“It’s a ‘mock contest.’ Everyone, make sure you prepare well~”
* * *
“All right, today’s practical training is the ‘Mock Artifact Contest’!”
Today was Wednesday. Just as I had seen on Tomer’s smartwatch, and just as Lee Yeonghan had announced, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesdays, only one practical training session was scheduled.
The so-called mock artifact contest—literally, experiencing an artifact contest.
Thus, the 125 cadets gathered on the first floor of the “Underground Plaza,” where today’s mock contest would take place.
“An artifact contest is a major event you’ll experience roughly once a year.”
A real artifact contest usually took place somewhere beyond a nation’s reach. After all, an artifact discovered within a country’s borders belonged to that country, leaving no room for dispute.
However, in this world, many nations had fallen in the early days of the Outcall, and the regions where those nations had once existed remained as ghost territories.
In other words, in areas of Africa overrun by monsters, or near Central Asia where Djinn societies had been established, artifacts usually belonged to whoever excavated them.
“The scale of the artifact excavation site is ‘super-large.’ The concept is a chaotic battle. There will be no command structure, no way to contact your comrades, and no known location for the artifact!”
The reason the concept was specifically a chaotic battle was probably because of a Djinn with the Gift called “Melee.”
Artifact contests were usually fought between guilds, or between guilds and Djinn groups. The former had been common twenty or thirty years ago, when the related laws were still lacking, but these days, almost all of them were battles against Djinn.
“The teams have been divided evenly into the white team and the black team. The white team will defend, and the black team will attack. Keep in mind that the concept is a ‘chaotic battle’ as you proceed. For reference, the moment a cadet verbally shouts ‘I surrender,’ that cadet will be eliminated.”
Up until the ’90s, humanity had probably held the advantage, wielding efficient command systems and solid organizational strength as weapons. However, because of that one Djinn, the tide of battle had turned.
His name was Vermouth.
By randomly rearranging the positions of humans and Djinn who entered a certain space, he prevented humanity from taking the advantage. Thanks to the trump card known as “Demonization,” the Djinn side had always been superior to the Hero side in individual combat power.
“Now, I will cover everyone’s eyes.”
The moment he said that, my vision went pitch-black. A few startled cadets let out bizarre screams.
“This is my magic power. Do not panic. There is no need to dispel it.”
So once you reached about mid-high rank, blinding the eyes of 125 people was something you could do anytime.
Of course, that didn’t apply to me.
When I opened my eyes wide, my vision began to clear.
“I will guide you from here.”
A typical artifact excavation site was composed of fairly spacious floors stacked one atop another, and even had living quarters inside. That was because artifacts were usually buried rather deep, and excavation took at least two to three weeks.
Also, just because it was deep underground, one shouldn’t imagine some kind of burrow.
There were so many engineers with bizarre Gifts that it was more accurate to picture the mechanical scenery of an underground bunker.
“Hey, hey. Don’t step on me.”
“Augh. Ah. Someone hit me.”
The cadets were led along, jostling against one another.
A total of fifteen people were placed on the first basement floor. Twenty-five people were placed on the slightly wider second basement floor.
On the third basement floor, Chae Nayun had just been separated from the group. Chae Nayun was in the middle of the third basement floor. On top of that, Rachel was nearby as well. Third basement floor, right-side balcony connected to the living quarters.
Those two are going to fight like crazy.
I was in a residential room on the fourth basement floor, right below them. I wanted to see where Shin Jonghak and Kim Suho would end up, but that was too bad.
“...Huh?”
But a problem arose.
Yoo Yeonha was in the room right next to mine.
Given the internal structure, I would inevitably have to run into her in order to get out to the hallway.
On top of that, I was on the black team and Yoo Yeonha was on the white team. We were opponents.
A loud voice rang out from the speaker overhead.
—The artifact is being stored or transported by an “NPC.” The white team must protect the artifact, and the black team must seize it. Now, we will begin the countdown.
All the open doors closed, and the countdown began.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
When the countdown ended, the blindfold disappeared on its own.
I checked the magazine of my cadet handgun. Then I checked again the coordinates I needed to reach.
