Week 9 Midterms (13)
Main Quest 1
🎯 Objective: Banish the darkness that has fallen over the midterms.
🎁 Reward: Paid out on a sliding scale according to achievement.
Quests carried modifiers — Sub, Event, and the like — depending on their importance and character, and the Main tag was exceedingly rare.
So when, exactly, did that rare tag appear?
When the quest was directly tied to an EX-rank quest.
To put it more precisely: a Main Quest issued whenever the outcome of an event would bear directly on the end of the world.
At this very moment, the students were sealed inside the midterm dungeons, waging a desperate battle against ogres injected with Blood Explosion Pills. With the safety mechanisms offline, the risk of maiming or death was entirely real. And every future hero who fell here brought the world that much closer to its doom.
So what did clearing a Main Quest actually require?
The most straightforward answer was to hold out. Endure long enough, and the academy would wrest back control of the dungeon — at which point everyone would be ejected to the outside, whether they liked it or not.
For a higher rating, though, simply enduring wouldn't cut it. We had to go a step further: cull the ogres' numbers by every means available, and keep Alpha tied up for as long as we could.
That was why I'd laid all that groundwork before the Main Quest had even appeared, and why I was still bustling about right now —
And why that one over there needed catching, too.
"Grrrrr……."
The ogre glared at us through bloodshot eyes. Then, without warning, it cocked back the arm clutching its club and hurled it forward with everything it had.
- WHUMP—
A club as thick as a tree trunk came flying at a terrifying speed.
"!!"
The unforeseen move caught everyone off guard for a heartbeat, but Go Hyeon-woo was already stepping forward. Sword tilted aslant, he unleashed the technique he had held in reserve.
Following Stream
- Whish—!
The club he turned aside sailed on and snapped several trees behind us like matchsticks. Not one of us so much as glanced at the wreckage; every eye stayed locked on the ogre's every move.
"KRAAAAH—!"
Whatever reason it had possessed was gone entirely. The beast dropped low and came charging on all fours like a wild animal, then flung its whole body at Go Hyeon-woo and Baek Jun-seok the instant they entered its reach, both hands outstretched.
"Hm."
"Hah!"
- WHAM—!
Each man shed the grab in his own fashion. But where the earlier exchanges had left them reasonably composed, this time Go Hyeon-woo was driven back a couple of steps and Baek Jun-seok dropped to one knee. The Blood Explosion Pill had swollen the ogre's destructive power so far that even a clean deflection let part of the impact through.
Before either man could reset his stance, its limbs came swinging again. They barely turned the blows aside a second time, but Go Hyeon-woo was shoved back farther still, and Baek Jun-seok's legs sank nearly halfway into the earth.
"Hnn……!"
"Khhk……!"
The beast granted them no quarter, its chain of attacks coming without a breath's pause.
- Creeeak,
From its body rose the sound of rubber bands stretched taut to snapping, and of bone grinding on bone — its muscles and joints shrieking under movements far beyond their limits.
- BOOM! BOOM!
Worse, a Spiral Explosion burst against its chest, and fireballs and magic bullets punched home — and still it showed no sign of feeling pain. It didn't so much as stagger, simply swinging its limbs like something possessed, hell-bent on crushing the two men before it.
This isn't going to work.
Two vanguards alone were slowly losing the exchange. Keep this up, and Go Hyeon-woo might manage — but Baek Jun-seok would crumble first.
So I snapped out a short order and stepped forward myself.
"Trap."
"Sir, yes sir!"
Leaving Shin Byung-cheol's answer behind me, I closed the distance to the ogre in a flash.
- CLANG, CLANG!
"Khhk……!"
Baek Jun-seok was swaying worse by the second, cracks spiderwebbing through the mana wrapped around his shield. At the very instant the ogre drew its fist back to hammer down once more, I cut in ahead of it.
- CLANG—!
I slammed Root into it, Wind Force and Storm Cloud layered over the strike, and the ogre's fist knocked away sideways.
Baek Jun-seok and I traded a glance.
"My thanks. You just saved my life."
"Sit out a round, then get right back in."
"Understood."
- CLANG, CLANG,
While Go Hyeon-woo and I held the line, Baek Jun-seok gathered himself and rejoined us in short order. With the defense up from two men to three, the whole affair finally became manageable.
Meanwhile, at our rear, Shin Byung-cheol was laying his trap precisely as instructed. Chopsticks by the dozen punched home into soil, trees, and rock alike, steadily carving out a defined zone.
"……!"
Hong Yeon-hwa read the intent as well and launched into a smooth, unbroken chant. Her ruby flared crimson, and a vast Fire Pillar array etched itself across the ground, scaled to the trap's reach.
Before long, Shin Byung-cheol hollered:
"All set!"
I hammered a heavy blow into the ogre's fist with Root and called out:
"Everybody out!"
Go Hyeon-woo and Baek Jun-seok broke left and right without a moment's hesitation — which left the ogre staring at the only target remaining: me.
The instant it charged, I flung myself backward and came down neatly between Hong Yeon-hwa and Seo Ye-in.
"KRAAAAH—!"
And the moment the still-charging ogre stamped into the trap —
Wire Trap
- Whirrrr—!
The densely planted chopsticks loosed their mana threads all at once, and in a heartbeat the beast was trussed up tight as a cocoon.
"KRAAAAH!"
One violent twist of its body snapped more than half the threads — but fresh strands shot out at once and lashed it down again.
As it thrashed about, Hong Yeon-hwa leveled her wand at it —
Fire Pillar
- KWAAAH—!!
A pillar of fire roared up from the great array and swallowed the ogre whole.
We watched for a stretch, and when the flames finally guttered out, all that remained on the spot was an enormous lump of charcoal — and a single crystal.
