel.
A perfect ambush.
Can't let my guard down yet.
X stayed wary, expecting the enemy soldiers to counterattack. Fortunately, there was no need. All ten dropped to their knees before him — just like in the original. They were his now.
"Hah... so this is how it's done."
He'd managed to grow his forces without taking any losses. The problem was that he had to put himself on the front line and take the risk — but at least it had worked. He'd take that as a win.
I can keep picking up squad-sized forces this way.
He'd need at least a company... a hundred-man unit. Skeleton squads weren't infinite, so he had to hurry. If they ended up fighting each other and getting wrecked, that was as good as a loss of his own fighting strength.
X immediately started running himself ragged. For about an hour he wandered in every direction, committing the layout to memory. Paper would have made mapping easy, but he didn't have that luxury.
My head's going to explode...!
Preparing ambushes whenever he ran into enemies, staying alert in every direction at every moment, memorizing the geography as he went — it was exhausting. But he had no choice. After relentlessly roaming and ambushing everything he could find—
"About fifty of them now, I guess."
The soldiers trailing after him had grown considerably. At this point, giving individual orders was becoming a chore.
If I could turn an officer into a subordinate, that would make things a lot easier...
Skeleton officers required a Flag of Command to create — the same flags the other officers had been carrying. But the flags were like consumable bound items. They shattered when the officer died and became unusable.
To get a Flag of Command, you had to raid a treasure chest hidden somewhere in this place. And that meant beating the Trial Guardian protecting it.
I could throw soldiers at a Guardian until it went down, but...
That would be a massive waste of fighting strength. He needed as many troops as possible to have even a slight advantage in the final battle for the Fortress.
I need a small elite force that can take down a Guardian, at least.
Among the skeleton soldiers, there were elite specimens — several times stronger than ordinary troops. They didn't just shoot arrows and swing swords. They had a much wider range of abilities. Some used magic. Some had bodies like steel. Some were incredibly fast and agile. A small elite unit composed of those specimens would be a critical asset.
Unfortunately, none of X's current forces were elites. He'd been searching for them this whole time, but they weren't showing themselves. Even so, not finding a single one was strange.
Should I look around more?
He resolved to search the area again. But his footsteps stopped almost immediately.
A skeleton unit in the distance. He'd intended to use the same strategy — ambush the officer and absorb the unit — but he couldn't.
A hundred-man unit already wandering around...?
Even from a distance, their numbers approached a hundred. Unlike X, they had officers at the ten-man level, commanding their soldiers in perfect coordination. The fact that a hundred-man force had already formed felt bizarre, but he didn't have the luxury of pondering it calmly.
Because the hundred-man unit was heading straight toward him.
They spotted me...!
Once you hit hundred-man scale, they operated reconnaissance teams. He'd apparently been caught in one of their scouts' fields of vision. A hundred-man unit wouldn't collapse just because you took out a subordinate officer. You had to kill the top commander — which was practically impossible.
And scattered among them were skeletons of a different type. Those had to be the elites he'd been searching for.
If I fight, I lose. Guaranteed.
X hurriedly ordered his soldiers to retreat. First, he needed to gather a force that could match that group. With elites in the mix, even a conventional fight would be hard — but with too few soldiers and no officers, he had zero chance of winning.
He fled quickly, evading the pursuing hundred-man unit. Fortunately, their size made them slow. Once he'd secured safety, X thought it through carefully.
I'd rather not fight them head-on.
The best option he could think of was to build a defensive position and weather their assault. The casualties would be enormous, but he didn't have a better play.
There's got to be a better way...
He was still growing his forces one unit at a time when—
BOOM—! THUD! CRASH! KRA-KOOOM!!
A series of unidentified explosions rang out in the distance. Booms loud enough to shake the entire dungeon, rolling one after another with brief intervals between them.
A fight somewhere?
Some elite specimens were skeleton mages who used magic, so explosions weren't unheard of. Even so, the fact that they kept coming nagged at him.
...I should check it out.
X took his soldiers and slowly headed toward the source of the noise. It was a different direction from the hundred-man unit, so they didn't run into any combat along the way. The soldiers in this area had probably all headed toward the explosions.
That's why the fighting's still going.
If he could turn that mage elite into a subordinate, it would be a huge asset. Whether he could punch through a mage and beat the officer was a separate question — but this was worth taking some losses for.
Eventually he reached a point where the explosions were right on top of him. X had his soldiers hold position and, still cloaked, crept forward — and the source of the explosions became clearer.
"...ie! ...skulls... ah...!"
...Huh?
The thing he'd assumed was a skeleton elite was far smaller than expected. It moved with a ferocity that didn't belong to any skeleton, flinging magic in every direction. Plenty of skeletons were charging in to take it down, but it wasn't going down easy. The magic it unleashed was varied and deployed exactly where it needed to be.
More importantly — it was speaking a human language. Something a skeleton couldn't do.
"Don't tell me... wait."
As he watched closely, the mage's magic turned toward X. Ice lances radiating a chilling aura came flying at him in rapid succession. X had seen this style of magic before.
"Circe! It's me! Don't shoot!!"
"What...? Is this another hallucination? I'll just kill it first...!"
"It's not a hallucination! It's really me! It's X!"
X's yelp of "Aaagh—!" accompanied an ice lance that missed him by a hair.
"You — are you actually X?"
"Then I must be a fake, is that it?!"
The mage fighting in the middle of the skeletons was, of course, Circe.