The Scent of Damp Greens and Tangled Shadows

The intraocular pressure rose to the point of pain as I strained to catch the opponent’s movements in the meager light. When that wasn’t enough, I leaned on my hearing, but that only made me hypersensitive to every distracting sound, down to the rhythm of dripping water. Perhaps it was because of the long day, but my body began to wail in protest from the fatigue.

My heart hammered against my ribs, and my breathing grew ragged. The lack of oxygen made my chest ache as if it were being torn apart. I held the upper hand for now, but I knew that if my concentration flickered for even a second, it would lead to instant defeat.

From what I’d seen so far, some of these vines were thicker than my own body. Slicing through one or two was easy enough; against my keenly sharpened blade, the vines parted as smoothly as butter. But I was reaching my limit.

In a situation like this, there are only two choices: channel a burst of strength beyond my limits to end the confrontation quickly, or minimize my movements and endure for as long as possible. Given that I couldn’t gauge the true size of this monstrosity, the latter was the wiser path.

I stopped my frantic lunging between the ceiling and floor, instead holding my ground and weathering the assault. I relied on my senses to dodge; when I couldn’t dodge, I parried; and when I couldn’t parry, I knocked them away with my forearms. Whenever I lopped one off, it would flinch for a moment, only for the next one to come pouring down from behind or above like a flood.

Inevitably, the wall hit. A vine, sensing my slowed movements, lunged for my ankle.

I scrambled backward, but my strength failed me. In that split second of “uh-oh,” my feet were swept out from under me and I slammed onto my back. The difficulty spiked instantly. I struggled to push myself up, but the opponent pounced relentlessly, and my strength began to drain away.

“Huff… ha… shit.”

As my body went limp, the vines—as if they had been waiting for this—crept up and wound tightly around my waist and arms. Thin, taut strands, like rubber bands, even forced their way between my fingers to ensure I couldn’t grip my sword.

The sensation of them coiling around my hands like insects was slimy and sticky. I sniffled. It wasn’t the smell of oil. There was a familiar yet profoundly alien scent clinging to this mystery creature. After a few more whiffs, I realized it was the smell of grass. It was so potent I hadn’t recognized it immediately—a wet, suffocating stench of raw vegetation that bordered on nauseating.

Something slender slithered beneath my collar. My exhausted body gave a sharp jerk. It was a slow, clingy sensation. Only then did I realize what this thing was.

It had appeared in the original story, and it was a major reason why I secretly called Cedric a pervert. In other words, this was… a… tent—

“You’ve got to be kidding me…”

Why was this here? It was the first thing people usually associated with Academy-themed stories, but I hadn’t expected it to actually show up like this, so it hadn’t crossed my mind. Even if I’d expected Cedric to eventually walk in holding one with a straight face, I never dreamed I’d encounter one as the final trap of a basement trial.

This was no time to be lying there like an idiot. Adrenaline surged through my weary limbs. I desperately tore at the strands coiling around my fingers.

“Cedric! Answer me!”

The underground trials of the Academy were designed for mages. Cedric should have had the advantage. Surely he hadn’t wasted time like I had; was he already through and waiting somewhere else in the basement? Clinging to that hopeful thought, I shouted his name repeatedly.

I didn’t know if this was Cedric’s handiwork from the original novel, a trap left by whoever built this dungeon-like basement, or an addition by Pisa Tecon. But one thing was certain: it would be much faster for Cedric to blast this with large-scale magic than for me to hack at it piece by piece.

As I screamed while tearing at the coils, the tentacles thrashed violently as if offended. After my legs, my right arm was ensnared. A vine snatched my elbow and yanked my arm back with brutal force.

“Ugh!”

It twisted my wrist to prevent me from exerting power and bound it so tightly that my wrist almost touched my shoulder. Despite having no eyes, its movements were unerring, as if it possessed a perfect map of human anatomy.

With both my legs and arms restricted, my ability to struggle—which had been my only defense—vanished. The tentacles, seemingly satisfied now that they had bound my arm to the point of cutting off circulation, swung a vine toward the source of the constant noise: my mouth.

Slap! A long strand lashed across my cheek. The pain wasn’t immense, but it stung sharply. As it targeted my face a few more times, a hot, throbbing ache rose to the surface.

“Cedric, goddammit. Klein…”

You said you’d see me later, you prick…

Resentment flared toward the absent Cedric. Where did he go after leaving this thing behind? No, why did he even create something like this in the first place?

The tentacle that had been slapping me now began to grope my face with its tip. Everywhere it touched, it left a trail of slimy, cold fluid that made my skin crawl. It roamed over my brow, my nose, my cheekbones, and my chin. I started to let out a curse, then clamped my mouth shut.