At that, every last one of us heaved a long sigh.
"Phew."
"Aaah."
"The same ogre, and yet it sharpens this drastically in strength — truly the Blood Cult's secret elixir, as expected."
Go Hyeon-woo murmured his admiration under his breath as he tended to his sword.
With six of us on the field, I'd half assumed ogres would be easy pickings — but one dose of Blood Explosion Pill and they were every bit as hard again.
Unfortunately, this was only the beginning.
- THUD, THUD, THUD,
As the heavy footfalls drew nearer, Shin Byung-cheol and Baek Jun-seok each had a word to say.
"Oh, come on — again? Just let us catch our breath."
"Is three in a row not rather excessive?"
With Blood Explosion Pill coursing through them, the ogres' senses had been amplified another notch as well — and a pillar of fire was second to none for drawing the attention of beasts like that.
Before long, an ogre revealed itself, fixing us with a low growl.
"Grrrrr……."
"Same drill as before. Move."
We all shifted to our positions in flawless unison.
We fought our way forward, cutting down the ogres as they popped up one after another like sausages off a string. It was wearing on the body, but with no need to roam in search of prey, the trade-off balanced out nicely.
As we went, the sullen sky darkened further into indigo, and the rain that had been falling a drop or two at a time swelled steadily until it was all but a deluge.
- SHAAAAA—
Seo Ye-in had pulled her Transparent Ghillie Suit over herself, but with the rain hammering down without pause she'd been reduced to a half-transparent water spirit; Hong Yeon-hwa had conjured a tiny umbrella of flame and kept it all to herself. And the men simply took the rain as it came.
"……."
When I looked back at her, soaked clean through, Hong Yeon-hwa's eyes darted every which way. She seemed to be agonizing over whether she, too, ought to snuff out her flame umbrella and get wet like the rest of us.
It felt like I was needlessly pressuring her, so I turned my gaze forward again and walked on. Hong Yeon-hwa trotted along at my heels.
- Boom-boom-BOOM,
Before long, a thunderous roar tore through the drumming rain. Another team was locked in combat — and by the sound of it, not far off, either.
The others trained their eyes on me, waiting on my call. There was obviously nothing to weigh.
"We're going to help."
To push the Main Quest's achievement rating higher, I had to hold the line so that even one fewer person came to harm. And if their skills were up to standard, they might well make useful allies against Alpha.
So we quickened our pace toward the roar.
What we found there was exactly as I'd guessed:
"KRAAAAH—!"
An ogre gone berserk on Blood Explosion Pill.
Facing it down were Gwak Ji-cheol and Jeong Su-ji, Park Na-ri with the tiger Beom-i, and one girl whose name I didn't know. The Emerald Magic Tower and the Nature Club had apparently paired off two apiece.
I had the situation analyzed at a glance.
An all-in turtling composition.
They'd left the offense entirely to the tiger Beom-i while the other four focused on buffs, healing magic, and harassment. Against other participants, that would have made for a fairly threatening setup — but their opponent was an ogre.
Their damage output is hopelessly thin.
Beom-i darted nimbly around the ogre, raking at it again and again. True to its spirit-beast nature, it commanded combat ability on par with a solid first-year, but its raw attack power was nothing special. And with all four of them leaning on Beom-i's claws alone, no meaningful damage was ever going to land. With Blood Explosion Pill in the mix, the thing was tougher still.
Which was how we came upon them scrambling to do nothing but survive.
"KRAAK!"
"Gwak Ji-cheol!"
Or to put it more precisely — at the very moment Gwak Ji-cheol took the ogre's blow and went tumbling across the ground.
A hair too late.
The instant I leveled Root at the ogre, wind converged on its chest and detonated.
- BOOM!
"KRAAAAH!"
The ogre whipped its head toward us at once and came barreling in at a terrifying speed. But then the nearby trees swayed, leaned, and stretched as though made of rubber, snaring its limbs — Park Na-ri's side had unleashed wood-attribute magic.
Park Na-ri shouted:
"N-now!"
We abandoned any thought of forming up and poured everything into offense. Go Hyeon-woo's Clear Stream, Baek Jun-seok's sword strikes, Shin Byung-cheol's chopsticks, Seo Ye-in's magic bullets —
The ogre's chest caved in at last, unable to withstand the onslaught.
"Grrrk……."
- CRASH,
Leaving the ogre to collapse with a phlegm-choked death rattle, we rushed to Gwak Ji-cheol's side — and our faces fell in the same instant.
"Ugh……."
Gwak Ji-cheol's body had been half-crushed by the berserk ogre's arm. His limbs hung bent at angles they had no business bending, and blood streamed steadily from his nose and mouth. Even with injuries this grave, the dungeon's emergency extraction showed no sign of triggering.
"J-just hold on a little! We'll tr-treat you!"
Park Na-ri's group showered him in healing magic, but theirs was the slow-burning, heal-over-time kind — superb at sustaining, poor at raw potency. Nowhere near enough to drag a dying man back from the brink.
"……."
Gwak Ji-cheol's gaze drifted from onlooker to onlooker, and at the last it settled on me. He reached out a hand and forced the words through what strength he had left.
"Tell... my brother... I'm... sorry..."
"What are you even saying, you idiot."
I pulled out a Recovery Scroll and tore it open — and bright light flooded my vision.
A radiant brilliance bursts forth, washing away every wound it touches.
Item:Recovery Scroll
Effect:Complete restoration of injuries
- FLASH—!
By the time the light died away, not so much as a scratch remained on Gwak Ji-cheol's body.
Blinking both eyes, I gave the man still lying on the ground a couple of kicks.
"Up you get, idiot."
"……."
Gwak Ji-cheol sheepishly picked himself up off the ground.
[190] The Support Ate It All