“There are an unusual number of absentees today.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I didn’t notice at first because of the large number of new students, but it turns out a lot of them signed up and then didn’t show.”
“That’s odd.”
“Most of them are from Deep Maze. Not sure what’s going on.”
Deep Maze was the academy’s largest dungeon exploration club.
For students from there to be absent was highly unusual.
“Ah, maybe Sabat Bastia is competing alone as the representative of Deep Maze?”
“Hm… is that so?”
Sabat, a second-year ace of Deep Maze, was infamous for doing everything his own way, a total lone wolf.
He might’ve told the others ‘I’m going to win, so don’t bother signing up.’ and blocked their participation.
“Now that you mention it… there’s a freshman competing under the Rangers’ name.”
“Oh, that’s right.”
Klein nodded in agreement.
“Eriol Valencia and Charlotte Strasbourg. Both excellent students.”
“I watched the rookie tournament, so I know. But I still find it odd that such promising students joined the Rangers.”
“Maybe it’s because Eriol is Professor Kaisel’s nephew? He used to be in the Rangers too.”
“Hmm…”
The Rangers had once been a dominant club at the academy, but had since fallen into ruin.
Until recently, they had only one remaining member—the president.
“If those kids perform well, maybe the Rangers will make a comeback.”
“Not so sure about that.”
“Professor Klein, do you know why the Rangers collapsed?”
“Huh? Not really…”
Klein didn’t keep up with internal student club affairs.
“It’s true they were outpaced by Deep Maze, but the real downfall happened just last year.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, because of an incident.”
The teacher spoke in a dark tone.
“The few remaining members… were wiped out in a dungeon.”
At last, the tournament began.
The participants each entered their assigned tournament dungeon.
“Charlotte, you remember the plan, right?”
“Of course.”
Shoulder to shoulder with Charlotte, I moved deeper inside.
The interior was more spacious than expected. It opened into a plaza-like area where a crowd of participants had gathered.
“What the heck is this?”
“What are we supposed to do here?”
Several students voiced their confusion.
They must have done little to no research beforehand.
But we already knew the structure of past tournaments thanks to Joshua.
“With this pattern… it’s about to start.”
“Yeah.”
As we spoke, we kept our eyes forward, ready.
Moments later, the ground began to rumble.
“What the—?!”
“Hey, look up front!”
Skeletons began crawling out of the ground.
They were Skeletons that the tournament organizers had buried in advance.
“One, two, three… there are way too many!”
“At least a hundred of them!”
An entire army of Skeletons blocked our path.
Then, with a series of thuds, a dozen gates opened behind them.
We just have to break through the Skeletons and enter one of those passageways.
Everyone starts from the same location, but this is where paths diverge.
There’s no way to know which path is best, so the first step is getting through the Skeletons as fast as possible.
Clatter, clatter.
Skeletons drew closer, their bones rattling.
They weren’t human remains—more likely goblin or kobold bones.
A few students hesitated before the sheer number of skeletons.
But I didn’t hesitate in the slightest.
“Charlotte, move!”
“Got it!”
BOOM!
An explosion ripped through the Skeleton ranks.
The fireball I had thrown detonated.
As the blast flung Skeletons aside, Charlotte and I rushed in.
“Out of the way!”
Whish!
From Charlotte’s raised fingers, icy javelins formed.
They shot forward at high speed and struck a Skeleton dead on.
As expected, Charlotte’s marksmanship has improved since the rookie tournament.
As I watched a Skeleton collapse with its pelvis shattered, I confirmed just how much better her aim had gotten.
“Charlotte! Aim for the spine or lower body! Use your shots to precisely destroy them!”
“Understood!”
Skeletons are undead monsters made entirely of bone.
They move through enchantments bound to their skeletons—breaking the skull won’t stop them.
But if the spine snaps or the pelvis is destroyed, they can’t walk anymore.
According to the tournament briefing, that alone earns points.
Charlotte’s ice magic is especially good for targeting joints!
Unlike fireballs, whose impact tends to scatter, Charlotte’s ice javelins could concentrate physical force on a pinpoint.
By accurately hitting the spine or hip joints and separating the bones, even without massive firepower, she could neutralize the Skeletons.
“…!”
BOOM! CRASH!
Explosions and roars erupted all around us.
