The day of the dungeon exploration class.
All the first-year students of the Academy gathered in the school basement for the dungeon exploration class.
Unlike what the name “dungeon entrance” suggested, the basement had a fairly orderly atmosphere.
Soft light from magic lamps, a magical storage room filled with first-aid supplies and emergency rations, and even simple beds for exhausted students.
If not for the dungeon entrance set into one wall, it would have looked like an ordinary shelter.
I greeted Ms. Eleonore, who was serving as the supervising professor, then looked at Senior Lena and Brandon.
“Will this really be all right? All the other students are in parties of four or more.”
Perhaps nervous, Brandon asked me in a slightly trembling voice.
“If we add people half-heartedly, our progress might actually slow down. This is optimal.”
“But I might not be much help.”
I patted Brandon on the shoulder and met his eyes.
“Remember. You survived that hell training with us. That alone should put you ahead of most classmates in the Faculty of Magic. Normally, people can’t keep up with that.”
“That’s… probably true.”
As if recalling the training over the past few days, Brandon shuddered.
For Senior Lena and me, it had been an ordinary routine, but for Brandon, who was a mage despite being a commoner, it must have been a journey that made him cough up blood.
And yet he had gone through all of it with us.
For that alone, Senior Lena and I had no choice but to acknowledge Brandon.
“Don’t worry, Brandon. No matter what happens, Ashen and I will protect you.”
“…When you say that, it’s even scarier, Demon Instructor.”
“What did you say, punk?!”
Brandon slightly shrank his neck at the sight of Senior Lena glaring at him.
He looked frightened, but seeing as he didn’t avert his gaze, half of it was probably mixed with mischief.
I smiled at the two of them, then examined the other lines in the room.
Naturally, on one side of the room, Ramsey and Theodora were standing with a student I had never seen before. I didn’t know who he was, but judging by the priestly robes of the Church of Light, he was probably an ordinary priest from their side.
As I was looking around, my eyes met Theodora’s.
For a very brief moment, gladness surfaced in her eyes, then immediately vanished.
What appeared next were violet eyes that showed no emotion at all.
‘Not very player-character-like.’
In the game, she had subtly had sides of a comic relief character too, so how had she ended up like that?
‘What a pity.’
Turning my gaze away from her, I checked Ramsey’s expression.
Ramsey looked at me and waved as though he was glad to see me.
His attitude was just like meeting an old friend.
‘He’s definitely prepared another trap.’
The important thing was what it was….
Would it be a trap? Or a monster? Or had he arranged for another student to cause trouble?
‘The problem is that I can’t know which one it is right now.’
In a dungeon, nothing was strange no matter what happened, so I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it would be.
‘For now, I have no choice but to be as careful as possible.’
As I thought that, before I knew it, the time to enter the dungeon was approaching.
“Everyone, attention.”
At Ms. Eleonore’s voice, all the students looked at her.
“From now on, you will be entering the dungeon. Before entry, I will confirm that everyone is carrying their student ID.”
“Why do we need our student IDs?”
“They have location-tracking magic cast on them that only activates inside the dungeon. It is for the purpose of rescuing you in the event of an unexpected situation, so please rest assured.”
At Ms. Eleonore’s words, a few students looked horrified, but they did not voice any complaints.
They must have accepted that it was an unavoidable situation.
After showing their student IDs to Ms. Eleonore, the students entered the dungeon one party at a time.
Just before we entered the dungeon, Cecilia’s party was waiting in front of the entrance.
When Cecilia glanced back, my eyes met hers.
She immediately turned her head away, but in that brief gap, the emotions reflected in Cecilia’s eyes were not normal.
Deep hostility, an almost strange resolve, and impatience.
Just as I felt an ominous chill at that fact and was about to say something, Cecilia’s party disappeared into the dungeon.
‘Was I too late?’
Due to the dungeon’s nature of warping entrants to different locations each time they entered, even if I followed her now, there was a high chance I wouldn’t be able to catch her.
‘I just hope it’s not a major accident.’
Entering the dungeon with my party members, I shook my head slightly.
The dungeon’s unique ominous air felt thicker today than usual.
**
The moment she entered the dungeon, Cecilia outpaced her party members and walked toward the deepest area.
‘If I hesitate, someone else might take it.’
