The Rift Opens
After the field instructor finished his explanation, the students bustled about, gathering into their assigned groups. Zeron waited until they had formed up before heading over to the one with the little brat. There was one more familiar face there. Flone, if he remembered right. She was the friend of the brat from that night when the kid had gotten completely hammered.
"Ah, Instructor Zeron!" She greeted him with a strange little smile. She even jabbed the brat in the side with her elbow. The brat's face flushed slightly, but she didn't react much beyond that.
This kid... she's not the one spreading rumors about us, is she?
Zeron scratched his chin and stood with his weight shifted to one leg. The brat's group had eight people total. Controlling every single one of them was going to be a massive pain in the ass.
"Well, whatever. Some of you know me, some don't. Name's Zeron." He glanced sideways. The other groups were already starting to head into the forest. "Let's get moving for now. We'll handle explanations or whatever once we're there."
Zeron led the students into the forest. He didn't go too deep. Coming back would be a hassle, and there was no telling what might happen further in.
"First day, you'll stick with me. Just hunt a few and get a feel for it." From the second day onward, they could roam on their own as long as they didn't stray too far. That was the instruction he'd received anyway.
"Ready to go?"
Zeron took the lead. Since the students had formed the groups themselves, most were commoners. Six out of eight were commoners, and the other two were nobles who didn't seem particularly high-ranking. Thankfully, none of them acted rebellious. At least from the students' side of things.
"Hmm..."
Zeron expanded his senses. His growth environment had been shit, so even as a Master his mana reserves were pathetically low, but the range was still impressive.
"Found some. Goblins?"
He led the students toward them. The kids held their breath, tension written across their faces. The brat was no different. She tugged insistently at Zeron's sleeve.
"Oppa, when we find them, do we take care of it ourselves?"
"Yeah, that'd be better."
The brat nodded and flipped the selector on her rifle from safety to semi-auto. It wasn't standard academy gear but a top-grade rifle David had procured for her. The ammo was custom, too. Against goblins, even live rounds would blow their heads clean off.
"Hold up."
Zeron stopped the students. A group of goblins was visible a short distance away, roughly twenty of them. Honestly, if the brat simply opened fire, they'd be turned into meat paste.
"Normally in this kind of situation, an ambush is the smart play. You take a hit first. But this isn't real combat, is it? It's practice time for you lot."
With those words, Zeron picked up a pebble from the ground. He tossed it in a casual arc. The stone flew in a parabola and struck a goblin's head with a solid thunk, then bounced off.
- Kerek?
The goblin scratched its head and looked around. Zeron shoved the back of the nearest student.
"Whoa...!?"
The student, caught in an awkward stance, locked eyes with the goblins.
Haha...
The student laughed awkwardly. The goblins answered with a strange roar.
- Kerurung-!
They raised crude weapons—stone axes and spears.
"There you go. Kill each other!"
Zeron cackled and perched himself on a nearby rock. The students' faces drained of all color.
"Huff... huff..."
"Ugh...!"
Once the relatively short battle ended, the students reacted in their own ways while catching their breath. The battlefield was gruesome. Goblin corpses hacked to pieces because they couldn't be killed with a single clean cut. Heads blown apart. Guts spilling out. The ground was soaked in their signature green blood, giving the whole scene an eerie atmosphere.
"Oppa..."
The brat was holding up better than most. Having already experienced killing once seemed to help. She grabbed Zeron's sleeve with a slightly queasy expression.
"How was it?"
"...I think I'll do better next time."
"Good. Honestly, if we're talking pure firepower, you could've wiped them out by yourself in two minutes flat."
"Yeah... I get why experience matters now."
The brat subtly rubbed her head against his arm, then trotted off to check on Flone. Flone was still deathly pale, trying to steady her ragged breathing. When Zeron glanced over, he saw her massive greatsword—completely mismatched with her personality—coated in green blood.
"Flone, you okay?"
"Y-yeah... Uee, Medeia, you're totally fine?"
"Yeah, well... I've had similar experiences before."
