At some point, Alkiné fell silent. Of course, I did too.
All the jokes and exaggerated reactions we had been spouting to forget the serious situation vanished.
As the silence stretched on, I could sense Alkiné’s expression darkening, but I, too, was at a loss for words, so I focused on running and taking in my surroundings.
Alkiné continued to cling to me.
At first, she hated it, but now she seemed to have gotten used to it, showing no reaction at all.
Cue laughter The funny part? She seemed to be in pretty good shape to manage on her own, yet she wasn’t asking to be let down.
I thought it would be faster for her to run on her own, but considering she might need to conserve her energy for some unforeseen situation, it felt like the right decision to save her stamina.
Anyway, as someone with infinite stamina, it wasn’t a burden for me… According to my calculations, splitting up wouldn’t matter, so I decided to keep carrying her while running.
While scanning the surroundings again, I gained conviction and asked Alkiné:
“President. Have you seen this oddly raised cliff before?”
“I used it as a reference during my expedition.”
“Then do you remember which direction we should go to find the Rift Stone from this cliff?”
“It’s over there.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Alkiné pointed in one direction.
The fact she could respond so swiftly indicated how much effort she had put into the exploration.
But at the end of the direction she pointed… was another identical cliff.
The reason most information gathered by the Student Council became meaningless was all because of this.
Repeating terrain due to distortion.
In fact, those of the Student Council level would find it harder to locate Rift Stones than to fight monsters in the Rifts.
That’s why they put so much effort into exploration, only for their complacency on the day of dealing with the Rifts to lead to this disaster.
However, it didn’t completely nullify their efforts.
Now I could calculate where the Rift Stone was based on the direction Alkiné indicated.
I hadn’t been aimlessly running around.
Didn’t I say I would properly conquer the Rift? The term “conquest” from an experienced player isn’t something to take lightly.
I had already realized that the original game’s concepts had been considerably applied to the Rift.
It was indeed strange that we kept moving forward, yet specific terrains were repeating.
In a game, it’s usually a matter of capacity, but there shouldn’t be any capacity issues in reality, right?
Thus, I was convinced the game’s system had been directly applied here.
And… there’s no such thing as complete randomness in games. Only unspoken rules masquerading as randomness exist.
There shouldn’t be anything different about the Rift’s distortion.
Sure, we kept encountering the same terrain, but we were definitely making progress.
It just felt like we were going in circles with the same terrains mixed in a specific pattern.
And that specific pattern had just been deciphered.
“Hmm… So…”
If the original direction is this way… based on the last cliff, it would be over there.
In coming this far, I had seen the same-shaped cliffs dozens of times.
And I had figured out how those cliffs were arranged in a pattern.
The two cliffs I had just confirmed were the final numbers to solidify the pattern.
Analyzing the patterns of the Rift’s distortion.
When the Rift’s terrain gets mixed, it changes based on the Rift Stone, and this method is a field only speedrunners do anything with.
After all, there aren’t many opportunities to face Rift distortion in-game, and it wasn’t challenging enough that one had to memorize the patterns.
But I had memorized them. I had studied hard in my attempt at speedrunning before.
“Uh? Where are you going all of a sudden?”
“I felt something.”
As I suddenly took a sharp turn, Alkiné raised an eyebrow in confusion, but I couldn’t explain it in detail, so I just mumbled.
Soon, at the edge of my sight, a red aura appeared to me.
A very familiar effect.
It was an effect that allowed me to pinpoint the location of the Rift Stone.
With an excited voice, I called out to Alkiné.
“President, look over there!”
“Hmm? What is it?”
“Excuse me?”
No way, she doesn’t see that? That can’t be.
As I expressed my disbelief, she stared at the direction I pointed, then flinched in surprise.
“Wait… this energy is…”
Then she hurriedly disengaged from the princess carry and started running.
But it seemed she was heading slightly askew, so it didn’t look like the Rift Stone effect was visible to her.
Could this be another instance of the system applying because of my special trait?
I thought I’d have to investigate deeper next time, but for now, I decided to follow behind Alkiné.
“Rudion! Hurry up and keep up!”
It’s easy for her to say, but I couldn’t match the speed of the former president.
I was running as hard as I could, but it was a miracle if I could even keep her in my sight.
So I had to use dash cancels, which I couldn’t use while carrying her. Even then, I was still lagging behind.
She was really fast, even though I wasn’t specialized in agility. The current academy’s top-tier prowess was truly something else.
At first, the slightly askew direction eventually realigned directly toward the center of the red aura.
