The Locust Swarm
The moment I stepped into the heart of the examination grounds, what met my eyes were the giant plants that had sprouted everywhere.
“Hmm... Well, shall we begin?”
I opened the parasol I had brought along.
Inside the practical exam grounds, each examinee was allowed to bring a single weapon. Most of the others had chosen cold weapons or rubber rounds designed to deal rifle-bullet-level damage upon striking a force field. I, however, saw no reason to bother with a weapon at all.
The only thing I could reasonably use was a handgun, and even that level of damage would likely be shrugged off by the other students as they charged straight at me. So I had decided to bring a parasol instead—something that could at least keep the sun off my face.
The look on the proctor’s face when I submitted a parasol as my weapon still made me chuckle.
“Heh-heh-heh~”
I strolled about as if I had simply come out for a leisurely walk. Anyone watching would probably call me a lunatic. Taking a carefree stroll right in the middle of the exam grounds?
But there’s nothing particular I need to do, is there?
I had already earned more than enough points for academy admission. Hunting monsters would net me higher scores, sure—but how was I supposed to know where the monsters even were?
“No... do I really need to go looking for them myself?”
I sent a signal to Darwin. She looked thoroughly unwilling, yet she began to move as if she had no choice.
Brrrrrr—!
A fragment of Darwin detached from near my arm and began splitting into dozens, then hundreds of pieces. The division continued until, before long, she had become a swarm of locusts vast enough to blanket the nearby ground.
“Darwin, find the people and the demonkin and send me signals. Absolutely no initiating attacks—but counterattacking if they strike first is fine.”
The moment the words left my mouth, the locust swarm began rising into the sky one by one. Watching them, I almost felt like Abaddon from the Book of Revelation.
Through my electronics I confirmed the positions of the approaching unmanned military robots. The combat capability of the drones operated by the Military Department applicants was, even being generous, only on the level of a D-class monster—aside from their abysmally slow speed. The applicants had never actually trained in unmanned weapon operation, so even E-class monster performance would have been impressive.
The important point, however, was that the Military Department’s robots moved in groups. Their coordinated advance—forming an encirclement and creeping toward the center at a glacial pace—proved lethally effective against anyone who had failed to form a proper group of their own.
“In other words, when the final moment comes, everyone will inevitably be driven into the center.”
Anyone capable of breaking through the Military Department students would be a different story—but anyone with that kind of power would head for the center anyway, to hunt the others.
“Until then, there’s only one thing I need to do.”
Lay traps.
“W-what is this...!”
“Locusts. Just... a few more than usual.”
Leaving behind a hero who had been overwhelmed by the surging locust swarm and buried beneath insect corpses, I helped myself to the magic stones in his pocket. His force field had run dry and he could no longer move, yet he could still see the Assist name tag pinned to my chest.
“No way... you’re an Assist? Why the hell would an Assist...”
“What? Assists aren’t allowed to take down heroes?”
“That’s just—what kind of nonsense—”
“Eliminating enemies so they can’t fight is the purest form of assisting, you know.”
“...”
“Just kidding~. Anyway, I’ll be taking these~. You’ve collected quite a few—think of it as donating to the less fortunate~.”
“You son of a—”
I waved cheerfully at the hero as he was slowly reverse-summoned, then switched on my terminal.
About two hours had passed? Not even half the total time was gone, yet the remaining examinee count displayed on the terminal was already less than half of what it had been at the start.
“Laplace, next group’s location?”
[2 km ahead at the 1 o’clock direction.]
“Got it~.”
Thanks to Laplace’s hacking, the most tedious part—finding people—was practically free. Every examinee terminal came with a location tracker, so a simple wireless connection let me pinpoint everyone with ease.
Was it cheating?
Absolutely.
[However, this time is a little different.]
“What is it?”
[First of all, the person ahead is Iris.]
“...? You should’ve led with that.”
The hero, Iris.
I had been sponsoring her for three years, yet even I did not fully grasp the extent of her power. All I could do was roughly estimate her strength based on the “Pillar of Light” incident that had occurred in America three years earlier.
“At this point she can solo an A-class monster, right?”
[Correct.]
“...I barely managed to take down a Sea Serpent.”
The Sea Serpent had been an A-class monster, true, but it was a cut below a proper A-class. The Twining Flame Flower that appeared during the Seoul monster invasion, for instance, had burned half of Yeongdeungpo District to ash and slaughtered tens of thousands of citizens. Even that reduced death toll was only thanks to Usa—who held a type advantage—arriving in time. The thought still made my teeth grind.
