RATH 14

TL: Eevee

2. What is this. Scary. (7)

The Twelve Labours.

Heracles got 12 labours, didn’t he? With that in mind I constructed a training cave with twelve rooms. If you had to ask why a cave it’s because it felt like they would have done this in a wuxia novel! Was the kind of feeling I had in mind when I made this training area.

Of course, the contents aren’t crudely made either.

I made this carefully with my experiences from both my past and present lives.

Starting from the first room of arrows, the first five rooms were designed to recreate situations that one could encounter on the battlefield, and the next five rooms are made to trial the occupants by numbing the senses.

I tested it myself, and the ninth room where all five senses are nullified should be particularly difficult.

Since you can’t feel anything in a room where you can’t see anything, it feels like you’ve died and become a ghost.

Since I made it so that even I, who can’t even be affected by curse magic, let alone regular illusions can be affected by it, so it’s not the sort of thing that you can push through with magic power alone.

Because knowing that the kids would block it with magic, I used all sorts of paralysis and hallucinating poisons without holding back!

Of course since every level is hard mode the kids’ll get tired as well.

And their motivation’ll drop too.

And because of that, to show them the face of a well-respected instructor, the eleventh room is a room of rest in preparation for the twelfth.

Why? Because the twelfth room is seriously dangerous.

To be honest, I didn’t make that room.

The twelfth room is the handiwork of my previous cohorts of graduates. My initial heartwarming intentions of ‘take care of your future juniors!’ that I initiated from my very first cohort was twisted by my d.a.m.n disciples, becoming a room with feelings of ‘why don’t you try getting f***ed over!’ and other a.s.sorted malice.

Because of this, even when they swear and curse as they fall to it, the vicious cycle never stops.

Well, that was the second generation. After the third generation, that is now, they cleared away all of the routes they used to clear it, installing new traps and other modifications.

Especially the previous cohort, two of them actually came back to add a summoning circle with their first paycheck.

These lunatics.

Among the trainees, no, even if you include the training regimes of the soldiers or the knights, let alone the organization, the Empire, no, the entire continent, the only place you can face off against a devil is here!

And because of that I’d planned to start this sometime mid-next year at the earliest…

But since No.1000 wants to get stronger, I opened it for her specially so she could.

Well, it’s not like I did it just because I was lazy.

…Really!

Ah, that reminds me. Once tomorrow comes I should get the other two in here as well.

Good things are meant to be shared, right?

Their peer is suffering, I can’t just leave the other two alone.

Hm… Good. It’s actually really good?

At the very least it’ll take a year minimum for them to clear it, and I won’t have the risk of having all my secrets cleared out until then.

This is perfect?!

Even the previous cohort which was said to be the strongest in the organization’s history took nearly a year to beat it, and their numbers were more than double the current cohort but it still took them that long.

There’s no way they can overcome the trials that I made with just three people!

Uwahahahahaha! I am the guardian of my own stock! Come, brats! I shall show you the h.e.l.l that is royalty fees!

…There was a time where I was happy like that too. d.a.m.n it!

#11 Their story: The secret future hero’s vitality.

The day after I screamed in pain a new trial awaited us.

“This place?”

I was beat up that much, I was suffering that much but my body was perfectly fine.

No, beyond fine, when I woke up I actually felt refreshed.

Because of that I couldn’t even skip out on training and had to come with everyone else.

And the new training ground we arrived at was an old shed I didn’t know even existed, and beyond the suspicious-looking old door was a cave which screamed bad tidings no matter how you looked at it.

“That reminds me, you said you came here on your own yesterday.”

When No.17 asked No.1000 that No.1000 nodded her small head affirmatively.

“What kind of place is it?”

No.1000’s head tilted a bit. Then she seemed to struggle with her thoughts for a bit before she smiled brightly and said.

“No.1, try opening the door.”

“Eh? The door?”

As No.1000 nodded I sighed and followed No.1000’s instructions and pushed op…

Fik!

“Kuk!”

What the h.e.l.l! A surprise attack from the very beginning!

No, before that!

“Oi, No.1000. You knew about this, didn’t you?!”

“Yep. It’s this kind of place.”

What the h.e.l.l are you saying with a smugly proud look! One of your peers nearly got killed by an arrow! After listening to you, too!

