Arden Arena - Second Half

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  The Oath of Burden is defined by an understanding that the cruel nature of the world’s natural order is the inevitable result of all sanity and logic, and Seekers who swear themselves to Burden defy this cruelty of sanity by taking up the madness and insanity of kindness, regardless of the pain and suffering such a path might lead them to.

  Don’t try to use them how you would usually utilise Seekers of a specific Class! Burden is filled with countless oddballs, such as frontline Healers, backline Tanks and ranged Brawlers. Aside from their strange mentality, Burden is defined by only one shared set of combat traits; their power comes from self-sacrifice, they benefit from taking damage, and they would do anything to empower their team.

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  Something clattered in the distance.

  Hayate stiffened, ushering all of us to push ourselves back against the wall and remain out of sight.

  Silence.

  A dozen seconds passed.

  No further sound was made.

  He peeked around the corner and surveyed the abandoned street.

  Nothing.

  He turned back towards us and nodded down the street, confirming it was clear.

  We crept forwards silently.

  Gone was our earlier frenetic panic in the first half of the test, now it was replaced by an eerie, hesitant tension.

  Even Setsuna, ever reckless and head-strong, knew that charging out into the open in dark, unfamiliar territory when our objective wasn’t even known was a terrible idea.

  My eyes flickered up to the mysterious message flickering on the roof of the dome.

  ‘100 REMAINING’.

  What were we being tested and marked on?

  Was it time? Problem solving? Were we supposed to figure out what the goal was faster than our peers? Was it supposed to be a mystery in the first place, or were we missing some kind of obvious trigger condition or information?

  For that matter, why was that message being displayed across the entire field?

  Were we sharing this ‘100’ with all of our classmates?

  Was our grade going to be determined by who could claim the most of the ‘100’ for themselves? Were we supposed to be fighting over a limited supply of whatever the objective was?

  Or was there something else going on entirely?

  The only company we had were the speakers of the coliseum, relaying to us the events happening above.

  “Team 9 and 13 have gone their separate ways after their temporary collaboration! Team 9 seems convinced the entrance has to do with the Grovestriders, while Team 13 is plundering the Forest Sentinel Alpha’s remains.”

  “Team 15 is the second team to make it into the second half!”

  “Oh, that’s a surprise for sure. Teams 9 and 13 better get their bearings together, it would be embarrassing to fall behind after making such quick work of the first boss.”

  “Tch,” Setsuna clicked her tongue in annoyance at the announcement.

  If I had to guess what she was thinking, she was probably annoyed that we weren’t alone anymore, and whatever advantage we had going into this half was wasted as we had still yet to collect even a single clue as to what was going on.

  The tension seemed to be gnawing on her nerves, as she stood up abruptly and scowled.

  “Enough of this sneaking and frolicking,” Setsuna shouted, her voice echoing across the empty streets, “I tire of this fearful hiding. We move at on-”

  Something whistled and whizzed as it flew across the air.

  Setsuna’s eyes widened in alarm as she hurriedly drew her sword and parried the oncoming projectile.

  A thin rod of steel spun through the air as Setsuna batted it aside.

  She blinked in confusion at the strange projectile.

  Something glimmered in the darkness.

  A volley of a dozen more rods came our way.

  “Estelle!” Hayate shouted for my aid, leaping in front of Setsuna to shield her from the rain of steel.

  His stance buckled, the force of the rods knocking him straight off of his feet as his spear struggled to withstand the massive force.

  I quickly slammed my staff into the ground, trying to erect a barrier of light.

  Only for it to be immediately shattered upon the rods’ impact.

  I cursed underneath my breath, switching to an active restoration spell instead.

  I had neglected my study of other defensive magics, like barriers and seals. I wanted to travel, after all, not fight in armies or alongside bands of other adventurers. I wasn’t going to bank on always being on time right as someone was getting injured. Most of my time was going to be spent undoing tragedies and wounds that had already occurred.

  It looked like that was coming back to bite me.

  One volley turned into two.

  Hayate and Setsuna started to lose their ground.

  A stray rod of steel slipped through.

  And it was going to hit Kagura, who was currently defenseless as she moved through the motions of a dance.

  I froze.

  I blinked.

  There was suddenly a scorching pain in my back, almost puncturing a hole cleanly through my skin, and I was tackling someone to the ground.

  Before I knew what had even happened, I found myself pushing Kagura to the ground, taking the attack for her.

  I bit back a howl of pain, and rolled to my feet.

  Two volleys turned into four.

  “GO!” I screamed at Kagura as she looked at me with panicked, confused eyes, trying to tell her to scurry behind some cover.

  Hayate’s gaze briefly flicked towards us at my pained voice.

  He scowled, realising that trying to hold their position was a pointless endeavour.

  “Setsuna, we’re pulling back!”

  I slammed my staff’s shaft into the ground again, covering us with another healing spell as we retreated behind a nearby wall.

  The volley of steel stopped.

  Hayate glared at the rods impaled into the nearby wall as we regained our bearings.

  “The hell are those?”

  I took another glance at the projectiles lodged into the concrete.

  I recognised them.

  “It’s…” I held back a groan of pain as I quickly healed myself, “an experimental weapon design that Arden’s been working on… Mother showed us the blueprints. New age muskets and cannons, only instead of igniting gunpowder to shoot balls, they use magnetic forces to shoot steel.”

  I had accidentally named the weapons, after all.

  The principles of the weaponry were hauntingly familiar to me, resembling things I had seen being tested and talked about on the news. I wasn’t much of a military or technology person myself, but the boy who used to be my best friend endlessly ranted about how cool they were in his videogames, familiarising me with the concept.

  ‘Railguns’.

  I had accidentally blurted that name out while Mother was poring over the designs at the dinner table, leading her to raise an eyebrow and tell me that was a lot cleaner of a name than the other ones the engineers were considering.

  “The proper designs are meant to be mounted on the city’s walls as massive cannons, but they’ve been unable to get the feedback under control for the large-scale city defenses and personal-use weaponry… so far, the only practical use they’ve found is arming the golems and constructs, and even then it’s still a really inefficient use of energy and raw materials.”

  It was a terrifying concept, to be honest.

  Even back in my old world, from what I understood, railguns were still considered to be little more than theoretical fantasies, billion-dollar money sinks that captured many imaginations, but failed to actually be practical.

  The rest of Manusyara was still stuck in the Middle Ages. The extremely wealthy and developed parts of it were a bit closer to the Industrial Revolution thanks to the existence of magic and the efforts of the Citadel and its minds.

