The Butterfly Effect
After disembarking from the caravan at their destination, the professors gathered the students and launched into a long, pedantic explanation of the field exercise. Stripped to its essentials, the task was simple: armored boars had begun appearing in the area, claiming lives. The local knight orders and military had already scoured the region but found no trace. Therefore, the academy students were to form groups of five, search for signs of the creatures, and eliminate them on sight if encountered. With eighty students present, the intent was clearly to overwhelm the monsters through sheer numbers.
"All eighth-class and below, take up shields! Your job is to protect the mages in the rear!"
"Seventh-class students are no different! Just because I didn't order you to raise your shields doesn't mean you have permission to charge. You are the reserve force meant to plug any breaches in the front line! Think of yourselves as the heart of this battlefield and focus on nothing else but holding formation!"
""""Yes, sir!!""""
"Mages! …Do as you see fit and attack!!"
""""Yes!!""""
Leng's voice rang through the forest. The eighty-strong human wave proved devastating. In under two hours, they located the naturally occurring monsters that even the professional knight orders had failed to find. Of course, the academy students were themselves reserve forces bound for the Monster Front, so they were near-professionals. Still, the difference came down to numbers. No matter how many casualties had occurred, the knight orders dispatched to this remote corner of the kingdom numbered at most five to ten. Their search range was dozens, even hundreds of times smaller.
"They're coming!"
"Block them!"
A sound that was half scream, half battle cry erupted as a shockwave rippled through the ground. The armored boar was 1.5 times larger than an ordinary boar, and its defensive power was more than twice that. When such a monster charged at speeds comparable to a carriage, panic was inevitable. Students who had reinforced their bodies with mana and lifted shields larger than themselves were sent tumbling across the dirt—an entirely predictable outcome.
"Hold the line!"
"We only need to stall until the mages finish their magic circles!"
Yet the students under Leng's command stood firm. After all, when they had expected only a single dump truck but found three—including the parents and offspring—Leng had personally scrapped two of them. If they couldn't handle even one together, the rest of the students' scores would plummet.
—Thud! Crash!!
"Squeeeal!!!"
The concentrated barrage from students who had only recently reached eighth- and seventh-class mage status left gashes across the boar's iron-hard hide. Some used wind or water magic to launch blades, but the attacks seemed barely stronger than simply charging in with a sword. Even so, Leng silently led them, directing the battle. After nearly an hour of fierce fighting, they succeeded in slaying the monster.
'Leng killed two alone in twenty-five minutes. Seventy-eight people took an hour to kill one—even with an active knight commanding them. If Main and Mazok appear, of course they'll be slaughtered.'
Their level was abysmal. They still had two years and seven months of academy training ahead, but no one knew when they would be dragged into the original game's story and ground to dust. This was far too weak.
"Was it all right for you not to participate, Young Lord?"
"I can earn enough graduation points from written exams alone."
"Still, you could have at least fired the gun at your waist."
"Cleaning up afterward is too bothersome."
Using the excuse that he couldn't handle mana, I had stayed at the very back with the Marchioness, merely observing. A smoothbore musket without rifling had no chance of even scratching the monster boar's hide. And if I did manage to hit its eye with this gun, it would only draw unnecessary attention.
"Are you waiting for something?"
"It's convenient that you're so perceptive, Marchioness. If Leng had even half your deductive ability, my work would be much easier."
"Isn't Sir Dust quite clever for a commoner?"
"He works beside me. If he weren't at least that capable, I would have dismissed him long ago."
Perhaps because treatment of the wounded and cleanup of the battlefield had begun, no one paid any mind to me doing nothing or the Marchioness watching me. As a result, we ended up sitting together as usual, chatting idly.
"So what exactly are you waiting for?"
"……I received intelligence suggesting an incident might occur. I came on this field exercise to confirm whether the information is accurate, how accurate it is, and whether I can control the situation if it is."
It was actually knowledge from my previous life, but since the sharp-witted Marchioness had already realized I was anticipating something, hiding it outright would be the worst possible move. Besides, when I had destroyed her house, I had overwhelmed the Marchioness herself with superior intelligence. Revealing that I possessed classified information about a Main and Mazok attack—information she didn't have—would make future responses easier.
