Fixed Zone (1)

"Hey."

"Yeah."

"Why do you think you lost?"

"To Song Cheon-hye?"

"Mm."

Her opening up about her worries was a good sign. It meant she'd let me in, even just a little. So I chose my words with extra care.

"The terrain probably had a lot to do with it. The space was cramped, and there was no cover anywhere. That's a terrible matchup for a gunslinger."

The circular arena and the deathmatch format were, in effect, an environment and a set of rules that forced a head-on showdown. Under different conditions, the outcome might well have been different. If the space had been even two or three times larger, covering it all with [Lightning Thread] would have been impossible. And with something to hide behind, she could have stayed concealed the full five minutes and carried it to a win on points.

But Seo Ye-in slowly shook her head.

"That's not it."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

She didn't want to blame outside factors; she wanted a fundamental fix. How does a gunslinger pierce Song Cheon-hye's magic barrier — and, further down the road, the barrier of an even stronger, higher-tier mage? That was the real question. The answer was already sitting ready in my head, of course, but for now I decided to take a step back.

"I did think about it while I was watching, but I'm not sure hearing it from me will do you much good. I'm a supporter, remember. My scores are lower than yours, too."

"I still want to hear it."

Whether it helped or not, she wanted to know what I thought. If she'd come this far, there was no harm in offering advice not as a supporter, but as a grizzled veteran gunslinger.

I held out both palms.

"Here, take a look."

A pinch of mana kindled in each hand, compressing and shaping itself into bullets. I deliberately made the two formations different. One barely managed to hold its shape at all; the other was so precise you'd have believed someone had painted a real round blue.

"If you only had one shot to spend on a magic barrier, which would you pick?"

"…"

It was a question with only one answer. Seo Ye-in's finger pointed to the precise one. At the same time she looked faintly startled — apparently this was her first time seeing a magic bullet shaped this perfectly.

Maybe I should have made it clumsier?

Come to think of it, this was basic by my standards, but probably not by a first-year's. In moments like this, the trick was to move along naturally without letting anything show. First I picked up the clumsy bullet and jabbed its tip against my palm a few times. The bullet shape promptly collapsed and slipped away into nothing.

"Try to punch through a barrier with a bullet that's only roughly shaped, and it becomes a contest of mana against mana. And then the mage with the bigger mana pool wins, plain and simple."

Next I took the precise one and pressed its tip against my palm the same way. The tip crumbled, leaking a wisp of blue light, but the form held.

"But the reason a swordsman can cleave a mage's barrier, or a gunslinger pierce one, is mana that's condensed and focused into a single point. So put more time into mana training, and take care with the shaping of every single bullet — I think you'll find your answer."

"…"

Seo Ye-in listened in silence until I finished. Then she tilted her head slightly and asked,

"…Mana training?"

"Don't tell me you've never done it."

"Mm."

"Then how did you make the magic bullets?"

Seo Ye-in tilted her head again.

"…Just… did?"

"What about the [Magic Bullet] skill?"

"Never learned it."

"?"

"?"

We traded question marks back and forth.

Well, this is unexpected.

The magic bullet I'd just made looked convincing enough, but it had really been for show. A plain hand-shaped bullet and a round enhanced by the [Magic Bullet] skill differed in killing power like heaven and earth. It was that fundamental a skill for a gunslinger. And she'd gone all this time without learning it. If she didn't even know how to train her mana, I could guess her related skills and traits were hovering near rock bottom too. Which meant she'd been winging every last bit of it on pure instinct — and if that was true…

She's a genius.

If anything, I needed to raise my assessment of Seo Ye-in another notch. She'd pushed Song Cheon-hye to the wall without even a proper foundation to stand on.

So I tossed out an offhand offer.

"If you're okay with it, I could set aside some time sometime and take a look at it for you."

"Okay."

Seo Ye-in nodded without a moment's hesitation. I was tempted to run a few quick tests right then and there, but —

— ♩♪♩♬

A melody drifting from the speakers announced the end of lunch. It was time for the conquest exam to begin.

A hill occupied one corner of Dungeon Island, neither too high nor too low. But that hill was not a place people climbed up and down. It was a place you went into. And passing through the massive tunnel before us, you arrived at a labyrinthine underworld where countless dungeons tangled together and burrowed on toward the endless depths below. This was the Dungeon Hall — the very place where the students of Dragon Slayer Academy fought their conquest exams.

"Brother Kim."

I ran into Go Hyeon-woo near the tunnel. Perhaps because he'd finally gotten some rest, his expression was much brighter. I handed him a sandwich and asked.

"Feeling any better?"

"Thanks to you, I am. My thanks, once again."

"Good to hear. Let's go, then."

Off to finish the placement exam.

Every dungeon on the Dungeon Hall's surface level was an artificial one, built for the education or examination of students. The several teleport portals gaping open beside Lee Sudok were a fine example.

"Everyone's here? I'll explain the conquest exam."

Lee Sudok raised a small window beside himself.

"You'll enter through the portal one at a time and take the test. Most of you have probably already familiarized yourselves with the High Score rules."

High Score. Every monster killed within the ten-minute time limit was tallied and converted into points. Higher-grade monsters were worth more per head — an orc or a troll, for instance, paid out more than a goblin. The goal was to kill as many quality monsters as possible before the clock ran out.

"Um… Teacher?"

One student cautiously raised a trembling hand. Asking the Human Butcher a question was a frightening prospect — but walking into the placement exam with a fresh question left unresolved was even more frightening.

"Speak."

"Um… what kind of rule is the Fixed Zone?"

