Show Some Courage
Could you blame them?
"All right, everyone, stay calm!"
Beneath the dim lights, the voice of Mage—the only pro hunter left among the students—rang out through the gloom.
"This is exactly when we need to keep our heads!"
The simple fact that at least one professional was still with them seemed to steady their nerves. Little by little, the students pulled themselves together and focused on her words.
"First things first—is anyone hurt?"
"I-I twisted my ankle a little when I fell on the stairs…"
One student raised a hand. Mage turned to look at Lua.
"Teacher, if you wouldn't mind…"
"Y-Yes!"
Lua answered awkwardly and hurried over.
"Could you… show me your ankle?"
"Here."
The student sat down and held out a swollen ankle. The moment the injury entered Lua's field of vision, a soft ding chimed inside her head.
Diagnosis (Lv.1) has activated.
Target's Current Condition: Minor sprain
Huh…!
Text floated up before her eyes—an effect she hadn't expected at all. The Diagnosis skill she'd slotted in just because she had room left was apparently a passive that let her read a patient's condition.
"Healing."
The skill flared to life, and the student's ankle knit back to normal in moments.
Wonder if I can put this to use later?
She turned it over in her mind, but the only practical application she could think of right then was sniffing out fakers.
Once the treatment was done, Mage clapped her hands sharply, drawing every gaze.
"Good. Let's get a handle on the situation. Did all of you see the system window saying the first and second floors have been cut off?"
"Yes…"
"Does that mean we can't go back up?"
Mage nodded, her expression heavy.
"That's right. Monsters inside a gate I can handle without breaking a sweat—but there's nothing we can do about the gate's own gimmicks. I never imagined there'd be a trap like this."
"Um—"
A student raised a hand.
"We're going to be okay, right? We've got a pro hunter with us, so we can just take down the boss easy and get out of here, right?"
"……"
Mage worked her lips as if searching for the right words, then let out a long sigh.
"…I'll be honest with you. I didn't bring any offensive skills."
"What?"
"The person handling tank duty said they could deal a fair amount of damage as well, so we agreed beforehand that I'd focus entirely on buffs and scouting."
The students' faces went rigid.
"Which means facing the boss head-on… falls to all of you."
"……!"
Shock rippled through the group.
These were students who'd stepped into a gate for the first time today. A month ago, they hadn't even been Felix Academy students. And now they were suddenly expected to hunt the boss of a C-class gate?
"Th-That's insane! How are we supposed to…"
"We haven't even finished half the swordsmanship textbook!"
"They said it was just an observation trip, so I barely packed any skills!"
Objections poured in from every side.
Lua stood quietly beside Mage and listened.
Can't really blame them for reacting like that.
Put yourself in their shoes—it was like dragging people out for a casual tour and then ordering them to fight for their lives. The game systems might have carried over, but this wasn't a game. Die in a gate, and that was it.
—Even so.
Sitting around waiting for someone else to save you wasn't a good look either.
Lua hadn't been any good at combat in Hunter Hunting Academy from the start. She'd slammed her head against it over and over, failed constantly, tried every dirty trick, every strategy, every head-on clash she could think of—and that was how she'd eventually become a veteran.
Combat. Relationships. If you ran from everything at the outset, you walked away with nothing.
So Lua decided to take the first step herself.
As their teacher—and as a gamer who had already lived through this kind of mess.
"…You're all… hunter aspirants… right?"
"?"
Lua's thin, faltering voice pulled every student's eyes toward her. Being the center of attention set her heart hammering and her face burning red all over again, but she kept her gaze fixed on the floor and pressed on. Compared to the entrance ceremony, there were only about ten of them—so this was much easier, wasn't it?
"Th-Then isn't this exactly the moment… to show some courage?"
"…Teacher?"
Lua scrubbed the sweat from her palms against her clothes for no good reason and stood there in an awkward posture.
"Y-You all looked so confident beating up sandbags… a-a-are skeleton bones really that scary…?!"
"Teach…"
Being a socially anxious shut-in didn't mean her thoughts were timid. If anything, the words she couldn't pour out of her mouth only grew sharper as they were honed inside her head.
"I-If something this small is enough to make you whine… m-maybe you should just quit…?"
A merciless barb, delivered through a trembling voice.
The students' expressions hardened.
"Th-Then just wait for the Overflow… and run away looking pathetic. Y-You won't die, at least…!"
"……"
"If combat scares you that much, j-just sell all the gear you brought on the secondhand market and buy yourselves something tasty… a-and hand your special class seats over to students braver than you…!"
"……"
The students fell silent, glancing at one another, unsure how to respond to this pitiful stream of venom. Mage was no different.
"…Uuuugh."
Having finished speaking, Lua could only stand there crumpling the hem of her clothes in her fists.
About thirty seconds of uncomfortable silence dragged by—and then—
"—Hell yeah!"
A vigorous voice boomed from the back of the formation.
"That got me fired up."
It was Yu Juju. She strode forward, sliding gauntlets onto both arms as she came.
—Clang!
—Clang!
"After Teach goes and says all that, no way I can just stand here!"
The gauntlets were thick enough to cover her entire forearms, vicious spikes jutting from the backs of the hands. Those were Juju's weapons.
Seeing her step up, a girl near the front asked anxiously,
"Juju, a-are you sure about this?"
"Sure? Not even a little!"
"Then why…?"
"'Cause Teach inspired me!"
