Combat Training Practice (4)
Combat Training Practice (4)
A dungeon is, by nature, a confined space.
The crunch of earth underfoot. Stifling air. The fear that one wrong turn will leave your bones lying undiscovered for decades.
Those elements combine to forge a space that feels utterly fantastical — the very essence of a "dungeon."
Except for the gaping hole that had just been punched through the terrain a few steps ahead of us.
Gazing through it at the twilight sky beyond, I couldn't help but exhale a ragged breath.
'We nearly got turned to dust.'
Yeah. That about summed it up.
"That impact just now — if it had hit us, there wouldn't have been so much as dust left."
Danya, every last strand of her tail fur standing on end, shuddered visibly. Hard to blame her. The moment reminded me of something — a fragment of the game's script surfacing in my memory.
[ A tremendous crash echoed. The dungeon shook. Rina Rosewell knew at once that something had happened. ]
The Combat Training Practicum scenario's true protagonist was Rina Rosewell. The crash she was meant to hear — it must have been this.
"Ian! Are you hurt anywhere?"
"I'm fine."
Danya came scampering over.
'Wait.'
A thought flickered through my mind.
Fanta X Aca. The reason Danya Catsnesia was never added as a full character. The reason I never once encountered her while playing.
If she'd been caught up in this event and died here, that would explain everything neatly.
I swallowed dryly.
The story of Fanta X Aca.
I was beginning to feel its weight.
"As expected, one really ought to serve a worthy god. Don't you agree?"
Yulan stood there grinning.
If he hadn't called out, we would all have been reduced to dust. The only reason I knew he belonged to the Blood Rock Sect in the first place was because capturing him was a full-fledged episode in the game.
He was one of the few Blood Rock Sect members whose personal details were properly revealed in the story. A creeping suspicion told me this unsettling bastard might be a bigger deal than I'd thought. Big enough, at least, to interfere with an academy training exercise.
"I'm starting to get a little curious, I'll admit."
"Ahaha. I'm honored."
The power of life and death.
That it had rested, even briefly, in Yulan's hands.
Fanta X Aca was not a game that permitted you to entertain complacent thoughts.
For now, at least, we were all alive.
We had to keep moving forward.
"If everyone's ready, let's head out."
The dungeon's core.
The central clearing that should have been hidden much deeper inside.
Thanks to the section of the dungeon that had abruptly been blown away, our destination was now far more visible than it should have been.
A murky swamp and, at its heart, the boss monster lying dormant.
It was not supposed to wake up.
Not yet. A minimum Class 4 threat was beyond the capabilities of raw first-year cadets.
"Let's move."
This scenario held meaning precisely because it marked the first appearance of a "corrupted" cadet.
But a question nagged at me.
'What happens when the story's flow changes like this?'
Originally, Rina Rosewell was the one who closed out this episode.
She was meant to stop the corrupted cadet — Jacob — from racing ahead and waking the boss monster.
But.
Rina's own circumstances had already deviated significantly.
I couldn't shake the unease.
'That thing cannot wake up right now.'
A single silver wolf, slumbering at the center of this place.
Its undisturbed rest was a prerequisite for the entire storyline to come.
My pace quickened.
◆
A tremendous crash echoed.
The dungeon shuddered violently.
— A lurch.
Rina Rosewell nearly stumbled but caught her balance immediately. She sensed at once that something had occurred. Her stride did not slow.
Her footsteps were relentless.
"Rina... slow down a little. You're going too fast."
From behind, a pitiful groan reached her.
The useless vanguard knight. The priest's voice, supporting Jacob.
"Haah."
Rina let out a sigh.
Jacob. Why had that damned bastard wormed his way onto her team just to become dead weight?
— Grrrrrr!
Her sigh was swallowed by the timely arrival of a Dusk Wolf.
"Rina! You need to fall back! Dusk Wolves are immune to magic...!"
Ignoring the scout's warning, she began to chant. Spirit tongue spilled rapidly from her lips.
"Burn it all."
For an instant, Rina's hair shimmered azure before returning to its normal shade.
Then a colossal torrent of flame engulfed the passageway.
"...!"
Nothing remained beyond it.
"Let's go."
Squad 7's team members rubbed their eyes.
Had they imagined things?
There had been a pack of wolves ahead of them just a moment ago.
Rina's abilities... had been showing these abnormal facets for some time now.
'I need to move faster.'
Rina's own mind, however, was cleanly occupied by a single objective.
A damp atmosphere gradually enveloped them. Silver shafts of light bled through the dark passage ahead.
Rounding the corner, the space opened wide.
Beneath the waxing moon hanging overhead, the swamp spread out before her just as she'd been told.
"Scout. Priest. You two go first. I'll follow. That'll work better."
"B-but what about Jacob...?"
"I'll support him. Set him down there."
An utterly frigid command.
The two obeyed immediately.
Once they'd gone, Rina looked down.
Jacob, writhing at her feet, resembled some sort of insect.
Should she simply trample him?