Underground, B-3 area of the lowest floor.
—The sound came from the room next door...
At that moment, Yoo Yeonha’s voice reached me. I turned my head toward the firmly shut door.
Click, clack.
Yoo Yeonha deliberately made her footsteps loud as she approached, then knocked on the door I was behind.
—I know you’re in there. Are you black team or white team? For reference, I’m on the white team.
I simply stayed still.
Then Yoo Yeonha hummed lightly and grasped the doorknob.
—You’re not answering. Then I suppose I can take you as black team? What a shame. You must have been looking forward to this. Think of it as bad luck...
Creeeak—the door opened, and beyond it, Yoo Yeonha appeared with a bright expression.
And our eyes met exactly.
“...!”
In that instant, Yoo Yeonha’s face froze. The corners of her smiling mouth trembled, and her widened eyes remained fixed on me.
To say it once more, she was on the white team and I was on the black team.
In other words, the two of us had to fight.
And yet, for some reason... Yoo Yeonha seemed afraid of fighting me.
Gulp.
Yoo Yeonha swallowed. Her tense hands trembled faintly. I could even see the sweat beading on the tip of her nose.
The standoff continued for a little while, and since the back of my neck itched slightly, I tried to scratch it.
Yoo Yeonha reacted unusually strongly even to that simple action.
“D-Don’t come!”
“...What?”
I tilted my head. She was the one who came in, so what was she telling me not to come for?
End
Yoo Yeonha agonized with Kim Hajin in front of her.
Should she fight him? Or should she run away like this...? She had stepped forward confidently enough because she had some faith in herself, but she had met far too great an enemy from the very beginning.
“...”
Whether he knew of her worries or not, Kim Hajin simply remained still. Yet it was precisely that calm composure that made Yoo Yeonha tense. Yoo Yeonha couldn’t endure the gaze with which he looked at her. This feeling was a first. It hadn’t been like this before.
Then, all of a sudden, Kim Hajin raised his hand.
In truth, Kim Hajin had merely intended to scratch the back of his neck because it itched slightly.
“D-Don’t come!”
However, Yoo Yeonha, not knowing that, unconsciously shouted out.
Kim Hajin looked at her in silence, then lowered his hand without a word.
A handgun was already held in his right hand. That wasn’t the Desert Eagle she had gotten for him. It was nothing more than an ordinary cadet handgun.
But Kim Hajin had shattered protective aura even with that ordinary handgun. Wasn’t that why Kim Hajin had received attention, if only briefly, from the country’s top-ranked guilds?
“...”
Kim Hajin raised the gun. Yoo Yeonha felt sweat trickling down her temple.
First, she calmly surveyed her surroundings. The interior was cramped, and outside was a straight hallway, making it difficult to escape the handgun’s range. That meant there were only two options: fight, or be taken down.
Yoo Yeonha looked down at the whip held in her hand.
Suddenly, a thought occurred to her.
Perhaps this was a chance to personally verify Kim Hajin’s skills. The strength she had inferred from him had been based solely on what she had witnessed. If she clashed with him in earnest this time, she might be able to grasp, even a little, the depth of that strength...
At the same time, one more thought occurred to her. This one was a bit weaker.
If she opposed Kim Hajin now and got eliminated, it would probably be the fastest death. That alone could not happen. But desperately resisting as if her life depended on it would also be beneath her dignity.
It was absolutely not because she hated pain.
After calmly agonizing over it, Yoo Yeonha eventually let out a sigh.
Then, as if she had made up her mind, her eyes widened.
Glaring at Kim Hajin with a gaze sharper than a wildcat’s, she swung her whip. The whip moved as naturally as one of her own limbs and wrapped around the handgun.
Swish!
The whip snatched Kim Hajin’s handgun away before anyone could even notice.
Yoo Yeonha stared blankly at the handgun in her hand.
“I-I did it! Ha, haha!”
She had never even imagined she would be able to do it.
Ahahaha—!
Yoo Yeonha laughed confidently. Maybe this person isn’t that big of a deal after all?
“Even you, if your weapon is taken away...”
However, the very next moment.
As if suddenly possessed by something, the handgun flowed back into Kim Hajin’s hand.
