Chapter 41
Chapter 41
“Yeah.”
A familiar face revealed itself behind Elysia.
Werner had wanted to belong to our party as well, but since his ranking overlapped with Alice’s, he had swallowed his tears and wandered off to find another place.
The place he ended up settling into was Elysia’s party.
Originally, everyone had been scheduled to belong to the same party as the protagonist, but because of the altered elements, we ended up scattering like this.
Still, since we had chosen the same dungeon as in the original work, nothing had changed overall.
“The main cast is all here now, and all that’s left is one party.”
The path split into three branches.
One was us, one was Elysia, and the remaining one was a group of extras whose names I didn’t even remember.
However, when the figures emerging from the darkness revealed themselves, my brow subtly furrowed.
“Gaus.”
Gaus was the name August used at the Academy.
A handsome man with bluish hair stared at me with an inorganic expression.
In the original work, he should have been assigned to a different dungeon, not this one.
“Has the boss room not been cleared yet?”
Gaus asked Elysia in an extremely businesslike tone.
She lightly nodded and suggested that we tackle it together.
“What are you going to do?”
This time, at Elysia’s question directed at me, I paused to think for a moment.
It wasn’t a situation I had anticipated, but someone like August was well within my grasp.
If anything, it was slightly welcome.
Since the entrance exam, I hadn’t had a chance to see his face, as if he’d been deliberately avoiding me.
“Since we’re already here, let’s clear it together.”
Dungeon exploration wasn’t graded by the number of monsters defeated, so I readily nodded.
After all, my objective wasn’t the boss monster, but the demon race that Diark would summon.
If it hadn’t changed from the original, the boss of the Resting Place of the Dead was a Death Knight.
The Death Knight was a mid-tier monster, and I remembered that the protagonist’s party had struggled quite a bit to defeat it.
They had fought fiercely until the demon race appeared.
Kuuuuung—
As we pushed open the entrance to the boss room, a vast corridor greeted us.
“So that’s the boss monster of this dungeon.”
At the center of the corridor.
Seated upon a throne-like altar, a Death Knight clad in black armor scattered pitch-black demonic energy around itself.
Just as someone was about to gulp at the oppressive pressure it exuded, a meaningful change occurred inside the corridor.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
The entrance to the boss room closed, and the torches placed throughout ignited in a crimson blaze, announcing their presence.
As the students seemed to panic momentarily at the sudden situation, I stepped forward and shouted at them.
“Vanguard, forward! Focus on evasion as much as possible. Mages, prepare light-attribute attacks. Leysias, I’ll need you to handle defense.”
“Leave it to me.”
When I called out the most skilled mage among them, Leysias calmly began chanting despite her tense expression.
Soon, a translucent shield formed in front of us, and we were able to finish preparing for battle.
-Foolish, wretches.
Kiiiiik.
With a groan like a shriek, the Death Knight rose to its feet.
Blue flames flared up within its hollow eye sockets, scattering an overwhelming presence.
When it extended its hand forward, dark currents gathered and formed a long greatsword, which the Death Knight lightly grasped.
-For the crime of disturbing the rest of the dead.
-Repent, through death.
Blue flames blossomed over the black demonic energy, engulfing its entire body.
“…It looks kind of strong.”
The atmosphere emanating from the Death Knight was anything but ordinary.
When I glanced to the side, Alice was also looking at me with a flustered expression.
“The one that comes out later will be even stronger than this, right?”
A creeping sense of unease rose from one corner of my mind.
Still, I shook my head and steeled myself.
It was a mid-tier monster, but it wasn’t that difficult an opponent.
Even in the original work, the protagonist—who couldn’t yet fully control his power—had been able to defeat it together with his party.
Moreover, Alice had already reached the stage where she could fully wield her own strength.
“It’s coming. Everyone, brace yourselves!”
Still, I couldn’t afford to let my guard down.
The real main act wasn’t the Death Knight, but the demon race that would appear after it.
That was why I reassured the party members and took up a combat stance.
“Hup!”
I was the first to dash forward and clash swords with the Death Knight.
Blue flames scattered faintly into the darkness, signaling the ferocity of the fight.
The force transmitted through my grip wasn’t something to ignore, but it also wasn’t worth making a big deal over.
‘Is it all just for show?’
Compared to its apocalyptic death knight-like appearance, its actual combat power wasn’t that impressive.
If even I, wearing the Curse of the Veil, could handle it without much trouble, then Alice should be able to defeat it alone without difficulty.
Still, taking it down too quickly wouldn’t be fun, so for the sake of excitement, I put on a show of fierce combat.
I drew its attention from the front while the vanguards of the other parties supported from behind.
If it looked like someone might get hurt, I slipped into the opening myself, and we were able to keep the fight going for quite some time.
“Is the magic ready?”
“It’s finished!”
Thinking it was about the right time, I shouted while looking at the mages, and they were entering the final stage of their chant.
“[Manifest, the flapping of those radiant wings, to drive away the darkness; the night shall retreat and dawn shall approach. Breath of Dawn].”
A representative light-attribute attack spell was activated.
Pure white light bloomed throughout the corridor that had been shrouded in darkness, and soon it rained down upon the Death Knight’s head.
Kwaaaaang-!
Was this what a bolt of lightning cast down by a god looked like? With a tremendous roar, a blinding field of light engulfed the Death Knight and generated a massive shockwave.
Through the thick cloud of dust, I sharply narrowed my eyes.
