Setting Traps
I checked the score displayed on my terminal.
Compared to before, it had jumped by a full three hundred points.
“This exam’s going to be a free ride.”
That was exactly why it was better not to protect too many people. No matter how strong a hero was, they could never guard every last Assist under their care.
If a single transcendent powerhouse could protect everyone… the world wouldn’t have ended up like this in the first place.
An absolute monarchy would probably have risen instead, with everyone kneeling beneath that overwhelming strength.
“Hmm~ So this is the central zone?”
As I scanned the surroundings, my pupils narrowed vertically like a snake’s, a vivid crimson. Below my eyes, the pit organs—infrared heat sensors—sprouted in a striking red, picking up the body heat of everyone nearby.
“Found you.”
“What the—!”
I smiled brightly and lifted the hero who had been lying in ambush in the nearby underbrush. The man thrashed wildly, but the Sea-Serpent’s tail only coiled tighter around him with every struggle, pinning him completely.
“I’m sorry, but what’s about to happen can’t be seen by anyone. Would you mind quietly failing for me?”
“W-what kind of strength is this…!”
Before long his barrier reached its limit and shattered. The return stone kicked in and ejected him from the exam grounds.
“This form’s pretty nice too.”
Giving up a peaceful sea voyage to hunt the Sea-Serpent had been the right call. True to its A-class monster status, it came packed with abilities and solid physical specs. The tail alone, bursting out between my clothes, could easily hoist a medium-sized truck.
“Durability’s decent as well…”
The dragon scales fused with the exoskeleton were tough enough to shrug off most attacks. At this level I wouldn’t lose a bare-knuckle fight even against a B-class monster.
I loosened up a little, then confirmed no one else remained nearby.
“Perfect. Ideal timing to set some traps.”
In three hours this central zone of the exam grounds would be packed with people. Laying traps in advance would definitely pay off.
Darwin, still parasitizing my body, secreted high-tensile thread from my fingertips. The spider-silk generation ability I’d gained after killing a spider monster was useful in all sorts of ways. Unlike ordinary spiders, it produced thick strands with more than enough strength—tens of times tougher than steel wire. Excellent tensile strength, decent heat resistance… a material I used often.
“Shall we give it a try?”
First up: booby traps.
“Aaaagh! Those crazy Military Studies bastards!”
“They’re insane! Completely out of their minds!”
—“Haha! Quietly become our points!”
—“Kneel before the greatness of modern civilization, you primitives! This is the power of modern science!”
—“Hey! Don’t get carried away! They said advancing too far costs points!”
A string of students, driven by the steadily tightening encirclement of the Military Studies Department, poured into the center of the exam grounds. One of them ran until the unmanned military robots controlled by the Military Studies students were finally out of sight, then stopped to catch his breath.
“Haa… I’m seriously gonna die… Wait, where the hell is everyone else hiding?”
Only then did he realize he had almost no points saved up.
“Ugh, I need to collect points. I’ve been running for my life since the start and completely forgot.”
Surviving to the end mattered, but so did gathering points. Final admission rankings were decided by score, after all.
“No choice. Guess I’ll start by hunting some monsters.”
With that thought he walked deeper into the forest. After pushing far into the woods he suddenly spotted a woman with white hair.
A person…?
He considered approaching and speaking to her, then remembered another rule.
Ten points per person, right?
Assists and the unmanned military robots controlled by Military Studies students were worth ten points each; heroes were twenty. She carried no real weapons and was strolling through the forest under a parasol as if she had all the time in the world. To him she was clearly an Assist Department applicant with no combat power to speak of.
How much time is left… about an hour?
Protecting her would only net five points. Killing her would give him ten without the hassle of guarding her.
Calculations finished, he drew his one-handed sword and carefully closed in.
Still hasn’t noticed?
When he was close enough that even a sharp-sensed civilian would have felt his presence, he prepared to charge. The moment his next foot came down, something gave way with a soft crunch.
Thwip—!
A sensation of something sinking in, and a meticulously designed mechanism activated. The thin thread connected to the ground snapped; a tree branch that had been held taut by spider-silk tension whipped toward him.
“Wh-what?”
While he staggered, the wooden stake lashed to the branch’s tip gouged a deep chunk out of his barrier’s durability. Immediately after, a massive counterweight plummeted from above. Dropped from a tree dozens of meters high, the enormous weight scraped his barrier’s remaining energy down to a razor-thin margin before slamming into the ground.
“W-what is this…”
“Oh? You’re still alive? Did I miscalculate the damage?”
“Y-you… who are you…!”
He pointed a shaking finger at the woman who was tilting her head at him and backed away. Then he felt something strange underfoot, looked down, and couldn’t help screaming.
“U-ugh…!”
“Hm? You saw them?”
The ground was littered with shattered fragments of return stones left by people whose barriers had been completely drained—enough debris to form little stone cairns.
“Don’t worry. It’ll only take a moment.”
He watched her pupils narrow vertically. That was the last memory he retained of the exam.
After finishing my final personnel check, I spotted a group approaching from the distance.
“…She’s at it again.”
Iris, of course. Where on earth did she keep gathering that many people…
“Well, doesn’t matter. I can just catch them again.”
While I was inspecting the traps I’d set along one face of the mountain, a familiar scent drifted on the wind.
“This is…”
The scent of wind. Sometimes it resembled the fragrance of flowers on a fine spring day; sometimes it carried the smell of rain on a stormy night. Only one person I knew walked around trailing that unique aroma.
“Yulia.”
I turned my head and looked into the distance. Sure enough, Yulia was approaching at the head of her own group. Unlike Iris, though, this one wasn’t composed solely of Assists—heroes and Assists were mixed in proper proportions.
“…She’s going to clash with Iris.”
Of course, as long as the Military Studies forces kept tightening the noose toward the center, every hero still alive would eventually have to fight. That included the regressor who had stayed out of sight so far; sooner or later he would collide with us as well.
“Or maybe he’ll just go around destroying the military robots.”
Each unmanned military robot controlled by a Military Studies student was worth ten points when destroyed. If you could withstand a coordinated assault, taking them head-on was a perfectly viable strategy. Honestly, as long as you had enough raw power, even getting ganged up on wasn’t scary. I myself could punch straight through the Military Studies encirclement and stroll outside if I wanted—surviving without lifting a finger would be trivial. Of course, I was out here scraping for points instead.
“Darwin.”
At my signal Darwin transformed my body with Sea-Serpent dragon scales. White scales, heat-sensing organs, a tail—the whole package looked pretty cool, but it was far too eye-catching.
I needed different genes this time.
“Not that one.”
Darwin pondered a moment, then offered a solid idea. The camouflage ability from the octopus monster I’d hunted earlier kicked in; the scales covering my body shifted to a deep green that mimicked plant life. In a forest this dense, spotting me would be no easy task. Ordinary heroes or Yulia would still notice me in peacetime, but in the middle of a fight it should work.
I felt like a green anaconda from the Amazon.
Come to think of it, they say the endgame of veteran content is customization, right?
I had a feeling I’d be using this ability a lot from now on.