[However, the points to be gained are also considerable.]
“Points? Taking Iris down wouldn’t award that many, would it? Does she have a lot of magic stones?”
[No. Instead, she is escorting a large number of people.]
“...Ahh~.”
I roughly understood what Laplace was getting at.
“She’s farming points.”
It was one of the countless strategies that had flashed through my mind the moment I first heard the exam rules.
Iris was leading people toward the center. The people she led were none other than Assists. She had originally intended to act alone, yet somehow she had ended up protecting more and more Assists until the group had swollen to this size.
“There are traces of a monster. In my opinion, it looks like a Mountain Crawler.”
“Please be careful there. That plant may look ordinary, but it has nearly invisible poisonous thorns growing on it. Even a light touch will cause pain, so I recommend going around.”
“I think the better route to the center would be across the flat ground rather than toward the waterfall...”
“Ah, please...”
Were Assists always like this? The endless stream of nagging was starting to get on her nerves.
Iris sighed as she looked at the Assists who somehow reminded her of her own sponsor.
“Hm?”
“Is something wrong?”
“I sense a human presence.”
At those words the thirty Assists following her all held their breath.
Finally a little quiet.
There was only one reason she bothered protecting this many Assists instead of simply eliminating them: keeping them alive yielded more points than killing them.
...It’s not because I don’t want to kill them.
Even if “death” here only meant elimination from the exam rather than actual death...
Well, enough of that. Right now she needed to focus on the exam.
Iris tightened her grip on the new spear she had purchased. Using the Holy Spear in a regular exam could easily result in students actually dying, so she had brought this substitute instead. She could feel the Spear of Longinus thrashing inside her subspace, begging to be drawn, but she soothed it.
Now is not the time. You were made to fight demonkin, remember? If you don’t want to stay locked away for the rest of your life, stay still for now.
Once she calmly persuaded the Spear of Longinus, its struggles subsided. Leaving the quieted spear behind, Iris thrust her weapon toward the presence she had sensed.
The trees shuddered—and the enemy appeared.
It was neither an ordinary monster nor a human, as she had expected.
Flutter—!
Flutter-flutter—!
The sky filled with the flight of locusts, and every eye went wide. Iris was startled as well, yet once she realized it was someone’s scheme she calmly activated her unique ability.
“Sanctuary of Sacred Light!”
White energy poured from beneath her feet and spread thickly through the surroundings. The white aura soon took the form of a long spear and swept through the locust swarm. Where the white spear passed, only the burning remains of insects were left behind.
With that single strike, hundreds of lives were extinguished.
When Iris swung her spear again, a gigantic cross plummeted from the sky and crushed the locusts. This time thousands of lives were snuffed out.
Yet the swarm that filled the heavens showed no sign of thinning. Like moths flinging themselves into flame, the locusts charged endlessly—until the steel wall that had seemed impregnable finally cracked, until one day it would collapse completely.
And then a gap appeared.
In the brief moment Iris’s attention slipped elsewhere, a locust that had succeeded in infiltrating the sanctuary changed form. Having gorged itself on earth and absorbed enough organic matter, it transformed into a giant centipede and began eliminating the nearby Assists at terrifying speed.
“Gyaaah!”
“A c-centipede...? I’ve never seen a monster like this...!”
“What’s going on—this is...!”
Iris belatedly hurled her spear at the giant centipede slaughtering her Assists. She had poured a great deal of power into the throw and was certain the blow would kill it. Yet astonishingly, even after its shell—harder than steel—was shattered by the strike, the giant centipede still lived. Worse, it began to split into two along the wound left by the spear.
“What the hell is that thing...!”
Iris flicked her fingers and set its body ablaze. Realizing at the last moment that the fire could not be extinguished, the creature tried to sever the burning section—only to take several more direct hits of holy flame and finally perish.
Could every single one of those locusts take that centipede form?
The thought struck Iris late, and she immediately decided on her next course of action.
“Longinus...!”
She summoned the Spear of Longinus and drove it into the earth. Light exploded outward, overturning the entire surrounding terrain.
Rumble-rumble-rumble—!
For a long while the landscape itself collapsed. When the shock finally subsided, not a single locust remained nearby—but neither did any of the Assists Iris had been protecting.
“No... what is this...”
In an instant she had lost every student under her care. Iris stood frozen, a blank expression on her face. When she belatedly checked her terminal, the score displayed there was a negative number.