“Helios? Weren’t you at least kind of close with him?”
“Not really. And he already decided to team up with an upperclassman he knows.”
“An upperclassman?”
“He said he went to Deep Maze first.”
“Ah…”
Deep Maze.
The dungeon conquest club that Joshua had told me about—the one dominating the academy right now.
From Helios’s perspective, teaming up with a veteran from Deep Maze would be far better than working with novices like us.
“Eriol, so…”
“Charlotte, you don’t have to push yourself to enter.”
“What?”
“I can team up with someone else and go solo. As long as I do well under the Rangers’ name, that’s all that matters, right?”
“W-Wait, what are you saying?”
Charlotte’s eyes widened.
“You’re telling me to just leave it to you and sit out?”
“What’s the problem? If I do well, Senior Joshua will be satisfied.”
“You’re telling me to do something that cowardly?”
Contrary to what I expected, Charlotte glared at me with a sharp look.
“I’m not dumping my responsibility on someone else. That’d be shameful.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“I’ll team up with you and enter.”
“But you didn’t want to because people might misunderstand and think we’re a couple.”
“That’s embarrassing, yes, but…”
Charlotte met my eyes.
There wasn’t the slightest hesitation in her gaze.
“Leaving my responsibility to someone else is even more embarrassing.”
“…”
I had nothing more to say.
If Charlotte had made up her mind, there was no changing it.
“You don’t think I’m not good enough, do you?”
“That’s not it.”
“Really? You’re not saying Senia Artian would be better? Or maybe Cain Trigger?”
“They’re skilled, but you’re no less capable.”
“But I lost to Senia Artian in the rookie match. Even so?”
Though Senia had technically been disqualified, if there hadn’t been rules, she would’ve won.
Maybe that still bothered Charlotte.
“You didn’t just sit around after losing to Senia.”
“What?”
“You’ve been honing your skills ever since. So that result doesn’t matter anymore.”
Charlotte looked slightly surprised.
She probably didn’t expect those words from me.
“…Alright, got it.”
She nodded, her voice trembling just a bit.
Then, meeting my eyes again, she spoke.
“Eriol Valencia, be my partner for the conquest tournament.”
“I will.”
“….”
Charlotte averted her gaze, looking slightly embarrassed.
“Okay, then… let’s start training together after school tomorrow.”
“Training?”
“We need to get our timing down, right?”
“Well, yeah, that’s true, but…”
“You choose the location.”
With that, Charlotte took a step back.
“Oh, and make sure it’s somewhere other people won’t see us.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want any misunderstandings! What do you think people will say if we’re seen together every day?!”
Flushing red, she raised her voice and hurried down the stairs.
“…She worries about the weirdest things.”
I tilted my head and went back into my room.
Charlotte had interrupted my reading, but I needed to get back to it.
Still, teaming up with Charlotte turned out to be a good thing.
There was actually something I wanted to test while syncing with her.
It might help solve the issue I’d been having with the lack of firepower in my homing spells—something I’d noticed during my practice with Senia.
The day of the Joint Dungeon Conquest Tournament.
Klein, assigned as a supervisor, smiled when he saw how many first-years had gathered at the meeting point.
They’re all pretty motivated. I like it.
A good performance in this tournament would earn bonus points toward the first semester’s comprehensive evaluation.
Of course, it was hard for first-years to do well, but it was worth the attempt.
Even if they gave up halfway, it would still be a valuable experience.
“Hm?”
Spotting a familiar face, Klein walked over immediately.
“Eriol Valencia!”
“Oh, Professor. Hello.”
Eriol bowed politely.
“So you’re participating too. But…”
Klein shifted his gaze to the girl standing beside Eriol.
A dignified blonde with a proud air—Charlotte Strasbourg from the upper rank class.
“That’s unexpected.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah. What kind of wind blew that in?”
Then, a sudden thought struck Klein like a bolt of lightning.
“Ah, could it be…?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t tell me you two are…”
Dating?
He was about to ask but quickly shut his mouth.
No, no need to bring up something unnecessary here.
It wasn’t right to meddle in students’ private lives.
Times were different now.
“Never mind. It’s nothing.”
Still, Klein thought they’d make a fine couple if they were.
Both were good-looking, highly skilled… they made quite the pair.
“Well then, best of luck to both of you.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you.”
As he left, Klein thought to himself—
Ah, youth really is a beautiful thing.
‘He looks like he’s having some weird thoughts, but I guess it doesn’t matter.’
After glancing briefly at Professor Klein’s retreating back, I began checking over my equipment with Charlotte.
Having explored dungeons before with Helios and Cain, I had a rough idea of what was necessary.
“Your gear looks pretty good.”
“My family sends me plenty of allowance.”
“…”
As expected of a high noble.
She was probably receiving an amount of money every month that I couldn’t even imagine.
“Hey, you two!”
“Oh, senior.”
“Joshua.”
Just then, Joshua—the president of Rangers—approached us.
