The Extra’s Academy Survival Guide - Chapter 56

“Please. I need to go and save Ayla. Just once, can you help me.”

Taylee, who was bowing his head, was already quite hurt.

An injury that occurred during Act 2’s final chapter’s first phase,Chasing Professor Glast.

Ziggs Eiffelstein, who was training out in the outskirts of the education district, was completely bewildered seeing Taylee act this way.

Without knowing the exact situation, Taylee suddenly came to ask for help. He was completely confused by this out-of-the-blue situation.

“What’s going on, Taylee?”

***

The Soul Library’s layout was a single large hall filled with all sorts of bookshelves.

There were many valuable items in the outermost bookshelf along the outer wall.

Of course, the extremely rare and truly valuable magically engineered items and the legendary-grade magically engineered item’s production formulas were placed around the librarian Reina’s table, which was in the center of the library.

It was almost impossible to get close without getting caught in Reina’s detection magic, so it’d be better if I went looking for things when the subjugation was nearly finished.

“♬ ♪ ♫”

Reina’s humming echoed throughout the spacious library. It was done in a dreary, low-pitched, eerie voice.

I’ll just creep around the outer wall, grab some of the small replica magic books, and find some magically engineered items that I can manage to disassemble and reassemble.

In particular, the‘Thunder Roar Generator’, which was on row C of the bookshelves, could be used to build some sort of alarm trap. Also, the‘Unidirectional Light Flow Device’, which would let me make a window in which light only traveled through one side.

Rather than getting too greedy, I’d just grab a few more books that would be good to study and leave it at that.

As for all of the extremely valuable magically engineered items, I could just come back later and take my time picking through them without having to deal with Reina.

Hiding in between the bookshelves, I stuck my head out and looked towards the center of the hall.

The librarian Reina kept humming at her table… all while floating in the air.

Reina was not a human, she was a monster. She was the main‘Banshee’in the library, one that could detect intruders that had entered within a 20m range with her detection magic.

As if she were floating on water, the hem of Reina’s skirt fluttered in the air.

Floating through all the books, she periodically patrolled the library.

I was quite familiar with Reina’s patrol pattern. Even if I entered combat with her, I already knew her attack pattern to a certain extent. With that in mind, in some way or another I should have been able to deal with her.

However, defeating Reina was an extremely valuable experience for Taylee.

If Taylee’sSwordmaster’s Skillor other sword-related skills’ proficiency was not sufficiently trained, he would have many difficulties when facing off against Professor Glast’sCelestial Magic.

Even if it wasn’t against him, against other disaster-level bosses later on, if he doesn’t have the strength to deal with them… There was a high chance that I would end up having to take responsibility for dealing with those enemies if hisSwordmaster’s Skilldidn’t reach a certain level.

All of that was too much work, and I didn’t have the ability or the will to do so in the first place. That was why I had decided to avoid dealing with any of the boss monsters in Professor Glast’s secret laboratory.

Technically speaking, even if he doesn’t defeat Reina it wasn’t like it was going to seriously affect Taylee’s growth, which was already in pretty good shape anyway.

It wasn’t just Reina. Even if he ended up skipping most bosses, it still wouldn’t immediately cause his growth to fall behind. As long as he could defeat‘The Devil of the Underground Waterways’, which would be the most helpful towards his growth, there wouldn’t be any problems.

But… just in case, there was no harm in being careful.

I hid among the bookshelves as I started grabbing all sorts of parchments and production formulas.

“Phew…”

As best as I could, I avoided Reina’s line of sight as she periodically patrolled, strolling through the bookshelves. Doing so, I grabbed anything that I could get my hands on.

It was hard to figure out just what each of these production formulas were about without opening them up one by one, so I decided to go with quantity over quality, changing my strategy to grab as many as I possibly could.

After focusing once more, I was quite pleased with how many things I had gotten a hold of.

[If we go now, I don’t think she will be looking at the exit, young master Ed!]

Mugg was whispering to me.

Not yet.

I couldn’t let my guard down just because I might be out of her sight. After all, Reina’s field of view was irrelevant to herDetection Magic.

The Banshee Reina didn’t determine the presence of an enemy solely by sight, but rather by detecting the magic power within a certain distance to notice an enemy.

If she moved any closer and I continued to wait around without moving, I’d end up getting caught.

I calmly moved through the bookshelves, patiently waiting for Reina to show a gap.

Rumble, Rumble.

“…Hmm?”

Getting a hold of myself, I started to notice that the ground was shaking little by little.

In the distance, there seemed to be something making a roaring noise.

At first, I ignored it—thinking it might have just been some kind of illusion. But when I started to see the books stuck on the bookshelves shake, I started to feel a sense of uncertainty.

