Regressor, Possessor, Reincarnator

Five days later, they arrived at the megaruins, its entrance crowded with mercenaries and merchants. From the very second they arrived, the students all felt their eyes drawn to the spires emerging from the ground.

Instead of going straight to a makeshift camp, the professors let them rest in a new camp prepared next to it, where they assigned guides. Most of the groups randomly chose their guides, but some people appeared to already be acquaintances, as if they had coordinated in advance.

Allen was one such case.

"It's been a long time, Allen."

"Alexius, it’s good to see you."

Allen joined Alexius, who had been waiting for him as they’d arranged in their letters.

Looking back in Julius’s direction, he saw Erini greeting others with her spider legs waving about.

After all the guides were assigned, they received a rough run-down of the ruins. Following a refresher on the general precautions and goals they had been told already in class, they were able to enter only upon receiving a map labeled with the locations of emergency escape items.

Several hours passed before they were able to begin searching the ruins in earnest.

"Evan! You've gone too far. Step back!”

"Ah— okay!"

About to charge recklessly until Allen's order, Evan flinched and stepped back.

A spear flew through the air just as his body stopped, but Evan skillfully struck the spear away and continued defending their front.

Then Allen exclaimed, "Ariel, now!"

"Okay!"

Ariel's eyes turned green as she swiftly shot an arrow. Three arrows flew in a row, passing overhead and falling off at a nearly impossible angle.

Shoooom!

The arrow went straight through the heart of a ghoul that Evan was trying to defend himself against, and hit the head of a sandman looking for an opening to strike.

Skreeeee!!!!

The ghoul, angered by its poor treatment, pushed ahead with a groan. It wasn’t alone— now, there was a total of three of them.

The students might have been able to come to Evan’s aid for now due to their position in the narrow passageway, but as time went on, his situation would become increasingly dangerous.

"Ugh! A-Allen, there's still a long way to go…! Ugh!" Evan shouted, twisting his head. A blue spell enveloped him, and in a moment his speed increased several fold. 

Whoosh! 

The tip of a spear brushed by his head.

Evan raised his shield, expression engulfed in an emotion that could’ve been either excitement or fear.

Clang!

The ghoul’s head fell back at the clear sound. Evan swung his sword vigorously while his opponent was stunned.

Clang!

The creature staggered back a few steps, the impact catching all three ghouls due to the small width of the narrow passage. Nevertheless, their foes were not alive, so they couldn’t be fully rid of them until their core was obliterated.

However, that was enough.

"Evan!"

From the outset, Evan's goal was not to deal with those monsters. 

“Finally!"

Evan backed off, following a tactic he'd over-practiced in the simulated remains.

As Allen beckoned, his threads became entangled on themselves, and a yellow-blue horn appeared. Allen grabbed the horn and took a deep breath. A green flame burst to life as the living dead screamed out.

Graaaaahhh!

As the three bodies of empty armor charged towards him, Evan finally retreated.

'Scream of corruption.'

Bu-doon!

A heavy, low-pitched whirlwind struck the dead. The strong gusts of wind whipped straight through them, with no powerful destructive sound in accompaniment. With that, it was over.

Fwoosh.

The sets of armor began to oxidize and soon broke down with a rusty creak.

Their battle had concluded.

"…Whoa, it's finally over."

Ariel relaxed her hands and moved to retrieve her fallen arrows. Even if she had more in her inventory, the arrows were consumable, and it would be best to save them whenever possible.

"Are you hurt at all?"

William ran toward Evan, who greeted him with an indifferent face.

"You don't have to worry. This is only a warm-up."

"Ha, ha. Okay… whatever you say…”

William looked at his body with a forced laugh, and sighed with relief when he found that there were no wounds.

Vestla, who was watching him, quivered slightly and asked, ⟬If you just used your strength, you wouldn’t have to deal with all this, would you?⟭

'If I did that, then there’d be no point in being in a group at all.’

⟬…Uh, but I want to get in on some of the action, too. You haven't even used a sword at all lately.⟭

'What am I supposed to do about that?' 

