Entrance Ceremony (3)
Entrance Ceremony (3)
I was screwed.
As for what exactly I was screwed about... truthfully, even I wasn't sure.
"Grrrrrrrr...."
Out of nowhere, three Drakes had appeared in front of me and were blocking the road to school.
They didn't look like the Iron Drakes you occasionally saw in the mountain behind the academy. The gold plating on their bodies suggested they were probably mutants. Should I call these things Gold Drakes?
Anyway, with all that gleaming, they looked exactly like the mecha-dinosaurs you only see in certain SF movies. Quantum-mechanically generated armored saurians—this was pure romance....
"Good heavens, what is that...?"
"M-Magic Beasts! Where the hell did they come from?!"
"Miss, it's dangerous! Run away, now!!"
It didn't seem to be a dream.
I urged the citizens to keep a safe distance and then stood in the middle of the road. Shouts of "run" came from a distance. When I drew my Staff, those shouts fell silent.
The tension fell a little short of what you'd call an unprecedented situation. The Magic Beasts were blocking the road to the academy, but that was all. They weren't in an aggressive standoff or anything of the sort.
On the contrary, they were staring at me while gently swaying their tails. They showed no signs of charging. Because I'd hunted several Drakes in the mountain behind the academy and had their behavioral patterns down pat, I knew from experience that they had no immediate intention of attacking.
[Whoa, three mutant specimens? Those things don't occur naturally.]
"So what do you want me to do? Does the fact that they're here look normal to you?"
At my rebuke, the Hardcover Book instead grew angry and flapped its pages.
[Who said anything about normal? My point is, creatures like these don't appear in nature, so they must have a separate owner!]
In other words, some bastard had made them.
If that was true, then the fact that these friends from the Cretaceous were only blocking the road instead of attacking their surroundings right away made a certain amount of sense. Without a leash, creatures like these usually run wild according to their nature.
[In such cases, there are roughly three ways to respond. First, simply catch and eliminate the Magic Beasts in front of you. Second, find and destroy the Construction Array that produced them. The third is....]
"I know. It's to catch the owner and wipe them out."
I was aware that the last method was difficult. How would I catch them when I didn't even know who or where they were?
Since the puppeteer controlled mid-grade Drakes, they were at least a high-class Magic Beast. A highly intelligent one, at that.
[Judging by the direction the Drakes came from, it seems they originated from the academy.]
"Looks that way."
The owner-catching method was unrealistic. The only decent option was to locate and destroy the operator's Construction Array as quickly as possible.
This was also difficult. There were hundreds of types of Construction Arrays alone. The dismantling procedure varied wildly depending on how the formation was structured.
Of course, the Construction Array would also be built from mana....
[Supreme Unique Magic ─ Element Operation]
"The key will be where I ram this into."
If I couldn't find the root of the Construction Array, I couldn't destroy the formula either. These creatures would probably keep pouring out endlessly unless I pinpointed that section's location.
While I was thinking, two more burst through the ground. The source was definitely in the earth veins.
"In the end, the only thing I can do is symptomatic treatment."
If I couldn't find the source right now, I at least had to kill anything that popped out. That was all I could do.
After shouting at the people idly watching to evacuate far away, I put a Mana Cigarette in my mouth.
Tried to, anyway.
[Wait, wait a moment.]
"What now?"
[It seems like they have something to say?]
Thud—.
One of them stamped a foot toward me and then took a step forward.
"Does that look like a gesture for conversation to you? It looks like it's about to attack any second now?"
[If that were the case, it would've smashed everything on the way here already.]
The kindling-head Hardcover Book had a point. Which made the situation even more of a problem.
If the mastermind merely gave the order, these Drakes could run rampant here at any moment. The thought of these creatures rampaging in the middle of the capital made my head spin.
Thud—. Thud—. Thud—.
The bastards were drawing closer. Leisurely, like an innocent child sneaking up from behind to catch a dragonfly. But the bulk of them was anything but childlike. Every step a Drake took left the road pockmarked.
I felt an instinctive contraction. The sensation of my lungs shrinking and not expanding again.
Because I had experience facing multiple Drakes, I realized this feeling of dread wasn't coming from the theropods in front of me. Drakes had laughably simple behavioral patterns, after all.
What I feared was not the dinosaurs.
I feared not the dinosaurs, but someone beyond them.
The ominous premonition was not wrong.
<Hello. Can you hear me?>
The Drake in the lead thrust its face toward me. I pulled a spare Scroll from my hip bag and made ready to trigger it at any moment.
Looking closely, I saw several small, thin holes drilled into the part of the Drake where the temporomandibular joint would be. The unidentified voice came from there.
<Sorry, I ended up finding you later than I thought. I assumed you'd be at the academy matriculation ceremony playing around with all the other kids. So I went and stirred up a little ruckus.>
The voice was modulated, so determining the sex was difficult. Yet even from the modulated voice, I couldn't detect a trace of playfulness.
