When the Superior Points, the Subordinate Rolls - 1
The curse brand masquerading as Tanian's four pillars of destiny had been stamped dark and deep. There was a chance it was wrong, and his fortunes hadn't exactly been stellar to begin with, so I'd meant to brush it off lightly. Yet in one corner of my mind that curse brand kept flaunting its damn presence, refusing to be forgotten. A Saint candidate under a curse—truly the end times.
In the end I barely slept, the anxiety writhing through me all night. The last time my chest had pounded like this was when I'd stared down the cavalry charge of Kagan and his Keshik head-on. Was this little shit Tanian getting back at me for the advice I'd given Erich? No. Surely not.
Thanks to Tanian's performance, I'd been forced to trade a peaceful night's rest for a goodbye kiss, and the aftereffects lingered straight into morning.
"You've got to be kidding me."
While wandering around the clubroom I slammed my shin straight into a desk leg. The impact left the leg wobbling. That never happened on ordinary days—this was all Tanian's fault. How dare he slap a debuff on his advisor?
Fortunately it wasn't a desk I used often, and if it was only loose from the jolt I could force it back into place. I gave it a rough fiddle, and in the process relearned an important lesson: never casually trespass on another profession's domain.
Yeah, this isn't working.
The four-legged desk had devolved into a three-legged specimen. Zhuge Liang had insisted that the form supported by three legs was what mattered—maybe this was its most beautiful state after all?
I was staring blankly at the precarious three-legged desk when I spotted the vice principal passing by the corridor window. A moment later came a knock at the door. What could he want this early in the morning? Nothing good, I suspected.
"Come in."
I set down the former desk leg in my hand and called him in. The vice principal carefully opened the door and stepped inside. Those faintly trembling eyes told me everything—bad news. Tanian's brand flickered through my mind again, but I forced it down.
"I didn't expect a visitor first thing in the morning. Had I known, I would have prepared tea at least."
An ominous guest, but a guest nonetheless. I greeted him with a smile, yet the vice principal still couldn't master his shaking gaze and wiped sweat with a handkerchief. He only managed a reply to my greeting after a struggle. Once he seemed to have steadied himself, he carefully opened his mouth.
"Inspector. About that... the plan you submitted the day before yesterday."
"The plan? Has some problem come up?"
During club time two days ago Luise had suggested we all leave the Academy for a picnic, so I had drafted a simple plan and submitted it. "Outside the Academy" only meant a small hill beyond the walls—an easy round trip. Since I would be leading the group myself, it had been accepted without issue at the time. The vice principal showing up first thing in the morning, however, meant something had definitely gone wrong.
He let out a small sigh at my question and finally managed to continue.
"A dungeon has appeared near the picnic site."
"What?"
What the fuck. Why would one form there?
The Academy's internal artifacts had detected the dungeon's birth. Calling it a dungeon was a bit grand—it wasn't the kind you entered through a gate to thrash monsters and haul out treasure.
When I first learned dungeons existed after transmigrating, I had half-wondered if the original work was some romance-hunter hybrid and had even muttered "status window" alone in a corner. Nothing appeared, of course. Embarrassing black history, but ancient history by now.
Anyway, the academic consensus in this world held that a dungeon formed when ambient mana became bound to a fixed location and began altering the surrounding environment. Papers cheerfully brawled every year claiming other causes, but the core idea was always a mana problem.
I had looked into it once out of curiosity—dungeons in a romance-fantasy world?—then promptly lost interest. Never having read the original, how was I supposed to know why the author had stuck them in? Hearing the word "dungeon" at this particular timing, though, made something click.
This is a crisis-flag generator.
Safer than dungeons elsewhere, sure, but the ones in this world still hosted harmful beasts utterly alien to the local ecosystem—an inconvenient liability. Worse, they had no fences or markers, so you could walk straight into a nest of the things without realizing.
And one had appeared right next to the picnic site the Baking Club had chosen. A giant trap that the naked eye could barely distinguish from ordinary woods.
Fuck.
An advisor leading highborns on a picnic next to a dungeon? That was a special kind of lunatic. And I was one step away from becoming exactly that lunatic.
"Don't local magistrates manage dungeons on a regular schedule? If they just disperse the pooled mana, a dungeon shouldn't form at all."
