Mistaken for a Masked Munchkin

WeTried Translations

◈ Mistaken for a Masked Monster

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Alice's Nightmare (3)

[Point Collection Status]

1st, 5,839 pts (Group Leader: Viktor)

2nd, 4,394 pts (Group Leader: Rin Glacia)

3rd, 2,531 pts (Group Leader: Ruska Venity)

.

.

[Total: 51 Groups]

"Heh."

This was the life.

I checked the crystal orb and muttered to myself. Points stacked high, my name sitting firm at number one. Fifteen hundred ahead of second place.

'Sweet. Really sweet.'

Nearly triple what I should have had.

All thanks to Class C's fine students.

Generous souls, every one of them, happy to share freely with a friend in need. They'd even done delivery service, coming to find me personally in case I was running short on time.

'Good kids, really.'

It felt like getting a surprise gift.

I'd done my best to answer their sincerity in kind. My heartfelt effort must have gotten through, because they'd all screamed what I could only interpret as joy.

Warm glow in my chest.

'You're my best friends from here on out.'

All future attacks on Class C would, of course, no longer be considered attacks on me. We were clearly separate individuals, with no particular obligation to think of one another at any given moment.

I grinned at my fun new toys.

Next time we meet, we'd have to do something more interesting.

'Beyblade. Sonic. Reverse full-sprint relay...'

Should call Shariel too. She'd missed out this time, unfortunately, but next time she'd be there without fail.

Folding all of Class C into Errand Boys 2 didn't sound half bad, honestly.

'Looking forward to it.'

A hum rose in my throat on its own. I hummed the melody and brushed dust from my sleeve.

Beside me, my groupmates walked along looking thoroughly baffled.

"Viktor, sir...?"

"You seem to be in a good mood!"

"Oh? Do I? I wonder why."

And why wouldn't I be.

Six thousand points was practically within reach.

I tapped through the crystal orb's display.

Rin Glacia.

Current freshman top student. Had she spotted the upset in the rankings? Her pace had gone terrifying. A hundred points had jumped in the time it took to exchange a couple of words.

Not that it mattered. I savored the fourteen-hundred-point gap without a worry in the world.

'At this rate, she'll catch up.'

But that was fine.

The exam was about to be interrupted anyway.

I ran my fingers along the mask and looked up.

'Should be about time.'

The sky.

Clear weather, and overhead, a romantically blue stretch of open sky.

At the center of all that blue, a single dot.

A shadow. Faint, but unmistakably pooling there.

It spread. Thickened, draining the light degree by degree.

'Come on, then.'

The First Calamity.

"Hm...?"

"Viktor, sir? There's something strange up in the sky, some kind of pattern..."

Beep! Beep!

Before my groupmates could finish the thought, every crystal orb screamed at once. Ear-splitting alerts. Ominous, deeply unpleasant.

Red text flooded every screen.

"What...?"

Someone's blank, stunned voice.

Student Hunting Ground, Zone A. Center of the forest. Exactly where we were standing.

"Wait, what's happen..."

The alarm cut out before anyone could make sense of it. The orb screens stuttered and crackled, signal severed clean. Static where the warning tones had been.

Crackle. Hiss.

"......"

Nobody dared open their mouths. Every pair of eyes had drifted upward.

A cold stillness settled through the trees.

'The First Calamity, Lacquer Night.'

The sky had gone completely black.

That shadow had spread and spread until it became a hemispherical barrier, swallowing the forest whole. Sunlight vanished. Night fell over the hunting ground. Zone A was sealed, caged beneath a curtain of black.

Ding!

[Main Quest]

-Title: Lacquer Night

-Objective: Survive.

-Failure Penalty: Annihilation

-Reward: ???

[Time Limit: ???]

The status window delivered its quest right on cue.

I looked up at the ceiling with calm eyes.

At the center of the pitch-black canopy, a grotesque pattern had been carved into the dark. An eye. A single enormous eye, staring out from a nest of writhing tentacles.

"What is this, all of a sudden,!"

"Wh-what...?"

My groupmates were rattled, eyes dropping to the ground. Night had fallen so abruptly that visibility was nearly gone.

Hiss.

A thin mist clung low to the ground. Every leaf and blade of grass had withered in an instant, twisted into ugly, crooked shapes. The green was gone. Only dark, contaminated earth remained.

A completely different landscape from seconds ago.

"......"

The cold bit in.

Sticky, crawling humidity. The kind that raises the hair on your arms.

Ranne, spear already in hand, spoke up.

"Viktor, sir. Alice."

