Chapter 132
The boy was flustered.
He couldn’t comprehend why his Owlbear, which had been obedient just moments ago, was suddenly refusing to listen.
Right before his eyes, his Owlbear had been stolen.
“Wha… What… What the hell?”
“Why aren’t you listening?”
“Bel… Belly!”
That same Belly was now trotting over to me.
Now, this Owlbear is mine.
“Shake.”
At my command, the Owlbear obediently raised its paw.
“Good boy. You’re quite obedient for a big bear.”
Although it’s only a temporary taming, it’s enough to deal a psychological blow to the original owner. This taming will only last three hours, but still, it must feel like he’s lost a limb.
“Wh-what is this? How… How is this happening?”
The short-haired boy was at a loss for words.
It must feel like being robbed blind in broad daylight.
For a Tamer, their monster is as important as their own limbs, and having it taken away is a significant blow.
The skill I used, ‘Tamer’s Touch,’ didn’t even exist in the original story. None of the main characters had such an ability, so this technique is something unheard of.
“What… What kind of trick is this? How did you take Belly?!”
The short-haired boy shouted in disbelief, his voice full of frustration.
To be honest, I didn’t hold anything against him personally. Although I’ve had some bad experiences with students from Cardbel Academy, this one seemed to have some skill and a good sense of strategy.
He wasn’t like the others from his school, and if we’d met under different circumstances, we might have even gotten along.
But unfortunately, this is a dungeon and an exam.
The area we’re in is scheduled for destruction soon, and I need to find Solia and Seymour quickly.
I can’t afford to waste any more time.
I gave a command to the panting Owlbear.
“Hey, big bear.”
“Don’t you dare give my Belly orders! And stop calling him that!”
“Hey, bear?”
“What are you saying?!”
Your owner sure is noisy.
Let’s quiet him down a bit.
“Bite.”
The Owlbear’s eyes gleamed at my command.
“What… How… How can you not recognize your own master!”
The Owlbear, who had been fed and cared for by its original owner, promptly turned on him.
“Ahhhhhh!”
With a scream, the short-haired boy was forcibly ejected from the exam area.
—
I successfully drove the short-haired boy from Cardbel out of the exam.
It was an unexpected gain in points, though that’s not what matters right now.
“Escape is more important than points.”
I have to successfully escape before I can worry about anything else.
I don’t know exactly where or when Archant might appear, but if he’s in this exam area, he’ll inevitably be in the safe zone.
I need to get there.
I quickened my pace, muttering to myself.
But since earlier, there’s been an unwelcome shadow following me….
“Grrr….”
Thud. Thud.
The Owlbear was happily trailing behind me.
“Grrr. Grrr.”
Its yellow eyes were staring at me, clearly expecting something… like food.
It seems to be demanding a reward for doing well.
“Kuuuuh! No! Ugly thing!”
Basilus, being highly judgmental about appearances, was not pleased and insulted the Owlbear.
Though the Owlbear’s odd appearance is indeed unsettling, as it doesn’t look like a bird or a mammal, that’s no reason to dislike it!
Where did you learn that attitude?
“Kuuu… Get rid of it.”
“Shh. You shouldn’t say things like that.”
But it is indeed a bit troublesome.
After three hours, the Owlbear will return to its original owner.
What should I do with it until then?
If I leave it alone, the short-haired boy from Cardbel will eventually take it back.
“Owlbear… Belly, was it?”
A cute name that doesn’t quite match its appearance.
“Wait here and find your owner later.”
It’s funny that I’m now trying to return what I stole, but I should at least make sure it gets back to its rightful owner.
“Grrr…?”
The Owlbear panted, tilting its head in confusion.
It seems torn between its former and current owners.
I’m not sure if the Owlbear understood me, but we needed to keep moving.
[This area is scheduled for destruction.]
Time had passed quickly.
“Basilus, run!”
I quickly turned and sprinted down the path ahead.
“Huff… Huff… Huff….”
Damn it. At this rate, I might get eliminated before I find Solia and Seymour.
After running in circles three times and ending up back where I started, I realized something.
I was making the same mistake I’ve made for the past 28 years.
Typical for someone with no sense of direction: setting off without knowing where to go.