“Ah, aah? W-Where are you going!”
Yoo Yeonha hurriedly tried to grab the gun again, but it was already too late.
The “Aether wire” that Kim Hajin had secretly launched had stuck firmly to the handgun and had already retrieved it. Since this Aether wire, manifested in detail by Kim Hajin, was invisible unless one concentrated magic power into the pupils, Yoo Yeonha assumed it was the effect of magic power.
“...”
At that, the smile Yoo Yeonha had been wearing just moments ago quickly disappeared. More tense than she had been at first, Yoo Yeonha looked at Kim Hajin. With that, one of her choices had vanished. Since I clearly attacked first, I have to endure whatever happens from now on...
Yoo Yeonha gulped.
“...Haa.”
At that moment, Kim Hajin let out a deep sigh and raised the handgun.
The gun aimed at her. Yoo Yeonha’s body flinched. Before the steel muzzle, Yoo Yeonha couldn’t think of anything.
How should I block it?
Would it hurt, perhaps?
Can I dodge it?
Her mind grew complicated with all sorts of worries, but Kim Hajin did not fire the gun. He merely chuckled once and put the weapon back into its holster.
What?
While Yoo Yeonha stood bewildered, he walked over with heavy steps and lightly patted her on the shoulder.
“It’s still early. Let’s take it easy.”
Muttering that inexplicable line, he passed by her and headed outside.
Yoo Yeonha blankly watched his back.
* * *
“Ah, damn. It hurts like hell.”
My right wrist hurt quite a bit. When Yoo Yeonha tried to take the handgun with her whip, it had merely grazed me slightly, but my skin was scraped and flushed red.
If it had hit me properly, my bone probably would have broken. As expected, Yoo Yeonha was secretly ridiculously strong too.
“Phew. Thank goodness.”
In any case, my bluff seemed to have worked well, and I safely passed Yoo Yeonha and came out into the fourth basement floor lobby.
The lobby of the fourth basement floor was fairly spacious. But it was strangely quiet. There were no voices and no presence of people.
What’s this?
Did everyone already rush somewhere else?
I turned on my smartwatch.
All cadets participating in the mock contest were wearing “biometric receivers.” These receivers could be seen as classroom devices that clearly set each person’s stamina value and eliminated cadets who were judged to have suffered fatal injuries serious enough to make continuing combat impossible.
Through my laptop linked to my smartwatch, I checked the GPS of those receivers.
There were only ten people on the fourth floor, including me and Yoo Yeonha.
Of those ten, six were already moving around with their teammates.
“Tomer...”
Next, I checked Tomer’s GPS.
Tomer was currently in the bathroom on the seventh basement floor. She wasn’t moving, as if she had resolved to kill time there.
In that case, I should go after Tomer as well.
...Then, suddenly, I grew curious about what the other cadets were doing.
On the floor right above, the third basement floor where Rachel and Chae Nayun were, a fight had broken out in its own way, but the big match hadn’t happened yet. In other words, Chae Nayun and Rachel hadn’t clashed.
But on the fifth basement floor.
In the lobby of the fifth basement floor, a big match that anyone would want to see was just about to begin. The two people facing off were that impressive.
Shin Jonghak and Kim Suho. The two cadets who could be called the representatives of the black team and white team had met.
I turned on the CCTV over there.
—I believed this day would come, Kim Suho.
Shin Jonghak recited with more seriousness than anyone else in the world.
—...
However, Kim Suho faced Shin Jonghak without a word.
—Come at me. I’ll make you feel the difference in our class.
At Shin Jonghak’s provocation, Kim Suho drew his sword. Shin Jonghak raised his spear.
The first to charge was Kim Suho. He rushed forward and swung his sword in a wide arc. Shin Jonghak stepped back and blocked the strike. Spear and sword clashed, sparks flashing. Each of them made good use of the strengths and weaknesses of their respective weapons in their offense and defense.
At that moment, someone sped past behind me.
Clatter-clatter— The sound of someone running up the stairs rang out loudly.
When I glanced over, it was Yoo Yeonha. She was making a break for it faster than anyone else.