Since the midterms ended, we’d been regularly meeting with Joshua to learn the know necessary stuff for the competition.
“You two feeling okay?”
“Yeah, I slept well.”
“Pretty much the usual.”
“I’ve already taught you everything I can. Best of luck out there.”
Just like we had prepared for the midterms with past exam questions, we now had to use the knowledge passed down by previous members of the Rangers.
“Getting a good score is important, but what matters even more is finishing safely. Even though the competition takes place in predesignated safe zones set up by the operations committee, accidents still happen from time to time.”
“We understand.”
“No need to worry.”
When we replied briefly, Joshua nodded with a smile.
“Good. I’m counting on you. You two are more than capable of getting great results!”
“It’s noisy.”
Hearing the sharp voice beside him, Helios flinched.
“Seems like a small fry from Rangers saved one of the freshmen.”
“Y-Yes, that’s correct.”
Helios answered cautiously.
The senior he was partnered with for this competition was an extremely intimidating person.
“They’re the ones who placed first and third in the last rookie tournament, Sabat-sunbae.”
Sabat Bastia.
A top-five student among the entire second-year class, and famous for his mastery of necromancy.
Within Deep Maze, he was practically considered the ace of the second years.
“No second-year wanted to partner with them, so they lured in some freshmen, huh?”
“…”
Truthfully, Sabat had done the same—he had recruited a freshman too.
He just preferred someone he could push around at will, which is why he chose Helios.
“Handing the fate of Rangers over to a bunch of freshmen… That’s hilarious.”
Rangers and Deep Maze had been at odds for a long time, but Sabat especially looked down on them more than most.
Apparently, he’d had conflicts with them since his own first year, but Helios didn’t know the details.
‘Why did it have to be this senior…?’
Helios was quietly filled with regret.
Had he known things would turn out this way, maybe he should’ve just partnered with Eriol.
‘Out of all the Deep Maze seniors, it had to be Sabat. Just my luck.’
The only silver lining was that Sabat was undeniably skilled.
Just tagging along with him should be enough to earn a decent score.
“Hey, Helios.”
Sabat smirked slightly as he spoke.
“What do you think would happen to Rangers if those two got seriously hurt—or even died—during the competition?”
“W-What?”
Caught off guard by the unexpected question, Helios was startled.
“W-What do you mean? I thought the competition was designed to be as safe as possible…”
“Where’s the safety in fighting monsters inside a dungeon? There have been deaths in the past.”
“S-Sunbae…”
Why was he saying something like this?
Helios looked up with a worried expression, and Sabat gave a dry chuckle.
“I’m joking. Laugh.”
“O-Oh, okay…”
“But still…”
Sabat tilted his chin upward.
“You never know what might happen inside a dungeon.”
* * *
“Nice to meet you, competitors. I’m Piotr Grozny, from the Department of Necromancy.”
Piotr, the head of the necromancy department, stepped up to the podium.
A man with a gloomy aura. I’d never taken one of his lectures, but I remembered him as one of the judges during the rookie tournament.
“As you’ve probably heard, the dungeon used for this competition has skeletons placed throughout it.”
Skeletons.
Undead soldiers created through necromantic magic.
They were originally made from human bones in the past, but nowadays they’re usually made from two legged monster remains.
“Skeletons are perfect for this kind of event. The best part is how easy cleanup is. Unlike regular monsters, there’s no blood or flesh flying around when you kill them. Cleaning up gore is an absolute pain. But skeletons? Just gather the bones, and it’s all clean…”
“P-Professor, I think that’s enough about skeletons…”
Klein, who stood beside him, hastily cut Piotr off.
“Ahem. As Professor Piotr mentioned, the dungeon is filled with skeletons. Of course, not all of them are the same. Some are weak, some are strong, and each one awards different points.”
“…”
“There are also hidden ‘item boxes’ scattered throughout the dungeon. They contain helpful items for clearing the dungeon, and simply finding a box will earn you bonus points. All points will be automatically tallied to determine the final rankings.”
According to Joshua, there’s a final objective point in the dungeon called the Boss Area.
Defeating the boss there awards a large number of points and is key to placing highly.
‘So our strategy is…’
I gave Charlotte a quick glance.
Sensing my look, she nodded back at me.
‘Forget everything else—focus on taking down the boss.’
We wouldn’t be able to compete with the veteran seniors when it came to finding hidden item boxes.
That left monster hunting. And to get the highest score, we had to take down the boss.
‘If it’s me and Charlotte… we can do it.’
As I took a deep breath with confidence—
—I felt a sudden, sharp sensation on the back of my neck.
‘What the…?’
I turned my head instinctively.
And saw a tall male student staring in our direction.
‘He’s with Helios… must be one of the Deep Maze seniors?’
I felt a strange discomfort under his piercing gaze.
Then suddenly, my eyes stung with a sharp jolt.
‘What… is this?’
And in that moment—
From Sabat, who was glaring straight at me…
—I began to see something strange.
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