Roughly half an hour later, the woodlands that obstructed their view suddenly disappeared. A clear, blue sky spread endlessly before their eyes.
They had cleared the forest. The goal was right before them — or so they all thought.
The tree line ended at an open area, but beyond that, the forest resumed its spread before them — or rather, below them.
Rio’s squad had reached the top of a cliff.
Dumbfounded, they walked up to the edge to look down at the forest roughly 100 feet below them. If they could find a way to reach the bottom, then the goal would be right before them — but trying to descend without climbing ropes was a death wish.
“Hey, doesn’t this mean the information was wrong...?”
“Yeah, what are we going to do? Retracing our steps is going to take forever.”
Two male students glanced over at Stewart as they muttered to each other. The squad had been moving according to the information Stewart had provided; the thought of all their efforts until now being in vain dampened their spirits.
“Is there something you’d like to say to me?” Stewart asked the whispering students in an irritated voice.
“N-No, nothing of the sort. Right?”
“Right.”
The students shook their heads in a hurry. They were both sixth years, but couldn’t stand up to a single fifth year boy. Their families couldn’t afford to defy Stewart’s family — Duke Huguenot’s family. Their disgruntled gazes naturally turned towards the commander instead. Alphonse was also from a rather distinguished family — the House of Marquess Rodan — but it fell behind in rank compared to Duke Huguenot’s.
“W-What’s with that look? If you have a complaint, say it with your mouth,” Alphonse threatened the students looking at him.
“Then, may I?” Christina took the initiative and spoke up first.
“Y-Yes, Your Highness?” Alphonse’s expression froze at the appearance of the First Princess.
“Which way from here? The path appears to have ended,” Christina asked, seeking an answer for the highest priority issue at hand. Alphonse was thrown off guard, having been certain that she would make a complaint instead. But he soon realized that being criticized directly was the easier route, as he had no idea how to deal with this unexpected turn of events. His mind had been so focused on avoiding the blame, he hadn’t had the time to come up with a solution.
“About that... Umm...”
“You are the commander of this squad. You were the one who advocated the use of Stewart’s questionable information for our strategy, so you must have prepared for such an outcome, no?” Christina questioned plainly as Alphonse struggled to find his words.
“M-My information was not questionable—”
“I am not speaking to you, soldier.”
Stewart tried to get a word in edgewise, but Christina shot him down with resolve. “In the military, the commander’s words are final. This may be a training exercise, but we are following the same rules. If the commander tells us to move forward, then we move forward. I hope you understand that your single command can place the entire squad in danger.”
“Y-Yes ma’am.” Alphonse nodded with a pale face. An unbearable silence fell over the squad.
It was then that it happened.
A single wooden spear came flying out of the forest behind them, piercing the body of a male student.
“Huh...?” The student with the spear in his abdomen uttered a noise of confusion.
Roanna spotted the enemies immediately. “I-It’s an orc! With other monsters too! Ready the defenses!”
Orcs were much more ferocious monsters compared to goblins. They stood over six and a half feet tall and had strength that far surpassed that of a human. They were also known to occasionally move together with goblin mobs.
“F-Front guard! Use your shields to block the spears. Rear guard, cast Cura on the injured!” Alphonse promptly commanded, but the monsters made their attack before the students could react. Three spears came flying towards the squad. One struck the ground, while another flew towards Rio. He silently drew the longsword at his waist and sliced it away in an instant. On the other side of the group, the last spear pierced Stewart’s torso. “AAAHH! Take it out — someone take it out!!” Stewart yelled as he thrashed about wildly, beyond all sense of shame or decorum. Panicking from the pain, he lunged towards some male students nearby.
“Whoa! Stop it!”
“H-Hey! Don’t come this way!”
Terrified by Stewart’s bloodstained uniform, the students shoved him away. The force of their push caused him to crash heavily into Flora.
“Kya!”
Flora was in the middle of treating the injured boy from earlier when she was sent flying towards the cliff. She landed right beside the edge. The impact of her hitting the ground caused the unstable cliff edge to crumble away.
“Flora!”
Christina, who had been focused on the monster before her, turned around at the sound of Flora’s scream. Her expression turned to distinct horror when she spotted Flora, moments away from falling off the crumbling cliff edge.
“Eek! H-Help me...!” Flora glanced around for something to grab onto, when she locked eyes with Rio. A pained expression flickered over his face before he threw the equipment off of himself and broke out into a run.
Flora’s body had nearly fallen from sight.
Hurry — that was the only thought in his mind as he accelerated to an impossible speed. In an instant, he had reached the cliff edge — and dived off without hesitation. He extend his arm out and grabbed Flora’s hand, which had been grasping at thin air. If he gotten there just a second later, he wouldn’t have made it in time.
Rio’s and Flora’s eyes met once more midair. Flora’s eyes were teary with relief, but it was still too early to relax. At this rate, they would both end up experiencing ropeless bungee jumping together from 100 feet up — but Rio wouldn’t let that happen. He could at least save Flora.
“Sorry,” he murmured softly, yanking Flora towards him by the hand he had grabbed. Then, he rotated their bodies around in the air.
“Kya!”