But then, Alkiné, who had been sprinting at an incredible pace, slowly began to decelerate and came to a sudden stop.
Thanks to that, I managed to catch up to her side, but my curiosity couldn’t be helped.
“What happened?”
Right now, no one was more urgent about dealing with the Rifts than Alkiné.
I expected she would just rush in and slice whatever came out, so why had she stopped?
Intrigued, I scanned my surroundings, but it didn’t seem like there was anything particularly troublesome about dealing with the Rift Stone.
‘Is that a Twin Head Wolf?’
The Rift Stone’s location is usually hidden or inside a monster, and currently, it fell into the latter case, which meant the monster would gain strength from the Rift Stone’s energy.
It’s kind of like a goblin wielding ogre-level power? The difficulty would fluctuate depending on what kind of monster appeared.
But, well… the monster gaining strength didn’t mean much with Alkiné around.
The unique case of Crumple was just an exception; her attacks were sharp enough to pierce even a demon’s skin.
Of course, she wouldn’t win before crossing the wall, but that meant her attack power was pretty solid.
What’s more, the monster currently housing the Rift Stone was a Twin Head Wolf.
This beast with just two heads was a low-level monster that Alkiné could squash with just a flick of her hand.
So why on earth had she stopped?
Alkiné retorted my question with another question.
“Is it okay to keep what happened here a secret?”
Hearing that, I immediately realized why she had halted.
Once the Rift Stone was dealt with, there would be no time for conversation. We would just collapse the Rift and escape.
Knowing that, it seemed she wanted to share her thoughts before going out…
“That can be talked about outside. Let’s first extinguish the urgent fire.”
“…That’s true. I was probably overthinking things.”
It seemed she was overly conscious of me to the point of mixing up priorities.
I’m not that great of a person. Please don’t stress over it.
“I’ll request support as soon as we get out. You… wait until you regroup with the other members.”
“I will.”
As I responded, Alkiné, who had been standing before me, suddenly vanished.
When I turned my head, she had already reached right in front of the Twin Head Wolf, swinging a mana sword.
Swish—
The red aura pouring from the Twin Head Wolf split in half.
As the destruction of the Rift Stone was confirmed, the Rift began to collapse.
The scenery around melted away as if it were being erased, and it transformed back into the forest scene before entering the Rift.
“Ugh, ghuh, hhgh.”
“AAAH!! AAH!!!”
“Hang in there a bit longer. Just a bit…”
And chaos ensued.
People with arms and legs, or sometimes both, twisted up were groaning and screaming in pain.
Unlike them, some were quiet, which startled me for a moment, but thankfully, they were all breathing.
‘Thank goodness. They’re all alive.’
A thought that I accomplished something made me clench my fists tightly. I had never felt this level of achievement before.
It makes sense since I had never saved anyone in my life.
Meanwhile, the ones who were okay were using the potions they had brought on the injured.
They weren’t using them all at once, but rather sprinkling them a bit, indicating they were aiming to help endure rather than heal.
That was indeed the most appropriate measure for the current situation, but for the injured, it was nearly torture since it would be accompanied by unrelenting pain.
Did they simply believe that Alkiné would adequately tackle the Rift? I couldn’t help but feel a great deal of trust in the president.
“…Huh?”
Amidst all that, someone was the first to notice the change around and started shouting with joy.
“Everyone look! It’s outside! The President probably conquered the Rift!”
Thanks to that, everyone understood the situation…
“We survived!”
“Ghh!! Hah! Hah!”
“Hey! Calm down!!”
From those who were fine to those who were injured but still clinging to their wits—they all began to express their emotions outward.
Some laughed, while others cried.
And then there were those who let out both painful screams and joyful cheers simultaneously.
Amidst all that, there was just one person watching somewhere with a stoic expression.
“…”
With messy green hair. Fashionable horn-rimmed glasses. Eyes devoid of life and chilling to behold.
To add more, he was a man who harbored all sorts of filthy feelings like control and possession toward Alkiné, yet firmly believed it was love.
The Student Council’s vice president, Diggerus Jibchak. The place his gaze fixed was… surprisingly, the direction Alkiné had dashed off to for support.
Wow… is that guy really so twisted that his limbs are in that condition yet still be concerned about that? Truly ruthless.
My site has received a lot of DMCA notices, lol. From now on, I will update the MTL on https://darkmtl.com/.
The site is fast and lightweight because there are no ads yet. However, the theme is different from Cybor-TL, so take some time to familiarize yourself.
Support me by donating at least $10, and you'll have the right to request any novel from Novelpia (excluding 19+ content) using a newly developed tool.