Since dungeons were basically stagnant mana, magistrates and lords across the Empire were obligated to patrol their jurisdictions periodically to prevent them. Wave a Magic Tower artifact around and the pooled mana scattered—nothing difficult.
The vice principal answered my doubt with a troubled look.
"The magistrate who oversaw the Academy's vicinity was recently escorted to the Imperial Capital. His replacement hasn't arrived yet, and it formed in that brief window."
"Ah."
Only then did a small memory I had filed away in a corner of my mind surface.
"The bastard who played games with the road budget—strip him bare and deal with him."
I had tossed that offhand order to my deputy the day I arrived at the Academy. So the replacement still hadn't come. I had never imagined that little ball I'd thrown into the air would come rolling back like this.
"Then I'll handle it myself. Thank you for informing me."
I hadn't intended it, but since I had launched the ball, I would clean it up.
Luckily there was still time before the picnic, and a brand-new dungeon would have a low danger rating, so the burden was lighter. Canceling the outing was out of the question, so I would just go stir things up a bit. Once the harmful beasts inside were gone, the dungeon itself wouldn't be a threat.
"If you would do that for us, we would be most grateful. We leave it in your hands."
The vice principal looked relieved that I would take care of it personally and bowed with a small smile. He must have known the magistrate's arrest was the Audit Department's handiwork, yet he wasn't glaring at me—something to be thankful for. Dragging the vice principal in for lèse-majesté would have been awkward anyway.
Whether he sensed that or not, his gaze drifted past me. I turned and found the three-legged desk in plain view. Ah. That.
"I see something's broken. I'll have it replaced with a better one."
I saw no need to mention that I was the one who had wrecked it.
Leaving the club empty during club hours felt unsafe, so I decided to handle the matter while the members were trapped in class under the pretext of lessons. Advisors who worked this hard for their members were rare. Did those kids even realize the effort?
Having classes right now was a genuine blessing. Sometimes I half-wished the Academy would reintroduce the pre-transmigration schedule of zero period through late-night self-study; then I wouldn't have to sweat over surveillance and the like. The price might be a petition of a hundred thousand blue-blooded signatures, but still.
Right next door, literally.
Following the vice principal's directions brought me to a dungeon nestled in a forest uncomfortably close to our chosen picnic spot. I only recognized it as a dungeon because I already knew; otherwise I would have taken it for ordinary woods. The thought of wandering around here in complete ignorance sent a chill down my spine.
Seeing it with my own eyes sent deep irritation rising from my dantian. Dungeons almost never formed unless someone was spectacularly unlucky. Yet one had appeared while I was staying at the Academy, and now I had come in person to clear it.
Worse, it sat on proper Imperial territory outside the Academy, so I couldn't even dump the job on the Three Kingdoms' forces under the pretext of protecting key personnel. And I certainly couldn't dump it on the already overworked Academy security staff.
"What the hell is this for someone of my rank?"
I muttered the complaint into empty air; no one was around to hear it. Once you wore a department chief's insignia, field command became rare—yet here I was, marching into a dungeon on my own two feet. Search Imperial history and I would probably be the first. If I weren't, that would be an even bigger problem.
If I'd at least had a single useful attendant to order around, I wouldn't be this exhausted. Moments like this made me wish even the Section 2 chief were here.
...No. On second thought, not the Section 2 chief. I must have been temporarily insane. Even if the sky fell, not that bastard.
Our proud little son of a bitch.
Recalling the Section 2 chief's face—the one that always reminded me I had to stand alone—I set off into the dungeon.
Being newly formed, the interior showed nothing especially dramatic. Trees a bit denser, animals a bit larger. The sight of a rabbit tearing into a squirrel was memorable, I'll grant.
Of course the moment those teeth sank into any one of the Six Greats, my civil-service career would take a deep scratch, so I dealt with it at once. In your next life, be born into a proper ecosystem instead of a dungeon.
Still, nothing truly threatening had shown itself. Even a brand-new dungeon usually produced at least one beast capable of menacing a village. The rabbit I'd just finished couldn't have been the max-level specimen; there ought to be bears or lions at the very least.
As if answering the thought, something black-furred emerged from the underbrush.
—Chuppyu-chuppyu!
Oh.
Yes. Exactly that sort of thing.
The black bear that appeared out of nowhere charged me in an instant, rose onto its hind legs, and swung a massive right paw straight at my head.
This bastard had excellent manners. I liked him already.