  But thanks to Mother’s incomprehensible and peerless generator designs, Arden had pulled itself ahead, quickly growing to match the Citadel itself in its technological advancements and concentration of talent and intellect, and was now experimenting with technology that wasn’t even feasible in my previous life thanks to the impossible power of mana and magic.

  “Oh, great,” Hayate rolled his eyes and groaned, “we, a bunch of fifteen-year-olds, get to be the testing ground for the new age of Arden weaponry. Joy.”

  “Eh,” I shrugged, “it’s more like the dumping ground, if anything. Even with Arden’s generators, they’re nowhere near efficient enough to be practical. The personnel-scale railguns have been completely abandoned. These are probably the last batch of these constructs they have lying around.”

  “And how many of them are still lying around, a hundred?” Kagura drawled sarcastically, randomly throwing out an inconceivable and hilarious number.

  Maybe she thought that was what the ‘100 REMAINING’ referred to. A hundred of these cutting-edge constructs armed with fantastical weaponry.

  I scratched my cheek and blushed.

  “N-no, not quite, t-they’re probably in the uh…”

  I coughed into my hand.

  “Thousands,” I whispered.

  Hayate and Kagura blinked at me in disbelief.

  ““You’re kidding,”” they said in unison.

  Oh, hey, they really were cousins.

  I just grimaced and blushed, looking away.

  “Ugh,” Kagura groaned and rolled her eyes, slamming the back of her head into the wall behind us, “well, at least I guess we know what we’re dealing with, now.”

  If there was one cold comfort, they at least weren’t being aggressive, having gone completely still and silent when we retreated behind the next street.

  Still, one question remained, what had triggered their aggression in the first place?

  “Oi, Setsuna,” Hayate looked over at the last member of our team, who had been pondering upon something silently, “why the hell did you shout so suddenly!? You should have known that being so loud would have draw-”

  “Nay,” Setsuna shook her head and frowned, “‘Tis impossible that they would have been drawn by my voice.”

  “Huh?” Hayate blinked.

  “That vantage point, from which those constructs were firing… ‘twas empty not a second earlier. I had heard the empty whisper of the wind. I had cleared the presence of foes in that building without even having stepped in. Not a second earlier did they even exist. They were not drawn by the sound of my voice… they simply… manifested.”

  “Ah, well, fuck,” Hayate groaned in frustration, “there goes the simple answer.”

  “Well,” I frowned, positing something, “they had to come from somewhere, right? What if that ‘100’... it’s referring to some kind of beacon or spawner? You said they fired from a building, right? What if inside that building is some kind of device that activates the constructs, and we’re supposed to be taking them down?”

  Then Setsuna started to chuckle.

  Kagura froze, quickly realising what was running through the girl’s head after three years of friendship.

  “Oh, Hinanhoro…” she buried her face inside her palms and sighed, “really?”

  A bloodthirsty grin started to spread across the swordswoman’s face, a manic light entering her eyes.

  I grimaced alongside her.

  Well, if you had the bullheaded, single-minded Setsuna on your team… there was only really one way this would ever go down, wasn’t there?

  “Either way, ‘tis a trifling matter,” Setsuna pulled herself up, stabbing her blade harshly through the ground, “the time has come at long last to prove my steel worthy. My peers at Nindo have proven themselves insufficient-”

  “Hey!” Hayate interjected.

  “-but these constructs… the rumours speak true of Arden’s marvels of technology. Such esoteric armaments, such fearsome power…”

  She laughed madly as she rose to full height, brandishing her shabby, rusted katana.

  “Very well, city of Arden! The time has come, let us test thee! Let us compare which path it is that paves the way for the future, for Heaven and enlightenment itself! Is it in thy mind, in thy creation and magics, or is it in my heart, in my steel and art!?”

  And without giving us any further heed, she dashed forward, turning around the corner as the constructs started firing upon her once more.

  “Oh, for the love of-!” Hayate sighed.

  I groaned as I picked myself up and ran.

  Despite everything, and this not being my ideal course of action, Setsuna and I were partners, and I wasn’t going to just let her charge in alone.

  I chuckled as I spotted a dilapidated wall further up the street, making a mad sprint towards it and diving for cover behind it.

  In the end, Setsuna would be Setsuna, and I wouldn’t ask to call anyone else my best friend.

  The two cousins panicked behind us as they tried to keep up, with Kagura being hesitant to leave cover at all.

  The shrine maiden shuffled through her sleeves, cycling through her prepared talismans to see what she had on her that could help with the situation as bolts of steel continued to slam into the wall across from her, eventually tearing it down completely.

  “Estelle!” Setsuna’s maddened grin widened as she continued to march down the street, deftly dodging half of the rods while parrying away the others, “Harken to me! Third of the North!”

  “Coming up!” I flexed my staff, summoning a wall of roots right in front of her.

  It didn’t take much effort for the organic barrier to be torn through.

  But that was fine, my goal wasn’t to protect her.

  As the mass of green was punched through, almost exploding apart, the bolts stopped firing.

  Setsuna was nowhere within their line of sight.

  “Kitaken!” A voice announced its presence from above.

  A row of arm-mounted cannons from the other end of the street pointed to the sky, unleashing volleys of steel upwards.

  “Sankata!”

  Setsuna continued to ascend further into the sky, using her agility to impossibly jump off the oncoming rods as if she was weightless.

  She danced between the flurry of steel, weaving between them and curling her sword around every single bolt, her movements slowly cutting through the air and overpowering the projectiles’ momentum, until slowly, the bolts started to move with her movements.

  Then she started to fall.

  The volley of steel did not stop.

  Setsuna continued to dance, gathering the rods on her side as ‘droplets’ and forming them into a tidal wave that protected her from the attack from below.

  While they were distracted, I pointed my staff towards them, nature reaching up around the feet of the constructs who had moved out onto the street and holding them in place, even managing to disarm a few.

  Setsuna spun and twirled, flicking her blade to orient the tide of steel into a rain, opposing the construct’s bolts with her own.

  “Tsubamemure!”

  And the ‘Swallow Flock’ collapsed on them all at once, impaling them cleanly through the chests, the constructs unable to dodge, being caught in my bindings.

  More miniature railguns pointed out from the shadows of the building on the opposing end of the street, flickering with electricity as steel shot forth.

  “Ah, seriously, I don’t like any of this, but I guess I gotta get those marks one way or another, right!?”

  Hayate slammed down in front of Setsuna, batting away the rain of steel, staggering with each projectile he deflected.

  He groaned in pain as a stray rod flung his hand away, leaving it numb and limp from the impact.