“Oh, this isn’t good.”
In hindsight, I’ve been running aimlessly, and now I feel more lost than ever.
Just then, Kloshti returned, soaring through the air.
“Kloshti!”
“Piiiii!”
I should’ve used my head instead of searching blindly.
The maze in the “Maze’s Lair” dungeon was far more complicated than I had anticipated.
If I kept running around aimlessly, I was bound to get lost.
I needed to think.
I sat down on the ground and picked up a twig.
While Kloshti might not be able to map out the maze perfectly, it should remember the general layout from what it saw.
I placed the twig in Kloshti’s beak.
“Draw what you saw.”
“Peep!”
Kloshti nodded and began sketching the paths it remembered.
The resulting map was crude and inaccurate. Naturally, Kloshti couldn’t remember every path, but it was enough to provide some clues.
“They really twisted this up.”
I memorized the rough map.
I may not be good at finding my way, but memorization is one of my strong suits.
“It turns like this, so I need to go right.”
Right, left, left, right.
I mentally noted the order of the directions I needed to take.
“Got it.”
I memorized it all.
As if to remind me that time was running out, the speaker crackled again, signaling that little time was left.
“Let’s go. Run!”
—
About 10 minutes later.
[5, 4, 3, 2, 1]
The crackling countdown echoed from the speakers.
“Huff… Huff… Please….”
I was out of breath, but I didn’t stop running.
Bang-
“Ha… That was close….”
As a result, I barely made it to safety.
Boom!
As soon as the countdown ended, an explosion erupted just behind me.
The ground was consumed by flames and began to collapse.
The scale of destruction was beyond what I had imagined, leaving my mouth hanging open in shock.
“Wow….”
The entire area was completely destroyed.
Anyone who had been in there would have been ejected from the exam.
“That was close….”
Basilus and Kloshti were staring at something beside me with wide, curious eyes.
What are they looking at?
Wait… What the…?
“Ah, I almost died….”
There was someone else staggering nearby.
“Seymour?”
I found him.
“Han Si-ha…?”
Seymour collapsed, trembling, right where he stood.
“Han Si-ha! Han Si-ha! Hey!”
Seeing him shaking like that, I realized I needed to calm him down.
Seymour was drenched in cold sweat, breathing heavily.
“I almost failed to escape!”
“That makes two of us.”
Seymour was panting and practically screaming. His expression showed that he was genuinely scared.
“Man, this is way harder than I thought.”
It seemed Seymour and I had the same thoughts about the difficulty of the exam site. He then muttered something with a serious look on his face.
“And… it looks like I won’t be ejected.”
“What?”
The safety mechanisms in the exam area. Now that I think about it, they don’t apply to Seymour.
Of course, it made sense. Seymour hadn’t officially entered the dungeon and didn’t have a proper entry pass.
I hadn’t worried much about this issue before. Even if he ran into other students and had to fight, Seymour wouldn’t easily lose.
If we encountered Archant, we’d all be in danger anyway, but at least within the “Maze’s Lair” dungeon, we thought there wouldn’t be any serious threats.
But now…
“They never mentioned the zones would explode.”
“True.”
The exploding zones were the problem. We thought the zones would simply collapse, but instead, the ground was blown away completely.
That’s why Seymour looked so pale.
“We need to get out of here. For you, it might not be as big a deal, but for me, it’s a matter of life and death.”
Suddenly, I felt worried about Solia. If she saw the ground explode like that, she would’ve been terrified, given her slightly timid nature.
However, Solia has some talent for terrain detection, so she should be managing fine.
I should have stuck to the original plan and snatched someone else’s entry pass. Trying to take the easy way out ended up putting us in more danger.
“Where’s Solia?”
“We came in together. I veered left when I had to take down someone, but then I lost track of her because the terrain was so complicated.”
“There hasn’t been any signal, so she’s probably fine.”
We had agreed to shoot a light signal into the sky in case of an emergency. Since there hasn’t been one, she should be okay.
Right now, Archant is likely in the area with us, but he’s not an offensive mage. If anything, Lee Han and I are in the most danger.
I turned to Seymour and spoke.
“Let’s find Solia first.”
And then, it happened.
Crackle.
