Ch.16Dungeon Practicum – 4

“Huh? What’s this?”

“What? Did something go wrong?”

When Jeina holding the staff frowned while examining the magical device, Jeina holding the sword questioned her. Since there was no need to be formal with herself, her tone was much more relaxed than when she was in front of students.

“No, it’s just that they’re all clustered on one side.”

“Let me see. What the—you’re right! Did they all eat something bad together?”

Jeina’s magical device was a bit more specialized than the ones given to students.

It didn’t just show the location of teammates and the dungeon they needed to clear; it displayed all students attending the lecture and even the artificially created monsters scattered throughout the forest.

That’s why she couldn’t help but find it strange when she noticed that the monsters, which should have been spread throughout the forest to engage with students, were concentrated in one area.

Jeina with the sword checked the coordinates of the area densely marked with red dots.

“Dungeon 7-1? What’s there?”

“Nothing. There shouldn’t be anything there.”

“Then why are they acting like this?”

“…How should I know?”

The two Jeinas looked at each other with puzzled expressions. Since the original couldn’t know something the clone didn’t, and vice versa, their conversation was essentially like talking to oneself.

“Dungeon 7 is where that kid is, right? The first-year top student.”

One of the three they had forcibly separated, citing balance issues. It was a natural measure—they couldn’t put the first-year valedictorian, salutatorian, and the Hero all in one team.

“Right. That kid’s name is hard to forget too.”

Of course, Jeina knew about Mira Crate. Actually, at Bellium Academy, it would be faster to find someone who didn’t know her.

Partly because of her striking actions during the entrance ceremony, partly because she had subsequently revealed her abilities and become the talk of the school, and recently because of her entanglement with Archmage Ingrid.

“Let’s see, Mira Crate… Mira Crate… Huh?”

“What?”

“It says she’s already entered and cleared Dungeon 7-2?”

“Wait, she cleared it? Already?”

“Yeah. It says she sent her two teammates to Dungeon 7-1 and went in alone. The clear time is… wow, what’s with this kid? 30 minutes and 8 seconds? Seriously?”

“…For real?”

After the rules were strengthened to prevent the tactic of splitting teams, entering a dungeon alone meant facing roughly 12 times the number of monsters compared to entering as a team of three.

Yet she set a record for the fastest clear time? Jeina’s jaw dropped, knowing how absurd this result was. It was overwhelmingly first place, excluding the crown prince who was essentially in a league of his own.

“Look, can we save the amazement for later? Shouldn’t we deal with this anomaly first?”

“Alright, alright, stop rushing me.”

Jeina with the staff grumbled quietly as she infused mana into the magical device and issued a command—ordering the monsters to return to their original positions immediately.

“…Huh?”

“What? What’s the problem?”

“They’re not following orders.”

“What?”

Jeina with the sword stepped forward to check the screen. Despite the continuous commands to return to their positions, the red dots didn’t move at all.

Sensing that the situation was becoming serious, Jeina’s face hardened.

“Visual link. Section 7.”

Jeina covered one eye and tried to connect her uncovered eye’s vision with the magical devices installed throughout the forest.

Again, there was no response.

“This is driving me crazy. The magical devices aren’t working.”

“Are you saying they’re broken?”

“No, they’re not broken. They’ve just stopped working. For unknown reasons.”

Jeina bit her lip, understanding the implication. It meant something serious enough had happened to stop devices that had been confirmed operational just yesterday when the new dungeons were created.

“The others are the same. All devices within 200 meters of Dungeon 7-1 have stopped—wait, I take that back. There’s one still working. Just a moment…”

Jeina, who had been continuously trying to connect, found one magical device that was still barely functioning and shared its vision. The image was terribly distorted compared to normal, but it was still somewhat visible.

She saw purple mist spreading through the air and blackened, withered trees. Jeina’s eyes widened.

“…It’s an erosion phenomenon?”

“Damn it!”

Jeina with the sword immediately infused mana into her body. Jeina with the staff, though shocked by what she saw, created a dimensional gate connected to those coordinates.

“Oof!”

As Jeina tried to leap through, she was thrown backward. There was a loud thud as her body rolled across the ground. She dusted herself off and muttered dejectedly.

“…That incident report is definitely happening after this is over.”

“Oh, please.”

She changed tactics. Jeina with the sword turned and began sprinting directly toward Dungeon 7-1. Her silhouette disappeared beyond the ancient trees at a terrifying speed.

Jeina with the staff clutched her head once, then issued an emergency recall order to all students through the magical device, and created another clone to open a dimensional gate leading directly to the headmaster’s office.

Incident report or not, saving the students had to come first.

“Phew…”

I stopped briefly to catch my breath. All the monsters that had attacked were completely eliminated. The red blade of Eternity showed no signs of fading, having absorbed so much blood.

“…This reminds me of old times.”