"......Oh, right."
Thanks to those footsteps, I came back to my senses as well.
On the fifth basement floor, a mysterious yet fierce exchange of spear and sword was taking place, but now wasn’t the time to spectate.
I headed toward the emergency stairs. They were smaller and more out of the way than the stairs in the central lobby, making it less likely I’d run into an enemy.
* * *
"I-I surrender!"
Before Chae Nayun’s sword, the male cadet weakly cried out his surrender. The moment the word left his mouth, a blindfold appeared over his eyes. The eliminated participant would soon be moved to the "eliminated participants’ room" located on each floor.
"Phew...... Too easy."
Chae Nayun muttered smugly as she wiped off her sweat.
This was already her third kill. It hadn’t even been three months since she switched to being a swordsman, yet she was already doing this well. As expected, I really do have talent with the sword.
As Chae Nayun was brimming with confidence, someone called out to her softly.
"Nayun—!"
Chae Nayun looked that way. It was Lee Jiyoon, wearing the white team’s cadet uniform. Lee Jiyoon came trotting over to Chae Nayun.
"Hu. Thank goodness."
Lee Jiyoon stuck close to Chae Nayun’s side and let out a sigh of relief.
"Hey, were you hiding this whole time?"
A supporter like Lee Jiyoon was extremely vulnerable in this sort of melee. If she were an offensive supporter like Yoo Yeonha, she might be able to run around depending on the situation, but unfortunately, Lee Jiyoon was a pure support-type supporter.
"No. I took one person down. With a weakness debuff."
"Oh, really? That’s good. Anyway, glad to see you."
Chae Nayun also welcomed Lee Jiyoon’s appearance. Lee Jiyoon was the kind of supporter who made warriors feel good. The various physical buffs she provided gave warriors the exhilaration of feeling as though they had become Superman.
"Ah, I seriously thought I was going to die......"
Lee Jiyoon spent a long while stroking her chest, then suddenly spoke as if she had just remembered.
"Right, Nayun. Rachel is on this floor."
"Rachel is?"
Chae Nayun’s eyes widened.
"Yeah. I was so shocked, you know? I ran the moment I saw her, and that’s the only reason I barely survived."
It was then.
Clatter-clatter— Someone came scrambling up the stairs from the floor below.
"Hold on."
The two of them looked in that direction tensely. Lee Jiyoon raised her bow, and Chae Nayun aimed her sword toward the stairs.
But the person who soon revealed herself was, fortunately, Yoo Yeonha of the same white team.
Yoo Yeonha seemed relieved as well, and upon seeing Chae Nayun and Lee Jiyoon, she let out a deep sigh. Chae Nayun tilted her head and asked her,
"What’s with you? Yoo Yeonha, why are you sweating so much?"
"Huh? O-Oh, it’s nothing."
Unlike usual, Yoo Yeonha’s face looked rather haggard.
Chae Nayun asked suspiciously,
"Is there someone downstairs?"
Yoo Yeonha answered quietly.
"......Kim Hajin."
""Kim Hajin?""
Lee Jiyoon and Chae Nayun asked back at the same time.
"Yeah."
"Ah, then Kim Hajin must be dead, right?"
Lee Jiyoon asked back innocently. Yoo Yeonha gave a bitter smile and shook her head.
"No. He’s not dead."
I’m the one who almost died, not him. However, Yoo Yeonha did not say the rest out loud. Naturally, because it was embarrassing.
"Really?"
Chae Nayun scratched her cheek, pretending not to be interested, and asked in passing,
"So, what was he doing?"
"How would I know?"
Yoo Yeonha brushed it off, but Lee Jiyoon cut in with a strange smile.
"Maybe he was looking for Rachel?"
At Lee Jiyoon’s words, Chae Nayun tilted her head.
"Huh? Why Rachel?"
"Kim Hajin likes Rachel, doesn’t he?"
"......What?"
This time, it was something neither Yoo Yeonha nor Chae Nayun could understand.
"What are you talking about?"
"Huh? You guys didn’t know?"
"What...... what? What about Kim Hajin?"
When Chae Nayun, flustered, stammered back, Lee Jiyoon—