Juju grinned—heh—and gave Lua a light thump on the back with a gauntleted hand. She looked down at her with a smile so bright it lifted the spirits of everyone watching.
"Look, I ain't sayin' I'm guaranteed to beat the boss or nothin'. But like Teach said—if we just sit here, we ain't gettin' anywhere."
"……"
"Huh? What, am I the only one steppin' up?"
The provocative jab drew someone else forward.
"Do not treat the teacher with such disrespect."
Hoshikawa Himari. She slipped between Lua and Juju, firmly separating the two of them.
"Teacher. I wish to fight as well."
"Ah… yeah. Thank you!"
At Lua's thanks, Himari allowed herself a faint smile.
"Well then—anyone else?"
Mage seized the moment and put the question to the whole group—
"M-Me too!"
"I'll give it a shot!"
"Count me in!"
Volunteers sprang up one after another. Lua quietly pressed a hand to her chest in relief. Apparently enduring the humiliation had been worth it after all.
Centered around Lua and Mage, the students formed up in an advance formation.
At the very front: two tank-position students, including Yu Juju.
Behind them: four dealer-position students, Himari among them.
In the middle walked Lua and the pro hunter, while the remaining students—healers and mages—brought up the rear.
With a pro-grade healer and mage already present, there wasn't much need for the students in those roles to contribute heavily.
"Teacher, please focus your healing on the tanks. I'll handle buffing the dealers."
"Ah… got it!"
The formation advanced slowly, carefully. Unlike the first floor, which had still held traces of human construction, the second basement level felt like a completely natural cave. Now and then a flock of bats swept past, blotting out the ceiling lights, and an ominous clatter of bone drifted up from somewhere far ahead.
They had been walking for some time when—
—CRASH!
A corner wall collapsed, and skeletons came pouring through.
"They're here!"
The students went rigid with tension. Lua swallowed hard.
In that instant—
—Ding!
Diagnosis (Lv.1) has grown into Diagnosis (Lv.2).
Diagnosis (Lv.2) has activated.
Target's Current Condition: Awakened from sleep — disoriented
Oh?
Lua's eyebrows shot up. She'd never imagined Diagnosis would trigger on enemies too.
This might actually be useful…!
"Briefing, please!"
"Eek! Y-Yes!"
Mage's raised voice snapped Lua back to attention. In combat, the healer was traditionally the one who handled briefings.
Couldn't you do it yourself…
"S-Six of them! The two in front are holding shields—those are D-class Skeleton Shielders! Tanks, up front!"
"Moving up!"
The tank students echoed the call and stepped forward.
"Pin the two Shielders off to either side, and have the dealers take out the Skeleton Archers and Warriors behind them! Mage, buffs, please…"
"On it!"
Mage swept the staff in her hands, and a blue light bloomed around Himari and the other dealers.
"Yes! Over here, bone-boy!"
Juju rapped a Shielder lightly with her gauntlets and dragged the enemy toward the wall.
As an offensive tank, Yu Juju preferred to seize the initiative and lock down an enemy's attacks rather than simply sit back and block.
The other tank successfully pulled the second Shielder's aggro as well, leaving the Warriors and Archers behind them completely exposed.
Diagnosis (Lv.2) has activated.
Target's Current Condition: Nondisplaced fracture — right arm
Nondisplaced… what's that supposed to mean?
But a fracture was a fracture—the weak point was clear enough.
"Warrior—right arm is the weak spot!"
"Got it!"
A student with a greatsword swung the weapon in a broad arc. The Skeleton Warrior tried to slip aside with quick footwork, but the tip of the blade still grazed its right arm.
—Crack!
Diagnosis hadn't been wrong. That single graze shattered the Warrior's right arm completely. Riding the momentum, the greatsword student smashed the rest of it to pieces.
"Tch…"
Himari, already settled into her Hoshikawa-ryu Battoujutsu stance, looked frustrated at losing the target she'd been lining up.
"All right!"
—Smash!
Juju didn't stop at holding aggro—she pulverized her Shielder outright. The remaining skeletons soon found their eternal rest at the students' hands as well.
"What, that was nothing?"
"Right? We got worked up over nothing."
They'd been frightened at first, but these were top-tier freshmen for a reason. Add in support from a pro hunter like Mage, plus Lua's healing and briefings, and D-class trash mobs barely registered as a problem.
"Kraaaagh…"
—Thud!
A zombie that lunged out of nowhere,
"GROAAAR!"
—Slash!
a Zombie Assault Captain leading its underlings,
—Clatter-clatter…
"Hiyah!"
even the mid-boss Skeleton Chimera—all of them fell before the party's relentless advance. Before long the students' tension melted away, their movements growing smoother with every fight, and the number of times Lua needed to cast Healing steadily dwindled.
"Tch…!"
There was just one problem—Himari.
She still hadn't finished off a single monster. Her Hoshikawa-ryu Battoujutsu required a considerable charge time to activate.
Against a stationary sandbag, the way it had been during the class assignment test, she could unleash its full power without restraint. But monsters thrashed around wildly, and she spent most of her time simply trying not to miss.
Nothing I can do about it. It was the same in the main story…
This was one thing even Lua couldn't fix.
In the end, Himari still hadn't solved the problem by the time the party came to a halt before the staircase leading down to the third basement level.
"All right, everyone—hold up a moment."
Mage spoke. She didn't need to explain why. Everyone already knew.
Before the stairs descending to the third basement level stood a massive door carved with an eerie pattern, barring the way forward.
"…The boss room."