“Team AD9.”
Our instructors stood at equal intervals around a teleportation magic circle that glowed faintly with white light. When they called out the name of our team, the eight of us stepped into the center.
“Are you ready?” one of the instructors asked.
The team leaders of our second-year team and the accompanying fourth-year team nodded. The magic circle flared around us, and in the blink of an eye, we were teleported away.
We took in our new surroundings.
“A forest this time?” said the leader of the fourth-year team. “It’s awfully dim.”
His second-in-command nodded. “Looks like it. They change the monster extermination exercise every few years. We might’ve lucked out.”
The two stood shoulder to shoulder, scanning the area like they had done this a hundred times before. Behind them stood a boy and a girl, who both had blond hair and blue eyes.
Ralf, a rugged-looking boy with short gray hair—the leader of our second-year team—put his hand on the small, finger-length decorative sword hooked onto the side of his belt. He called out the name of our second-in-command, a mild-mannered boy with wavy, light-brown hair. “Lauren.”
“Yes,” Lauren answered. He understood what needed to be done without further instruction.
Lauren and Ralf moved to stand back-to-back, positioning me and Kartika, a bespectacled girl with braided black hair, in between them. Ralf’s sharp dark-green eyes and Lauren’s gentle deep-brown eyes scanned in opposite directions as the two of them cast a detection spell. A faint web of magic spread across the ground, so faint that it would only be noticed by exceptionally timid and sensitive magical beasts.
This was the formation our team used for gathering food. My and Kartika’s job was to keep our eyes on the flank positions.
The fourth-year leader scoffed. “This is just a joint extermination exercise for a bunch of inexperienced students who’ve barely been here a year. Yet, here you are treating it like a life-or-death situation. How idiotic. But I suppose that’s to be expected from the talentless noblewoman and her little band of commoner wannabes from Class D. As a fellow scion of one of the Four Great Ducal Houses, I can’t help but pity your brother and stepsister for being related to someone so disgraceful.”
The fourth-year leader—let’s call him Mr. Pedigree—had been like this from the start. Ever since the teams were assigned by lottery, he found every excuse to bring up lineage and status, sulking all the while. It made me wonder...putting aside his terrible word choice, was his perpetual irritation just a symptom of puberty?
“But...doesn’t something feel amiss?” the blonde girl said warily. She seemed on edge. She and the blond boy subtly adjusted their stances, ready to cast a defensive spell at a moment’s notice. In a way, that was the right move.
And look at that—their second-in-command, a girl from the knight course, began to subtly cast detection magic. Impressive! I’d taken to calling her granddaughter.
“Milord!” Just as I was inwardly applauding her, granddaughter suddenly shouted and kicked Mr. Pedigree out of the way. The next moment, the ground beneath her caved in with a thud, and she disappeared.
Before we had time to react, the sound of metal scraping against something echoed from below, and something massive shot upward out of the hole. The blond pair, standing nearby, were caught off guard and stumbled backward onto the ground next to Mr. Pedigree. And... Oh dear. They managed to cast defensive spells...but only around themselves. How disappointing.
Their response was understandable, though. Rising from the pit was a giant centipede, its grotesque, writhing legs on full display. Viewed from below, the sight was particularly repulsive.
I heard a grunt from overhead and looked up to see granddaughter with her leg wrapped around one of the centipede’s segmented joints. As I watched, she drew her sword and sliced through its venomous left maxilliped.
Meanwhile, Ralf had silently timed his leap with the centipede’s rise; he was already beginning to attack the centipede’s right maxilliped with a greatsword identical in shape to the small sword he had been wearing on his belt. That miniature sword was now nowhere to be found.
He was already an experienced adventurer, and his control over his well-trained muscles was wonderful to behold.
“Milady!” Ralf called out to me.
As the team’s cook, who occasionally acted as support, I understood his unasked question. “It’s quite delicious when roasted!” I called back.
“Huh?!” The fourth-years let out a collective shout of confusion. I ignored them.
“How do we prepare it?” Ralf yelled.
“Sever the segment below the maxillipeds!” I replied. “The venom is concentrated there, so make sure it doesn’t fall into the pit! Lauren, throw a fireball into the pit! Kartika, let’s split up and cast Enhanced Monster Repellent!”
“Understood!”
“Huhhhh?!”
The fourth-years had enough of their wits about them to yell in surprise, but none of them moved to help. Except for granddaughter, that is.
“Give thanks to the life that sustains us!”
At the familiar prompt from our leader, our team yelled out our response. “We’ll enjoy this delicious meal!”
Then we launched into action.
In this life I was Laviange Robur, daughter of a great ducal house, and right now I was simply enjoying the moment as the beginning of a delightful outdoor adventure. Little did I know, this joint extermination exercise would go down in Academy history as an unprecedented disaster; the upperclassmen would go through hell, and casualties would follow.