As Chaeng showed me around the dungeon, the faces of the students I saw carried no particular worry or anxiety.
'The quality of their magic power is worlds apart from the vagrants'.'
They clearly gave the impression of having been properly taught.
Unlike the vagrants, who couldn't control a single handful of their own magic power, the students here showed at least the ability to gather and contain it.
If I could bring the talent here back to our dungeon it would help enormously, but…….
'That would be difficult.'
From what Bell told me before I came, at this academy the dungeon a student returns to is decided before they even enroll.
I was surveying the dungeon's overall atmosphere when.
"By the time we arrive, everyone joining this operation should be gathered as well."
"How many are there?"
"About thirty. They will form teams of four, and most are graduating-class students. The ones committed to destroying the colony are the exception, at five."
"So the support role is less about exterminating beasts than about stopping them from climbing up."
"Correct."
From the standpoint of the thirty-second dungeon, which serves as an academy, the greatest damage would be casualties among the students.
Only natural, in a sense.
And it meant that much expectation rested on the five graduates.
Before long, as Chaeng had said, we arrived before a great hall where the others were already waiting.
They tilted their heads at my appearance for a moment, then saw Chaeng's face, switched off their interest, and looked away.
"You may hear the rest at the briefing to follow. I take my leave."
"Sure, thanks for showing me around."
Seeing Chaeng off, I took a spot somewhere nearby and stood.
"Hm."
Seeing another dungeon for the first time, I couldn't help feeling curious.
'The whole atmosphere here says you ought to be learning magic.'
Was it my imagination that it called to mind the most famous magic school in England?
While I was entertaining that stray thought, someone stepped up onto the platform.
"By rights we should welcome you with a greeting, but given the dungeon's situation I shall keep my words short. To all of you who have gathered here. Thank you."
The faculty member, who looked far older than Chaeng, began with the background of the incident and the measures to come.
To summarize briefly: an Outer-Dimensional Passage had formed in the demonic beast pens kept underground for educational purposes.
As a result, the Void's energy flowing out through the passage caused anomalies in the beasts, which went on to turn them into Void parasites.
By the time that was grasped, a colony had already formed and they had begun crawling upward. That was the outline of the affair.
"Our faculty have already dealt with the beasts found outside the colony, but we are short of hands."
So until the affair was resolved, the role of myself and the graduating students was to keep the damage from spreading.
And the core duty of destroying the colony belonged to the five graduates standing behind the faculty member.
'The difference is clear enough.'
Earlier I had compared the passing students with our dungeon's vagrants.
This time the gap in level between the graduating students and the graduates was plain.
And among them was one who drew my eye in particular.
'Why is that woman here?'
Dull copper skin, and black hair tied back that fell below her waist.
Her eyes carried a vivid gold…… and the black tattoos covering both arms stood out especially.
Helen, the Nether Wolf.
A boss-class Demon Realm character who appears early in the game's scenario.
A woman I'd had various points of contact with before the regression, too.
'Honestly, I'd figured on encounters like this from the moment I decided to go outside.'
Take Enoch's dungeon alone.
Enoch, Zigwell, and the Lich King who still hasn't come to his senses.
Hadn't I already run into three connections from before the regression?
There would be far more important figures outside, so this was a situation to be expected.
'But her…….'
Why is she looking at me?
"Er, in that connection, the duty you are to undertake is to ensure no harm comes to the students devoted to their studies……."
Even as the old faculty member's speech went on, neither of us took our eyes off the other.
The feeling we sent each other was the same, too.
Interest.
She, true to her other epithet of "Soul Devourer," seemed to have noticed my rather unusual soul.
And I was marveling at the fact that I was facing her in person while she still had her wits.
And then.
"Finally, we come to Helen, who has stepped forward as the graduates' representative for this affair."
Granted the floor by the faculty member, Helen walked out in exactly my direction as she spoke.
"You there."
Her outstretched finger pointed, naturally, in the direction where I stood.
"Let's have a round, you and me."
Oh.
Bold.
***
Nearly thirty pairs of eyes turned on me at once.
Naturally.
It was an outburst no one had seen coming, and on top of that I was the only outsider.
Even so, under all that pouring attention, I grinned.
I, Yujin, a real man.
I don't dodge attention like this!
I put magic power into my voice in turn and asked.
"When?"
"Right now."
Not one person there could follow our exchange.
But the two of us wore smiles, as though we'd known each other for years.
Which left the faculty member presiding over the briefing flustered…….
"Hah…… If you must, use the sparring room."
The old faculty member evidently knew Helen's temperament well, and chose the option of sending us out early instead.
"Follow me. There's a place I used before I graduated."
"Fine by me."
Wearing a thick face, I walked out of the hall and followed behind her.
"You're pretty fiery. I didn't think you'd take the match right off."
"I'm not the type to dodge a woman who comes at me."
"Bwahaha! You're definitely different from the prigs in our dungeon, always reading the room! I like you."
"I'm honored."
Helen was beautiful enough to be called a beauty, yet there wasn't an ounce of affection between us in that exchange.
All that existed was curiosity, or what might be called a competitive drive.
In any case, before I came to this world I had been a player who enjoyed 'Dimension Contender,' a genuine obsessive.
So I couldn't help being curious about what kind of person Helen had been before the Void eroded her.
Exactly as I had been with Zigwell.
And before long.
Helen and I arrived at the sparring hall on the second basement level, free of any student's gaze.
"This is it. So, need time to warm up?"
"No."
With magic power in circulation, my body is ready for battle at any time.
The same seemed true of Helen, who loosened her arm joints out of habit as she spoke.