  A small wave of golden light swept forward and caressed its hand, bringing life back into the digits.

  Hayate roared as my healing took effect, slamming his hand back around his spear’s shaft and twirling it around, knocking the last of the oncoming attacks away.

  Blue electricity danced and sparked from the building’s dark shadows, signalling another wave of fire.

  “Setsuna!”

  The swordswoman’s blade flickered in response.

  “Iwawa-”

  The howl of a wolf cut through the street.

  “!”

  Setsuna’s eyes widened as she swung her blade to the side, its rusted edge being caught in a vicious pair of astral green jaws.

  The spiritual visage of a disembodied wolf slammed into her, howling as it tried to claw at her and bite her.

  The railguns lined up at the still-shadowed building fired off, pinning the two combatants in place as they scrambled.

  My eyes flicked to the side, surveying the third party who had interrupted our skirmish.

  A rough raven-haired boy with yellow eyes wearing a tattered, forestry green cape wore a determined grin on his face, nocking another arrow onto his greatbow as its sharp tip crackled with emerald energy.

  “Strahl!?” I cursed.

  Our classmate gave me a small salute, before letting his arrow fly, the arrowhead unfurling and dissolving into another great spiritual beast as it flew.

  “Sorry, Wadatsumi, Symphonia! I appreciate you two but a chance to take down first place is something we gotta take!”

  Setsuna snarled, wrestling the spirit wolf aside and pulling it up to cover her from the barrage of railgun fire, which had just let loose another volley towards her.

  Luckily, there was a small grace period between each volley, as the weaponry had to cool down and load for the next set of bolts.

  That didn’t leave us with a lot of time, still.

  “Hayate!” I screamed, “You and Kagura, you’re dealing with Strahl and his crew!”

  I pointed my staff across the street’s intersection, letting a circle of vines burst from the ground, pulling at the spiritual beast flung from Strahl’s bow and delaying its march.

  I rolled out onto the street and ran forward with Setsuna, with Hayate jumping to the side to disperse the attack from our classmates for good while Kagura slid in to take my place behind the wall’s cover.

  Another round of steel bars shot from the shadows of the building just across the street.

  Setsuna did her best to deflect all of them, but the golem’s synchronicity proved to be too great for her to overcome, letting a few stray rods get past her and shoot towards me.

  I tried to move out of the way.

  I heard a sickening crack in my arm as the rods collided with me, the pain slightly blurring my vision and breaking my concentration.

  I dived for cover behind a broken cart and wagon, giving me just enough time to mend myself as I placed my palm over my broken, limp forearm and forced my magic into it.

  My fingers twitched, coming back to life.

  It would be numb for a bit, but functional enough.

  I looked back out onto the main road, where Setsuna was still continuing in her effort to advance.

  The sound of metallic droning and marching grew stronger.

  More constructs were being called in.

  A small platoon of sleek iron constructs with runes glowing across their armor flooded out of the building ahead, armed with sharp swords as they marched towards us.

  Great, now they had a vanguard force.

  Whatever was calling, spawning or activating these constructs inside the building needed to be dealt with immediately before we got pincered by Strahl’s team.

  “Team 8 is the third to join the second half!” the hosts continued announcing.

  Sounds of fighting rang out behind us. Fists shattered the earth, great spiritual beasts howled, lunar tides binded foes and spears of light punctured the streets.

  And the constructs-

  I froze.

  Why was I now hearing them coming from behind?

  I didn’t get to think about that, however, as Kagura’s body flew across the street towards us.

  I let go of a wall of vines I had summoned up ahead to stop the wave of vanguards before they reached us, replacing it with another tentacle that safely pulled Kagura’s coughing body towards me.

  As I healed her back to consciousness, a loud explosion of dust and pebbles sent Hayate flying through the sky as well.

  Luckily, he was much more physically fit than his cousin, and managed to catch his balance while tumbling towards us, skidding to a halt as he landed besides Setsuna.

  “Alright, team, we’ve got them on the ropes!” Strahl called out from a distance as his companions ran towards us, trapping us on the narrow street.

  Their frontliners, a heavy, muscled brawler alongside a slimmer female fencer did not let the opportunity go, continuing the pressure as the wave of constructs continued to grow ever-closer, backed by the supporting fire from the building which seemed to only be growing more and more distant.

  We spent a minute trying to salvage our position, but nothing worked.

  Kagura tried to bind the constructs that collided with us, giving us an opportunity to jump straight over them and let Strahl’s group face them instead, only for us to be pinned back by a volley of railgun fire before being hammered down by our classmates.

  Setsuna tried to manifest a tornado to scatter the crowd and obscure our forms within the twister, but before she could launch it, the entrapment of roots I had called to lock our classmates down was broken apart unwittingly by the missed shots of the constructs ahead.

  I panted and heaved, staggering up off my knees as my back was pressed against Setuna’s.

  I hurriedly tapped my staff against the ground, restoring our bodies once more as Hayate groaned, picking himself off the small crater in the ground he had formed as rocks fell out of his hair.

  The damage was starting to outpace what I was able to heal, and even if our physical conditions could be kept intact, I wouldn’t last forever, and my mana reserves would run out sooner rather than later.

  Something needed to change, or it looked like we would be the first to fail the second half of the exams, despite being the first to reach it.

  Right now, it looked like our best opportunity was just to hope that surviving this part of the exam wasn’t part of passing, and that we would be marked simply based on our first half performance, while the second half was just for extra marks.

  “Sorry, Symphonia! Thanks for the mid-terms, but better luck next time!”

  One final arrow was let loose from the ranger’s bow.

  But before it could fully unravel into an astral form, it was knocked away by an unexpected bolt of steel.

  A visible look of confusion formed on our classmates’ faces, startled by the strange angle which the covering fire came from.

  Their necks twisted up and to the side, only to find that it was not a lone sniper, but indeed, an entire battalion of ranged constructs from another building.

  The lone rod was followed by a full barrage.

  “Shit!” Strahl panicked, knowing their situation wasn’t good.

  I tensed, knowing what was going through his mind.

  His team was very offensively oriented, based around four combat specialists, just all in slightly different variations and flavours. Two melee, two ranged, one armed, one unarmed, one using spirits of nature, and the last using magic.

  They knew they weren’t anywhere near as defensively-rounded as we were, and were banking on using the constructs that had been pushing into us to cover them instead, but now, the tides had turned and those very constructs had become their own enemy, exposing their weakness.

  “Hayate!” I screamed out hoarsely, spinning around slamming my staff into the street, my mana crackling as it travelled towards the people who were just our enemies.