A dainty squeal of surprise could be heard just as Rio used the momentum of his turn to throw Flora back up the cliff with all of his abnormal strength.
“Kyaa!” Flora’s body landed at the top of the cliff with a thump. She might have suffered some light scratches, but Rio couldn’t do much more than that.
That should be far enough from the edge, Rio thought. With that, the corner of his lip twitched up in a smile. But his relief was only momentary, as the consequences of saving Flora soon caught up to him.
Rio fell to the ground from the top of a 100 foot cliff.
◇◇◇
The members of the squad who had just watched Rio dive off the cliff to save Flora were stunned.
“E-Exterminating the monsters comes first! Alphonse!” Roanna was the first to come to her senses and snapped their commander out of his stupor.
“...Defense positions! Men in front, hold your shields and protect Her Highnesses with your wall! Rear guard will launch a barrage of offensive magic. Roanna, you assist with the healing. Take your positions!” Alphonse ordered, reorganizing their formation.
The battle from that point onwards was overwhelmingly one-sided. The front guard became a wall of shields, while the rear guard healed the injured and killed the monsters with their offensive magic.
That much was a given — the ability to use magic made humans far more powerful.
Even the very first level of offensive magic taught at the Academy was enough to gravely wound a human. In a head-to-head battle, any one of the students present had enough power to take out a group of goblins by themselves. This level of magical power was why the standard fighting tactic for sorcerers when facing non-magic users was to maintain a mid- to long-range distance from their opponent. There was no way they would lose as long as they kept that up, short of their opponent h
aving enough mobility to dodge or a high level of defense to block the magic attacks.
“Electrica Projectilis!”
The blitz shot Christina launched contained a barrage of lightning bolts that blew away the remaining goblins. Their bodies vanished, leaving behind enchanted gems and concluding the battle. There were two students who had been injured, but Roanna had helped Flora keep the healing up under Alphonse’s orders.
The issue now was Rio’s whereabouts and how Flora had nearly fallen off the cliff. As everyone calmed down, the air between them grew delicately tense.
“Umm, Princess Flora. How did you fall off the cliff?” Alphonse asked awkwardly in an attempt to clear up the situation.
“I was casting Cura on the injured when somebody suddenly crashed into me from behind...” Flora answered hesitantly.
“Who was it?” Alphonse asked. One of the female students nervously raised her hand and answered timidly.
“Umm... I believe the one who bumped into Her Highness was Stewart... I was standing right next to Princess Flora, so...” Both her voice and her face seemed rather sickly; she was most likely frightened of Stewart. The boy in question — having just been healed — turned to glare at her with a demonic wrath.
“Are you saying it’s my fault? I was pushed too! I’m a victim!” Stewart yelled insistently, as though he didn’t quite believe it himself.
“Oh, no — I’m not saying it’s your fault at all.” The girl who made the statement withered under Stewart’s glare.
“Then who’s fault do you say it is?”
“Oh, umm... The... the one who pushed you, perhaps?”
“That’s right! Someone pushed me! That person is the culprit!” Stewart declared, shifting the blame off of himself.
“Is this really the time to be searching for a culprit?” Roanna asked, clearly fed up with the topic. Stewart turned to her with a sulky expression.
“T-Then what do you suggest?” Alphonse asked her hurriedly.
“Do we save him, or do we leave the forest? Those are our current options, no?” Roanna frowned as though she found the answer to be obvious.
“T-That’s not something for me to decide alone...”
“Good grief... What do you think the role of the commander is for?” Roanna sighed in disgust at Alphonse’s behavior, unfitting for a commander.
“I-I value the opinion of my squad members too. What does everyone else think?” He looked to the other members for their thoughts.
“...Is he even alive?”
“I don’t think there’s any way we can save him, since he fell from this height and all. How would we get down there?”
“Yeah, exactly. It’s too risky to search for a commoner who might not even be alive.”
And so on. Opinions were exchanged, all in opposition of Rio’s rescue.
Suddenly, someone abruptly spoke up.
“Actually, it was him. The commoner was the one who pushed me.”
It was Stewart.
He had a strangely contemplative look on his face; the students gathered their attention on him.
“That coward was so terrified by the battle that he shoved me away from him. Because he did that, I unwillingly collided with Princess Flora, to my greatest regret...” Stewart said, twisting his face into a look of grief.
“In other words... he feared the crime of killing a royal and dived after the Princess in desperation to save her, falling in her place. Then Stewart should be clear of any wrongdoing...” Alphonse nodded in understanding.
“T-That cannot be! He saved me!” Flora immediately objected, unable to accept that conclusion.
“That’s not what the witnesses say. I was pushed by that boy, wasn’t I?” Stewart asked, looking at two male students as he did so. They were the students who had thrust Stewart away from them earlier, and they flinched in surprise before responding.
“Y-Yeah. That’s what happened.”
“I-I saw it too.”
Both boys agreed with each other in a rather forced tone. Stewart smiled in satisfaction.
“Did you really see that happen?” Christina asked in a low voice. Her intense gaze nearly caused Stewart and the boys to take a step back.
