Mistaken for a Masked Munchkin

Alice's Nightmare (4)

"We can't afford to make rash judgments, not knowing what's happening inside. Even the other teams were only at the outskirts of Zone A, but the danger is very much real."

Javert's brow creased.

"We move as fast as we can. Whatever's happening inside, every second counts."

"We'll do our best!"

The sorcerers threw themselves into the work, tracing out spell formations.

Javert stood there, cold sweat sliding down her neck.

Those distinctive green eyes locked onto the barrier and stayed.

'Something's wrong.'

Something terrible was coming.

"Huu..."

A long, slow breath.

She was the one in charge here. Falling apart wasn't an option.

She reined herself in and glanced down at the crystal orb.

All contact with the interior had been severed. Only static, a low grinding noise.

On the orb's surface was the profile of the team she had been watching.

[Student Hunting Ground, Team 31]

-Viktor

-Alice

-Ranne Kihano

One of the groups trapped inside.

Javert's hand curled slowly into a fist.

Deep in the back of her mind, something took shape. A wish.

'Please.'

Let them be alright.

Let this be nothing more than a passing scare.

Standing before the seething barrier, she held onto that thought.

Unaware of how little it would matter.

***

Inside the barrier.

Fifteen minutes since it started.

"Miss Ranne, cover the rear!"

"I've got this side!"

Viktor and his teammates were holding their ground against the aberrants.

Tentacles writhing in every direction. The air thick with dark mana.

A defense pushed to its absolute limits.

"Hrgh...!"

-Kihano-Style Spearmanship, Third Form-

'Shattering Slash'

Slash!

A keen arc of aura bloomed in every direction.

Then the aberrants came apart, shredded into hundreds of pieces.

Through the collapsing wreckage, new ones came charging.

-Nik-neu-ne-ka-ri-di-rit-di-nal

-Naelk-gulk-naelk-gulk-naelk-gulk-naelk-gulk?

Six wolf legs, one bear leg, ten monkey legs, and a squirming mass of tentacles besides. Every limb swept the ground as the thing crawled forward like a centipede. Whatever plants it brushed against melted on contact, saturated with dark mana. The dozens of mouths crammed along its body barked without rhythm.

-A-uk! A-uk! A-uk! A-uk! A-uk!

-Kkwo-hwalk-swilk-twilp-jwilp-kkwo-hwalk-swilk-twilp-jwilp

-Jjuk-jjuk-jjuk-jjuk-jjuk-jjuk-jjuk-jjuk

The enormous body lurched toward Ranne. Something dropped from above before it could reach her.

"Engage. Hammer."

Crash!

A massive hammer drove into the centipede.

"Engage. Thorns."

Thud!

Spikes burst from every inch of the creature's body at once.

Even so, it didn't die. The tentacles kept moving.

The masked boy didn't flinch.

He just kept speaking.

"Engage. Thorns."

"Engage. Thorns."

"Engage. Thorns."

"Engage. Thorns."

Slash! Crack!

Thorns, erupting again and again.

The centipede finally burst apart. Chunks of pulped flesh scattered across the floor.

"Hah, hah..."

The boy caught his breath.

No rest came.

Another wave of aberrants was already closing in.

"Sir Viktor! Over here!"

A spear flashed.

Blazing holy energy, radiant with a knight's bearing.

-Kihano-Style Spearmanship, Seventh Form-

'Falling Star'

A dense surge of light crashed forward like a wave, striking the aberrants head-on and burning away the corruption in its wake.

Even as they melted under the holy light, the aberrants kept screaming.

-At-at-at-at-at-at-at-at-at

-Chalh-chyulh-chwen-chilh-chulh-chaelh-chaen-gilh

Like they were laughing.

At children struggling for their lives.

"...No end to them. Are you both alright?"

"Alice and I are fine. Sir Viktor..."

"Still holding. I just can't tell when this wave will stop."

Steadily, the three of them worked through the aberrants.

But they were coming in faster than they could be cut down.

No way out either. Aberrants had closed off the forest in every direction.

The odds were bad.

"Miss Alice? Still no signal from the crystal orb?"

"N-no... the connection to the outside is completely gone..."

"This is bad. I'm not sure how long we can keep this up..."

Alice was on the verge of tears. Ranne was starting to show the wear. Viktor stood in front of them both, calling the shots.