  “Oh, for the love of- ugh, fine!” Hayate rolled his eyes, following my signal and leaving Kagura and Setsuna to deal with the advancing constructs by themselves, “At least you’re more understandable in times like these than Setsuna! And at least your kindness is why I like you!”

  Strahl and his group blinked in confusion as their bodies suddenly became much lighter, finding that the aches and burns that had built up over the test had suddenly disappeared, carried away on motes of sunlight that wisped and curled around them.

  “I like you too, Hayate!” I somehow found the time to chuckle amidst the chaos.

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  The red-haired boy blushed and bristled as he fended off the volley, buying time for Strahl’s group to retreat towards us.

  Across the street, from behind us, a second wave of armored constructs armed with swords and spears closed in.

  “Really!?” he called out excitedly.

  “Yeah, you’re a good friend!”

  “Urgk!” Hayate flinched in pain.

  I blinked.

  That was strange.

  He very clearly wasn’t hit by anything, what hurt him?

  The first onslaught came to an end as the other four students rolled towards us.

  A small grimace marred the ranger’s face as he wiped the dirt off his lips.

  “Ugh… thanks, Symphonia… looks like in the end, we are in your debt again, eh?”

  Kagura panted as she pulled herself back towards us.

  “Oh, joy, it’s you four again… gonna disrupt my spell again?”

  Strahl winced.

  “Nah… I think we’re good… for now, at least, until this mess is over and done with,” he nodded towards the encirclement of constructs closing in on us.

  “Go ahead, do your thing.”

  Kagura rolled her eyes.

  “I’m not taking orders from you.”

  Electricity sizzled and flashed from afar, signalling the next wave of attacks.

  Kagura kneeled down and slammed her open palm into the ground.

  “Mikadzuki no Kagami!”

  A barrier of transparent light enclosed around us.

  Setsuna, who was alone up ahead, holding our frontline, blinked as the projectiles she was preparing to deflected thunked into the moonlight shield and sunk into the ground.

  She gave us one quick glance behind herself, before realising she was now free to take control of the battle once more.

  A hefty greatsword swung towards her.

  The swordswoman parried the incoming slash, before kicking away the offending construct and leaping back to give herself running space.

  She leapt up into the air and spun, friction building on her sword until it glowed bright red.

  “Toukanadzuchi!”

  An explosive hammer of fire slammed into the front ranks of the formation, scattering a good portion of the advancing forces.

  Unburdened by the need for sight, the constructs marched through the cloud of smoke and soot, swiping and stabbing at Setsuna relentlessly.

  A great bestial howl tore through the air behind her.

  She spun around and braced herself, preparing to block the attack.

  Only for the spiritual wolves to pass by her and tear the nearest constructs in half with their vicious jaws.

  Strahl slid up behind her, nocking another arrow into his bow and pointing it forwards.

  Behind us, Kagura had already set up another ritual, blocking off the group behind us from approaching with a forest of light spears bursting through the ground like a minefield, aided by the other team’s wizard and fencer as they picked the mindless marching golems off one by one as they tried to force themselves through the chokepoint.

  “Hmph,” Setsuna narrowed her eyes and huffed, turning around to face the original target once more as she brandished her blade, “do not expect my thanks.”

  “Wasn’t expecting it,” Strahl grinned slyly while shrugging, letting his arrows loose and picking off two more approaching sentinels walking through the fog as Setsuna slashed down a third.

  I sighed.

  “Well, thanks, Strahl, in her stead.”

  The boy chuckled sheepishly as he scratched the back of his hair awkwardly, “Aw, shucks… thanks, Symphonia, you always were a bit too nice.”

  “Eyes on the enemy, fool,” Setsuna flicked her sword to the side half-heartedly, dispatching one final construct approaching them, the great armoured golem getting half-way through a slash targeted at Strahl before collapsing.

  “Right,” Strahl hooked another arrow onto his bow, “so, any plans? How we handling this one? We got no clue what this whole part of the test is about, really. Just saw a good opportunity and thought we’d take it, doesn’t seem like that’s on the table at this point.”

  Hayate came tumbling in behind us, just in time too, as the next railgun barrage went off, this time managing to shatter through Kagura’s barrier.

  He grunted as he swatted away half of the barrage by twirling his spear around, leaving the other half for Setsuna.

  “We’re not that much better off. All we know right now is the constructs are either spawned in or called down by something inside the buildings, and we probably need to take them down.”

  “Huh, so just need to tear that ol’ thing down across the street, huh?” the ranger narrowed his eyes, focusing on our objective.

  Another platoon of knightly constructs marched out of it, this time backed by a small conclave of railgun-armed constructs behind them, taking position at various points of cover on the streets, furthering their angles and coverage.

  “Seems like it’ll be a rough day,” he winced, pulling his bow back as green energy danced around his arms, “I think I’d rather fight more of those Alpha Sentinel thingies or whatever,”

  “Yeah, agreed,” Hayate scowled as he charged forward alongside Setsuna, shouting behind him as he ran forth, “my arms are starting to get sore just dealing with one group of these! I ain’t got the energy to deal with a hundred!”

  Strahl let his arrows loose, letting them transform into two stampeding bears that stomped ahead of our team, drawing attention away from Setsuna as they tore into the animated knights.

  Setsuna dragged her rusted blade along the ground, flinging sparks into the air as she cut through the constructs, whose damaged workings let out small bursts of energy that only served to ignite the sparks further.

  “Hotaru!”

  The sparks lit into flaming blades that rained onto the platoon in front of us, searing a few of them and locking the rest in place for Strahl’s beasts to clean up.

  Progress was slow and excruciating, and the battlefield only grew more frantic as time passed.

  We constantly had to juggle who marched forward and who covered our back, cycling our frontline and backline to make sure I could keep all of them in prime condition.

  Kagura laid down her formations and traps to cover our backs before moving up front to bind the constructs, while Strahl’s fencer covered her in one direction and their wizard covered her when she ran in the other direction.

  “And Teams 9 and 18 make it to the second half! Team 13, their former ally, is left in the dirt!”

  “Teams 2 and 28 join their peers, we’re closing in on a third of the cohort making it to the second half!”

  I briefly wondered if our classmates were faring any better wherever the hell they currently were right now.

  Then suddenly, off from the side, neither ahead nor behind us, a third troop of constructs starting firing and marching towards us.

  “Shit!” Kagura cursed as she hurriedly covered us with another barrier, this one almost crumbling before the initial barrage even concluded because of its hasty formation.

  I bristled, as the sounds of whirring and marching only continued to surround us from even more angles.

  Something clicked in my head at the timing of their appearance.