The jewel Ramsey had spoken of. If she found that, everything would change.
Yes, even the look in that man’s eyes when he had looked at her at the end.
‘What was with that look?’
Just before entering, she had seen Ashen trying to say something to her.
And she had also seen that he was sending her a worried gaze.
There had been no hostility in Ashen’s eyes, but that made it feel even more unpleasant to her.
Worry? For her, his rival?
‘Did I look that pathetic to you?’
Just thinking about it made her body tremble.
‘What I need is recognition. I have no need for pity.’
Thinking that, she looked over her party members.
None of them had reached the level of a squire, but all of them were nobles. They should have at least finished their preparatory study.
So if she was with them, they should be able to clear the dungeon without much difficulty.
That was what she thought. At least, until they went through three battles.
The first battle. While walking down the path, they discovered a slime.
Looking at the slime quietly curled up on the ceiling, unaware of anything, Cecilia cast Freezing Ray.
Crack—
The slime, instantly turned into a lump of ice, fell straight to the floor and soon shattered to pieces before disappearing.
During that time, her party members had been standing there blankly, but Cecilia understood.
‘Since I ended it in an instant, it can’t be helped.’
At least next time, she believed they would show more of what they could do.
The second battle. At a fork in the road, they discovered two giant rats.
Two rats larger than most hunting dogs.
She couldn’t take them down in a single blow.
“Watch my back.”
After whispering to her party members, Cecilia immediately cast Freezing Orb.
An ice sphere the size of a human head swallowed one of the giant rats, and the creature became an ice statue on the spot.
Then, the other giant rat, noticing the enemy, approached her.
She waited for her party members to act, but no one moved.
‘What is going on?’
When she turned back for an instant, she saw her party members hesitating.
She wanted to question them at once about why they were acting that way, but unfortunately, the giant rat was already right before her eyes.
Startled, Cecilia reflexively cast Frost Touch.
Looking at the rat, frozen into an ice statue in the same posture it had used to pounce on her, Cecilia let out a sigh and looked at her party members.
As if they at least knew to be ashamed, they all avoided her gaze at once.
Though she felt a sense of dissonance at that fact, Cecilia forced herself to calm down.
‘It must be because it’s their first time and they’re nervous.’
Next time, they would surely do their part. She had to believe that.
She repeated that to herself again and again.
Then came the third encounter. Cecilia’s group ran into a pack of imps on the road.
There were five of them.
They had not noticed them yet.
‘This much shouldn’t be difficult.’
Cecilia cast Freezing Arrow at the imp that looked the strongest.
A sharp icicle-shaped mass of ice flew out and pierced one imp’s head.
The leader imp went limp, the light fading from its eyes.
Seeing that, the other imps all turned their heads toward Cecilia’s group at once.
“Everyone, prepare for battle.”
Cecilia shouted to her party members and tried to chant her next spell.
However, even by the time the imps came within three steps of her, no one stood in front of her.
“What is going on?”
When she turned back in surprise, the noble students were holding their swords while trembling.
‘They’ve ended up like this against mere imps?’
The fact was absurd, but there was no time to hesitate.
Barely completing her Frost Breath spell, she aimed at the legs of the imp pack and sent cold air flying.
The imp pack stopped only half a step away from her.
Cecilia retreated several steps while avoiding the attack of the imp at the very front.
“They can’t move, so attack them!”
Only then, at her encouragement, did the other party members move and cut down the imps.
It was impressive in a way that they could perform such flashy movements even with trembling hands, but there was no practicality to them.
To think they needed more than five attacks to kill a single one.
‘Why?’
Cecilia carefully watched her party members’ swordsmanship.
It was flashy and noble dueling swordsmanship itself.
Dueling….
‘Don’t tell me these people…?’
Had they learned swordsmanship only as an accomplishment, not for combat?
As if trying to deny the assumption that had come to mind, Cecilia asked her party members a question.
“Didn’t all of you do your preliminary training? Why are you so frightened?”
“It’s just that this is our first real battle. When they charged at me trying to kill me, my body froze….”
“Isn’t that much common sense in a dungeon?”
“It’s normal to tremble regardless! Lady Cecilia, you’re the unusual one.”
Seeing them brazenly keep up appearances even while making excuses for themselves, Cecilia felt something inside her heart break.