"Get up. Hey."
"Ghk."
Rina hauled him upright and braced him against her shoulder.
Points.
Earning points in this practicum required teamwork as much as speed.
Points and competition. That was everything in Rina's mind.
"Walk. Endure it if it hurts."
"I... got it."
The swamp sucked at their steps.
Using a spirit to take his weight, Rina spoke.
"You know, this world... it feels like it really goes out of its way to hate me."
"Ugh...."
"What do you think, Jacob? Why does everyone make things so hard for me? I treat everyone kindly. So why is my life so damn difficult?"
"S-sorry...."
"Take you, for instance. You're in the Knight Department, aren't you? You told me you were confident. And that's it? You can't even block one skull-headed thing without crumbling. You just become a burden to the team."
Jacob's head drooped.
Rina gazed down at him, then lifted her eyes.
The waxing moon hung full and clear.
Oddly, the more the moonlight washed over her, the more something inside her chest simmered.
Then.
Her eyes caught a distant figure moving far ahead.
"...Ian Blackangus."
There he was.
Rina clenched her teeth.
"Hey. Jacob."
"...Huh?"
"I need to get a good score on this practicum. You get that?"
"...I-I'm sorry."
"No, I'm not blaming you."
Her voice carried an ominous edge.
"So just pretend you didn't see anything. Okay?"
Her hair flared a deep cobalt under the moonlight.
Then her hand flashed crimson.
Flame took shape.
— Shiiiiiik!
A lance of fire carved forward, flash-boiling every trace of moisture in its path into steam.
At its terminus stood a single man.
— KAGAGAGANG!
A massive explosion erupted.
◆
I was pushing through the swamp, searching for Rina Rosewell. Or to be precise, searching for Jacob.
If the corrupted version of him wasn't stopped and the boss monster woke up, this place would become a mass grave. Aether might handle it, but ordinary cadets stood no chance.
"I sense something."
Danya's ears abruptly pricked up.
A beastkin's instincts were generally reliable.
The moment I focused on mana detection, heat bloomed at my back.
"Get clear!"
I shouted and simultaneously concentrated Lunar across my front.
— KAGAGAGANG!
A screeching clamor of magical force clashing against metallic resistance. The flames cut off. Without the moonlight reinforcing the Lunar, they would have pierced straight through.
She was strong.
I'd blocked the first strike, but most of the Lunar had already melted.
And we were in the middle of a swamp.
No visible elements around to effectively extract.
'Did she aim for this?'
The malice behind it was unmistakable.
At the end of the magic's trajectory stood Rina Rosewell.
And beside her, Jacob, his expression blank.
◆
Jacob stared numbly at the scene unfolding before him.
Rina Rosewell's transformation was startling, but that wasn't what had frozen his mind.
The moment she'd started berating him, his head had gone strangely clear. The endless tide of guilt toward his teammates, the self-loathing, the hollow despair... all of it snapped clean like a severed cord.
— Block her.
Screech.
Jacob looked up at the sky.
A man's voice reached him.
An irresistible command.
— Stop the one beside you.
Stop Rina Rosewell?
But he didn't possess that kind of power.
— You are strong.
His heart pounded.
Something black began to coalesce inside his chest.
Inferiority. Hatred. Defeat. All those violent anxieties and thoughts fused into a single driving force.
He felt it instinctively.
His very blood vessels were becoming a magic circle.
Power.
The overwhelming strength he had chased for so long.
The corner of Jacob's mouth curled upward.
— Thud. Thu-thud.
His heart hammered savagely.
Overwhelming force surged through his body.
In an instant, pitch-black energy engulfed him.
And the moment Rina Rosewell's incantation ended, Jacob threw himself forward.
— KWAGAGAGANG!
Flame and darkness collided in a brutal clash.
◆
"......."
I wordlessly took in the scene before my eyes.
A cataclysmic explosion.
The magical tug-of-war ended, and Jacob — the loser — vanished without a trace.
A line from the story surfaced in my mind.
[ Rina Rosewell stopped the corrupted cadet. ]
The outcome remained the same.
But the process had twisted violently.
Rina hadn't stopped the corrupted cadet.
The corrupted cadet had stopped Rina.
...Cause and effect had inverted.
Where the hell was this insane story heading now?
"......."
A bitter taste filled my mouth.
A variable existed.
A variable strong enough to warp the scenario's entire process.
And it didn't take much thought to figure out who that was.
Three people stood at the center of this scene.
Rina Rosewell, glaring at me with murderous intent.
Yulan, watching her with fascinated curiosity.
And me — Ian.
Two of them had originally belonged in this scenario. One of them had never existed here before.
'...Fuck.'
A cold bead of sweat traced down my spine.
I understood now.
The Blood Rock Sect and the heroines alike — both were moving with me as their destination.
The one who had underestimated Ian Blackangus the most...
might well have been Ian himself.
I looked toward the central chamber we'd been so desperate to protect for the sake of the story.
...The boss, mercifully, had not awakened.