Other students had begun pushing through the Skeleton ranks as well.
Turning my head, I spotted some familiar faces.
Cain and Senia…!
So in the end, Cain and Senia entered the tournament as a team.
In close combat, they were strong enough to rival upperclassmen—serious competition for us.
And then…
One upperclassman was clearing out Skeletons at an alarming pace with a beast named Helios.
It was the one who had glared at me earlier, with a sharp, intimidating presence.
I knew it.
The moment I saw him, something had felt off.
I could sense an abnormal “wave” radiating from him.
Yeah, I was right.
At first, I couldn’t tell what it was.
I’d never felt such a gloomy, heavy aura in my life.
But now, facing the Skeletons… I was starting to understand.
Why is that upperclassman… emitting the same kind of aura as the Skeletons?
“At the beginning of last year, there was a conflict between the Rangers and Deep Maze. It happened during an exploration of Labyrinthos.”
Piotr explained to Klein in a gloomy voice.
“There was intel that a rare artifact existed deep inside. Both the Rangers and Deep Maze were determined to be the ones to find it.”
“What happened then?”
“The Rangers, being short on members, sent in almost their entire force to find the artifact. Deep Maze also dispatched a significant number of people. But then…”
Piotr shook his head grimly.
“The Rangers were wiped out, and Deep Maze lost all but one of their members. According to the sole survivor, the Rangers triggered a trap switch that caught everyone in it.”
“I had no idea something like that happened. Last year, I was holed up in the lab every day trying to rack up achievements…”
“The Academy buried it to prevent a major scandal. In any case, that incident essentially destroyed the Rangers. Only a few freshmen who hadn’t participated survived, but all except one of them quit.”
“And the only one who stayed is the current president?”
“Right. Meanwhile, Deep Maze members were left seething, blaming the Rangers entirely for the deaths of their own.”
“But is it confirmed that the Rangers triggered the trap?”
“We have no choice but to believe it—the only survivor said so.”
“Who is that sole survivor?”
“They participated today as well.”
Glancing at a nearby participant list, Piotr said,
“Sabat Bastia—that’s the survivor.”
‘If I had studied necromancy, I might understand what this feeling is.’
He was an upperclassman named Sabat from Deep Maze.
Joshua had warned him before to be careful—Sabat harboured hatred toward the Rangers.
‘Why does he give off a aura so similar to a skeleton’s?’
He had never encountered anyone at the school who gave off that kind of energy.
Just what was going on?
‘I really don’t get it.’
While he was lost in thought, a skeleton lunged at him.
After destroying its hip joint with a [Fire Bolt], he spoke to Charlotte.
“Charlotte, which passage do you think we should take?”
“Hmm, they all look the same to me.”
“Then…”
He focused his attention ahead.
And then… he sensed a faint but clearly different energy from that of a normal skeleton.
‘Something deeper inside is emitting a powerful wave. Could that be the boss?’
There wasn’t much to go on, but it was worth a try.
“Let’s go down the third passage on the left!”
“Got it!”
Charlotte followed his lead without question.
Firing spells like rapid-fire shots, they swept through the skeletons and entered the third passage.
“Now we can finally catch our breath.”
No skeletons followed them into the corridor.
It seemed the organizers had set things up so that monsters would only attack students in the previous room.
“Yeah, we pushed ourselves a bit too hard at the start.”
Still, Charlotte didn’t have a drop of sweat on her.
Maybe she was keeping herself cool with ice magic.
“Then from here, let’s take it a bit easy—”
Charlotte stopped mid-sentence.
Something was approaching with a rattling noise.
“A quadrupedal undead?”
“Looks like the skeleton of a wolf-type monster.”
Apparently, the organizers had no intention of giving the students any breaks.
They’d hoped to ignore the small fry and reach the boss quickly, but it wasn’t going to be that easy.
“Let’s go, Charlotte.”
“You don’t need to talk to me every time.”
Hearing her cold response, he began preparing a fire spell.
To blow away the skeleton blocking their path and reach the boss area as fast as possible.
‘That upperclassman really is something else.’
Helios swallowed hard as he watched Sabat’s magic.
Though Sabat specialized in necromancy, he was handling the skeletons just fine using only elemental magic.