The next zone was set up immediately.
Since we got hit once, I thought we’d get a break this time.
We should be able to take it easy while we search for Solia.
But then…
Crackle, crackle.
[This area is scheduled for destruction.]
…Again?
* * *
“Ahhhh! You’ve got the worst luck!”
Seymour screamed, his face turning pale once more.
“What… How did we get hit again?”
“Unlucky Han Si-ha.”
This guy’s blaming it on me?
“It’s more like unlucky Seymour. At least I’ve never been thrown into prison.”
“What? But you’ve been locked up in plenty of other places!”
Professor Divert Grunui, Duke Becken…
I’ve never been in an underground prison, but I’ve definitely been in more than a few underground cells. This oddly familiar feeling…
Oh… That’s right.
“Every time I’m with you, something bad happens…”
Now that I think about it, maybe it is because of me?
“When we played Battle Royale, the safe zone always closed in on my side, and I died.”
“What are you even talking about?”
“It’s kind of like what we’re doing now.”
It seems I really am partly responsible for our string of bad luck.
“See? Unlucky Han Si-ha… Why am I stuck with you….”
“If you’re going to whine, I’ll leave you behind. You’ll be the one who gets blown up.”
“Hey!”
Instead of arguing, we decided to run.
Even while grumbling, Seymour followed me, panting heavily.
Kloshti resumed scouting, while I navigated the maze and Seymour found the right paths. We managed to work together fairly well.
Thirty minutes later.
[This area is scheduled for destruction.]
[This area is scheduled for destruction.]
We managed to trigger every single zone reset, miraculously.
“Solia! Adela!”
“Oh, it’s Lee Han. Hey, Yoon Haul!”
In the middle of our difficult escape, we finally regrouped with everyone.
* * *
“Hah… How did we manage to trigger every single one? This is insane.”
Seymour was staggering, leaning against the wall after all that running.
Lee Han, who had been strolling leisurely, looked at us with wide eyes.
“Trigger every one? What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you see the zones… exploding?”
“I heard some explosions.”
Of course, Lee Han, blessed with protagonist luck, hadn’t been hit even once.
That protagonist buff… He’s probably going to live a long life, even if all the extras around him drop like flies.
Oh, wait… He didn’t actually live a pleasant life for long, did he?
Remembering the plot of the original story, I paused my internal grumbling about Lee Han.
If *Smart Academy* wasn’t such a dark tale, Lee Han would’ve been treated much better.
As much as he’s annoying now, I can only wish him well since he’s going to suffer terribly later on.
“At least we’re all together now.”
Contrary to what I initially expected, Solia, who had arrived comfortably thanks to Adela, smiled and said.
“Did you see anyone suspicious on your way here?”
“Nope. We beat everyone we came across.”
With most of the maze destroyed, once the next zone reset finishes, we’ll need to head to the safe zone. That’s where we’ll have to find and deal with Archant, who might be waiting for us.
“Well, we can finally catch our breath. Now that we’re all together, it shouldn’t be too dangerous.”
Solia smiled as she spoke, and Seymour responded grumpily.
“You should only say stuff like that after we get to the safe zone. We’re still inside the dungeon.”
“But nothing’s happened so far.”
Just as Seymour finished speaking, it happened.
Crackle.
The speakers started to act up again.
At that moment…
[Next… zone… set… ting…]
The static from the speakers was louder than usual, and the machine sounded like it was struggling.
This didn’t happen before, did it?
“Wait a second.”
[Do… no… thing…]
Adela noticed the strangeness as well.
As an Earth Mage, she’s more sensitive to minor disruptions than anyone else.
The ground started to crack and shake.
“Huh…?”
Bang.
A massive earthquake, far stronger than the one caused by the Owlbear earlier, suddenly struck us.
At the same time, a splitting headache hit me.
“What’s going on?”
[Main Episode 7: The Maze’s Lair]
[Protect the Cube from the Dark Mage (Archant).]
[Reward: Lowered Difficulty Level]
[Failure: ??]
Once again, a window popped up in front of my eyes.
Spatial distortion.
This phenomenon was created by Archant’s ability to teleport.
Given the distinctiveness of the signature, I knew what this meant.
Archant had appeared.
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