V4C3

For some time now,the movements of the first years have been unnatural. Despite all the battles taking place, Lokibelieves it more prudent for combat to be avoided for a bit longer. Support to that premonition soon follows.

“Groups 11, 46,and 50 have left the designated area.”

While on the opposing side,

“Group 37 is leaving the designated area.”

“How!!”

A teacher hurries and slaps on a con sensor.

“Please respond. You’ve left the designated area. Please return, immediately!”

Loki and the other teachers watch in silence.

“Are you complying?”

[… … … …]

Not only is there noresponse, the noise signaling they are in contact stops.

Loki steps awayduring that short gap. The presentnumber of reinforcement units are insufficient. They are not enough to keep up with theunfolding situation. Furthermore, during that span of time, another group deviatesfrom their route.

Loki says, “Please continue monitoring.”

“But…”

Loki takes command of the growing unrest without hesitation.

“Everything is alright.”

She is fed up bythe dark clouds setting in over the headquarters. That the current arbitrary actions of thestudents are being selfishly made is obvious. Was I overconfident in my abilities?

Regardless, whileshe doesn’t know the reason for the current situation, she does know someone isactively going around hunting mamono . With a heavy heart, she goes to a con sensorand speaks as though she is admitting her mismanagement. “My apologies. There are 5 groups leaving the designatedarea. They…”

However, before she can finish responding, [I thought as much…]

“— —! You already knew?!?”

[I had a feeling.]

The sound of the ground rumbling carries over from the con sensor.

[Don’t worry. I’m on my way.]

“I will be troubling you with this.”

[I have an idea over what’s going on. I’ll reinforce them one by one just as they leave the designated area.] [1]

“Understood. Their coordinates are…”

—Noble Diamond, RoleCall!!—

Arus pulls backhis chain just as the transmission ends. His surroundings crumble while a massiveamount of something resembling black ash flutters about.

Arus expands his fieldof view before setting off. By usingspace interference magic, he searches for powerful mamono within a 1kmsphere.

His brain can graspand project three-dimensional space. Bycopying mamono as objects, he is able to learn their size and shapes. However, unlike Loki, he cannot filter themthrough the strength of their mana. Assuch, he is unable to accurately determine their ranks. He can only make conjectures based off hisintuition and experiences. Yet despitethat, his deductions aren’t too far off the mark.

Arus confirms thatnone of the surrounding mamono , regardless of their rank, are reactingto him. Afterwards, he opens his eyes.

“They’re theclosest?”

He then takes offin their direction upon confirming so. Sayingthat he moves with god speed wouldn’t be unreasonable. Not even the trees, which should be ahinderance, slow him down. He merelyuses them as footholds to spring himself forward.

The closest groupis easily over 2km away. Arus covers thedistance in under three minutes.

The group isstartled by his appearance. Their vigilanceis natural considering Arus is wearing a mask.

A man at the front of the group calls out to him. He has well kept, short, dark brown hair. In his right hand is an expensive looking and well decorated sword. “Bastard, who are you!?”

“A reinforcement unit dispatched from headquarters.”

The man clicks his tongue and rests his sword against his shoulder. “ Che —! You already noticed?”

“You have left the designated area. Please turn back immediately.”

“Too bad, we’re going to keep going forward. Besides, as far as I can tell, there are no rules stating we can’t leave the designated area.”

“You’re the supervisor?”

“Yeah, what of it?”

The group is nolonger functioning as it should. Thesupervisor is taking the initiative to hunt mamono and having everyoneelse follow along. Originally, the firstyears were to have the initiative while supervisor provided them with assistance. The current situation undermines the purpose forthe combat training.

He’s probably oneof those upperclassmen who were in the Director’s office.

The first years behind him tremble with fright as their eyes look all around. A young pupil in the middle of the group with a slender frame speaks up. He says, “ Senpai , let’s do what this man says.”

“Shad up, don’t order me around!! Don’t you want to improve your ranks? Then do as I say!”

The young student flinchesinto himself and shuts his mouth.

Arus says, “Sothat’s how it’s going to be?”

“ Ahn ?” As the supervisor turns around, Arus drives a knee into his solar plex. “—— kahaa !!” He faints in an instant.