Was it an earthquake?

From what I knew, there wasn’t any sort of event like that.

I was thinking that it might have been a simple happenstance, but soon the shaking had come to a point that couldn’t be ignored.

[Y-Young Master Ed!]

“…What is this?”

Mugg called out to me in an urgent voice. It was nearly impossible to maintain my balance without holding onto the bookshelf.

The shaking didn’t mean much to Reina, as she was floating in the air, but the bookshelves were a different story.

Eventually, the bookshelves couldn’t withstand the increasing shaking as they started to fall over, one by one. Before, they had thankfully acted as a cover for me and kept me hidden.

But as the bookshelves started falling over, they didn’t do their job anymore. Eventually, they completely stopped acting as proper cover for me.

As a result, I was completely in Reina’s field of view.

“♫♪————————————”

The Banshee Reina’s humming abruptly came to a halt.

And then she found me.

“Keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!”

She began to scream, the sound like pieces of metal grinding against each other as she started to radiate magic power. In an instant, I started to feel as if my sight was getting distorted while she attacked me. The bookshelves and magic books around me also started flying in the air.

With Reina’s soul-type magic, she started to give life to the surrounding objects… Like a poltergeist, she started moving objects as she pleased, going wild.

[Y-Young master Ed! What do we do?! Th-This is—!]

“It’s fine! It’ll be easy to run away!”

Reina was in a state where her soul was already tied to the library.

Once I could gain control over the space withIgnite, all I’d have to do was retreat towards the exit and get out of Reina’s range. It wasn’t anything that difficult.

Taking a deep breath, I rolled up my sleeves. I didn’t have to defeat Reina, I just needed to run away. That would be a piece of cake.

I began to draw out magic power.

***

She wasn’t in an outfit suitable for combat, but she didn’t have time to change.

Lortel frowned as she flapped the hem of her robe, which was heavily embroidered with fancy ornaments.

Jumping out of the carriage and waving an arm, she turned down all of the staff members that were trying to beg her to go back to the conference room. She stared at the open entrance into the underground waterways.

Two large stone pillars firmly supported both sides of the entrance. As she looked into the entrance leading underground, she started to feel a strange moisture in the air that stuck in her throat.

After reaching the bottom, a well-organized waterway spread throughout the entire underground system. The space itself was massive, and the stone supports and exterior walls were kept clean, so there was no unnecessary dirt and dust blowing around.

However, no matter how high-class the magic techniques they used were, it couldn’t easily withstand the test of time.

Here and there, mold had started to grow and things were cracking or already broken… After all, there was no way to completely remove the traces of time.

It was not a place where Lortel, who was wearing clothes full of decorations that cost dozens of golden coins, should be entering. Her luxury items were at a level where, if even just a few specs of dust fell on them, they would greatly affect their value.

Disregarding that, Lortel kept on taking wide strides, walking into the waterways. The non-combatant staff members would have just become baggage if she brought them inside, so instead she ordered them to wait outside and report on any changes to the situation.

“I don’t think this is a facility that would need such large-scale underground waterways.”

Lortel had dabbled in the construction industry and donated to all sorts of other buildings and facilities. Her sense of investment when it came to infrastructure was also sharp.

Silvenia Academy was a large academy that accounted for half of the southern part of Acken Island, but it still wouldn’t have been necessary to have an underground waterway of that size. The distance between the floor and the ceiling was large enough to fit an entire building, and the width of it all was far too wide.

In the first place, there wasn’t that much water flowing along the waterways. If Lortel were to have dipped her feet in it, it still would have only barely soaked up to her thin ankles.

“It definitely seems like they built this for a different purpose.”

Lortel had quickly discovered a suspicious aspect to the underground waterways.

However, there was no way for her to know exactly what its purpose was.

After finishing her descent and finally seeing the proper entrance to the waterways, Lortel gasped.

Whooosshh!

Ba-Boom!

The sound of the shallow waves came from the large waterway down the center passageway.

There was the sight of the fragmented magic golem, made from stones that were imbued with magic, spread throughout the waterway.

It was clearly the traces of a battle.

No, it was more of a one-sided obliteration than a battle.

Moving a little further inside and looking down the center of the waterway, there were magic power stones almost as large as a carriage rolling around the bottom of the waterway.

There was still a little magic power left in them, so the stones were moving sporadically, as if they were trembling. Though, it didn’t seem like it was at a meaningful level of power anymore.

The stones, which were about the size of about Lortel’s upper body, seemed to have been fragments that came from mid-rank magic golems.

Meanwhile, the stones that were nearly the size of a carriage must have been fragments that came from high-rank magic golems.

If you were going to deal with about ten mid-rank magic golems, you would have to at least bring one high ranking student from the upper grades.