  Was… that the test condition? Was that what triggered the first group to spawn?

  I didn’t get long to ponder the matter, as our formation slowly started to shrink until we were beset on all sides and cramped into a singular small circle.

  “Any plans, fearless leader?” Strahl clicked his tongue as he pointed his bow back and forth, unsure what targets to be prioritising.

  Hayate scowled, hefting his spear tiredly and looking to the building at the end of the street, which seemed to just be out of arm’s reach by now, with a grim look on his face.

  “We’re abandoning covering our backs, we got no way out of this. Everyone!” He lifted his head and shouted to all eight of us as loudly as he could, “We’re marching forward with everything we got! Full frontal assault! Forget about the flanks! If they collapse on us, they collapse on us! We clear out that building and take it for ourselves! Get Setsuna close to it and she’ll crumble it into paste, got it!?”

  He let out a massive roar, leaving no room for disagreements as he jumped forward into three different angles of railgun fire, ushering all of us frantically to follow him into battle.

  “Teams 19 and 21 are next!”

  “Setsuna, tornado time! Everyone, we’re covering ourselves with the eye of the storm!”

  “Tatsumaki!”

  “Go, go, go!”

  Four platoons of constructs became five.

  “Teams 24 and 5! We’re closing in on the half-way mark now!”

  Five platoons became seven.

  Holding off each barrage in their entirety started to become unfeasible.

  I did my best to keep everyone up, but it was quickly becoming a futile effort.

  A bolt slammed into Strahl’s wizard, knocking him cleanly unconscious and forcing me to pick his body up and sling his arm over my shoulder as we desperately ran through the endless hail of steel.

  And now we were even worse off, our force down to just seven instead of eight.

  Luckily, just as things were starting to grow desperate, we blew past the conclave of constructs at the final stretch of the street, and found ourselves face-to-face with our original target, the damned building on the other side of the long, long street.

  “Setsuna!”

  “Dai! Chi! Wake!” Setsuna roared hoarsely, bringing her sword down and sundering the earth, quaking the entire road with tremendous force as the building’s foundations crumbled and collapsed.

  As the outer shell collapsed, revealing a tumbling cascade of armed constructs sliding down and desperately shooting at us to fend us away from what was inside, a light tore through the sky, hidden from sight earlier by the building itself.

  “Ugh!” Setsuna groaned in exertion as she was beset upon by innumerable foes.

  Strahl’s head was drawn towards the light.

  There, at the centre of the ruined building, was a glimmering beacon, sending a pillar of light right into the dome’s roof.

  Well, that was a conspicuous target if we ever saw one.

  “I guess it’s up to me then!”

  Strahl rolled forward, hooking an arrow onto his bow that shot straight up into the sky before transforming into a hawk spirit, which let out a sharp screech before it dived down and smashed the beacon apart with an emerald dive-bomb.

  And then, finally, after all that, the ominous counter that hung above our heads dropped.

  ‘99 REMAINING’.

  As the beacon exploded, it sent out a final dying rupture of light towards the sky, lighting up the entire underground city as it disappeared in a brilliant blaze.

  And as if that last burst of light was some sort of signal or battery, the dome’s roof lit up like the night sky, and our blood froze.

  On the dome’s roof was a simplified map of the city, ninety-nine large lights blinking across every corner of the district, each one surrounded by smaller dots that totalled to the thousands, probably representing the amount of constructs that were now littered throughout the city.

  “Oh, and there we go…” An announcer chuckled, “It looks like Team 6 and 15 are the first to stumble into the truth of the second half of this test. We’ve been a bit quiet, focusing on the stragglers, but now that the true form of the test has been revealed, no need to keep it a mystery anymore, eh?”

  What did you mean there were ninety-nine more of these things we had to take down?

  Maybe if they were all isolated, it would have been possible, but when each one was covered by seven or eight more encampments, all holding the most strategically powerful locations across the city?

  One was hard enough to take down by itself, how were we even supposed to manage a second?

  Our group had already started to collapse by the end of the first one.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of Nindo… do you think you’re in a simple Labyrinth? A mere dungeon? Oh, no, this isn’t like anything you’ve seen before… no, welcome, third-years, to a warzone. You’re not fighting to pass a test, you’re fighting to reclaim the fallen city of Arden from the one-hundred battalions of our rogue constructs. Good luck, you’ll need it.”

  Explosions went off left and right.

  Bodies of charred constructs were sent hurtling through the air, scattering fallen weaponry and ammunition across the battlefield.

  “I need help on Third Street!”

  “Shit, pull back to the plaza!”

  I pushed my way past the scrambling teens, stumbling over to what became our makeshift medical bay in the plaza.

  “All the injured, over this way! Quickly!”

  We were forced to retreat to a forgotten plaza by the edge of the city, unable to hold our ground at the first fallen beacon.

  Luckily, it was a defensible position.

  More of our cohort started to pour in as time went on.

  Like us, they too had initially come into conflict with their classmates, before quickly realising that infighting was a hopeless endeavour and taking out each other would only reduce their chances at survival.

  One or two teams had gotten lucky like we did, managing to take down the remaining beacons from 99 to 96, but their victories were short-lived, and they were sent scrambling across the city until they reached us, the one safe shelter from the endless onslaught of constructs.

  Before long, the begrudging set of students set aside their differences and banded together to form a small resistance against the opposing ‘army’, doing their best to hold this one bit of safe ground from the enemy’s advance.

  More and more students started to trickle in, huddling to safety as their injured bodies collapsed onto the ground.

  “Ravel!”

  I scurried over to one of the boys who was teetering back and forth, bleeding all over as he collapsed onto the ground.

  I managed to grab a hold of him, pulling him back onto his feet before he fell and smashed his face into the stone.

  I held my staff over his wounds, slowly mending his many injuries.

  He coughed weakly, wincing and groaning as his wounds flared briefly while they healed.

  “M-my team… t-they get here okay?” He mumbled weakly.

  “They did,” I nodded grimly, “lightly injured, but they’ll be fine to fight again. You did a good job covering their retreat. They made it safely thanks to you.”

  The boy breathed a small sigh of relief.

  “That’s good.”

  I surveyed his form with a frown on my face, furrowing my brow as I pressed my staff against certain points in his body.

  “You’ll be out of commission for at least a little bit though. Your manaflow’s all shot to hell. I’ve done my best to get it started again, but you’ll have to work out the kinks yourself.”

  “T-that’s more than enough. Thanks, Symphonia… seems like we’re always indebted to you, huh?”

  “If you want to pay back the debt, then don’t go collapsing in the middle of the finals, okay?”

