Chapter 254: Behind the Door

Charlotte stared blankly at me.

She seemed unable to believe that the question had come from the same person who had threatened to kill her a few minutes earlier. Her brows drew together slightly. Her gaze searched my face as she tried to decide what to say.

Then mana flashed in her eyes.

I saw her draw her sword.

When the cold edge touched my neck, all three students sitting against the opposite wall jumped to their feet.

"Are you threatening me?"

I looked at the sword against my neck, then at Charlotte.

It was hard to understand how she’d managed to interpret my question that way.

Elise hesitated over whether to raise her staff. The swordsman had taken a step forward but hadn’t dared to come between us. The archer had dropped his water flask, spilling its contents between the stones.

All three watched us nervously.

What was the point of getting emotional?

It had been stupid to think this girl would give me an answer.

I sighed and stood.

Charlotte raised her sword along with me. The blade was still near my neck, but I stopped looking at it and turned toward the others.

"We’re moving on. You’ve rested enough."

No one moved at first.

Their eyes shifted between Charlotte and me.

"Do I need to repeat myself?"

The archer quickly bent down to retrieve his flask. The swordsman readied his weapon, and Elise drew her staff close before joining them.

I took my first step forward.

Then I turned slightly to look back at Charlotte.

"I wasn’t threatening you."

Her gaze remained hard, and her sword was still pointed at me.

My eyes lingered on the blade.

"If you draw your sword on me again, you won’t have a hand left to hold it with, little girl."

Charlotte’s jaw tightened.

She was about to step toward me when I continued.

"Now that was a threat. Can you tell the difference?"

Without waiting for an answer, I turned and walked away.

For a few seconds, all I heard behind me was the sound of the students hurriedly gathering their things.

Then I heard a sword slide into its sheath.

Charlotte had started following us too.

---

The rest of the dungeon clearing went more smoothly than the beginning.

Aside from a few small mistakes by my teammates, of course.

The swordsman swung too wide in a narrow passage and struck the wall. The archer was slow to notice a second creature behind the one charging at us.

Both had enough time to correct their mistakes.

Elise was placing her barriers more carefully now. Sometimes she cast too early and kept spending mana while waiting for the attack to come. But at least she wasn’t blocking her teammates’ path.

I cut down most of the creatures we encountered before they could reach me.

When the other three wanted to fight, I waited a little. There was no harm in letting them swing swords at a few monsters. If it started taking too long, I stepped in and moved on.

They no longer objected.

Charlotte wasn’t saying much either.

She hadn’t stopped watching me, but she wasn’t approaching me to cause more trouble. That might have been the only good thing to come out of our short break.

I hadn’t expected my teammates to be strong in the first place. They were side characters in the original story. Making it this far without any serious problems could even be considered a good result for them.

When the last creature fell, I dismissed my sword.

The corridor ahead gradually widened, and the mana lamps along the walls were spaced closer together. There were fewer puddles on the floor. The roots hanging from the ceiling had also disappeared, giving way to neatly worked stone.

All that remained was a pair of massive doors at the end of the corridor.

Thick runic lines were carved into their dark metal surfaces. A round seal where the two doors met gave off a faint light at intervals.

The boss room.

I stopped a few steps from the doors.

The others stopped behind me. The swordsman checked his weapon’s hilt. The archer took out a fresh arrow, and Elise began gathering mana around her staff.

I waited.

Then I waited a little longer.

"Why aren’t we going in?" the swordsman asked.

"Shh," the archer whispered. "You’ll make him angry."

"But—"

The archer nudged his friend with an elbow.

They both fell silent.

I was still looking at the doors.

Something was wrong.

Every instinct I had was screaming it.

I couldn’t sense a single living presence beyond the doors. The mana holding the structure together ran through the walls and into the runes on the metal. But there was no trace of the creature that was supposed to be inside.

No movement, no breathing, not even a heartbeat...

There was supposed to be a boss in that room.

But what I felt wasn’t like the silence of an empty room.

I took another step closer without meaning to.

There was something inside.

Yet I couldn’t call it alive.