‘These are nobles from the same dormitory as me?’
I was being treated the same as people like this?
“Hahaha.”
An empty laugh flowed from Cecilia’s mouth.
Belatedly, she recalled the attitudes of the other nobles she had met in Misery Dormitory.
They were courteous, but all of them had tried to keep one step away from her.
They had not even started conversations unless Cecilia spoke to them first.
At the time, she had thought they were all simply shy, but now she understood.
How she had been treated….
Having realized that fact, Cecilia cut across her party members and advanced alone.
“L-Lady Cecilia, where are you going?!”
“It’s dangerous to go alone!”
She heard voices calling to her from behind, but she ignored them all.
No, if anything, she quickened her pace even more.
‘I don’t need people like that.’
They were baggage anyway. Alone was better.
Having distanced herself from the party like that, Cecilia walked down the corridor alone for a long time.
Whether by luck, no monsters came toward her first.
Even the monsters she occasionally encountered were easy to defeat thanks to sniping them from long range.
‘This is going too smoothly.’
Though Cecilia felt a slight unease as she disposed of another monster by sniping it, she forced herself to ignore it.
She had already come this far. She could not hesitate anymore.
After wandering for some time, Cecilia finally discovered what she had wanted.
‘Is that it?’
Looking at the huge ruby shining brilliantly in the distance, Cecilia’s eyes gleamed.
It contained such powerful mana that even from far away, its magical light flashed.
It seemed to match the appearance of the jewel she had investigated on her own after hearing Ramsey’s words.
Cecilia approached the jewel step by step.
After using magic to search, she found there were no traps.
Her footsteps gradually quickened.
When the jewel was right before her, a sudden sense of incongruity came to mind.
‘How did that man know this was here?’
According to what she had investigated, the only information was that “there is a precious jewel in the dungeon.”
But Ramsey had seemed to know that it was on the first floor, and even how much powerful mana it contained.
How had he known that?
When that fact came to mind, she hesitated to touch the ruby.
Cecilia took out her magic wand and recited the trap detection spell once more.
There was still no trap.
“It seems I was worrying too much.”
Thinking that the mental pressure she had been under lately must have made her oversensitive, Cecilia touched the jewel.
At that moment, her detection magic sent out a fierce signal, informing her of the existence of a trap.
‘What is going on?’
Startled, she tried to pull her hand away from the jewel, but it was stuck fast to her palm and would not move. As if it were trying to maintain contact.
‘Is it a trap that activates by absorbing the mana of the mage who comes into contact with the jewel?’
It was a trap she had seen in a book.
But she had heard that such traps did not exist on the first floor, so why was it here?
As if someone had moved the trap here.
‘No way?’
For an instant, the image of a priest with a foxlike expression smiling appeared in her mind.
“Ramsey!”
Cecilia shouted in fury, but even as she did, the trap was rapidly unfolding.
Soon, a magic circle appeared before her eyes.
It was a complex magic circle that Cecilia, at her level, could not interpret, but this was magic she had already seen before.
‘Multi-summoning magic!’
It was the same magic circle Professor Louise had shown during mana operation class.
While she was shocked by that fact, the darkness spread across the floor raised itself like a living creature.
Like a snake aiming for its prey, the black darkness slowly began to coil around her.
Along with it, her vision gradually blurred.
Cecilia struggled to keep her mind conscious somehow, but her body would not listen.
Soon, the darkness wrapped itself around her entire body.
And the sensation that she was falling somewhere crashed over her.
‘Why?’
Tears flowed from her eyes as she sank into the darkness.
‘Why do I always end up like this?’
She had thought she was doing well. She had believed that if she kept going like this, it would be enough.
Written exams, practical training, and even dungeon exploration.
Even being acknowledged by her family.
There was not a single thing she had done properly.
In that despair, what suddenly surfaced was Ashen’s gaze as he looked at her.
‘Is that why you looked at me like that?’
There had been pity mixed in that gaze, but there had been no pretense.
To think she only realized that now.
‘I’m such a fool.’
“Kyaaa!”
While inwardly mocking herself, she was completely sucked into the darkness along with her scream.
Before long, all that remained in that place was the darkness, writhing as if alive and stretching out through the entire dungeon.