“Hey, wait, that’s uncalled for! Why the h.e.l.l did you make me open it? No.17 asked was the one that asked, did I ask you anything?”

“…Because you’re a man?”

d.a.m.n it! Because I’m a man she says!

What kind of age is this! It’s an age where one of strongest existences of the sword, the Sword Star is a woman!

Ah, but I can’t really say anything back.

Going and outright making a woman lead from the front is something my pride as a duke’s son and a man won’t let me swallow…

“Kuk… alright. I’ll lead. But still, even if it’s this place, there’s going to be plenty of dangerous sections and whatnot.”

Pride didn’t feed me, rather it had taken away many of my meals, but I still had my pride. I needed to abandon it as quickly as possible, but it’s not working out very well.

“Yep. Once you take a step forward after opening the door.”

Hm? One step. Meaning the one step I’m taking now?

“Silent arrows are fired from underneath.”

Tak.

“This crazy?!”

The moment my foot hit the ground I immediately fell backwards and dodged the arrows.

I was seriously about to die from that!

“Why the h.e.l.l is there no sound when arrows are being fired?! And you should speak up faster! I nearly died back theaaeree?!”

I immediately ducked my head to dodge No.1000’s sword flying towards my face. This crazy b.i.t.c.h!

Are you just outright gunning to kill me now! What did I do wrong! d.a.m.n it was it food? Are you eliminating the compet.i.tion now!

Tang! Tang! Tang!

But after I heard something colliding against her sword, something dropped onto my head.

Hm. This. Is an arrow. If I’d stayed like that I’d have a hole in my head.

But silent again?

It’s only one step in from the entrance.

But isn’t silence way overdoing it from the beginning? Surely the first arrow when I opened the door can’t be the only arrow that makes noise right?

“Oi, No.1000 answer me. Just how far did you get in last night.”

“Around… ten metres?”

Ah, this crazy.

Just what does the instructor do for a living to make all this.

No, was it made by the organization? Surely, right? Even if it’s the instructor, as long as he was human he wouldn’t have made it this difficult from the very beginning, right?

And this is why evil organizations should never exist! Even if it was a degraded version, how the h.e.l.l is he expecting us to pa.s.s this when girl who could make a joke out of the Empire-style magic bombardment was stopped at just ten metres?!

…was what I had thought.

“Only three doors left…”

Three months later, only three doors had yet to be cleared. d.a.m.n it. It actually is possible.

Why is it doable.

In the darkness where I couldn’t see an inch in front of me, I leaned against the wall and thought about the time that had pa.s.sed so far, but I still didn’t get it.

We spent nearly a month in the first room of arrows. The room that was almost a hundred metres long felt like h.e.l.l.

Arrows came from everywhere. Let alone from the front we also had arrows aimed at us from above our heads, under our feet, even diagonally aimed arrows, it felt like we’d been hit everywhere at least once except for the vitals.

No, it probably wasn’t just our feelings.

The more amazing thing is that even if we’re hit by the arrows they don’t pierce through us.

When you think about how the arrows are traveling at speeds that even No.1000 found it hard to dodge you’d think they’d pierce clean through our bodies, but once we got hit only the very short arrowhead part stuck into our skin as if by pinpoint precision, and once we dug the arrows out all that happened was that we bled for a bit.

Having said that we couldn’t look down on them because each and every arrow was coated with various poisons.

That was truly fearful, and it also let us understand exactly who was the creator of this cave.

Even in the primary training facilities I was trained like you’d expect from an evil organization, but this evil could only be from that devil of an instructor.

As to what that meant, the poisons used were truly diverse.

If they were just your common paralysis and other dangerous poisons then I wouldn’t even bother bringing them up.

But… poisons that induced vomiting, diarrhoea!

This isn’t the work of a human! Not even devils would do such a thing. This was a trap full of malice designed by that devil, no worse than a devil instructor!

If she shut her mouth and I saw her not here but on the outside, No.17 would be a unique beauty, and even No.1000 would pa.s.s on the cute side as long as she kept her mouth closed, but even so.

No matter how beautiful the woman, when she’s chucking up or squatting while shivering in the corner, those thoughts are a bit, no, completely shattered!