Leaning against a tree and wiping my sweat, I was reminded of my first possession. Back then, most creatures were like these—charging at me desperately.

There was no doctrine here like what they taught in theory classes about targeting the leader first to break morale.

What use was killing the leader when these creatures didn’t follow orders as living beings, but charged forward like machine parts, willing to sacrifice their lives?

After a while, my breathing stabilized. I shook off the blood still glowing crimson on Eternity and was about to step deeper into the dungeon when I paused.

‘Before I go in… just in case.’

I shot a fireball with a reddish glow—similar to what should have appeared when the magical device was destroyed—high above my head. Right on cue, an explosion spell activated, detonating the fireball.

The red flames soared high and exploded with a loud BOOM. While it couldn’t actually summon a professor like the real thing, it should be enough to alert anyone watching that something was wrong.

Having taken this precaution—useful if it worked, no harm if it didn’t—I headed deeper into the dungeon. Finding my way was easy thanks to the monster corpses that I hadn’t killed myself, arranged at regular intervals.

There were quite a number of them. By my conservative estimate, each person must have killed at least twenty. Considering all the corpses were trolls, it was an impressive amount.

‘They seem to have gotten stronger too.’

The deeper I went, the larger the corpses became and the more wounds they had. This meant they could withstand attacks longer before dying.

After walking for some time, the trail of corpses ended with a monster whose body was mangled almost beyond recognition. This seemed to be the final creature.

Since no one would have continued attacking a corpse, this monster must have remained alive even after its limbs were severed, its entrails torn out, its torso dismembered, and its head cut off.

‘…Looks like someone’s injured. They probably didn’t get far.’

I noticed regular droplets of blood on the ground. They were too small to belong to a monster. I began following the blood trail.

The fact that they left such an easy trail to follow showed that they were still students after all.

Soon I discovered bloodstains disappearing into a wall. I used detection magic. It was an entrance disguised as a wall by illusion magic. Two people were detected inside.

They couldn’t hide the smell—the metallic scent of blood wafted through the air.

‘The blood droplets were small, so it’s probably not a critical injury, but not something to take lightly either. Healing magic… I can’t use it for them, so there’s no choice.’

In this world, magic for healing wounds doesn’t exist. There are only potions that stimulate natural recovery when consumed, and holy power specialized solely for healing.

Of course, I could use healing magic I’d learned from my previous world and had confirmed it worked, but this was something I intended to keep secret if at all possible.

With all the commotion already caused by my area-of-effect annihilation magic, I didn’t want to add new chaos. Especially since this would directly affect the livelihoods of clergy.

“Anyone in there?”

“Huh? Crate? Is that really you, Crate?”

I raised my voice in front of the illusory wall. A bright voice responded from inside, and someone poked their head out. Distinctive red hair—it was Scarlet Diana.

Diana’s face lit up when she saw me. Judging by her appearance, it seemed Warden was the injured one.

“How did you find us? The magical devices weren’t working. Does yours work?”

“Mine doesn’t work either. If you wanted to avoid being tracked, you should have wiped away the blood droplets as you moved. If you were going to use illusion magic, you should have used disruption magic together to prevent detection. As for the smell, well, I guess you couldn’t do much about that without proper equipment.”

“U-um. Sorry.”

“Don’t beat yourself up too much. You seem to have tried your best. Everyone makes mistakes at first. You’ll get better.”

I offered these words of comfort as I entered through the illusory wall. As I expected, Warden was clutching the left side of his abdomen, dripping with sweat. I smiled slightly and asked:

“How did you get hurt?”

“…”

When Warden remained silent, Diana explained in his place. She said Warden had volunteered as bait during the process of defeating the final monster.

When I looked at him with surprise, he snorted.

“My axe was broken so I had no means of attack, while she did. In that situation, this was the judgment with the highest chance of success. A lowly person like her couldn’t possibly perform the role of bait properly.”

There were occasionally people like him. Nobles who thought it natural to look down on others, while conversely believing that “ignorant” commoners couldn’t do anything properly, so they just stepped up and did it themselves.

In other words, he was an idiot, but a slightly less idiotic one. Though his thought process and principles were based on something akin to eugenics, his actions ultimately amounted to taking the initiative.

Such people are easy to use if you stroke their pride a bit. I slightly upgraded my internal assessment of Warden.

“…What do we do now? He’ll die from blood loss if we leave him like this.”

Diana seemed anxious about Warden, either unaware or uncaring that she had just been indirectly insulted.

“We need to act assuming the worst-case scenario.”

“What worst-case scenario?”

“The possibility that they haven’t discovered the dungeon anomaly yet.”

Honestly, I think that possibility is low. Given how all the forest monsters had gathered in front of the dungeon, and the purple light was gradually spreading.

Since they were supposed to be monitoring the forest continuously during the lecture, they should have noticed something strange by now.

“Then…?”

“Why ask the obvious? We need to escape on our own.”