The Fall (1)
"Don't forget to collect your Signal Stone before entering."
The professor pointed to the red stones laid out beside the dungeon entrance.
"This device marks your team's reference coordinates. If you stray outside the practice zone or the surveillance formation is disrupted, the faculty will use the Signal Stone to determine your location."
A few students murmured among themselves.
"So if we break it when we're in danger, we get rescued?"
"No. The Signal Stone is not something that comes to save you—it's something that tells us where you are. Lose it and you lose points. Team leaders are responsible for keeping it."
Theodore hurried forward as though he couldn't wait a moment longer and took the Signal Stone. The red stone hung against his chest guard.
"Like we'll ever need this."
"Viscount's son Graham. The Signal Stone is the position reference for the entire team. It must not be handled carelessly."
"I know. Stop nagging."
"Then. We enter."
The professors were observing the interior of the dungeon through the crystal orbs they had installed in advance.
Each team had been assigned one orb, and surveillance formations had been laid along every major passage the students would travel.
"Struggling from the very start. Points off for teamwork, I'd say."
"That team's individual abilities look weak."
"But you can see them trying to cover for one another's weaknesses. Teams like that often settle down once they've had some time."
The professors offered brief assessments as they watched their respective orbs.
One team hesitated endlessly at the entrance; another burned through its time agonizing over which detour to take. Amid it all, a few teams were doing rather well—the leader issuing orders, the support student checking the map, the rear guard watching their backs. The fundamentals, all in place.
Then one professor glanced at a different orb and let out a hollow laugh.
"Hm? Heh heh. Look at that—a team charging straight for the center right out of the gate."
The eyes of the surrounding professors turned toward it.
Inside the orb, Theodore was striding boldly down the central passage at the head of his team.
Chloe and Marien followed behind him, while Roseline brought up the rear, her gaze constantly sweeping back.
"Which team is that?"
"Roseline Veloa, Chloe Hartwell, Marien Ruth, and Theodore Graham."
"Graham, is it."
At the name, one professor's brow furrowed immediately.
"The team leader is the Graham student?"
"It appears so. Given his position, he must be."
"Even with the Veloa student on the team?"
Among the faculty, Roseline's evaluations were far from poor. She earned high marks in every practical exercise, and her judgment in the last assessment had been quick. Above all, no one could match her eye for watching her surroundings.
Theodore, by contrast, was a different matter.
He was hardly a failing student, but there was always something wanting when it came to giving him a good evaluation. His pride mattered more to him than his skill, and above all, he moved with his own dignity as his first priority. Did he consider his teammates in a crisis? Absolutely not.
"The central passage is fast, but it's a zone with a high rate of monster encounters."
"And correspondingly rich in rewards. The design intent itself isn't bad."
"The problem is that they're going in without preparation. No confirmation of a retreat route, and above all, their equipment check was never properly done."
One professor raised his pen, eyes on the orb.
"Insufficient equipment check. Disregard of teammates' input. Failure of the team leader to communicate risk."
"You're not deducting points for the route choice?"
"The central passage is an official route. Fast at the cost of danger—it isn't a wrong path."
The professor added, watching Roseline in the orb as she kept watch behind them.
"The question is whether the team leader understands that risk and has it under control. That's what's being evaluated."
Inside the orb, Roseline seemed to be saying something. The sound didn't come through clearly, but her gestures made it plain. She was telling them to slow down—or perhaps to check the rear passage.
Theodore didn't so much as turn around.
Chloe raised her hand as though arguing back, and Marien looked at the map with an anxious expression.
"That's not good."
"The Veloa student keeps checking behind them. It looks like she's trying to secure a retreat route."
"Meaning she's covering from the rear what the leader is missing."
"That should be reflected in her individual score."
"The Graham student gets a deduction. As for the Veloa student, we might actually have to award bonus points."
"Let's just keep watching for now."
Just then, one corner of a crystal orb shook, ever so briefly.
At first, no one paid it much mind.
Slight fluctuations in the mana flow inside a dungeon were common. Even a practice dungeon was not a perfectly fixed space.
But Roseline reacted, as if she had sensed something.
In the orb, Roseline was the first to stop walking, and Marien, following behind her, wrinkled her nose as if she too had noticed something.
"The Veloa student has stopped."
"Why?"
"No monster readings."
"Then is something wrong with the passage?"
One professor pulled his orb closer.
On the screen, Marien covered her mouth with her hand, Chloe grimaced, and Theodore turned around with an irritated look.
"A smell?"
One professor murmured.
"The orb can't transmit sensory data, so I can't be certain—but the students' reactions are strange."
"Is there any reason the central passage would smell?"
"It might carry the dungeon's usual musty stench, but not to the point of causing reactions that severe."
Before the words had even finished leaving his mouth, a black stain spread across the bottom of the orb's screen.
It was very small.
A black dot, as if seeping up through a crack in the floor.
The face of the professor who caught that brief moment went rigid.
"Wait."
"What is it?"
"Did you see that just now?"
"See what?"
The black stain inside the orb was already gone.
Inside the orb, Theodore was still walking on toward the passage leading to the center. The shortest route to the zone holding the practice core.
Roseline tried to grab him, and Theodore shook her off.
"Why is that student moving so recklessly?"
"He seems to think seizing the core first means a higher score."
"Didn't he listen? How many times were we told this isn't an exam about grabbing the core first?"
Irritation crept into the professor's voice.
Inside the orb, Theodore did not stop.
And the mana circle inscribed on the floor of the passage ahead of him flickered once.
"Did everyone see that? The formation just wavered."
"You mean the safety formation in the central passage?"
"Yes."
"Impossible. There was nothing wrong at the morning inspection."