Medeia looked around. Everyone except the baron's son, Tohu, seemed to be struggling. She swapped out her empty magazine, checked her rifle, and stole a glance at Zeron. He was casually smoking a cigarette, watching them like it was entertainment.
That kind of leisure could only come from absolute confidence in his own strength. Medeia recalled the Sword Gang she'd seen that day. That red, ferocious star. It carried such savage bloodlust that it felt like it could rip out the throat of any living thing in a single bite.
Her fist tightened. Impatience gnawed at her. She hadn't realized Uncle Zeron was that powerful. At this rate, someone else might snatch him right out from under her. If she'd known, she would've moved faster.
"Hey, hey. Let's get moving. How long are you planning to rest?"
Watching Zeron grind his cigarette butt into the dirt, Medeia swallowed hard. There was no other choice now. She'd change her approach—make it more stimulating, more aggressive. She would conquer him.
The first day of field practice ended without any major incidents. There had been a midnight visit from the brat wearing an utterly shameless outfit, but after Zeron freaked out and shoved her back into her own room, she must have been embarrassed too because she stayed quiet the rest of the night.
On the second day, he let the students roam more freely. One kid panicked and just screamed, nearly getting himself killed, but the others managed to take down the goblins without too much trouble. Zeron gave the panicking one a solid knock on the head as a lesson. That night, the brat showed up wearing normal clothes. She suggested a walk, and while they were strolling around the lodging area she suddenly threw herself into his arms. After he patted her head and comforted her a bit, she pouted and left.
And now the third day. Today.
Before leaving his room, Zeron leaned against the windowsill and lit a cigarette. He was already getting a headache wondering what stunt the brat would pull this time.
"Huu..."
The weather was warming up, so the smoke seemed thinner than usual. He ground the butt out in the ashtray and stepped outside.
Someone was waiting for him right in front. It was Pingchang.
"Zeromon! Good morning!"
"Yeah. Amylase, right?"
"It's Iris!"
"Ah, right."
He peeled the clinging girl off him and led the students toward the forest. Just like yesterday, he released them into the woods at an appropriate distance, then sat on a tree stump to kill time.
That was when he felt it. Something off. A sensation he couldn't quite pin down, yet strangely familiar. Without thinking, he kicked off the ground.
It was where the brat was.
As he ran, a memory flashed through his mind. The day of the midterms. The wolf that had torn through space and burst out. The feeling was exactly the same.
Void...!
Luckily, he didn't seem too late. He could already see the brat and Flone up ahead.
"Brat!"
Zeron exploded forward, covering the distance in an instant.
And then—crack—space split open.
Ed wandered through the forest. He'd turned down the other students' invitations to travel together and was searching alone for a specific location. Finding it wasn't difficult. He had paid special attention to remembering where two-way passages opened—rifts that would later be called Dungeons.
Dungeons allowed people to obtain things unavailable on the continent, and some of those items were quite useful for growth. But he couldn't know the exact time the rift would open. His prediction was the third day of the field practice. In other words, he only knew it would open today.
When he arrived, others were already there. Medeia and Flone. One was essentially a walking time bomb, and the other was a force that would become quite useful in the future.
Ed pondered for a moment. What should he do? He had no way of knowing whether they had been here in previous rounds. Unless it was an event beyond human power—earthquakes, tsunamis, or rifts to destroyed worlds—even after dozens of regressions, he couldn't predict everything perfectly. Too many things could change based on his tiniest actions or a single casual word.
That meant they might have been here last round, or they might not have.
It was then that something strange caught his senses.
Rift...!
The rift was about to open. And if Medeia was here, that meant—
"Brat!"
Just as expected. Zeron came running toward Medeia. The instant he tried to pull both Medeia and Flone into his arms and leap away, crack—space tore open. Their figures vanished.
"Tsk. Guess I have to give up this time."
Ed turned away. Since it had come to this, he needed to move fast. The opening of a rift wasn't a simple problem. It would trigger a monster wave. To secure even small benefits, it was better to put people who would be useful later in his debt.
After all, once you entered the rift, you'd have to suffer through every kind of hell imaginable anyway. Maybe this was the better choice.
Telling himself it was just sour grapes, Ed quickened his steps.