No even before that I’m in danger too! And in a lot of it! At least No.17 summons that big archdevil and deal with matters like that, but in my case all that I can do is hone my nerves to the limits and retreat!

I honestly nearly p.i.s.sed my pants. To think a son of a duke would p.i.s.s his pants!

To the point where we even thought it would have been better if the poisons were the quick, painless and lethal ones!

If it wasn’t for the fact that the traps didn’t activate when we retreated, I would honestly have reported the instructor to the Empire as the incarnate of the evil G.o.d that was only spoken of in legends.

And unlike me and No.17 who was practically dying from poison, No.1000 was immune to practically all the poisons.

And did that bring complacency.

Just before the door leading to the second door, No.1000 was nicked by an arrow before her face suddenly turned pale and she started to vomit.

As No.1000 looked on her regurgitated breakfast with an aggrieved expression, No.17 and I felt keenly aware of the risk to our lives, no, the fear that we could possibly lose something we desperately had to protect as humans.

To think there was a poison that even worked on that No.1000, so potent that it could break, no, obliterate all our dignity as humans.

I want to run away! But that devil of an instructor will almost certainly refuse to let us.

In that case there is only one thing we can do. Surpa.s.s your own limits and break through the gate.

As a result, we could surpa.s.s our limits.

At the last when almost a hundred arrows all came flying at us at the same time it made us wonder “is this the end?”

To make matters worse up till now where all the arrows had been silent, in addition to audible arrows being fired at us from our surroundings there were also silent arrows being shot at us from our blind spots.

Had we gotten used to the silent arrows by then, when we heard the sound of arrows flying at us all our attentions were taken up by those and we were nearly done in by the silent ones.

The moment we noticed the silent arrows, it felt like time had stopped, and I felt instinctively with all the mana in the surroundings.

And I realised. This… was showing off your money!

What kind of ridiculous mana density that we could feel in this room.

Countless magic stones were being used in the apparatus used to fire arrows at us.

The reason why the arrows were silent, and the reason why the speed of the arrows were regulated so they would stab into us but not kill us, the moment we felt the mana in that s.p.a.ce, we realised that that was a ridiculous s.p.a.ce were pointlessly countless magic stones were being used.

And that was just the first trial!

What kind of h.e.l.l is this place!

But when we pa.s.sed through the second and third trials, the difficulty of the trials were lower than we thought.

Although the difficulty compared to the first gate, the room of arrows was higher, the biggest difficulty of the first room were the poisons that stripped away your dignity as human beings, after that those poisons weren’t used and it actually became possible to just charge through them.

And so it took us less than a month to pa.s.s through the trial of steel, the trial of earth, the trial of traps and the trial of magic.

Compared to the month we spent clearing the trial of arrows, we cleared the other trials at extremely fast speeds.

The last door, the trial of magic in particular was one where we almost didn’t see the point of including when we considered the previous magic bombardments we were subjected to.

But we realized the moment we entered the sixth trial.

As we thought. It was that instructor, to think we were careless!

“I can’t condense mana that well.”

No.17 said beside me with an extremely irritated voice and the sound of something grinding.

A stream of blood was trickling down her oddly noticeable lips.

Since the first door, she’d developed a habit of biting her lip whenever she was stressed out.

“And… I can’t see.”

No.1000 was looking around almost excessively.

Up till now we had been relying on her instinct a lot to get us through the trials.

The sixth sense over the other five. The fact that she who could sense out danger by pure instinct was looking around meant that there was something that was triggering her sixth sense.

But all I could see was a s.p.a.ce filled with a fog where I could just see the girls in front of me.

With my technique I acquired in the first trial in used my mana to scout out the surroundings but it’s being blocked out by the black fog.

That black fog was an artificial one made by magic. The magic power simply couldn’t break through the fog and was being cut off.

Worse, like No.17 said earlier, mana can barely be used in the room itself.

You need to purely use your own mana, but we’d used up significant amounts of mana in the previous trial of magic and we were all short on mana.

Although the trial of magic was easier compared to our previous experiences, it was insanely effective in having us exhaust our mana.

It felt like we’d hit another wall.

Just how the heck did the instructor expect us to clear this room?!

“Can’t we just go out and recover our mana?”

“Ah…”

“You’re right?”

That day, ten minutes later.

The trial of fog was cleared.