"Hmm. Is it dangerous?"
"Yes. Far more so than anything that happened in your territory."
"……Then shouldn't you inform the others?"
"Marchioness, no matter how generously you view me, I am not a saint. My principles dictate that shouldering responsibility for complete strangers is the act of an idiot."
"The very idea that someone would demand I explain where, through what channels, and from whom I obtained this intelligence, whether it's accurate, and how I would take responsibility if wrong—while making no effort to investigate or prepare themselves—is utterly repulsive to me."
"My ears hurt…"
The Marchioness spoke sullenly and lowered her head. She was probably recalling how I hadn't merely withheld information about the disaster in her territory but had actively exploited it. It had been a calamity her family could have prevented with even minimal attention, and their negligence had nearly brought the house to ruin. Yet she also rationally understood that blaming me for not warning them would be nothing more than shifting responsibility, so this was her reaction.
"Anyway… it seems the incident has finally occurred."
"What?"
While the Marchioness was briefly lost in melancholy, the professors and nearby assistants suddenly began moving with urgency. The original story's event had begun.
"Go on ahead. They'll probably order an immediate return to the academy."
"Understood."
After sending the Marchioness off, I watched the students celebrating beside the monster's corpse, claiming they had defeated it, while considering my next move. As expected, urgent orders came down for everyone to return to the academy immediately.
*****
"Young Master. It appears to be an ambush."
"There were no suspicious movements, so the spy must have gone to another group."
"Pardon?"
Was this the start of the butterfly effect? Unfamiliar mana signatures approached from a distance. Dozens of carriages carrying eighty students and over twenty professors and assistants were being followed. Normally, when such a large group moved, even bandits and brigands would avoid them unless they were desperate war refugees. If someone was still tailing them, their target had to be the "academy students" themselves.
"Leng. If you combine forces with the professors, can you win?"
"……Yes. It will take some time, but I believe we can win."
"Then go and kill them all except one. Keep one alive—cut off his limbs, stop the bleeding, and don't forget to pull out his teeth."
"……Yes!"
It seemed the original story's third group wasn't the target—my second group was. The students began to panic upon realizing someone was pursuing them from behind, but I left everything to Leng and lay back leisurely, closing my eyes.
'Mana really is convenient. Being able to roughly gauge others' positions and strength is a significant advantage.'
I rotated an extremely small amount of mana so the surrounding students wouldn't notice and calculated the strength of the enemies outside. One of them was on par with Leng, perhaps slightly stronger—likely a fourth-class expert or hovering around third-class. Five others ranged from fifth- to fourth-class. Considering the strongest professor was only fourth-class, the fact that only two carriages had been abducted in the original story against opponents like these was actually quite impressive. The remaining fifteen were all at levels easily handled by students.
If we eliminated the six strongest first, the professors and Leng wouldn't lose.
"Hic! Oh my god!!"
"Count Dust killed one in an instant!"
"Thank goodness… I'm so glad he's in the same group as us!"
He had used his head. After asking the fourth-class professor and the other assistants to keep the strongest enemy in check, Leng had instantly plunged into the midst of the fifth-class foes. Though Leng was still only fourth-class, his practical experience and combat sense from training with me far exceeded that level. Even when he had just reached fourth-class, he had defeated Jena—a third-class expert—under a handicap where he yielded the first move. Moreover, he had been training to the brink of death to help his recent lover, Jena, get revenge. Losing to mere underlings of the Mazok? I couldn't even imagine it.
"Kugh!!"
Yet that was exactly what was happening now.
'His mana suddenly… amplified? No, that's the rampage I saw before.'
Leng had killed two in rapid succession and seized the momentum, but suddenly he began to be pushed back. The enemy's mana started raging and swelling uncontrollably. The ones who had been fifth-class moments ago rose to the edge of fourth-class. Those who had barely seemed below fourth-class clearly broke through to fourth-class. Did staking one's life raise one's realm? Fantasy was truly troublesome.
'At this rate, they'll all die to Leng alone, so they're choosing to kill Leng for certain instead. This is bad.'