  “No promises, but I’ll try my best.”

  “Sorry, I have to attend to the others now.”

  “No problem, go do your best!”

  “You too.”

  I spun around and travelled away from the depths of the plaza, helping up as many of the injured as I could along the way.

  In the distance, I could see Kagura helping to maintain our defensive line, being one of our year’s best at maintaining barriers, rituals and formations.

  Hayate was standing tall above the growing crowd, barking orders to passing students and scattering them to weak points in our hold.

  And Setsuna…

  Well, she was somewhere.

  She was one of the few students who could realistically hold her own against the constructs, so Hayate sent her out on rescue duty, getting her to bring back teams who had freshly cleared the first half of the exam before they fell to the endless tide of constructs.

  A storm of steel rods impaled the front row of our makeshift barricades.

  A small line of archers and mages shot back with various spells and projectiles.

  “Alphid! I need you up again, need a new barricade! Marianne, cycle to Second! Noelle, go meditate and get your mana back, Priscilla, you’re replacing her!”

  A stray bolt of steel knocked one of our archers clean off of his perch, sending him tumbling to the earth beneath him.

  I slowed his descent with vines and gently propped him back up on his feet, waving my staff over him and earning a muffled mumble of thanks before moving on.

  “Oh, hey, Estelle,” Kagura greeted me half-heartedly, before flicking out a talisman that lodged itself perfectly into the crevices of one of the approaching constructs, opening it up to be taken down by someone else, “how’s it looking back there?”

  “We’re up to twenty-six teams recovered now. Five left.”

  She blinked at my words.

  “Weren’t there thirty-two teams?” A frown marred her face.

  “Team 23 flunked out. The announcers said they got caught by the Grovestriders. I think there are two left still battling the Forest Sentinels, and the other three are somewhere out there.”

  Hayate let out a massive sigh as he jumped down from further up the line, retreating back to safety for a small break.

  “Everyone still in fighting shape?”

  “Most of them. I think we have three students knocked out cold. Five are conscious, but probably won’t be able to come back to the frontline.”

  “Ugh, great, so assuming everyone in the other five gets back okay that leaves us with what…one-hundred-sixteen people to work with? How the hell is this test supposed to be marked anyways? Are the teams supposed to be ranked against each other? Are we supposed to be sticking to our own usual squads or what?”

  “No, not quite…” I shook my head, frowning.

  Unlike everyone else, who were either doing their best to hold our fortifications, out rescuing their fellow students, being rescued by their fellow students, or just in too much pain to even think, I had a relatively easy job as a healer.

  It was conflicting, to be honest.

  Nindo had taught all of us that the healer was the core and backbone of any good squad in an Adventuring Company. They were priority number one for both sides of a battle.

  Being in a team without one – like Strahl’s team for instance – was a massive struggle. It practically forced your squad to be an all-or-nothing blitzing strike team, focusing on going all-in on offensive rushes.

  It wasn’t impossible to make work, in fact it was sometimes a positive trait to have for some types of work, but as far as a non-specialised Company without any Exclusive Contracts went, just trying to make ends meet by taking whichever jobs were offered?

  Well, there was a reason Sol held the dominant seat amongst the world’s pantheon of divinity. Being aligned with Fire made her followers far more capable of healing than the likes of the elves of Tenmai, who were aligned with the moon, nature and the ocean.

  The importance of a healer, which had been drilled into everyone at Nindo, could not be understated. Their safety was paramount. Every healer was to stay as far away from danger as possible, and every fighter was to give their lives to protect them.

  And that meant all of us in our cohort, the other priests, doctors and healers alike, were to stay within the safe confines of the plaza behind us, and tend to those brought to us.

  That didn’t sit well with me. It made me restless.

  It made me feel like I was being useless.

  And, well…

  I didn’t want to become a healer – no, a witch – because I wanted to be protected.

  I had sought to go down this path because I wanted to help others, not to be helped.

  Letting things just happen… I was always terrible when it came to just letting things go right in front of me.

  It was a part of my oath, after all; the oath that I had held to my chest for the entirety of my life as Estelle Symphonia, to protect my sister no matter what pain it might have caused me.

  That trait was the very reason I was even here, alive in the first place.

  Still, there wasn’t much I could do, not right now.

  The most I could do with my restlessness and distress was ponder the situation we had found ourselves in, and exactly what this whole test was supposed to be about.

  “Do you remember how Setsuna was confused by the activation or appearance of the constructs? She said they weren’t drawn to her voice or presence, but they just… appeared, and the timing was coincidence.”

  “That… feels like forever ago, but yeah, what are you getting at?” Hayate raised an eyebrow.

  “I’ve been thinking about what might have triggered it, and what that implies about the test and our exam rubric…”

  I gulped.

  “Do you remember what happened right before Setsuna shouted?”

  Kagura frowned.

  “Nothing, we were just walking through the streets.”

  “Right,” I nodded, “nothing happened to us.”

  Kagura paused, mouth opening and closing in silence as she pondered my words, before her eyes started to slowly widen in realisation.

  “Uh, little help here, cuz?” Hayate winced.

  “The thing that made Setsuna shout in the first place… Team 15, that is, Strahl’s team, joined us, and there were two teams in the second half of the exams then. The presence of the second team… it wasn’t just the activation condition for the constructs… it was the condition for the entire second half,” I stated grimly.

  “The second set of constructs, the one from behind us, attacking Strahl’s camp,” Kagura whispered, “they came down when Team 8 found out we were supposed to be going underground.”

  “And then the third came when Teams 9 and 18 joined,” I nodded, affirming her suspicions.

  It looked like we were on the same page.

  “I…” Hayate furrowed his brow, “still don’t get it.”

  “The implication, here, idiot,” Kagura hissed, lightly smacking the back of his head, “is that the test isn’t supposed to be based on individual teams. It only activated when we weren’t alone, and got worse the more of us there were, until all one-hundred beacons activated. We’re not supposed to be taking them down as individual squads, that would be thirty separate squads each trying to individually fight off against a force meant for thirty squads total. The teachers expect all of the third-years to work together.”

  “Oh,” Hayate blinked.

  His face settled into a tense frown.

  “So that’s what they were going on about with the whole ‘warzone’ deal…” he chuckled, shaking his head, “want us to form our own little army, huh?”

  “Hey hey hey! Shizue and co are coming in hot!”

  “Teams 27 and 16 coming in!”

  Voices shouted out from the distance, followed by the familiar call of a swordsmanship technique.

  “Gokata: Mangetsu no Houyou!”