“Senior, aren’t you going to use necromancy? Like, controlling the skeletons and making them your minions.”
“These skeletons were set up by Professor Piotr. It’s hard to override their control.”
“Ah, I see.”
“If there were other corpses lying around, I could control them at will.”
With a cold voice, Sabat shattered a skeleton’s joints with ice magic.
“Looks like the Rangers’ freshmen just passed into the next zone. We should hurry too.”
“Understood.”
Helios followed closely behind, marvelling at Sabat’s skills.
Trying hard to ignore the vague sense of unease that had been bothering him since earlier.
“Charlotte, how about taking a break soon? We’ve been pushing nonstop for almost an hour.”
“Alright.”
Hearing Eriol’s suggestion, Charlotte quietly sighed in relief.
Truthfully, she did want a short break.
“Let’s rest over there.”
“Okay.”
There was a large rolling pillar in one section, so Charlotte sat on it to rest.
“But… isn’t it a little too quiet around here? Is it safe?”
“Maybe we just got too far ahead of everyone else.”
That seemed plausible—there wasn’t a hint of anyone nearby.
It had taken almost an hour to get here, and they hadn’t run into a single other student.
“Still, shouldn’t we have seen the boss area by now?”
“Hmm…”
So far, Charlotte had simply followed wherever Eriol led.
He seemed to have some kind of certainty, so she hadn’t questioned it—but was this really the right way?
“Ah, wait a second.”
“What is it?”
“Joshua said sometimes there are puzzle elements, remember?”
Saying that, Eriol examined the pillar he was sitting on.
“Don’t these look like ancient characters carved into it?”
“Oh…!”
Charlotte quickly got up to examine the pillar too.
Sure enough, the rolling pillars had symbols etched into them.
“Yeah, this must be a puzzle to unlock the boss area!”
Labyrinthos had zones protected by puzzle-like codes that you had to solve to enter.
Supposedly, it was a security mechanism set by the ancients to keep just anyone from entering. No one really knew the details.
In any case, the organizers had apparently decided to include that kind of challenge in this event.
“If we’d missed this, we might’ve wandered around for hours.”
Charlotte admired Eriol’s intuition as she examined the markings on the pillars.
She didn’t know their meaning, but there had to be some kind of pattern.
If it was designed to be solvable by students, then once they figured out the rule…
“Got it.”
“What?!”
Suddenly, Eriol began rolling the pillars.
After aligning several of them into a certain shape, the ground began to tremble.
“Now the gate to the boss area should open.”
“…….”
She couldn’t believe it.
It had to be a pretty difficult puzzle—and he’d solved it in seconds.
‘Eriol Valencia… just who are you, really?’
As Charlotte stood in awe, the floor split open and a staircase emerged.
It looked like the path to the boss area.
“Let’s go, Charlotte.”
“Y-Yeah.”
Charlotte replied as she followed Eriol.
As they descended into the darkness, they entered a vast space as large as where the skeleton army had first appeared.
And there—
“Ah…!”
It looked like the organizers had decided to stick with skeletons for all the monsters in this event.
But the skeleton stationed in the boss area was on a completely different level from the small fry they’d been fighting.
“I-Is that… a dragon?!”
“No, judging by its size, it’s a drake. A lesser species of dragon.”
“L-Lesser or not, it’s still huge!”
The massive skeletal frame of a reptile slowly rising to its feet.
It was a monster unlike anything Charlotte had ever seen.
“E-Eriol. Isn’t this thing way too strong for us to fight? Maybe we should back off…”
Charlotte was afraid.
It was a primal fear, the kind that came from facing an enormous beast.
“Charlotte.”
But then—
Eriol spoke in a calm voice.
“Have confidence. We can beat it.”
“D-Don’t just say that without proof! How could we possibly—”
“It’s not without proof.”
“What?”
Even while standing before the towering drake skeleton, Eriol remained calm.
“Trust me.”
“……!”
Why?
As soon as she heard those words, she felt like everything would be okay if she just followed his lead.
“Alright…”
Charlotte swallowed hard and nodded.
“If anything happens, it’s on you.”
“Don’t worry.”
Eriol replied with quiet confidence and stepped forward.
“We’ll win.”
Thud!
The massive skeletal dragon charged, shaking the ground beneath their feet.
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