SBTMK Chapter 22

The basic weapons issued to those taking the second exam were a bow, a sword, and a dagger. Only once every weapon had been distributed did the exam properly begin.

The mages raised their hands high. Then, in loud voices, as if singing, they began reciting the ancient tongue.

Flora watched the mages blankly. She couldn't understand what they were saying, but she had the sense that something well beyond her imagining was about to unfold.

And then, all at once, the ground trembled faintly. The intensity gradually grew stronger, until her body turned heavy, as if her ankles had been bound to the earth, and breathing became difficult.

Flora had shut her eyes tight without meaning to, and now forced her trembling eyelids open.

A strange sight was unfolding before her. As if jewels hidden in the cavern walls were pouring loose, bright light was scattering into fragments all around her.

Someone grabbed her wrist just then. She'd been so absorbed in something else that she was pulled along helplessly.

For one instant her foot missed its footing, but she didn't fall—caught, fortunately, within someone's firm hold.

"Shh. Close your eyes. You'll get dizzy."

The man's scent was familiar.

The hand holding her steady so she wouldn't lose her balance was warm, and the voice reaching her ear was strikingly sweet.

Simen. Still here.

The hell—why was that such a relief.

Flora felt, for a moment, a peace settle over her, and she closed her eyes slowly, just as Simen said. Her ragged breathing gradually steadied as well.

Once the pressure—like blood running backward—drained off, the hand gripping her loosened, just a little.

Flora opened her eyes.

Moments ago she'd been deep inside the cavern—now she stood on a desert of nothing but drifting sand, without a single tree in sight.

……If this is a world someone built, isn't it a little too real?

The world magic had conjured was wonder itself.

Flora was still marveling at the vast desert landscape when the first team began, slowly, to move forward.

As they moved, the ground answered them with a faint tremor.

Sand, glittering like broken gold, scattered in small bursts, leaping and settling, before finally splitting apart to either side like the parting of a sea.

The candidates undertaking the exam began losing their footing in the steadily intensifying quake, stumbling, growing flustered.

"Why is it that here……"

But where Flora stood remained undisturbed.

"The space is separated. From this side, you can see in. From inside, they can't see out."

It seemed he'd overheard her muttering to herself, because Simen answered.

Every time his voice, whispering something so faint and gentle, reached her ear, gooseflesh rose along her skin.

The sensation of his light breath brushing her skin was unfamiliar.

Flora, stiff and frozen in place, nodded as if she understood.

Even trying to focus on the exam, all her attention kept pulling back toward Simen standing behind her.

Just then, from between the parted sand, a demon-beast shaped like a scorpion burst out.

The candidates scattered in a panic, but soon collected themselves and took up combat stances.

"4th-rank. Seven newcomers against one 4th-rank demon-beast—not bad."

The candidates entered combat. Flora, who'd started focusing on the exam the moment the beast appeared, curled her fists slightly as the brutal fighting unfolded.

Having to just watch people who'd been standing beside her moments ago get hurt, or killed—it stirred up a foul, ugly guilt.

It was the first time she'd felt this toward strangers.

Flora was unpracticed at emotion.

She'd always thought of feeling as some kind of con—annoying, self-indulgent—something to be watched constantly and stamped down. That's how she'd lived.

Since leaving Cenkan, she'd begun dreaming of a life lived among people, and through the people she'd met, she'd slowly begun to grasp what "emotion" even was, but the world of feeling she didn't yet understand remained vast beyond counting.

She was used to surviving alone. The moment it looked like she'd lose her own life, an ally stopped being an ally. An obstacle, she cut down without hesitation.

Affection toward others had simply never existed in her, and she'd never wanted it to—— but from the moment she left Cenkan, something had begun, slowly, to shift, and it seemed it had changed into this, without her noticing how far.

For an instant, everything she'd looked away from all this time flashed through her mind like a lantern-wheel turning.

A life that had looked away from even the things she'd once considered precious.

Rene. The child. The villagers who had shown her kindness.

Her gut stung, bitter. Something balled-up and rotten in her chest lurched up, all at once.

Was this regret. Or was it joy, welcoming the change.

Just then, one of the knights fleeing before her eyes collapsed, coughing up blood.

The supervisors watched it happen without flinching, but every candidate, without exception, either turned their heads away or shut their eyes.

Flora, without meaning to, took a step forward before catching herself, clenching her fists and lowering her head instead.

Simen rubbed her back gently.

"It's a cruel test, isn't it."

At his words, Flora nodded slowly.

Precisely ten minutes later, the demon-beast shattered into fragments like sand and scattered away.