  A group of thirteen students rode in on a tidal wave of scattering constructs, which were being swept away in the ‘Full Moon’s Embrace’, embodying a tsunami manifested by the full moon’s gravity.

  Setsuna spun through the air, leaping off of constructs as she parried away oncoming railgun bolts, buying her classmates time to leap behind our barricades and make it to safety.

  “Wow, look at that,” Hayate chuckled, “she brought everyone back all at once. Terrifying girl, huh?”

  The swordswoman in question rolled down softly, joining us behind cover as twelve more students panted and stumbled behind her.

  I swept my staff over all of them and quietly ushered them towards the plaza behind us.

  “‘Tis done, there are no more of our fellows to rescue,” Setsuna stated simply, withdrawing her blade and starting out into the endless tide of constructs locking us into this position.

  The counter above us had barely changed.

  ‘94 REMAINING’

  It had felt like an hour had passed as we scraped by and gathered everyone together, yet little progress was made.

  “Well, at least until the last two stragglers make it down,” Kagura mumbled.

  “Well,” Hayate frowned, a serious, mature look settling in on his face.

  I blinked.

  That was a rare expression.

  He actually looked kind of… level-headed and mature. Almost even… noble, gleaming with a sort of untouchable calm that demanded respect.

  For once, it was believable that I was looking at the son of a Duke, and not some silly elven teenager with his head in the clouds.

  “I guess there’s one way out of this mess, then… fine, if the teachers want an army, I’ll show them an army.”

  He swept his gaze, gleaming with a noble blue, over the newcomers.

  “Robin,” he called out to one of them, an archer with a peculiar bow with the strings of a harp.

  “You carry instruments of all sorts on you, right?” He frowned, probing her with a calm voice.

  Our cohort’s resident musician blinked as she rubbed away the soreness of her back, letting my golden light soothe her.

  “Yeah, what’s it to you?”

  “Give me your clarion.”

  “Huh?” The girl blinked, “Uh, well, okay.”

  She frowned, confused, but nonetheless, shuffled through her belongings and handed him the trumpet.

  “Not sure why you’d want a clarion, Wadatsumi, but-” she paused as she said his name, “w-wait, W-Wadatsumi!?”

  She gawked, realising who exactly she was speaking to and what significance her action just held.

  “N-no, you’re not thinking of-!?”

  The future duke just spun on his heel and moved to the plaza, where the majority of the students were resting, leaving behind only a dozen or so to hold the front line of fortifications.

  I blinked.

  “Is he… doing what I think he’s doing?”

  Setsuna chuckled, a wide grin forming on her face.

  “Very well, son of Wadatsumi, it seems that the time has come.”

  Hayate came out into the plaza and looked around.

  He found what seemed to be a decent spot, high up above everyone and within sight.

  We jogged behind him, trying to catch up.

  “Blessings be upon the goddess Sol.”

  “Express thy gratitude for her divine care!”

  “Ah, shit, I really don’t want to go out there again…”

  “Fuck, I think I’m okay failing… ugh, those steel muskets pack a punch…”

  "Sol, is it too late to regret coming to Nindo?"

  "Think the other schools are still accepting transfers?"

  "Take me with you if you decide to go."

  An endless wave of murmuring and panic swept through the plaza of tired teens.

  Hayate pulled the clarion to his lips.

  And he blew.

  A loud, solemn note cut through the whispers, silencing the crowd.

  Confused eyes blinked up at the red-haired figure.

  The duke’s son inhaled deeply, before blowing again.

  The note continued, stretching into two, then four, then forming a full solemn phrase that called the teens to arms.

  A few of the students, only a handful or two, gawked up at him, eyes widening as they realised what was happening, hurriedly either kneeling, saluting or otherwise steadying themselves for battle.

  Setsuna confidently jumped to the front of the crowd, and right at Hayate’s feet, planted her blade into the stone plaza and knelt down, heeding his call.

  Hayate’s cold sky-blue stare swept across the crowd unimpressed, brimming with a freezing fury.

  He scowled, and shouted out into the hesitant crowd, still confused at his gesture.

  “What’s wrong with all of you!? I only see a few of you kneeling or saluting! Does this clarion call hold no meaning to you!? Do you need me to continue!?”

  He angrily brought the trumpet to his lips and blew once more, continuing with the sombre song.

  A few more amongst them bristled this time, all of them elves.

  They turned to each other and whispered.

  Hayate bellowed out into the crowd once more, anger filling his dignified voice.

  “I expected more from you! The humans and beastfolk, I can understand, but what of you, my fellow people!? Where is the dignity and pride of the elves, of the people of Tenmai!? Do you not all recognise the tune that summons you, that beckons you forth with all the honour you have to defend our people and our land!?”

  Anger filled his breath as he harshly sounded the trumpet again, hastily blowing through the next phrase of the solemn song.

  “The Duke of Wadatsumi calls to you! Where is your response!? The storied clarion call of Tenmai rallies our people, why do no soldiers respond to the summons!? Where is your respect!? Your obligation to your duty!? Your love of country!? Do you have no understanding of the situation you find yourselves in, no vision or ambition to pull yourself out of this struggle!?”

  “Give it up, Wadatsumi!” A stray voice shouted in annoyance, “Stop playing around! It’s not the time for pretend!”

  “Look, I didn’t sign up for this shit, okay?” Another one complained, “I just wanted to be an Adventurer, didn’t think I’d get caught by an army of fucking constructs…”

  “It’s just a fucking exam… look, I’m annoyed too, but you don’t have to pretend this is a fucking war or anythin-”

  “DO YOU THINK I’M PLAYING!?” Hayate’s furious bellow stunned the crowd into silence.

  “IS THAT WHAT YOU THINK ATTENDING NINDO MEANS TO ME!? IS THAT WHAT IT MEANS TO YOU!? A CHILDISH FANTASY, NO MORE THAN A SILLY KID’S PLAYGROUND DREAM!?”

  No one dared to answer him.

  “If you think I’m joking, if you want to admit that you’re all just kids playing around… then go ahead! Go turn around and cry, go whine to mommy and daddy and tell them that you’re being picked on! Go give it all up, forget the struggle and pain, and just go home!”

  His belittling words started to agitate them.

  Hayate inhaled deeply, continuing on.

  “But that’s not why I’m attending Nindo! I’m not here because it’s a fanciful whim, because it’s a petty, childish dream of a sheltered noble who’s never seen a day of struggle in his life! Are you telling me that’s what you think of our storied school!? That's the kind of person it accepts, who is your peer, your equal!? Is it just a place for silly kids to run around in!? Is it a place where people who give up and complain graduate from!? Is that what you think of yourself!? If Nindo was that kind of school, I would never have dreamed of coming here in the first place!”