I turned toward Charlotte.

"Take the team and head back."

She frowned.

"What?"

"The exam is over."

"What do you mean? We still have the boss to deal with."

I pointed beyond the doors.

"I’m certain whatever’s waiting for us in there isn’t the third-rate, mindless monster you prepared for this exam. Stop this damn exam and take them back."

All three students looked at me.

This time, I wasn’t the only reason for the tension on their faces.

Charlotte approached the doors. Her eyes moved over the seals before she turned back to me.

"The runes in this room suppress the mana inside. It’s normal for it to feel different from the other floors."

"I know what normal feels like."

"Then why are you so sure when you haven’t even seen inside?"

I didn’t answer.

I doubted anything I could say would convince her.

Charlotte took my silence as confirmation that she was right.

"There’s nothing here that calls for stopping the exam. We’re going in."

Elise’s fingers tightened around her staff.

"President..."

"I’m here to intervene if there’s any serious danger."

She was looking at me as she spoke.

She trusted her own judgment. Beating Marven didn’t mean I could question her authority as our supervisor.

At least, that was probably what she thought.

I studied her face for a moment.

Then I shrugged.

"Fine. But if things go wrong, don’t expect me to save you."

Charlotte’s eyes narrowed slightly.

"Whatever’s beyond that door doesn’t concern me," I said, turning away.

When I placed my hand on the round seal, the runes lit up one after another. A heavy lock clunked inside the doors. Both halves began to swing inward with a rumble that shook the stone floor.

As the gap widened, the room’s dark floor came into view.

The lamps inside were lit.

But their light didn’t seem to reach the center of the room.

I crossed the threshold.

The students followed me inside just after my first step.

And pressure crashed down on us.

The arrow fell from the archer’s hand. He opened his mouth, but before he could make a sound, his knees buckled and he toppled sideways.

The swordsman tried to catch him.

He failed.

He no longer had the strength to lift his own sword. His fingers loosened around the hilt as he collapsed facedown.

Elise planted her staff against the floor. She managed to stay upright for a moment, but she couldn’t breathe. Her eyes closed as she sank to her knees.

A muffled sound escaped Charlotte’s throat.

She drew her sword and drove it into the floor. One knee struck the stone as she tried to push herself upright with her other leg.

When the pressure grew a little heavier, that effort ended too.

A thin line of blood trickled from her nose. More blood slipped between her lips and dripped onto her chin.

She gripped her sword’s hilt with both hands.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t lift her head.

Her eyes were fixed on the stones in front of her. Every time she tried to look at the being ahead, her body involuntarily bent a little lower.

There was no trace of her earlier confidence.

I calmly clasped my hands behind my back and fixed my red eyes on the center of the room.

The boss was there.

Or rather, its corpse was.

Its massive body lay sprawled over broken stones. One of the two thick horns on its head had snapped off and lay a few meters away. Its open eyes stared at the room’s high ceiling.

Dark blood spreading from beneath its neck had filled the spaces between the runes on the floor.

Someone was sitting on the corpse.

White hair covered the back of their neck, with a few strands falling forward over their face. The fine features of that pale face reminded me of someone.

But the expression in those eyes was different.

Their eyes were open, yet they regarded the world with the detached interest of something pretending to be human.

The armor they wore shone despite its age. Fine silver embroidery ran along the edges of the dark fabric. One boot rested against the monster’s broken armor, while the other hung down beside the corpse.

With an elbow on one knee, they rested their chin in their hand.

It seemed they had been waiting for us for a long time.

There wasn’t a single bloodstain on them.

Despite using the corpse as a chair, their face showed no trace of triumph or pleasure from the fight. They didn’t even bother to look at the creature they had killed.

The pressure filling the room didn’t come from any visible wave of mana radiating from their body.

Their presence alone was enough.

When their eyes turned toward me, their fingers shifted slightly beneath their chin.

Our gazes met.

Behind me, I heard Charlotte tighten her grip on her sword.

I didn’t take my eyes off the figure in front of me.

Why do they seem so familiar?