Cold sweat. That rare expression, tension plain in her eyes.

"Something is... all around us."

Presences.

Where there had been nothing a moment ago, presences materialized on all sides.

'Monsters.'

Countless things, crawling and writhing in ruin. The monsters had raised their heads, but not one of them looked anything like normal.

More grotesque than anything I'd encountered in this hunting ground. Fused, horrifically, in ways that shouldn't have been possible.

-Khryuk-gyuk-nyem-nang-gweh-gweh-gweh-gweh-gweh-gweh?

-Kkyul-reuk-kkoe-reuk-gik-gik-gik-gik-gik-gik?

-Khi-tulh-bap-jit-seulp-geulk-ttulh-beulh?

At the very least, the monsters in this hunting ground had always resembled animals. Wolves, bears, monkeys.

Not these.

The minimum form that qualifies something as alive, that boundary had simply ceased to exist. Multiple creatures melted together and smeared into one mass, squirming and pulsing.

-Gaelh-gulh-gilh? Gaelh-gulh-gilh? Gaelh-gulh-gilh? Gaelh-gulh-gilh?

-Wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah

-Hilh-hwalh-hwin-hrulh-hyeob-hwab-hwab-hwab-hwab

Wolves, bears, monkeys.

Every kind of creature scrambled together into one heaving, seething pile. Between the joints where things met, thick tentacles writhed. Entrails trailing. Skulls cracked open. Eyeballs dangling by threads.

Dozens of them. At minimum.

Dizzying.

The stench of dark mana hit like a fist, sharp enough to make your head swim.

"Ugh..."

"Good god, the dark mana here is awful..."

Alice had gone pale as a sheet. Even Ranne's gaze flickered.

Of everyone in the group, I was the only one unshaken.

I stepped forward, daring whatever was out there to come and try.

"Alright, everyone."

Tentacled mutants, swarming all around.

I smiled and turned to face my groupmates.

"The real game starts now."

***

Outside the barrier.

Hunting Ground Zone B, the zone nearest to Zone A.

Faculty members moved briskly across the field, scrambling to assess the situation.

"Move! First, account for everyone trapped inside!"

"Get the other cadets out of the hunting ground!"

"Bring the Disaster Sorcery Division, now!"

In the middle of all that, Javert stood before the barrier.

A pitch-black curtain, blotting out the world.

She clenched her fist. Divine energy surged through it, blazing with brilliant light. A sharp lance of radiance slammed into the barrier.

Boom!

The impact rang like a thunderclap.

The barrier didn't crack. Didn't shudder. All that had broken was Javert's fist.

"Tch..."

She clicked her tongue and drew on her divine power to heal her hand.

To her side, a cluster of faculty members were already examining the barrier, running their analysis. The Disaster Sorcery Division. Academy specialists responsible for sorcery-related incidents.

As Chief Investigator, Javert outranked all of them. She asked.

"What's the status on the barrier?"

"Chief Investigator. We're in the process of dispelling it. Attempting to, more precisely. Even for veterans like us, this is a type of barrier none of us have seen before, which is why progress has been slow. It appears to be a composite structure, ancient barrier techniques, forbidden sorcery, and black magic all woven together..."

"Estimated time until it's dispelled?"

"At minimum, about one hour."

"Damn it."

She bit down on her lip.

That composure of hers had slipped, just enough to let the anxiety through.

"What about forcing our way in? With the strength of the other professors combined, it shouldn't be impossible."

"That won't work. A structure like this requires the most careful approach possible. If the barrier is forced through, there's no telling what kind of backlash could follow. This curtain is woven entirely from negative energies. Disrupting the balance would almost certainly trigger a reaction. Breaking it by force is technically possible, but the problem is..."

"The students inside..."

"Exactly. At high probability, they'd all be killed."

A grim situation.

There was no way of knowing what was happening inside. The moment the curtain fell, every signal through the crystal orbs had gone dead.

"How many are isolated inside?"

"Nine in total. Specifically groups 17, 31, and 49. Of those, the one deepest in Zone A at the time was group 31. One is a Class A student, and the other two are Class E cadets under your supervision."

"Viktor and Alice..."

"The silver lining, such as it is, is that they're with Class A's second seat. Viktor himself made quite a stir at the Freshmen Welcome Exam when he completely outclassed Class C's top student. With students that capable, they should be able to hold on."

"We have no idea what's happening on the inside. Making assumptions is a luxury we can't afford. And the other groups, even if they were on the outskirts of Zone A, are in just as much danger."

Javert's brow furrowed.

"We move as fast as we can. Every second might count in there."

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