The party was holding together by a thread. Any moment it could break. Any one of them could go down.

"......"

Cold sweat.

The boy touched the mask and said, "For now... we hold. Something like this, the faculty will have responded already. The professors assigned to this area will be on their way."

Hopeful. Meant to keep the others from cracking.

Beside him, Ranne gripped her spear. Alice, wanting to be useful in any way she could, gripped her sword.

"Good."

Viktor took that in.

A brief smile. Then he leveled his scythe.

"Then... same formation as before. I'll ask you both to back me up."

"Yes, yes!"

"Right behind you."

Thud.

He leapt toward the aberrants.

Then.

Something rippled from above.

For a moment, all three of them looked up in a daze.

"...Huh?"

"Up there, on the ceiling..."

A split second later.

A crimson shape plummeted from above.

No time to dodge. It drove straight into the floor.

Crash!

The impact shook everything.

Armor red as blood. A height of at least ten meters. Beyond the helmet's visor, black tentacles writhed and seethed.

""......"

A knight stood before the children.

A giant in crimson armor.

Whether it was truly a giant or something else entirely was impossible to say.

"Ah...?"

None of that mattered.

The children's eyes dropped to the ground at the red knight's feet.

The earth had caved in. Debris scattered in every direction.

And below all of it.

"Sir Vik... tor...?"

"......"

Something crushed flat beneath it.

A mass of flesh. No other way to describe it. Mangled past the point of recognition, past the point of looking like it had ever been human. Only a torn robe and a shattered mask said anything about who it had been.

"That's... not..."

"......"

Dead.

"Ah..."

Breath escaped in pieces.

Her gaze rose slowly, tracing the outline of the standing armor.

Only then did the reality of what stood before them sink in.

""......"

They couldn't even breathe freely.

The entire space felt like it belonged to the giant.

Muscles locked. Unable to move. An icy sensation flayed their skin while cold sweat ran freely.

'That's impossible. This is clearly...'

Ranne barely formed the thought.

She had felt something like this before.

'An Apostle of the Evil God.'

The Reader.

The ghost that had held hundreds of grimoires in its hands.

The enemy that had driven her to the edge of death.

If Viktor hadn't stepped in that day, she would have died. No question about it.

'Same.'

What stood before her now.

The red knight felt the same. Different race, different shape, and yet the girl knew it in her bones.

[Name: The Red Knight]

-Race: ■■■, ■■

-Description: ■■ ■ ■■■ ■ ■■ ■■■.

A dizzying terror stopped her breath.

It hadn't moved yet. That alone was enough to hold the entire area under its thumb.

The Red Knight's pressure.

Aberrants scattered throughout the surroundings began to burst apart, one by one. The resonance of its dark mana was too much for them.

Splat!

Flesh and organs flew in a grotesque spray.

Even the girls were bleeding from the nose.

"Hah, hah...!"

"Ugh, nngh..."

Ragged breathing.

Their eyes moved from the Red Knight towering above to what remained of Viktor below, back and forth, unable to stop.

"Hh, ah..."

Of all people. These two had known Viktor's strength as well as anyone.

Ranne had watched with her own eyes. He had erased The Reader with a single branch.

Through her ability, Alice had seen him flick a finger and cut a dragon apart.

And yet.

'He was taken out...?'

That superhuman. Taken out before he could do anything.

Both of them just stood there, shaking.

The silence sat as heavy as death.

Then.

Creak.

The Red Knight, which had been completely still.

It began to move.

""...!""

Despair flooded the girls' eyes.

Elsewhere.

I had slipped out at exactly the right moment, sitting at a comfortable distance, watching it all play out.

A golden-haired girl and a dark-haired girl.

Standing before them, the Apostle of the Evil God.

I tapped the mask and murmured to myself.

"Now then... let's see what Alice does."

Wonderland.

The nightmare buried deep within Alice's heart.

Push the host to her limit, and it would surface, one way or another.

"Once it shows itself, I wrap everything up at once."

The First Calamity, Lacquer Night.

The Apostle of the Evil God, the Red Knight.

Alice's Nightmare, Wonderland.

Every last obstacle standing in the way of what comes next, all gathered in one place.

"Time to beat the hell out of all of them."

And today, I had every intention of wrecking every single one of these bastards.

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