“Y-Yes, there was no mistaking it,” Stewart said, nodding first. The other two boys followed his lead.
“...I see. What about everyone else? Did anyone else witness what happened?” Christina asked the squad at large, and looked over the group of students. But their reactions were weak — they merely glanced at each other in awkward silence.
“We were all preoccupied with the monsters that appeared... Elise, did you see anything?” Roanna asked. Elise was the girl who had testified to seeing Stewart’s collision with Flora. Stewart also turned to look at Elise, his expression cold.
“Huh? Ah... no, I don’t think so... I didn’t see that much...” Elise responded with a strange nervousness in her tone.
“And that’s the truth?” Roanna pressed.
“Y-Yes!” Elise startled, nodding as her body trembled.
“Then we should decide our next step immediately. Discussing this any more will only lead us in circles,” Roanna said, looking at Alphonse unhappily.
“T-Then perhaps we should get out of this forest first? We’ve been entrusted with the safety of Her Highnesses, so we shouldn’t stay here any longer than necessary...” Flustered, Alphonse turned to Christina for her judgment. Personally, he would have rather focused on minimizing their demerit points than ignoring the exam to rescue Rio, whose fall was his own doing anyway. In his mind, losing a commoner like Rio didn’t count as a major incident.
“Could you stop looking to me for every decision? You’re the commander. Make your commands at your own discretion. Your leadership is all over the place,” Christina warned him with clear irritation on her face.
“Y-Yes ma’am! Then we shall immediately depart for our destination.” The blood drained from Alphonse’s face as he hurriedly came to a decision.
“Wait! You’re really just going to abandon him?” Flora demanded in an unrelenting tone.
“W-We are moving on as a team. We cannot afford to put the entire squad at risk over one boy who fell of his own accord,” Alphonse replied, his speech awkward under pressure.
“Of his own accord...? Then... then, I nearly fell off the cliff of my own accord. I shall go save him myself.” Rendered speechless at first, Flora immediately recovered to voice her declaration.
“Absolutely not! You must refrain from such outrageous thoughts, Princess Flora!” Roanna scolded her in a panic.
“Roanna! Even you...? He might be severely injured and waiting for someone to help. Don’t you realize that?”
“...This is a matter of priority versus possibility. There is a possibility he is unharmed... But the exam going on right now is the priority. We cannot ruin our entire drill over an uncertain possibility for a single commoner. That is what the commander has decided, at least,” Roanna explained.
“T-That is why I shall go alone...” Flora said, faltering.
“Surely you are aware that royalty cannot be allowed to wander off alone,” Christina interrupted in a slightly exasperated voice.
“B-But, Christina!”
“Calm down. We haven’t abandoned him completely.”
“...Huh?” Flora looked at her sister in confusion.
“We’ll send a search team out as soon as our squad completes the drill,” Christina assured her, “So for now—”
“MRROOOOH!”
Suddenly, a monstrous roar echoed from the forest; the sound was loud enough to shake the trees. The startled animals in the forest fled all at once, making the students flinch.
Thump, thump, thump, thump. The noise of something hitting the ground sounded rhythmically, then fell silent for a beat, before an even louder sound reverberated. It was as though something enormous had taken a running leap.
Then, a giant figure emerged from the forest, looming in the sky.
> “W-What is that?” Roanna exclaimed as she looked up above them.
It was a large humanoid creature, holding a sword carved from stone... But it clearly wasn’t human. Its mouth curved into a fearsome grin when it spotted the students below, before it landed back in the forest. A thunderous roar echoed alongside the tremor of its landing. The ground shook like a small earthquake had occurred, causing the weaker parts of the cliff to crumble away.
“W-Watch out for the cliff!” Roanna yelled, prompting the students to scramble away from the edge — but they didn’t enter the forest. The forest contained that creature, after all.
“It’s heading this way, Alphonse! What do we do?” Roanna yelled, wanting Alphonse to take the lead command, but he had completely shut down in a panic.
“Huh? Uh, w-what...?”
“We either fight or run! Give us your command!” Roanna impatiently pressed Alphonse for a response. But even in that short amount of time, the mysterious creature continued to approach until its huge silhouette peeked through the forest.
“Eek...!”
It presence was so daunting, several of the students’ faces twisted in fear, and cowered in terror with quivering legs. Step by step it approached, until the students finally had a clear view of its whole body.
It had a demonic bull’s face, with thick, pointy horns on its head. Its eyes were brimming with madness, and glowed a menacing, crimson red.
Its frame must have stood over ten feet tall.
The body was covered in rough, black skin, and bulged with huge, rugged muscles. A whip-like tail snapped about behind it.
“M... M-Monster...”
Its overwhelming presence turned the students’ expressions into utter despair, but there was still one person who hadn’t lost the will to fight.
It was Christina.
“What are you all standing around for?! Do you want to die?!” she said, stepping forth with her staff held at the ready to chant a spell.
“Fulgur Sphera!”
A geometric formula appeared at the end of her staff and launched a dense ball of lightning. The thunder ball, which was about three feet high, crackled in the air as it drew close to the monster’s head, sparking hope back into students’ eyes. But—
Kingdom of Lies Page 15