Arus catches himby his collar and drags him along while saying, “Aren’t there any decent people…”

With that resignedsigh, he glances towards the group. He speaksthrough his mask as he says, “Once you’re in the designated area, you can reachheadquarters by heading directly west.”

The group stares at the masked and cloaked Arus with dumbfound amazement. However, they immediately return to their senses.

“Thank you.”

“I’ll take this guy. If you follow me, you won’t encounter any mamono .”

“U- understood.”

Arus turns westand takes off. His knife turns into asword as a blade of mana extends from it. The moment a mamono appears before him, he slaughters it in aninstant despite carrying a man over his shoulder.

In less than aminute, several hundred meters are covered. There, within the designated area, two membersof the reinforcement unit are found waiting. As I thought, wearing a mask putsthem on guard.

Once Arus calls out to them, they realize he isn’t a mamono and lower their AWRs. “I’ll immediately be heading off to the next group. Take this guy back to headquarters. Although, if he becomes a hinderance, feel free to toss him aside.”

“ Eeh —!”

They’re not awareto their supervisor’s deeds, but Arus contemplated discarding him a coupletimes during the trip.

…

“Group 46 has been retrieved. As expected, the supervisor was the problem.”

[Such a situation….]

“Loki, allow the reinforcement units to hit the supervisors as required.”

[Understood… However, contact has also ceased with some of the reinforcement units.]

“ Che ! Either way, dealing with the supervisors is somewhat more important.”

[Certainly, I will act accordingly.]

…

Thus, Arus recoversfour groups. In each of them, thetrouble originated from the upperclassmen usurping control. From the second group onward, he didn’t botherasking the supervisors any questions and just knocked them out. Each time, he considers feigning it was anaccident. [2]

The current time,judging from the position of the sun, is a while past noon. According to the schedule, the extra-curricularlesson should soon be coming to an end. Studentsshould have started returning and be gathering at headquarters. Afterwards, only one sixth of the class,those who volunteered, will be allowed to continue until evening. [3]

Arus takes off forthe final group. At the moment, thatgroup is pressing further and further away from the designated area. Their current location is past where Arus andLoki carried out their extermination early in the morning. Simply stated, while no mamono of A rankor higher have been detected, no one would be surprised if the harder to detect mamono of B and C rank were found prowling around.

[Requesting rescue for the aforementioned group 11.]

“On my way.”

Arus furtherincreases his speed. His robe flutters, turninginto nothing more than a glint to the mamono he dashes past.

–Five NobleDiamonds at Attention!–

“Cavsor-senpai, we’ll be leaving the designated area at this rate.”

“Forget that and just keep going!! “

Tesfia and hergroup have subjugated three more mamono since their first battle. Each time, the third year Cavsor criticizedthem and issued complaints. As such, she looked at him and said, “In that case,please give us an example.”

Then, afterfooling around with an F rank mamono and defeating it, he changed andstarted actively searching for more. Yeteven after leaving the designated area, they have yet to encounter any.

Cavsor shouts withblood shot eyes, “Hurry up… Hurry up and show yourselves. I’m gonna kill you!”

Tesfia’s groupfeel a sense of crisis, yet they are unable to abandon their upper classman. Tesfia doesn’t understand why she isn’t, butfeels it might have something to do with her responsibility as an aristocratand her rank.

I’d be betrayingall that I am if I abandon him.

Cavsor grumbles a hexlike mantra to himself built up from deep-rooted delusions. “With this I’m a triple digits too. At best, I can push back the Faver family fora year.” Whenever a branch blocks hisway, he lops it off with his sword type AWR.

As aristocrats,the interactions within Cavsor’s Denbel family are nonexistent. However, the Denbel family head is a parentwith similar standing to the head of the Faver family. As such, Tesfia’s name often comes up as a formof pressure.

The heavy responsibilityto not lose against Tesfia drove Cavsor into a corner. He was hostile towards Tesfia from the start,but then she enrolled into the same academy as him. That coupled with her achieving a rankingsimilar to his own filled him with indignation.

Tesfia, even tillthe present, is unaware of those circumstance.

