Search (2)
Search (2)
One day ago.
After being transferred to the Seal Grounds, the group assigned to Katrin quickly adapted to the unfamiliar environment of the sealed zone.
"Bria and Leonel in the lead, with Ride and Hesus supporting from behind. Mirisa, use your ability on Leonel when monsters appear."
"Yes!"
Just like the other groups, she placed two Knight Faculty students in the vanguard, while positioning the two students from the Inherited Ability Faculty and Mirisa from the Administration Faculty in the rear.
She had Mirisa use her ability on Leonel, whose combat skills were relatively weak among the Knight Faculty students.
Bria was one of the top three combatants in the Knight Faculty, while Ride, from the Inherited Ability Faculty, came from a prominent family—he had even delivered the Freshman Oath—and was an exceptionally talented student.
On top of that, with Katrin guarding the students from the rear, her squad was able to fight off the monsters without much difficulty.
Roar!
A blue-furred monster resembling a bear rose onto its hind legs and let out a monstrous roar.
A contorted face. Blue flames burned within its maw.
Bria and Leonel stood in front of the monster to block its path as it spat out blue flames.
Whoosh!
The flames spewing from its maw shot off in a completely wrong direction, missing the two students standing guard.
"Well done!"
"It's resisting strongly, so I can't hold it off for long!"
Ride, who had been extending his hand toward the monster, gasped for breath.
The two Knight Faculty students seized the opening to strike the monster.
The monster shook its head, utterly confused.
Thanks to that, it couldn't withstand the barrage of attacks from the other students and collapsed in no time, without Katrin even needing to step in.
"Great job, Student Ride. That's a very useful ability for dealing with monsters."
At Katrin's praise, Ride let out a bitter smile as he caught his breath.
"Even so, my family doesn't particularly recognize it."
Katrin wore an apologetic expression at his response.
That was because Ride's ability came not from his main family line, but from his mother's maternal side.
In any case, Katrin's group had been steadily advancing while slaying monsters, but before long they came to a halt.
An old corpse, reduced to nothing but armor and bones, brought their march to a standstill.
"Is it a knight? It looks like a fairly old corpse..."
"Could it be an Academy knight?"
"Isn't it an imperial knight?"
The students murmured among themselves as they approached the corpse after Katrin's remark.
"Hmm. The crest on the armor is still intact. Looking at the crest... it seems to be... a knight of the Chaipree County."
All the students turned their eyes toward Ride.
He approached the corpse and stroked its weathered armor.
"It is indeed the armor of our order. It appears to be one of the knights dispatched to the Seal Grounds who failed to return."
The Seal Grounds, where the final battle between the Demon King and the heroes, as well as the fierce clash between humanity and the monsters, had taken place, had become a restricted zone, forbidden to enter because of the monsters that remained.
Yet even after the area was declared off-limits, many noble families, nations, and individuals sent knight orders, mercenaries, and ability users into the Seal Grounds.
Though it was a treacherous place, it was just as much a land of immense opportunity.
Relics and personal belongings of heroes, knights, soldiers, and priests buried in this land during the War against the Demon King were continually discovered within the Seal Grounds, which were still filled with remaining dungeons and monsters that yielded extraordinary by-products.
Ride collected the old sword lying next to the corpse, his expression serene.
He seemed to intend to take it back as a keepsake of the fallen knight.
'It doesn't seem to be as old as one might think—maybe around 50 years?'
On closer inspection, the corpse was more recent than its appearance suggested, but it was still over 50 years old, so Ride was highly unlikely to have known anything about it personally. His calm demeanor was therefore nothing out of the ordinary.
Everyone offered a moment of silent prayer for the corpse before resuming their journey. Ride, who stayed beside it until the very end, pulled a ring out of his bag.
He slipped the ring onto his finger and channeled mana into it.
The ring turned red.
After checking the ring, Ride's expression hardened, and he moved to catch up with the party.
Before long, after slaying another wave of monsters, the group checked the light at the rendezvous point at Ride's request.
Bria, who had climbed to the top of a tree, descended with an unexpected report.
"Our direction is wrong. It seems we took the wrong path."
"Really?"
Katrin frowned at Bria's words.
Taking the wrong path? She had never made that kind of mistake before...
But this was indeed the result Bria had personally verified.
The party changed course in the direction Bria indicated.
From then on, the group kept walking.
Monsters continued to appear, and it felt as though they were venturing ever deeper into the forest.
As they walked, Katrin checked their bearings periodically.
Bria wasn't the only one; Katrin herself climbed trees to check their direction.
'The destination is way too far. For some reason, it feels like we're heading toward the center of the Seal Grounds.'
There wasn't much time left until sunset.
Though the destination indicated by the light was close now, the overall distance traveled was far greater than expected.
Even so, she couldn't allow herself to make the students anxious.
"We just have a little further to go. Everyone, hang in there!"
To pick up the pace, she also took an active part in the battle.
And so, just as dusk began to settle, the party finally managed to reach the destination indicated by the light.
But there was neither an open clearing nor a glowing box.
Neither the Headmaster nor any of the other students was there. Instead, monsters awaited them.
They were six-legged lizard monsters with red tail-feathers.
"What is this?!"
"Everyone, fall back! Get into formation!"
Katrin shouted to everyone. Though the students pulled themselves together and assumed formation, the sheer number of monsters was overwhelming.
'Could this be a monster nest?!'
A broad basin with a thick floor made of branches and vines. And sitting proudly right in the center was a monster several times larger than the others.
Screech!
At the giant monster's shriek, all the beasts in the nest charged at the group.
It was more than their party could possibly handle.
Katrin stepped forward. She then shouted to everyone,
"I'll cover the rear! Everyone, run!"