Vestla kept wriggling at his waist like her body was aching. It was understandable that he hadn’t been able to use his sword, though, since he’d been stuck at the Academy.

Allen, however, planned to act as a team player for the duration of the practice raid.

Or at least until he’d finalized his hypothesis that it had something to do with dark sorcerers or the Demon King himself.

"Wow! I don't think I have anything to say this time either!”

Clap, clap, clap.

Approaching with clapping hands, Milred praised the group with a twinkle in her eyes.

"Evan, you tend to be a bit too aggressive, but you followed instructions well… Yeah, yeah, that was good. And Ariel, you made quite a few missteps, but you did pretty well overall. William, you were also up to standard. And not to mention Allen…”

She turned her head with a look full of curiosity and anticipation.

"The magic ya used just now. It wasn’t time manipulation, was it?”

"I’m afraid not,” Allen said flatly.

Magic for time manipulation didn’t exist.

Scholarly opinions were still divided on this matter. Allen, however, was more inclined to the hypothesis that ‘time manipulation’ was only a reframing of changes in matter.

Young and aged, new and old, life and death.

If the composition of a child did not change such that they could not grow, and if, similarly, things didn’t age for eternity, then what was the difference between that and time stopping?

Time was accompanied by change.

Conversely, the passage of time couldn’t be proven if there was no evidence of physical change.

It was because of this premise that Allen did not believe in the possibility of regression at first.

Things could objectively be old, but they could not reconfigure to become new once more.

"It's just the oxidation of iron."

"That’s it…?” She nodded sullenly.

Acquiring this magic was one of the achievements he’d made by stopping by the library.

Making things that would eventually happen, happen—that was a brief summation of the inspiration that had been whirling around in his head since he’d first met Inellia and Linbelle.

However, there were numerous prerequisites for using this magic: the future of the subject had to be almost entirely set in stone, it couldn’t be used on organisms, and it consumed a great deal of mana. Lastly, its applications were limited.

Even so, Allen had figured that such rules would be in place if time-based magic were to exist.

There was, of course, a mountain or two to hurdle over before he could dub such magic ‘time-based’.

* * *

* * * 

"Are you all finished now?"

"Ah, Alexius. Did you collect all that by yourself?"

Alexius came up to them with a leather bag overflowing with materials. His scorpion tail wagged in response.

"I didn't do it alone. Ariel helped me."

"It wasn’t that difficult."

She gave a quick smile then asked them with a serious face, "So… Allen, what do you think we should do?"

Ariel lifted up the map that they had been given just before entering the ruins, high enough for everyone to see.

The surface of the blackened map had gradually been revealed as the party moved along and covered ground.

However, less than 10% of the map had been revealed as of yet.

"We're just at the beginning of these ruins. The only thing that matters is that we’re still on the first floor. But Evan is already tired…”

"No, I’m fine…”

"Evan."

"Hmm, I think it’d be good to rest a little.”

“I still have a good deal of mana left. William, you don’t have much physical strength left at all, but you haven’t spoken up?”

William's face flushed red, perhaps ashamed of the comment, but no one could say anything to him as the one in charge of the party’s medical care.

"So, you make the choice."

"Whether we retreat or go further?"

"Yes, that's right. Your score will be higher if you reveal more parts of the map. I, personally, would like to go further, but it's also only the first day."

Ariel looked at Milred, commenting from a distance.

"…If we need to ask for help from our lovely older sister here, it wouldn’t look very good on our evaluation.”

"That's right! So choose carefully. I can share my knowledge on this and that to help, but direct intervention will require docking some points!"

Allen was lost in thought.

What should they do? They’d already fought dozens of battles. In other words, they had surely gained enough experience.

Even if they hadn’t tested themselves against the strong traps or guard monsters yet—they were only in the earlier passages of the ruins still, after all—they’d already been in this place for most of the day.

Milred still seemed unwilling to intervene in their decision. This would all go into their evaluation.

'We need rest more than we need inefficient progress.’