Theextracurricular lesson provided Cavsor the greatest opportunity to bolster his positionthrough combat. Yet, that brazen Favergirl, despite not having any combat experience, is massacring any mamono that appearsbefore her. It’s like she’s on ahunt. This isn’t a hunt, yet she’s on ahunt.

Despite Cavsorhaving taken everyone outside of the designated area, not a single mamono hasbeen encountered.

A group member’sface twitches with doubtful anxiety as she can be heard saying, “Somehow, isn’tthis strange?”

Her unease spreadsto everyone else.

Tesfia also findsthe situation off. “That’s right…” Some how or another, she feels as though it’sa sign. As such, she immediately wantsto encounter a satisfying mamono for Cavsor so they can return to theproper route.

…

Cavsor leads thegroup of six to a clearing with a lake. Thelake is neither wide nor deep, but it carries a mysterious majesty to it. At most, its depth would barely be enough to submergeTesfia. Regardless, the pristine clearwater projects the lake’s bottom in minute detail.

Massive trees floodthe lake’s surroundings. Nothing therecan be considered small. Sunlight filtersdown through the leaves, creating various beams of light.

Their fascination isfleeting— — A sound carries down from above.

Everyone looks upat the same time. A massive tree appearsbefore them. While its age isundeterminable, there is no question it is oldest and most solemn of the verdantsea. At it’s peak… looking down at them,upside down, with eyes full of hostility is a 20m wide spider-like mamono .

“— — — —!!”

A school girl’shand rises up like a marionette’s and she falls over while saying, “What… that…”

The members of the group turn their heels on the girl and take off like rabbits without looking back.

“Do… doing something… that…”

“Impossible, impossible, impossible, impossible… we-we’re dead.”

“ Waaaaaaaa !!!”

Even the girl kicks and flails about in a desperate attempt to move away.

“— — — — — —!!!!”

Their cries go from being laced with doubt to despair.

“Why!? ….Why are these here!?”

The fleeing group members continue to cry out.

“Just why…!?”

Tesfia lookstowards them. No one has an answer thatquestion. Tesfia herself can’t even comeup with one.

Clusters of mamono that were hiding in the shrubs are revealing themselves. They appear in various shapes. There is no commonality among them. Slowly, they surround the group and cut off thepath of retreat.

While theirsituation is the result of their actions, everyone can’t help but feel theywere lured in.

Their situation isdesperate. Worse, the knowledge theyhave for distinguishing the ranks of mamono is not applicable for mostof the mamono there. Still, everyone can clearly tell that the spider mamono before them is B rank. As there isno A rank mamono present, it is the strongest one there. Furthermore, while the surrounding mamono are of lower rank than the spider mamono , that are still stronger thanthe other mamono Tesfia and her group defeated.

A rumbling risesup from the ground. The spider mamono leaps off the massive tree. Itsoverall length is at least 8m long. Itsmass and the pressure it gives off makes Tesfia’s sword look like rubbish incomparison.

The number of feetit has is indistinguishable. Each one isdifferent and where they extend from isn’t clear. Not even its face can be told apart from itshead.

No, there’s nomistaking its face.

Countless redcompound eyes open over what was a smooth black carapace. Its widening mouth is recognizable at aglance. Not a sharp tooth can be spottedamong its black teeth. They are flat forthe sake of grinding its meals.

The sight of it sapseveryone’s will to live. It’s as thoughthey’ve been enveloped by small roots that slowly drain them.

Cavsor’s hand trembles as he raises his sword.

“Impossible, impossible… I won’t die in a place like this!”

Mana flows into his hand and he releases his third spell of the day. [4]

“[Burning Shot]!”

At the same timehe swings down his sword, several fireballs fly at the spider mamono . His invoking of several fireballs is mid-tieredmagic, yet the spider mamono doesn’t avoid it. Instead, it just flings open its mouth.

The fireballs envelopthe mamono in an explosion upon crashing against it, but the action ismeaningless. Only a few smoking burns markits exoskeleton. From the start, Cavsor’sfireballs lacked the intensity to overwhelm the mamono’s large build.

“ Hii —!”

Cavsor collapsesupon seeing the ineffectiveness of his spell. His AWR drops from his hand and he clutches his head.