An instinctive sense of danger washed over me. I pressed my lips together and slowed my breathing. This was the method I used when hunting beasts in the mountains. High-level monsters, closer to hunters than prey, were incredibly sensitive to the presence of others. To survive in a situation where the roles of predator and prey could flip at any moment, this was one of the first lessons I’d learned.

Fortunately, the tentacles in the Academy basement didn’t seem to have instincts as sharp as the beasts on the Spellman estate; it couldn’t locate my breath and continued to aimlessly grope my face.

Suddenly, a tentacle that had been tapping my head slid down to my waist and constricted with a sudden, violent force.

“Urgh…”

It felt like my internal organs were being crushed. My breath burst out of me involuntarily, like I was vomiting. Without missing the opening, a tentacle forced its way into my mouth. It was about as thick as two fingers, and I thought I could bite through it. However, more strands immediately began to shove their way inside, one after another. My teeth managed to sink into the surface, but I couldn’t muster enough leverage to bite clean through.

I wasn’t a hamster… I never imagined so much could fit into a human mouth. Just when I thought it had reached its limit, another one would pry the gap wider as if testing my breaking point. The initial disgust was rapidly being replaced by genuine terror. At this rate, my mouth would tear or my jaw would dislocate.

Mercifully, the tentacle didn’t seem intent on killing me by stretching my mouth apart and soon withdrew. It pulled out so abruptly from my overextended jaws that I thought my teeth might come with it.

“Gah, ack… cough…”

I dry-heaved, spitting out the remaining fluid. The mucus, mixed with saliva, hit the floor. I managed to spit out most of it, but the realization that I’d swallowed some made my stomach turn.

My exhausted body slumped, completely spent. It was still pitch black, and my head was spinning so much I couldn’t even tell if I was looking at the ceiling. Even while I felt a desperate urge to just give up and lie there, I knew I couldn’t. I had to escape somehow.

Finding my sword was the priority. I’d dropped it when my legs were snatched, but it had landed nearby.

When I struggled to reach it, the pressure coiling around me tightened as if refusing to let me go. At this rate, my legs were going to fuse together. Gritting my teeth, I summoned my strength and crawled forward with one arm.

The vines seemed to be playing with me. They allowed me to crawl toward the sword, only to yank my body back down just as my hand was about to touch the hilt.

“Argh, enough…!”

By the third time, my anger had surpassed my exhaustion. As I lay face-down on the floor, gasping for air, a vine slapped my thigh as if goading me to try again. To be treated like this by a monster that wasn’t even human—something between an animal and a plant—filled me with a boiling mixture of humiliation and shame. I didn’t need a mirror to know my face was flushed bright red.

I steadied my breathing and reassessed my condition. When I put strength into my toes, they moved. Compared to my thighs and knees, which were completely immobilized, there was a little slack below my calves. My bound left arm wasn’t as tight as it could be, either.

Ignoring the vine that slapped my waist again as if impatient, I crawled once more. I’d done this three times now. The timing of when I reached for the sword and when the vine yanked back was consistent.

Just before the vine could pull, I rolled my body and kicked off with my feet to lunge forward. It was a movement of only a few centimeters, but it was enough. I felt the familiar grip of the hilt in my hand and immediately slashed at the nearest vine.

In my desperation, my movements changed. It felt as if I no longer needed to see where the attacks were coming from; the trajectory of every moving strand was being mapped directly into my mind. I carved through the things coiling around my body and stood up.

The opponent seemed displeased that its prey had escaped after being toyed with for so long. It bloated its mass. Its hose-like body undulated as it moved something through its internal channels. The sound of rushing water. My shoulders tensed. I could feel something big coming.

It wouldn’t be using plain water in a situation like this; it was highly likely to be something dangerous on contact. I had to block the opening or sever the transport channels before it could gather enough pressure to spit it out.

“Phew…”

I calmed my chaotic thoughts. My obscured vision was only a hindrance anyway. I closed my eyes and focused on the sound. Where the fluid was gathering, where it would be expelled. It wasn’t hard to find the target. I would have lunged immediately if not for the sudden, blinding explosion of light.

“Ugh…!”

This was the second time today I’d been assaulted by intense light after being in the dark. It was a mercy that I’d already had my eyes closed.

SCREE-E-E-ECH!

The massive entity let out a tearing shriek and began to thrash in agony. The sound of something shattering echoed in the distance. The underground, which had been so quiet I could hear water droplets, was now a chaos of monster screams, making it hard to concentrate. I squinted my eyes to see what was happening, but the light was still too piercing.