<Anyway, you seemed lucky? What on earth made you think of testing and getting in there? I envy you, honestly. I could never pull something like that off.>
"What are you talking about...?"
"To say... hello?"
For an instant, a chill ran down my spine. Perhaps because I predicted what would come next.
<Yeah. The Imperials might not realize it, but the capital has half-fallen into our hands. There's not even a need to touch it.>
"What...."
<But, you know, my underlings keep throwing tantrums, saying it's too boring that way. Resurrecting the Demon King isn't some kid's game—I can't figure out what sort of fun they're looking for.>
I didn't need sixth sense or anything else. Anyone who couldn't infer from this conversation was an idiot.
This one was—.
<Anyway, you know too, right? That the country, Imperial Household and all, is going completely to shit.>
This one was....
<Everything is going according to plan.>
A calamity, and more.
<Well, it seems there's nothing more to discuss.>
The moment I heard that voice, I reflexively stepped back.
<Then I wish you a happy academy life. Ah, for the record, the core of the Construction Array is engraved on the fountain in the school's Central Plaza. If you want to deactivate it, go right ahead. If you want some Magic Stones, feel free to use the place as a hunting ground until the wave ends.>
My intuition was right.
"Kwaaaarrgh—!!"
There was a click as the speaker cut off, and immediately afterward, the Magic Beasts before my eyes collectively lost their reason as well. It meant the opposing side had given up control and fully released them.
[What a goddamn cursed first-meeting gift.]
"My thoughts exactly."
[This is why the Goddess upgraded me. From now on, you don't have to haul Scrolls around in your arms; you can trigger magic through me as a medium.]
"What?"
[It means if it's something you've learned and know, be it Fire Magic or Water Magic, you can use it to some extent. The circuits are all embedded within my body.]
What the Hardcover Book said was so staggering it was hard to believe. It was practically a complete negation of the Gold-Eye Tribe's racial penalty.
[However, only about three times a day.]
Damn it, there it was. It wasn't unlimited.
[The maximum amount of Mana Particles that can be stored in my body per day is 100 Sieverts. Think of it as consuming 30 Sieverts every time you deploy one magic spell, and use it accordingly. Obviously, higher-level Magic Arts will eat up that much more mana.]
To simplify, this was like a VR game world. There would be quests, and, naturally, the developers would give you a useful item at the right time and place to solve them.
If the operator of this game called the Arens Continent could be analogized to the entity called the Goddess, then this Hardcover Book amounted to a gift sent to adjust the game's difficulty at the appropriate time. The slight problem was that the name of the game was "Life."
Why weren't save and load possible? That was why users who quit once never came back.
In any case, the fact that I'd gained a new ability looked like a fait accompli, which meant the difficulty ahead would rise accordingly.
"Still, it means I can stash it and use it up to three times without a Mana Cigarette, right?"
In that case, the useful option was already decided.
[Supreme Unique Magic ─ Element Operation]
[Ah, you can only use that once. It's supreme-grade, after all.]
It was fussy about everything.
The situation was immediately urgent. Several seconds had already passed even as I was thinking this.
The moment those monsters were freed from their leash, their first act wasn't to attack me but to demolish the nearby buildings. Because I had stepped back, they seemed intent on dismantling the relatively closer structures first.
"Tch, here goes."
I grabbed the book with one hand. I could physically feel the mana flowing in from the Hardcover Book.
Magic Beasts produced by a Construction Array were heterogeneous lifeforms whose internal power source itself ran on mana. They were fundamentally different from naturally occurring Magic Beasts.
In other words, they had separate Magic Circuits. If so, I could take them down with a short circuit just as I had during the Practical Exam.
I prepared the short circuit.
Was about to prepare it.
"Aether!"
From far away, along with the pitter-patter of sprinting footsteps, a massive blaze roared to life. It resembled the crossfire I'd faced during the Combat Magic Assessment, but it was more refined and larger.
The flames flew not toward where I stood, but in the direction of the Magic Beasts.
[High-class Fire Magic — Advanced Bullet X 20]
[To have that much magical power at that age.... Remarkable talent.]
That was enough for me to recognize the girl running toward me.
"No time for greetings. Follow me!"
Having felled five mid-grade Magic Beasts in an instant, Rote didn't pause to exchange pleasantries the moment she met me; she snatched my wrist. Then she made a U-turn and dashed at high speed toward the direction of the academy, pulling me along.
As she ran, Rote asked me,
"Why didn't you come to the matriculation ceremony today?"
"...Because it was a bother."
"Seriously, for a reason like that...! Forget it. This isn't the time! The school has turned into a complete mess!"
Yeah. I figured as much.
So there wasn't a single second to spare for chatting with Rote.
Somehow, I had to get to the Central Plaza and calm this situation down.