  He followed his speech with the next portion of the sombre clarion call.

  Hesitant looks were shared between a few of the students.

  A few more this time responded to the call, either standing to arms or kneeling in respect.

  Hayate lowered his borrowed clarion again, scowling.

  “When I play this song of our people, do you think of me as a child, do you think that I don’t understand its weight!? Do you want to know why I’m sounding the trumpets, why I’m treating this situation so gravely!? Why I’m summoning all of you as if our lives and dreams depends on it!?”

  He took a deep breath in, before shouting out and declaring his heart to the entirety of Arden.

  “BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT BEING A STUDENT OF NINDO MEANS TO ME! BECAUSE THAT IS THE GRAVITY I PLACE UPON BEING ABLE TO ATTEND THIS SCHOOL OF OURS! BECAUSE IT IS MY DREAM, MY LIFE! EVERYTHING I EVER WANTED! THAT IS WHAT PASSING THIS EXAM WOULD MEAN TO ME!”

  He panted, almost tearing his throat from the strain on his voice.

  “What about all of you!? Nindo is a school famed for raising heroes and legends! That is why you came to these halls! What did you think that path would look like!? Did you think of it as free from struggle? That it would just be like any other school? You’d get to lounge around and complain and frivolously cheat and skate by on your tests and exams!? Is that all being a hero means to you!? Is that all the effort you’re willing to put in to reach your dreams!? Is this as far as your ambitions will take you!? A bunch of lifeless constructs is all it takes to take down the next generation of heroes from Nindo!?”

  A stunned silence answered him.

  The only sounds that could be heard were from those dutifully holding down the frontline, giving it their all to buy the injured time to recover.

  Everyone listened on solemnly in silence at their few classmate’s efforts.

  “I came to Nindo because I dreamed of living up to my family’s legacy! Because I wished to do all of Tenmai proud, to lead them through dark times, whenever they might arise! That is why I blow this trumpet, why I practice this clarion call! Because if not now, then when!? If I cannot muster the heart, the bravery, the strength to pass a mere exam, will I ever have the courage to blow the trumpet when the time must come for real!? So, students of Nindo, heed the call, tell me… what is it you dream of!? Why did you come to this school!? What is it that would stop you from reaching your dreams!? Is it a bunch of constructs!? Is all it takes a difficult exam!?”

  He blew into his trumpet once more, playing the ancient song entrusted to the family of Wadatsumi, a cultural relic that all those of Tenmai respected and knelt to, and one that even those from Sangferrus knew to be of grave importance.

  “I remember the Oath I swore! To the Knights of Calybcor! To the storied ancestors who watch over me! From Wadatsumi! From the Knights of Herald! For all those who led me here, and for all those who come after me! In dark tides, when dread pulls and terror calls, when the sands of our people are swept into the sea, I shall stand above the wave and charge, crashing upon the rocks!”

  Despite invoking a childish Oath found in a fairy-tale, no one laughed.

  It was hard to, after all, they had sworn similar ones.

  “What about all of you!? Do you remember your Oaths!? Do you think of them to be as little and worthless as you seem to think of Nindo’s halls!? Are they just another childish tradition to you!? Or did they mean something more!? Come on, let me hear it! What it means for you to be a student of Nindo! What it would mean for you to pass this exam, for you to graduate from these halls! Let me hear your Oaths! Knights of Calybcor, people of Tenmai, students of Nindo! Heed my call! The Duke of Wadatsumi summons thee!”

  He brought the trumpet to his lips.

  And he played the clarion call in full once more.

  Students looked down on themselves, remembering what it was that brought them here in the first place, what it was that led them to this legendary school.

  One voice shouted above the rest, cutting through the solemn song.

  “There is the way things are, and the way things are supposed to be! But I shall never let the world’s cruel metronome pull us into synchronicity! This pillar shall stand against the tide, never budging, protecting all that is good and just! To the Order of Sanctity, I swore to thee!”

  And in the wake of that declaration, a dozen more followed.

  Students picked themselves off the ground as they were healed, each wearing a face of determination.

  “Violence begets violence, and from that violence is wrought suffering. Through this endless bloody cycle, my wrath is shaped, and the world shall see that wrath shatter it, or it shall not see me at all! Knights of Retribution, watch over me!”

  The witches and wizards flicked through their grimoires, or held their spell focuses to their face.

  “The First of the Citadel! Those of Dominion! In your footsteps I follow! There is disease in the world, its name is ignorance, and its form is blindness! I will dispel this fog, and supplant this plain reality with my own divine truth!”

  Some brought their fists to their chests and reclaimed what was close to their heart.

  The elves saluted the call of their bannerman and kneeled in respect.

  The wayward humans solemnly picked up their weapons and stood to arms.

  “To me! Students of Nindo!” Hayate beckoned, “Today, we reclaim this district of Arden! Today, we see our dreams to fruition, today, we pass this exam!”

  The clarion called, and Nindo responded.

  The battlefield, once a simple simulacrum of Arden, suddenly became real.

  This would be where they proved themselves worthy of their dreams.

  Arden would be reclaimed.

  SKILL UPDATED

  [?]

  Passive 1

  Remember your oath. ‘At any cost’.

  LOCKED

  [?]

  Passive 2

  All of Estelle’s Life Loss is reduced by 30% unless it was from Enemy Hits.

  Do you think you can pay the price?

  LOCKED

  NEW EFFECTS UNLOCKED

  [???? E?????????????????????????????v??????????e????????????r???????????????l??????????????a?????????????????s??????????t????????????????????????i????n???????????????????????g?????????????????????????]

  Passive 1

  Whenever a party member takes Damage from an Enemy Hit, Estelle reduces her cooldowns by 0.13 seconds.

  Remember your oath. ‘At any cost’.

  LOCKED

  [???? E???????????????????????????????n?????????????????d???????????????u???????????r????????????i???????????????????n?????????????????g???????????????????????]

  Passive 2

  All of Estelle’s Life Loss is reduced by 30% unless it was from Enemy Hits.

  18% of Estelle’s Life Loss occurs over 4 seconds instead.

  Do you think you can pay the price?

  LOCKED

  Maybe I should have split this chapter into two again and made this a four-parter lmfao.

  If the weird, fucked-up zalgo text is unreadable or makes the text around it unreadable, let me know and I’ll tone it down or remove it.

  Also, the odd numbers in Estelle's kit are because they're supposed to round out when levelled up to 0.25 and 35%.