Published: September 10, 2025
――Stampede?
Is a huge army of monsters coming this way?
“Attention students. Proceed up the pillar’s stairs and wait at the top,” the instructor ordered, pointing to a nearby pillar.
“Shouldn’t we run away?” Rozim, the noble-born, asked.
“The fatigued won’t make it safely out of range,” the instructor replied.
“Harry, I say.”
Harry?
Is that someone’s name?
“Move quickly! Get up to the pillar!”
Lachesis grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the pillar, with the others following suit.
Apparently, Lachesis understood the words spoken earlier, despite them sounding like a sisterly dialect.
“Hey, the instructor isn’t coming up?”
Zaki said, looking down, only to see the instructor standing where she was before.
Where she pulled out a large shield as tall as herself.
“Instructor! Hurry up!”
“The stampede is approaching!”
“No need to worry, I assure you.”
The instructor said as the explorers who had warned about the stampede rushed past her.
Behind them, more explorers followed with desperate looks.
“Hey, pack in closer inside!”
A voice called from below the pillar.
Someone unknown.
It seemed that some explorers gave up running and decided to take refuge at this pillar.
As we moved aside, those people escaped across the suspension bridge to the next pillar.
“You!”
Rasa muttered and grabbed the arm of a person heading toward the bridge.
“Who are you?”
“You’re from Gon’s hometown, right? What happened to Gon and the others?”
Rasa’s words jogged my memory.
He was the one who invited Gon’s party.
“They escaped ahead.”
He shook off Rasa’s hand, telling her to let go and continued.
“They didn’t come this way?”
“No.”
“Good… With Gon carrying a shield, they probably escaped from another direction.”
He didn’t seem too worried.
“I wonder if Gon and the others are okay?”
“I worry too, but there’s nothing we can do,” I said, shaking my head, and Zaki did the same.
“Monsters in droves.”
“Not just goblins. Labyrinth ants and ratmen too,” said Sagu and Rozim, who had been watching the stampede.
“Monsters! Remember to keep to the speed limit and stay safe!” the instructor yelled, strangely enough.
“What’s that?”
“That’s the shield knight’s taunt skill.”
The instructor raised her shield.
“Look!”
“Light around the instructor? Magic arrows?”
“So many arrows!”
“It’s like a legend of the king ancestor,” someone murmured.
Dozens of magic arrows appeared around the instructor and, with a swing of her sword, flew en masse toward the monsters.
But against the overwhelming number of monsters, it was like a drop in the ocean.
“No good. The numbers are too great.”
“That’s not true! Look!”
The magic arrows exploded one after another as they approached the monsters.
“Amazing! One arrow is taking down multiple monsters!”
Lachesis said excitedly, unconsciously pulling me closer by my arm.
“We did it! The monsters’ feet are stopping!”
The monsters in front collapsed from the exploding arrows, and the ones behind tripped over them, causing a chain reaction of falls.
The instructor’s follow-up magic arrows rained down.
“Amazing... that’s the power of a veteran explorer,” apprentice priest Yuto murmured as if in a daze.
I understood the feeling.
It was an overwhelming power, like something out of a hero’s tale.
The fight between the instructor and the monsters ended as a one-sided rout by the instructor.
“She won all on her own.”
“Yeah.”
Zaki’s words made Rasa nod.
“Ah! Keros!”
“Sina is here too.”
From a different direction than the stampede, more explorers arrived.
It was hard to tell from afar, but I spotted Keros and Sina among them.
“Gon’s nowhere to be seen...”
Sina was lending support to a battered Keros.
“This is bad.”
Ratman Neze muttered.
“What is?”
“No idea.”
He looked puzzled even to himself.
“Why are they looking back?”
At Yuto’s words, Rasa suddenly looked alarmed and pressed her ear against the pillar’s wall.
—What is it?