Allen made his decision and opened his mouth.

"Let’s go back."

"…Phew."

Ariel was relieved, desperate for a break.

Milred supported his decision with a broad smile.

"Good job! If you're not sure, then it's better to take a breather, Allen!"

"Then let’s take the nearest exit."

Alexius studied the map for a moment and found a way out before long, moving for it immediately. The party quickly followed after him.

William was pleased by the promise of a break.

“Hah… hah… I’m really gonna have to focus more on building physical strength when we get back… haha.”

"I'll help you out then."

"Th-that's all right.”

"Don't back out now.”

William's face paled slightly at Evan's words.

Thus, the group left the ruins in much more of a rush than when they’d first entered.

* * *

In the hour marked by the setting sun, when both the scarlet dusk and the pale moon floated together in harmony in the sky, a disturbance arose near the entrance of the ruins.

"How do you intend to take responsibility for this! I followed you and got eliminated on the first day! What would your family say if they knew…? Ah, this is ridiculous!”

"No, sir, didn't they tell you that my role was only to provide information gathered by the advance team?"

"You little fucker…”

"Are you ignoring the guild?”

Perhaps the adventurer was a guide sent from a guild, but as he protested the unfair scrutiny, the aristocratic students burst into laughter, as if it was the first time they had been treated like this.

"Did you just talk back to me? How dare you…!"

"Sir, why would you lie when you were the one that chose to make a contract through the guild?”

Judging by the way he spoke, he seemed to be really upset.

"You dumb little shit… trying to pull one over my family…”

"Is that the only insult you know, calling someone a traitor against your family? If you have something more to say, take it to the guild. I've already submitted the video recording to both the guild and the Academy."

"Y-you…!"

The male student's face boiled red as if he were going to explode, realizing that his authority would not be treated as law here as it usually was.

Sensing the scornful gazes around him, the guide quickly made his way through the crowd.

"Allen, what are you looking at?"

Allen looked back to see William approaching him timidly, feeling a little awkward about addressing him so informally.

"That's…"

"It appears that some people have already been eliminated."

Eyes wide with disbelief, William asked back, "Are you saying they’re out already?"

Allen shrugged his shoulders and resumed his hike again. William walked along beside him.

"There will always be people who are greedy. It seems that he was from the advance team, the one with the guides took a look at the ruins beforehand. From what I can see, it didn’t really matter whether the student was greedy or the guide leaked the information. They went too far too quickly and couldn’t handle it.”

"Oh…" William looked puzzled. "It's still just the first day, so why…”

"Greed and ability aren’t necessarily proportional."

This wasn’t just any ordinary ruins site, but a super-massive one.

Under normal circumstances, they might have gotten away with their growing greed, as the quality of the artifacts excavated improved the further in they progressed. Plus, they would get higher grades if they delved deeper.

However, these weren't any ordinary ruins. 

Unlike most ruins, in which the explorers only need to prove they possessed the expertise necessary to defeat the guardian, these megaruins had several more factors playing into the level of difficulty.

Between the hordes of monsters filling every corner of its huge size, the increased number of guardians wandering around the ruins, and the traps laid out everywhere… Not to mention what went beyond the physical into the mental obstacles that could only be overcome by testing one’s knowledge in order to enter specific rooms or areas.

If an explorer happened to get caught in a trap that they didn’t understand the principle behind, they could find themself in real deep shit.

"…Wow, I find myself getting more and more shocked by the day. I thought aristocrats were supposed to be above all this," William murmured, his expression hard to read.

He looked at Allen and hurried to come up with a quick excuse. "B-but Allen, Evan, and Ariel, you are all shocking for good reasons."

There had to be some unspoken meaning to his words. It was only natural that all kinds of things would be said about the aristocracy.

So Allen didn't answer, just smirked and kept walking.

Noticing that Allen didn’t seem all that offended, William wandered off to be by himself, seemingly lost in thought.

The sunset struggled to breathe life into its fading light, dyeing the western horizon red.

Their first day at the ruins was coming to an end.

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