Broken Possessors of Infinite Regression Academy

Chapter 16

16 – Dungeon Practice – 4

‘Huh? What’s this?’

‘Why? What happened?’

When Jaina, who held the staff, frowned while looking at the screen, sword-wielding Jaina asked. Her tone was much more relaxed than when she was in front of the students.

‘No, they’re all gathered on one side.’

‘Let me see. Yeah, really? Did they all eat something wrong in a group?’

Jaina’s screen was slightly more special than the ones distributed to the students.

Not only it showed the location of the dungeon to be broken through with team members, but it also showed all the students listening to the lecture and all the artificial monsters scattered throughout.

Therefore, she couldn’t help but find it strange that the monsters, supposed to be scattered throughout the forest, were concentrated in one place.

Sword-wielding Jaina checked the coordinates of the area densely spotted with red dots.

‘Dungeon 7-1? Was there something there?’

‘No. Nothing.’

‘So why are they acting like this?’

‘...How would I know?’

Jaina stared at each other with a confused expression. As the original didn’t know what the clone knew and vice versa, the discussion was largely self-answering.

‘Dungeon 7 would mean, it should be where he is, right? The freshman top student.’

She was one of the three that she had forcibly ripped apart, citing the reason that the balance wasn’t right. You couldn’t put the top and second-place of all freshmen and a hero in one team.

‘Right. His name is a little hard to forget.’

Of course, Jaina knew about Mira Crete too. In Belrium Academy, it would be faster to find someone who didn’t know about him.

It was due to the intense incident at the entrance ceremony, showcasing his skills after that, and recently due to the matter involving Archmage Ingrid.

‘Let’s see, Mira Crete... Mira Crete... Huh?’

‘What?’

‘It says he already went into dungeon 7-2, cleared it, and came out?’

‘Wait, he cleared it? Already?’

‘Yes. It says he went in alone after sending the other two team members to Dungeon 7-1. Breakthrough time was... wow, what is this? 30 minutes 8 seconds? Is that possible?’

‘...Seriously?’@@@@

After the rule was reinforced to prevent the trick of dividing groups when entering, if you enter the dungeon alone, you have to face a monster twelve times more than when you entered with three people based on simple calculation.

Yet, he set a breakthrough record in the shortest time? Jaina, knowing how unbelievably insane this was, gaped. Aside from the crown prince who was practically an outlier, it’s absolutely first place.

“Can’t we save the surprise for later? Shouldn’t we deal with this anomaly first?”

“Alright, alright, don’t rush me.”

Jaina, holding her staff, muttered as she infused mana into her magical tool and issued a command. It was a command to immediately return to their original places.

“Wait, what?”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Hey, these things aren’t responding to commands?”

“What?”

Jaina, holding a sword, hastily checked the screen. Despite the continuous orders for them to return to their original places, the red dots didn’t move an inch.

It’s not like I had dismembered the body. To be so mutilated indicates that this monster was alive until its arms and legs were cut off, its guts disemboweled, its body mutilated and its head cut off.

‘...It seems to have been wounded. Probably didn’t go far.’

I spotted droplets of blood regularly dropped on the ground. They were too small to be that of the monster. I began following the blood drops.

Judging by the easy-to-follow trail, the student was still very much a student.

It didn’t take long to find bloodstains disappearing into a wall. I used detection magic and found an entrance disguised as a wall with illusion magic. Two life forms were detected inside.

There was a metallic scent in the air. They couldn’t cover up their smells.

‘The blood drops were small, so the injury won’t be critical, but it won’t be an easy one to deal with. As for healing magic... I can’t help there.’

This world didn’t possess magic related to healing wounds. There were only potions to promote natural healing and holy power dedicated to healing.

Although I could use what I had learned from the previous world, and it definitely worked, I planned to avoid using it unless absolutely necessary.

I didn’t want to add more trouble, especially when everyone was already panicking because of the wide-area destruction magic. Particularly as this was a matter pertaining to the livelihood of the clergy.

‘Are you in there?’

‘Huh? Crate? Is that you, Crate?’

I walked closer to the illusory wall and called out. A cheerful voice echoed from inside, and someone peeked out. A distinctive redhead — it was Scarlet Diana.

Upon noticing me, Diana’s face lit up. Judging from her reaction, it seemed Ward was the one injured.

‘How did you find us? The magic items are not working. Is your device working?’

‘Mine’s not working either. If you wanted to avoid tracking, you should have wiped off the blood drops while moving. If you use illusion magic, you should also use confusion magic. But, well, there was nothing you could do about the smell.’

‘Uh, yeah. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t feel too guilty. You did your best. Everyone makes mistakes in the beginning. It’ll get better with time.’

I comforted her and stepped inside the illusory wall. As I expected, Ward was leaning on his left side, sweating profusely. Smiling, I asked him,

‘How did you get injured?’

‘....’

With Ward keeping his mouth shut, Diana explained for him. Apparently, he had acted as bait while they were dealing with the final monster.

Looking at me with surprise, he let out a scoff.

‘I had no weapon left after my axe broke. This lady still had hers. Under those circumstances, I made a decision that gave us the most advantages. There was no way a pathetic creature like that could perform the role of bait effectively, now, was there?’

Sometimes, you run into such guys. They look down on others, thinking it’s natural, but when it comes to ‘dull-witted’ commoners, they believe they can’t do anything right, so they step in and do it themselves.

I mean, they’re assholes, but slightly less so. Although their thinking and motivations are based on a sort of eugenics, in the end, their actions often end up being closer to leading by example.

It’s pretty easy to manipulate these types once you’ve stroked their ego a bit. I readjusted my evaluation of Ward slightly upward.

‘...What now? He’s going to die from blood loss if we leave him like this.’

Diana, not knowing that she was indirectly insulted, was anxious for Ward.

‘First, let’s consider the worst-case scenario.’

‘The worst-case scenario?’

‘That our situation in the dungeon hasn’t been discovered from the outside yet.’

Honestly, I highly doubt that’s the case. Not only were all the monsters in the forest gathered in front of the dungeon, but the purple smoke was also spreading.

Given that they were closely monitoring the forest during the class, they would have noticed something strange.

“So then...?”

“Don’t ask the obvious. We need to find a way out.”