Having asked, he glanced around at the other students as if seeking agreement, but judging by the identical expressions on every face, they all harbored the same question. Lee Sudok answered as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"The Fixed Zone is a rank-locked area. In this case, everything is fixed at F-rank. Your [Cores] — which most of you possess — will drop to F-rank as well, so be careful. Those of you who've been flinging spells around freely until now will regret it if you mismanage your mana."

"…!"

"…!"

It was a bolt from the blue. The performance of the equipment, skills, and traits they'd handled like their own limbs would plummet. The only thing that carried over unchanged was technique long since ground into their own bodies.

Go Hyeon-woo lowered his voice and asked me.

"Then in this Fixed Zone, even the most storied famous blade would be no different from this humble iron sword, I take it?"

"More or less. It's not that you can't use high-grade items or skills at all — the power just doesn't come through. You might be better off spending that time swinging your sword one more time."

"Hmm. How intriguing."

Saying so, he began to stroke the iron sword he'd newly brought along. But in our class, only a precious few — Go Hyeon-woo among them — found any of this intriguing. Most wore faces thick with confusion and worry, at a loss for what to do. A sidelong glance showed that Song Cheon-hye, too, had clearly never anticipated this exam content; her face was written over with flustered dismay.

"Enough."

At Lee Sudok's single word, everyone shut their mouths as if bound by a promise. He spoke as if spitting the words out, his expression sour.

"Dungeon interiors differing from their survey reports is an everyday occurrence. Are you going to whine like this every single time? What you should be doing right now is thinking about how you will handle the situation."

The rebuke was perfectly effective. One by one, they hardened their faces and began steeling their resolve — with the mindset that whatever waited inside, they would use everything they had.

"You will enter one at a time, in the order I call. Choi Jeongpil."

Choi Jeongpil stepped forward, tension written all over him. After a few deep breaths he set his foot into the teleport portal, and the dungeon soon closed its maw. Having confirmed as much, Lee Sudok called the next name.

"Han Somi."

"Yes, sir!"

Han Somi strolled into the dungeon with a cheerful smile and a light step. Not a trace of nerves to be found anywhere on her — Lee Sudok's eyes lingered on her for a moment, faintly intrigued. Then he withdrew his gaze and moved on.

"Park Gyeong-a."

With each name called, the waiting students thinned by one, and the teleport portals closed one by one. When the dungeons were a little over half occupied —

"Gwaaagh!"

With a single scream, a student came shooting back out of a portal. The rule was to kill as many monsters as you could in ten minutes, but this poor soul had lasted barely three — nowhere near ten. A mid-exam retire. The dungeon's safety system had judged, for whatever reason, that the exam could no longer proceed, and simply ejected the participant.

"Uwahk!"

The portal spat out one more student. This one had at least held on two minutes longer — five minutes total. Still a retire, of course.

Looks like they fought the way they usually do.

They'd probably tried to mow the monsters down by flinging skills around as always — overlooking the small detail that their skills' destructive power had dropped to F-rank. With the monsters that should have been swept away in heaps charging at them alive and kicking, they'd floundered and taken a thorough beating. Kept getting hammered until they were finally thrown out.

"Uhk!"

"Kyaaah!"

The failures piled up fast. Which also meant the number of students crawling pitifully across the ground was growing. Those still waiting their turns watched the scene and grew tenser still. I am absolutely not ending up like that.

"Uuuugh…"

"Stop it, stop hitting me, you damn bastards…!"

Even after being ejected, the failures rolled on the ground, groaning. It was, after all, an artificial dungeon with safety measures layered on thick, so no physical harm was done — but the experience of being mobbed by a seething horde of monsters was more than enough to shatter a person's composure.

Amid all this, ten minutes finally passed since the exam began. The first student from our class to last the full ten minutes emerged. It was Choi Jeongpil, the very first to enter. He staggered out looking utterly spent, mentally if nothing else — but he was standing on his own two feet, and that was what counted.

A little apart from the exam portals floated a hologram window the size of a large billboard: the leaderboard. Names, scores, and year rankings displayed in real time.

Soon after, Han Somi, who had entered right after Choi Jeongpil, and then Park Gyeong-a after her, both finished their exams and walked out.

Students from the other classes began succeeding in a steady stream as well. Each time, a name and score was added to the leaderboard, and the rankings rolled on and on. Choi Jeongpil's rank, once in the top 20%, slid steadily downward.

The spectators' attention drifted from the failures to the leaderboard. The tension over the [Fixed Zone] hadn't gone anywhere, but a competitive hunger to carve out a high rank on that board seemed to be catching fire.

"Seo Ye-in."

At last, her turn came. I tossed a short word of advice to Seo Ye-in, who was giving her two pistols a final check.

"You're better off with the rifle. If mana management gets rough, just put headshots into whatever gets close."

"Okay."

Seo Ye-in took the advice without asking a single question. The pistols broke apart in an instant and reassembled into the rifle. She shot me a glance from those expressionless eyes, and somehow it seemed to ask, I did good, right? When I nodded, she gave a small nod back and entered the dungeon.

"…"

Meanwhile the back of my head had started to prickle, and when I turned around, Song Cheon-hye was glaring at me with open displeasure. What business does he have giving advice? she was probably thinking. The moment our eyes met, she turned her head away with a haughty sniff.

"Kim Ho."

Waiting my turn, my name was eventually called. The moment I slipped one foot into the portal, my body was whisked away somewhere. The next instant, I was standing in the middle of a forest drenched in fog — a forest still holding the darkness and damp of the hour before dawn.

Reading the notification, I felt ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the corners of my mouth curl upward.

It's been a while since I've been here, too.

Back in Dragon Slayer Academy, I had gone by a number of titles that made people's eyes twitch. The S-Rank Factory. The Graduate Assembly Line. The Supporter Who's Simply Too Strong. And — the God of the Fixed Zone. In the Fixed Zone, I had never once lost to a single soul.