At Katrin's roar, the party forced their heavy legs to move.
Slash!
Slicing through the swarming lizard monsters, Katrin protected the group from behind.
Though she hacked away relentlessly at the beasts, Katrin couldn't hold them all off on her own.
Young Lord Ride was nowhere to be seen, whether he had been separated from them from the very beginning or not, and without him, the remaining students quickly fell victim to the monsters' attacks.
Hesus, the light ability user, was the very first to be engulfed by the beasts.
Hesus possessed the ability to detonate light sources to attack enemies' eyes, but unfortunately, when he was attacked, the twilight had not yet faded.
Along with a flash of light, Hesus's head was torn off by the first lizard monster to lunge at him. The rest of his body was swallowed by the oncoming horde of monsters, left behind in the party's wake.
With Hesus dead, Mirisa, overcome with shock, was the next to be killed.
Mirisa possessed the gift of amplifying others' abilities, but she herself was merely a slightly more resilient ability user who didn't know how to fight.
Once Mirisa perished, Leonel—whose amplified power reverted to normal—could hold out no longer.
As the students were slaughtered one by one, Katrin frantically felled the monsters.
She bashed monsters back with her shield and killed those beyond her reach with her shimmering blade aura.
Her display of skill and valiant effort was astounding, yet her power alone was insufficient to protect the students.
In the end, she barely managed to shake off the monsters' pursuit, but only after losing the vast majority of the students and sustaining severe wounds herself.
When the monsters returned to their nest, Katrin and Bria—the sole surviving student—slumped onto the ground.
"You did well."
At Katrin's words, Bria looked at her somberly.
Katrin seemed unable to walk any farther.
Her body was covered in wounds. Torn and gashed, her flank in particular had been gouged open so badly that her intestines were visible.
It was only because she was a powerful awakened ability user that she remained conscious despite such a gruesome injury; an ordinary person would likely already have died of shock.
"Everyone else died, right?"
Katrin couldn't bring herself to answer Bria's question.
"And now night has fallen. We were supposed to arrive before sunset, right?"
This time, Katrin nodded.
"We're too late, then."
"A search party must have set out by now."
"But the others will have returned. And we have to survive the night until the search party arrives."
Regrettably, Katrin's words failed to reassure Bria.
And Bria seemed to have studied the Seal Grounds and field trips to some extent.
Unfortunately, Katrin was in too much pain to comfort Bria.
Bria had fought so admirably to make it this far. If Katrin were to grade her performance, it would be close to a hundred.
"Kuh, let's wait for the search party here. It's better not to move around at night."
Just as she had said, night in the Seal Grounds was far more dangerous than during the day. Wandering around recklessly was practically asking to die.
Katrin forced herself to move her arms, pouring potion over her wounds and wrapping bandages around herself.
The pain intensified manifold. That was because of the potion. It accelerated healing several times over, but inflicted an equal amount of agony.
Bria, who was leaning against a tree with her knees drawn up, nodded at Katrin's words. Frankly, rather than genuinely understanding Katrin's advice, she seemed to be nodding reflexively, exhausted and traumatized.
It was at that moment.
Crunch, crunch.
Footsteps echoed from close by.
"Ugh!"
Katrin raised her sword, groaning as she did.
Bria, who had been on the verge of despair, snapped back to her senses and pushed herself up.
"Haah, haah... It... It's me. Ride."
Emerging from the forest was none other than Young Lord Ride, the very one who had been separated at the outset.
"You're alive!"
Bria welcomed Ride, her face brightening.
In contrast, Katrin watched Ride return alive with a complicated expression.
"I'm so sorry. I panicked and ended up getting left behind. Where did everyone else go?"
Ride could tell what had happened to those missing from the dark expressions on Bria and Katrin's faces.
"Professor said we should wait here. A search party will come."
At Bria's words, Ride nodded with a gloomy expression.
"How did you survive?"
Bria kept talking to Ride.
She did so to avoid thinking about the dead and to dispel the fear consuming her.
"After getting separated, I carefully followed the trail of destruction left through the forest. Fortunately, I wasn't caught and managed to make it here."
It was the trail left behind as the group fled. Still, Bria was simply grateful that at least Ride had returned alive.
As they talked, Bria stood up, her face flushing red.
No matter how grueling and painful the situation was, nature's call couldn't be helped.
After Bria disappeared into the thicket, Ride approached Katrin.
He checked the wound on her flank, then turned to head back to his place.
Just as he turned away, Katrin's voice rasped out from behind him.
"Haah, haah... Why did you use your ability to alter our path?"
He turned back to look at Katrin.
"Haa... haah... Why did you intentionally allow yourself to be left behind?"
Maintaining a somber expression, he stared intently at the half-dead Katrin.
"What are you talking about? Altering our path? I just explained why I was separated."
"Haah, haah... Ride, your ability is sensory disruption. You disrupt a monster's sight, hearing, and smell, but it's more than possible to do the same to humans. Haa... every time we climbed the trees, didn't you disrupt our vision to shift the position of the light?"
At Katrin's words, Ride's eyes shook violently.
"Just what were you looking for when you let yourself get separated? Don't tell me... is it because of the pouch hanging at your hip?"
Ride let out a long sigh.
He stepped close to Katrin once more and whispered into her ear.
"I am sorry. Had you not noticed the pouch, you could have passed away peacefully."
He reached out and strangled Katrin.
Katrin's eyes widened.
She looked at Ride with pity, or perhaps regret, before finally closing her eyes.
A moment later, Bria, returning after relieving herself, covered her mouth upon seeing Katrin lying there as if peacefully asleep.
"She couldn't hold out any longer and passed away."
With a sorrowful expression, Ride took the dead Katrin by the hand.
And time passed.
The search party arrived.