A sandstorm began to blow, and gradually, as if erased by an eraser, the surroundings darkened.

And then, before she knew it, she was back in the cavern.

The priests moved toward the fallen candidates. Just as they'd been told at the outset, those who'd lost so much blood were perfectly unharmed.

Amid the solemn atmosphere, the exam continued.

This round called for seven candidates to bring down five 5th-rank demon-beasts moving in a pack, but one of them fainted the instant they entered the virtual world and was disqualified.

Not a single team managed to properly finish off their beast.

At last, it was Flora's turn.

"There's no need to push yourself. This test isn't about a kill."

"……"

"I'll be rooting for you."

The exam candidates were nearly all in a state of collapse, so the only ones left watching now were the exam's supervisors.

Flora, hearing Simen's encouragement, stepped forward to face the mages. Having watched the earlier exams, she felt both tense and afraid.

She already knew from experience just how terrifying a demon-beast could be, having been inside a Demon Hollow herself. Sweat ran down the hand gripping her bow.

When Flora opened her eyes, she was standing in the middle of a forest thick with humidity.

A thin mist lay across the ground, and the earth beneath was damp and sodden.

Something about it felt distinctly oppressive, but Flora took a deep breath and stepped forward.

Pushing aside the brush blocking her view, she saw something crouched on the ground.

……Human?

No. No, it wasn't. Looking closer, its skin looked rotted and blue, more than could belong to any human, and all its hair had fallen out.

The demon-beast sat there, picking up and eating insects crawling through the marsh.

Flora felt cold sweat break out along her spine.

The memory of the Kirin Kingdom's Demon Hollow surfaced. The 3rd-rank demon-beast there had also worn a grotesque, misshapen form, mimicking a human.

And if her guess was right—

Flora carefully raised her bow and fired at the thing's temple.

The arrow struck true, but the beast didn't die.

The demon-beast, mid-bite on an insect, turned to look at her. Then, staggering, it rose to its feet and, as if it hadn't taken any damage at all, yanked the arrow lodged in its temple straight out.

Sticky purple blood clung to the arrow, stretching in a long thread.

If not the head, then—

She calmly fired one more arrow. This time it struck the right eye.

The creature, its body swaying, began making a grotesque noise. Its body, human-shaped until now, began slowly expanding in volume.

Its belly swelled round, its arms stretched long, and legs thick with bristling hair burst out through its sides.

Its head grew slightly larger, but the grotesque human face remained fixed in place.

Just as Flora had expected.

A 3rd-rank demon-beast could take on a human form, but in that state, no attack could deal lethal damage. The condensed mana healed it on its own.

The real target was the true form. Only by forcing the transformation and finding the weak point could she kill it.

What she'd fought in the Demon Hollow had been an enormous ant. This time, it was a spider.

Its body was easily three times her own size, and she couldn't help but falter at the sight.

The nightmare of the Demon Hollow refused to let go of her.

Thirty went in, only three walked out—that hellish fight—and now she had to do it alone. She let out a short, bitter laugh.

She might have grown stronger since then, but still, expecting a single person to handle this by herself——

These mages—did they even check what she could actually do?

She'd always figured mages were all quacks, and now that even Haenkan's royal mages had sucker-punched her the same way, that thought only dug in deeper.

But what else could she do. Doubt all she wanted, curse them for quacks all she wanted—she was already inside. Sink or swim, Flora had to fight the damn thing in front of her.

Just ten minutes. She only had to hold out for ten minutes.

Soon the demon-beast launched its attack. From the large mouth on its body, silken threads shot out like arrows. She took a short breath and moved.

The threads flew as fast as arrows.

Flora couldn't find a single opening to nock her bow and kept running.

At this rate, she'd struggle to last five minutes, let alone ten.

But soon she realized the attacks came at a fixed interval, timed like arrows being loosed, and she used her instinct to put distance between them and nock an arrow.

Then, with total concentration, she fired at the mouth from which the threads were shooting.

The arrow struck true, and the creature let out a hideous cry, its attack halting for a moment.

Just as she was nocking another arrow—

The demon-beast's attack resumed without warning, and Flora's foot slipped on the sodden ground.

—Ah—!

She regained her balance quickly, but she couldn't fully dodge the thread flying toward her.

The sharp thread grazed her thigh, and it throbbed.

Flora kept firing. There was no need to lose her nerve over a single wrong hit. If anything, the tension easing was welcome.

She even found room enough to recall the candidates who'd suffered so terribly earlier.

She steadied her resolve, calling back the feelings she'd held toward them.