"How do you want to do this?"
"It's my first time in a setting like this. However you want."
"Then how about 'whatever works'?"
"I like it."
We took rough positions at either end of the sparring hall.
And in silence, we watched each other and began measuring the timing to move.
'Helen the Nether Wolf.'
A named character better known in the Empire before the regression as the "Soul Devourer."
As the name tells you, Helen was a named character with a special gimmick.
A growth-type boss who devours souls and grows stronger as time passes.
So if you failed to subdue her early, when she first appears, she had the particular quality of growing exponentially stronger.
Give her time and there were cases where clearing her failed outright.
'By the size of the tattoos, she's still in the early stage.'
You could judge her weight class by the size of the tattoos, and looking at her raised a question I couldn't place.
That woman appears in the future looking exactly as she does now…… so what was she doing, and where, all that time?
But I couldn't carry the thought further just then. It was a question I couldn't resolve anyway.
FWIP!
So for now, focus on the match.
"Hup!"
I moved first.
Helen favored a bare-handed fighting style as I did, but in the matter of reach I was the one at a disadvantage.
At the young age of sixteen my body hadn't finished growing.
So I judged that moving first would be to my advantage.
Helen, meanwhile, watched me with a serious face that held not a grain of complacency.
FWIP, TAP-TAP-TAP—!
I used no other abilities.
Only strengthening my body with magic power, steering the situation into a pure brawl.
With my short reach I avoided a head-on contest and chose to use my small frame to drop out of her sight for an instant.
I looked as though I were charging straight in, then pushed my flexibility to its limit and slipped out to the flank in a single motion.
By then my leg was already tracing a vertical arc from below to above, my waist as the axis.
THWACK—!
The leg, extending like a guillotine aimed precisely at Helen's head, was blocked by her raised right arm.
Good reaction speed.
Quickness that comes of reading my aim clearly.
Then, just as her rough hand moved to seize my ankle.
FWOOSH!
I erupted magic power into the air, spun my body, and lashed her torso with my other foot.
Helen went on the defensive again and stepped back once.
But just as I had done earlier.
The retreat was a fake; she dropped her upper body low and drove a straight punch at me while I was still airborne.
"Hup……!"
I wrapped magic power across the front of my arms and braced for the blow to follow.
BOOM!
The shock was indeed enormous.
The tattoos carved on her arm gave off a colorless light and burst the air with a tearing sound.
"……!"
It wasn't simply a hard hit.
An attack that raised a faint wave and burst magic power outward.
Strong enough that the shock pierced the magic power wrapped around my arms and carried all the way inside.
In terms of impact, about like being hit head-on by a truck.
But…….
'I expected this much.'
[Magic Power Resistance (Grade E)]
[Endurance (Grade E)]
[Pain Tolerance (Grade E)]
I let the pain flow away through several traits.
And further…….
[Existence Analysis]
Matching the wave of Helen's magic power that the analysis had identified, I sluiced away the magic power boring into my body.
"You……."
Helen noticed and started to say something, but I had already erupted magic power in midair.
"Kuh!"
It was her mistake, showing an opening at my response.
The price she paid was taking my straight punch.
She belatedly blocked with both palms.
But with her stance loose, she was sent flying and rolled across the floor several times.
"Heheh……."
Blood ran from the skin bared where her clothes had torn in that brief exchange.
Yet a fierce smile bloomed on her mouth instead.
A smile with the wildness of her epithet in it.
"Whoops, my mistake. Sorry. I'm the one who called you out, and then I went and spaced out."
"Oh, so you know some manners?"
"Ahahahaha! Hey! You're really fun. All right. I'll do this properly now too."
That was no lie; the magic power she raised afterward became extraordinary.
The colorless waves flowing from the tattoos on both arms grew rougher, and the wildness in her eyes deepened.
The attacks that came were utterly violent, yet her movements were endlessly quiet.
Matching fists and feet that poured down like a gale, my hands moved busily.
But Helen's attacks were shallow, and each one landed heavy.
She knew it too.
That against my short reach, this kind of rapid offense was effective.
And my hands, taking those attacks, had begun sending me signals.
Since they drove through a guard like the Tongbei fist out of a martial arts novel, blocking effectively did not make the damage zero.
If the offensive kept up, it would end in my defeat.
Not that I felt any sense of crisis over it.
I hadn't even used Blink yet.
But I had no intention of bringing that out either.
There was no need to lay every move I had in front of her, and the passive traits I held were enough on their own.
[Regeneration (Grade C)]
By investing a little more magic power into Regeneration, I offset the damage piling up in my hands.
And I planted small feints amid the pouring attacks to shrink her mentally, if only briefly.
Having already taken one of my attacks, Helen would find that quite threatening.
Meanwhile my expression never changed, and her stamina, spent on continuous strikes, drained quickly.
This was a weakness of Helen's famous even in the game.
Before she was complete, she showed herself weak on stamina.
Which is why, in the game, building agility early let you repel her without much trouble.
As time passed, a trace of impatience showed on the face that had been full of smiles.
The moment of choice was drawing near.
Prepare one big blow.
Or keep up the war of attrition as it was.
"Hhhup!"
KABOOOM—!
Helen chose the former.
She shoved me away at a moment when I couldn't counter.
And in the brief time that bought, gathered magic power to her limit.
The colorless waves bursting from the tattoos shook even the ground.
And just as something began to shimmer behind her back…….
"Sister! What are you doing here!"
A young man announced the end of the match.
At some point a crowd of students, the graduating class among them, had gathered around us, watching with wide round eyes.