The strongestspell Tesfia can use at the moment is roughly the same strength as Burning Shot. While an argument claiming her Icicle Swordis stronger can be made, the difference is insignificant. If anything, she doesn’t even know if thecurrent situation allows her enough time to invoke the spell.

The mamono attacking at that moment wouldn’t be anything strange. As such, everyone in the group realizes theirsituation is truly hopeless.

Tears birthed from fear prove Cavsor no longer has any will to resist.

“Already over…”

The mamono delightsat his despair. It relishes his terroras he cries out. [5]

Tesfia says, “Notyet, it’s not over yet. Don’t give up.” Yet, her words of encouragement are weak. She also recognizes the hopelessness of theirsituation.

“And do what?”

The question rebukesTesfia. She naturally isn’t able to comeup with a way to flip around the situation. No one there has the power to take down a B rank mamono . Thatmuch is obvious from the magic they possess.

Yet, Tesfia, despite knowing that, can’t just give up.

“That’s… but if we just give up like this, we’ll die for sure.”

The mamono slowly close in on them. The idea thatthey can attack at any moment obstructs proper thinking. The only thought popping up within Tesfia’smind is that she can’t give up.

Tesfia says, “That’sright!!”

She rushes up tothe fallen Cavsor and forcibly searches his pocket. She recalls that just before theextra-curricular lesson started, the Director distributed emergency flares tothe group supervisors.

“Found it!!”

She pours her manainto the crystal sphere and it flickers white.

Help will come…with this.

“Help will comesoon. Until then…”

No one listens toher words. Their situation isn’t one wherethey can buy time. There isn’t anyonethere who doesn’t understand that even if they were a few seconds closer to headquarters,their current location is still far away. [6]

Their desperate situationhas not changed. Everyone else hasalready succumbed to fear. Tesfia is theonly one still holding her AWR.

Tesfia goes up to Cavsor and grabs him by his collar.

“If you’re the supervisor, then please lend me a hand!!”

His eyes are moistwith tears and his pupils shake with terror. Tesfia looks down and sees his pants are dripping wet.

“……! Why!?” Tesfia clenches her teeth as tears drip from her eyes. “We’re only here… because you brought us here…”

Tesfia take hergroup members who are no longer able to stand due to their trembling and dragsthem to one spot. Some of them, shefinds, have even fainted.

“No worries. I’ll struggle until the end.”

She clears awayher tears, but even then, they continue to fall. Still, she stops wiping them away. She then raises her face and channels manainto her sword.

Despite her heartbeing bleached with fear, her desire to live doesn’t falter. Not even her impossible situation dousesit. As such, her mana responds withmagic.

The spider mamono ,despite the situation, doesn’t budge. Itmerely releases a ghastly ring from its mouth as it sneers at her. In turn, its enormous abdomen shakes up anddown.

At that moment, Tesfiadashes for the nearest mamono . From what she can see, they’re all C and D rank mamono , but she can’taccept dying without doing anything.

“Haaaaaaaaaa!!”

The mamono havetheir feet frozen to the ground. Unfortunately,it’s only lasts a short moment. The Crank mamono break away with ease. The ice holding them crumbles as though it were a minor snag.

Tesfia doesn’t panic, not even for an instant. How her spell would turn out was questionable from the moment she used it. To begin with, she doesn’t even have the leeway to set up any tactics. She’s caught up in a hopeless struggle where she can’t hold back from unleashing everything she has.

T/N: Wow, this explains a lot to what happened in the manga.

~Gandire Alea

[1] 『心当たりがあるから、エリアギリギリに増援を一隊ずつ向かわせておいてくれ』

[2] その都度事故に見せかけようかと本気で思ったぐらいだ。

[3] その後は授業の六限目である夕方まで希望者のみが続けることが出来る仕様になっているはずだ。

[4] その手から魔力が流れ、今日三度目の魔法が放たれた。

[5] 膝を突き、魔物の歓喜の叫びに耳を傾けたのだ。

[6] 誰でもわかることだった、後数秒というならばまだしも現在地は本部からだいぶ離れているのは誰もが知っている。

<4.2 A Position’s Responsibilities 4.4 Fighting Alone>