The ones Leng was facing were probably the ones who knew the most about the Mazok. The stronger ones the professors were dealing with were likely the leaders, but I had no intention of risking the loss of the Leng I had worked so hard to raise just to capture them alive.
"Huh, what!?"
"Count Dust is starting to lose ground!?"
"Hic!! Th-there are some coming this way!!"
"Wh-what do we do!? Should we get down and fight too!?"
The students who had been sitting in the caravan under the protection of six noble escorts began to panic. There were six escorts guarding the carriages, and eight enemies had broken through to reach them. The problem was that each of those eight was at least fifth-class, while the noble escorts were at best fifth-class—some were even sixth-class, making one wonder how they had been chosen as guards in the first place. Getting down quickly to fight alongside the escorts was certainly not a bad decision.
'The issue is that the moment one noble scion gets captured, the hostage situation begins immediately.'
Then the commoner students would inevitably be dragged away as well. Of course, that had nothing to do with me, but ending a situation that could be resolved cleanly in a messy way would be boring.
—Bang!
"Kaaagh!!?"
"Oh. This works."
"Huh…?"
"N-now's the time!! Strike the ones who broke through!!!"
The smoothbore musket I had fired casually while sitting at the back of the carriage struck the eye of an enemy reinforced with mana. Seeing this, the escorts didn't miss their chance. In this world, firearms were still a minority. They couldn't even penetrate the leather armor of mana-reinforced people, let alone monsters, so they were considered obsolete weapons that only wasted expensive gunpowder. Furthermore, since humans who couldn't use mana wouldn't even get scratched if wearing heavy armor, the people of this world treated guns as completely pointless.
But if someone like me could precisely aim a smoothbore musket not at the body but at the eye, the story changed. Even if they reinforced their eyeballs with mana, they couldn't withstand the impact of a lead ball flying at two hundred meters per second like Superman.
"What are you all staring at? Handle the rest yourselves. Reloading will take me… about a minute. Don't tell me you're waiting for me?"
If I reloaded seriously, it would only take twenty seconds, but there was no need to tell them that. The students who had been sitting in the carriage, unable to believe I had actually shot and hit an enemy's eye, suddenly jumped up as if they themselves had been shot and began shouting.
"Let's provide supporting fire too!!"
"Sh-shoot anyone with a gun! If you're lucky like the Young Lord, one shot might take one down!!"
"Let's hold the line with shields like Count Dust taught us earlier!! If the mages provide long-range support…!!"
The twenty-something children who had been gloomily relying on protection just moments ago finally came to their senses and began to move. At the same time, Leng, who had been struggling, started receiving support from the other assistants and professors, and began taking down the rampaging enemies one by one.
'They're finishing faster than with the monsters.'
With over eighty people capable of fighting, getting abducted by barely twenty opponents would have been ridiculous anyway. Ultimately, with the support of the students who had regained their composure, the attackers were repelled, and the students began cheering in triumph.
"My apologies. They all went berserk and committed suicide, so we couldn't capture any alive."
"I saw. More importantly, Leng—are you hurt?"
"I have no excuse. My arm was slightly cut."
"We'll have to increase your training intensity."
"I-I'm sorry…"
"No, it's just a notice."
"……"
At the mention of increased training intensity, Leng's face turned ashen, but getting injured against mere opponents like these? Wasn't he supposed to be helping his crush get revenge? He was too weak.
"Y-Young Lord Carix! Sir Leng Dust!! Where are you!!"
"Hm?"
"Lady Jena?"
At the sound of a woman's voice calling our names, Leng and I turned our heads simultaneously. We saw Jena frantically searching for us among the students, her face deathly pale as if she had seen a ghost. What? Why was Jena here?
"Young Lord!!!"
"Lady Jena. What happened?"
"Th-the third group!! The Crown Prince…!!!"
That butterfly effect I had been so curious about. At the occurrence of an uncontrollable situation, the corner of my mouth twitched for the first time since I was born into this world.
"That idiot. I clearly told him not to participate…!!"
My heart, beating 1.8 times faster than usual, stirred up irritation.