"It just wavered."
The professors' expressions hardened one by one.
Roseline's voice, faint but audible this time, rang out on the screen as she shouted.
"Stop!"
Theodore was already running toward where the core had come into view.
The floor flickered once more.
Then it went dark.
"Send the emergency halt signal—"
Before the sentence was even finished, the floor inside the orb collapsed.
First the stone dust scattered; the next instant, the entire central passage sank downward. Theodore's body tipped first, and Chloe screamed as she tried to scramble backward. Marien's foot slipped.
Roseline, positioned at the rear, ran.
Not to flee—but to reach out her hand.
"No!"
The orb shook violently, and the screen went black.
An alarm blared through the lecture hall.
"Central passage collapse!"
"Student signals?"
"The entire second team has fallen to the lower level!"
"The lower level? Where in the practice dungeon is there a lower level!"
The professors' voices piled on top of one another.
No clear image remained in the orb anymore.
The black stain was spreading.
Like tar crawling along the inner surface of the crystal orb.
Drip. Drip.
Cold droplets of water fell onto her forehead.
"Ugh... what on earth happened..."
Roseline tried to push herself up and gritted her teeth instead.
Pain flared up from her left leg. Nothing was broken, but her ankle throbbed as though she'd landed on it wrong, and the skin below her knee stung like it had been scraped raw against the floor.
"Chloe! Marien? Where are you!"
In the pitch-dark blackness, the only sound that answered was her own voice bouncing back off the walls.
The floor had definitely collapsed.
Theodore had run for the core, the formation on the floor had gone dark, and then came the fall.
Roseline steadied her breathing and groped through the dark. Her sword was lying close by. The moment her fingers closed around the hilt, a little of her presence of mind returned.
"Chloe! Marien!"
No answer.
Roseline gritted her teeth and forced herself upright. Her ankle ached again, but she couldn't afford to stop. She dug through her pocket, pulled out a light stone, and pushed mana into it with her fingertips; a faint glow spread out.
This was not the clean passage of the practice dungeon. The walls were dark and damp, and rubble and earth lay strewn across the floor. She looked up, but the hole she'd fallen through was nowhere to be seen. She must have fallen deeper than she'd thought.
"...As far as I know, the practice dungeon doesn't have a lower level."
Just then, a small groan came from her left.
"Ugh..."
"Chloe?"
Enduring the pain, Roseline ran toward the sound.
Chloe lay collapsed beside a heap of fallen stone. Blood was running from her head, but she was conscious. When Roseline gripped her shoulder, Chloe screwed her eyes shut.
"It hurts... where are we?"
"I don't know yet either. Can you move?"
"My arms... work. My legs probably too."
"Slowly. Don't push it."
Roseline checked Chloe over quickly. No deep wounds, and the blood on her head was less serious than it looked.
"Where's Marien?"
"I don't know. I lost my grip on her while we were falling."
Roseline lifted the light stone and swept it across their surroundings.
"Marien!"
A short distance away, she heard coughing.
"H-here..."
Marien was sitting propped against the wall. Her face was pale, and she was cradling her right arm with her left.
When Roseline drew near, Marien forced a smile.
"My arm... something's wrong with it."
"Let me see."
Roseline examined Marien's arm carefully. The bone didn't appear to be broken, but the shoulder seemed to have taken a heavy impact, and it looked like combat would be out of the question for now.
"Don't move it. I have to splint the arm."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize."
Roseline undid the inner cord of her outer garment and bound Marien's arm. Her hands trembled with pain, but she fastened it as firmly as she could.
Chloe staggered over.
"What about Theodore?"
Only then did Roseline's hands stop.
Theodore.
He had been at the very front of the party.
And when the floor gave way, he was the first to fall.
Roseline clenched her jaw.
"We have to find him."
"Roseline, hold on. We're hurt too—"
"We have to find him."
Her voice came out colder than she intended.
Chloe said nothing more.
Roseline lifted the light stone and walked forward. Her ankle ached and her side pulled with every breath, but still she walked.
Before long, she spotted a piece of armor lying on the ground.
A gauntlet engraved with the Graham family crest.
"Theodore!"
From the darkness came a small sound.
Stone rolling against stone.
And low, ragged breathing.
"...Over here."
Theodore's voice.
Roseline started to run straight toward it—and stopped.
The smell she'd caught in the central passage, right before the fall, was there.
A stench like a rotting swamp mixed with burnt oil. It was not a smell one could encounter in a practice dungeon.
"Roseline?"
Chloe called quietly from behind her.
Roseline adjusted her grip on her sword and angled the light stone to illuminate the ground ahead.
Theodore was slumped between two fallen pillars. His leg looked pinned beneath the rubble, and terror was written across his face.
And behind him.
There was something black.
At first she took it for a shadow cast by the light.
But shadows do not slide like flowing water.
A black liquid, thick as tar, was crawling slowly across the floor. It rose as though mimicking the shape of a person, then collapsed and flowed down again. Something like an arm stretched out long, and where a face should have been, there was only a black hole.
Theodore spoke in a trembling voice.
"H-help... me..."
Roseline moved before she had time to think.
She didn't know what the thing was—but she knew it was closing in on Theodore.
"Chloe, take Marien and fall back!"
"But you—"
"Go, now!"
Roseline raised her sword and lunged forward.
Her ankle screamed, but still she didn't stop.
Theodore reached out his hand.
The same hand that, moments ago, had looked down on her. The hand that had sneered at the equipment check and dragged them all onto a dangerous road without preparation, all under the name of team leader.
Roseline stretched her arm toward that hand.
Just a little farther.
In that instant, the black liquid moved.
"No!"
The tips of Roseline's fingers brushed Theodore's.