"Haa... haa...!"
"Damn it... how did it come to this...?"
"No... I don't want to die..."
A group of students sprinted across the Subnock Plain, their breath coming in ragged heaves and their voices cracked with desperate whimpers. They were charging toward the entrance of the plains—the only exit from this waking nightmare.
"Keep moving! Don't you dare stop!"
"B-but... Senior..."
"If you stop, you die! Keep running unless you want to become monster fodder!"
A woman dressed in a boy's uniform barked orders from the front, spurred the group forward. They were all using magic to bolster their physical limits, but the crushing weight of their fatigue was becoming impossible to ignore. They forced their legs to move through sheer desperation.
There were about ten of them in total, all students of the Royal Academy. They were fleeing with every ounce of strength they possessed, desperate to reach the entrance before the horrors of the interior caught up to them.
(Damn it... why did the monsters surge so suddenly?!)
Isis Calvert, the woman leading the pack, grimaced. Despite being a girl, she wore the male academy uniform. She was a third-year student and the leader of the Student Council Executive Committee.
She had been deployed as part of the rescue squad, but she and the students she had managed to gather were suddenly intercepted by a horde of monsters surging from the deep interior. She had no idea what had triggered it.
Monsters had come pouring out of the restricted zone—the heart of the plains known as the territory of the beast Subnock. It wasn't just a few stragglers; the numbers reached into the dozens, perhaps even hundreds. While the rescue squad had prepared for various contingencies, an event of this scale was utterly beyond their projections.
Isis had managed to pull as many students as possible away from the front lines. Many had been too slow to escape, and several rescue squad members had stayed behind to act as decoys. Knowing she couldn't save everyone, Isis had made the cold, tactical decision to abandon those who were out of reach and salvage the lives she could.
(Forgive me... forgive me... if only I were stronger...!)
Isis was one of the top talents in the third-year Magic Department. She was already guaranteed a position as a Court Mage and was considered a front-runner on the elite track for the kingdom's brightest young mages. Yet, even with all her talent, she found herself powerless to do anything but run.
She focused on guiding the ten survivors back toward the entrance, guarding their path.
"Out of my way!"
"Gah?!"
"Hurry! Pick up the pace!"
She blasted through the monsters blocking their path with swift magical strikes, ushering the students past. Their faces were masks of pure exhaustion; they were far past the point of being able to defend themselves. Without Isis to shield them, they wouldn't stand a chance of breaking through to safety.
"SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Isis stiffened as a shriek like that of a monstrous bird tore through the air from above.
A beast from the deep interior was swooping down—a massive serpent with leathery wings sprouting from its spine.
"Ah—"
At that moment, a girl running at the back of the group tripped and tumbled to the ground. She was a second-year from the Magic Department, a junior Isis recognized.
"Yuria!"
In that split second, Isis’s resolve faltered. Her logical mind told her to keep going, but her feet moved on their own. She skidded to a halt and turned back to shield the fallen girl.
(What am I doing?!)
The rational choice was to leave her. Isis bore the responsibility for the lives of every student in the group. She shouldn't have risked the lives of the majority for the sake of one person.
"Take this...!"
"Senior...!"
"SHAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
The junior she pulled up clung to her in terror. Holding the girl with one arm, Isis prepared to face the winged serpent's dive.
Then, a silver flash streaked through the air.
An Arrow of Light, appearing from nowhere, punched straight through the serpent’s skull.
"What...?!"
Isis was stunned. She knew magic when she saw it, and that had been a high-precision strike.
She whipped her head around toward the direction the light had come from. In the far distance, she could just barely make out a tiny human figure, no larger than a grain of sand.
(Impossible... did they snipe it from there? At this distance?!)
Even with her vision magically enhanced, she couldn't make out the identity of her savior. All she knew was that this person was a magic-user on a level far beyond her own—no, they were a true Mage.
"Shaa...!"
The serpent was still twitching, its life clinging on. But a second and then a third Silver Flash followed in rapid succession, shredding the creature’s wings and pinning it to the earth.
"Run! Now!"
"Y-yes...!"
Isis grabbed her junior's hand and bolted. They sprinted after the others, closing the gap.
(I don't know who you are... but thank you. I will find a way to repay this debt one day...!)
Isis directed her silent gratitude toward the distant, faceless figure. It felt as though that silver light had cleared the fog of terror and desperation from her mind. Her head felt clear for the first time since the chaos began.
"Senior... are you okay?"
"I'm... I'm fine..."
Isis answered breathlessly. But her heart was pounding against her ribs for a reason that had nothing to do with physical exertion. It would be a long time before she truly understood the nature of that feeling.