-Gah… hi…….
The Death Knight had not yet vanished.
However, it seemed to have suffered a fatal wound from the attack just moments ago, as the edges of its armor began to crumble into tiny fragments and scatter into the air.
Paaaat-!
As if in a final struggle, bluish flames wrapped around its sword.
But we had already surged to right before it.
Kang-!
Flames and aura collided and rebounded.
As the Death Knight and I retreated after exchanging a single blow, the party members who had already taken positions around it threw themselves forward.
Alice, Elysia, Diark, Werner, Maria, and the others.
They showed no mercy and shredded the Death Knight’s body.
Perhaps because it had already sustained irrecoverable wounds, the Death Knight soon dropped to its knees and vanished, turning into a single stream of dust.
“Phew, that was exhausting…….”
Diark collapsed flat onto the ground with a drained expression.
As the tension eased, the other party members also slumped down where they were, each looking weary.
‘Is there no reward.’
A brief break.
I approached the altar side to check if the Death Knight had left behind any treasure, but there was nothing—no treasure, not even a single rat.
Well, I had expected as much.
Since it was managed by the Academy, they must have swept it clean long ago, leaving not even a speck of dust behind.
“Alright, then.”
I looked around at the party members resting on the floor.
They looked worn out from the previous fight, but unfortunately, the real show was only just beginning.
“…?”
However, Diark—the very culprit—was sitting there chatting away with female students from another party, completely absorbed.
Unlike our blunt party, they were conversing with friendly, affable attitudes.
‘Did I remember it wrong?’
I thought it over carefully for a moment, but there was no way I had mixed up an early episode.
Immediately after defeating the Death Knight, when everyone had let their guard down, Diark had used a device he had prepared in advance to summon the demon race.
But now, there was no sign of the demon race—no omen of it at all.
“Ostia.”
“…Yeah.”
At Elysia’s call, I temporarily set my thoughts aside.
With a puzzled expression, she pointed toward the corridor door and spoke to me.
“We defeated the boss monster, but the entrance isn’t opening. Do you happen to know what kind of mechanism this might be?”
“The door isn’t opening?”
Just as she said, the corridor door was tightly shut.
I considered slashing it once, but since it was connected to the entire structure of the wall, a misstep could cause the whole corridor to collapse, so that had to remain a last resort.
“There doesn’t seem to be any device on the door.”
Alice spoke while lightly frowning.
Leysias, standing beside her, added that there was no magical mechanism either.
‘What is this.’
If the story of the original wasn’t proceeding, then why were we trapped here? An unpleasant sensation crept up along my spine.
“Did we clear it too quickly?”
Werner scratched his cheek leisurely.
Everyone had an air of “surely nothing will happen.” And that “surely” became reality.
“Heh heh heh, hahahahaha!”
A loud laugh burst out inside the corridor, as if something was immensely amusing.
Alice and I looked at Diark at the same time, but he only glanced around with a bewildered look, startled by the sudden laughter.
“…Ostia.”
Having sensed something, Alice pointed toward the throne atop the altar.
Shrouded in dark shadows so we couldn’t make out who it was, a human-shaped figure was seated there.
“[Primordial light, Light].”
Leysias summoned a sphere of light, and only then were we able to recognize who had been laughing.
“Gaus?”
Why was August sitting there? The unpleasant sensation that had been rising along my spine had now climbed to my chest, gripping my heart heavily.
There was an unexpected variable.
That was August’s very existence.
In the midterm exam, he was originally supposed to explore a different dungeon from us.
I should have harbored deep suspicions from the moment he appeared here.
“Gaus, what are you doing up there……?”
A student who seemed to be one of August’s party members approached him slowly, cold sweat dripping down his face.
But August merely snapped his fingers once, wearing a deep smile.
Guuuuung—
At the same time, space itself trembled.
As if a powerful earthquake had struck, the surroundings shook violently, and everyone except Alice and me lost their balance and rolled across the floor.
Alice had known in advance, because I had tipped her off, that Diark would summon the demon race.
But at this development, different from what she had expected, she stiffened her expression and looked at me.
“…Was this part of the original progression too?”
“I wish it had been.”
Soon, the vibrations that had been shaking the ground subsided.
The students staggered to their feet with terrified expressions and looked up at the altar in confusion.
“Gaus? Just what are you—.”
“Don’t go closer. It’s already too late.”
I grabbed the shoulder of a party member who hadn’t yet given up hope and threw him backward.
At that, August threw his head back and let out another coarse laugh before springing to his feet.
“If it weren’t for you!”
Iing.
As if that were the signal, the edge of the altar began to emit light, and geometric patterns started to rise into the air.
Unreadable even by system assist, they soon formed the shape of something, eventually becoming a complex magic circle.
“…Leysias, can you tell what that is?”
“I, I’ve never seen anything like that before either.”
Leysias shook her head with a trembling voice.
The magic circle soon created a black passage.
‘That is…….’
At least that description matched the original work.
Though the caster was different, it was a passage that summoned the demon race.
Pushk.
But even that led to an alien development.
Jet-black tentacles surged out of the black passage and pierced August’s body.
They burrowed into him everywhere—eyes, nose, mouth, ears—then soon went still.
“…….”
All we could do was hold our breath and watch the situation change by the second.
Even Alice and I, who knew the progression in advance, were at a loss in the face of this altered future—how much more so for the others.
One thing was certain.
The course of this story was absolutely not going to flow in a way that benefited me.