And if you were going to deal with a high-rank magic golem, without bringing someone that was at least the level of a member of the teaching staff there would be no way to defeat it.

There weren’t many people that could break through all of those all by themselves. No matter how confident Lortel might be in her own magic skills, she might be able to take them on by themselves—however, there was no way she could defeat them all at once.

“……”

Lortel walked straight past the fragments of the golems as she went deeper into the waterways.

At the end of the passageway, there was a girl that had fainted and collapsed.

Lortel was well-informed of the personal information regarding every top student in each grade. It wasn’t hard for her to figure out who that person was.

For a girl, she was rather tall. Her hair was loosely tied up in the back, as if she was going to be moving around, and the freckles on her cheeks made her look cute.

It was the alchemy department’s top third year student, Dorothy.

But she was completely passed out.

Her clothes had gotten wet all over, and it looked like someone had completely defeated her before pulling her out of the water.

Just in case she might have gotten cold because of her drenched clothes, someone had also covered her with a shawl. Seeing that… Lortel started to frown.

Looking at the design on the shawl, it had cute cosmos embroidery and looked rather adorable overall.

Compared to the cost of the clothes Lortel was wearing, they were rather cheap, but the shawl itself was a symbol for something else.

The hanger was just as important as the clothes themself.

Who was the person that always wore that shawl? An elementalist that every single person in Silvenia Academy knew.

“We’re back at the entrance again! Aghk!”

No one appeared to be listening to her, but there was a girl crying out that appeared from further inside.

No, there must have been someone listening to her. It was just that Lortel couldn’t see them.

“What did I say? Takan was right…! N-No? Who said to do it this time? Hmm… That’s why… At the second fork you go right, then left, then…. Left, left, right, right, left, right, left, left… no…? Was it left, left, right, left, right, left, left…? Ahh my head hurts…”

She was pointing her finger around in the air, complaining over and over again.

“I’m sorry that I’m terrible with directions… It took me a few days to memorize the path to the northern forest, so isn’t asking me to figure out this maze all at once too much…? You weren’t able to memorize the directions either, Mellis! Don’t get so angry with me…! Ahh, I’m also so freaking frustrated…! I can’t believe we ended up back here again. Just how much longer till we finally find Ed…?”

The reason Yennekar suddenly stopped talking was because she had made eye contact with Lortel.

In the dark underground waterways, only the sound of the flowing water was heard.

The cutely braided light pink hair of hers was covered in dirt. She also wasn’t wearing the shawl that she would normally have.

Even her uniform, which she normally wore neatly, had gotten wet and covered dirt stains. Given its state, it was certain that it hadn’t been long since she was in combat.

Given the size and shape of the traces, it appeared that she had fought even more further inside the waterways.

“Oh my, oh my. It’s my upperclassman, Yennekar.”

The term cats and dogs didn’t fully describe the relationship between the two. It was dirtier and nastier than that.

Whether it was from Yennekar or Lortel’s point of view, it was clear that they were nuisances to each other.

Lortel definitely saw the image of Takan several minutes ago near the entrance to the underground waterways. She was able to guess that Yennekar must have come at once after she heard about Ed’s abduction.

But for Yennekar, Lortel’s appearance is completely unexpected.

That was an important fact.

That meant that Lortel was one step faster when it came to judging the situation.

Yennekar Palerover is Silvenia’s Ace, who boasts an impressive level of strength even amongst the top students of each grade level.

If you were to line them all up by fighting power—ignoring Lucy, who completely overpowered everyone else—she was someone that was certainly near the top.

At that point, Professor Glast’s researchers couldn’t do anything.

She was just going to destroy the entire waterways altogether, messing up everything they were planning while making sure Ed was safe.

“Then…?”

Lortel was the type of person that was confident in her understanding of herself due to her cool-headed personality.

But even so, Lortel was overlooking something… The fact that her mindset regressed only when a relationship between a man and women was involved.

One day, when Lortel came to realize that fact, she might become full of shame… but that was a story for the distant future. Anyway, the image in Lortel’s head was all too one-dimensional.

Yennekar had all sorts of spirits with her to go and rescue Ed, who had been caught up in that mess.

“I’m here to save you, Ed. You’re not hurt? It was so difficult. I was so worried about you. Are you alright? Let’s go back together. I cooked for you back at the camp. Let’s warm up by drinking some of the hot soup. You don’t have much strength in your body now, do you? It’s okay. Get on my back.”

“Thank you, Yennekar. You’re the best. It was so hard on me, getting kidnapped out of the blue like that. I was so scared and I really needed your help. All I need is you. I think you are my life partner. Let’s get married, Yennekar.”

“What are you saying, talking about marriage? I love it. Where should we hold the ceremony? How many children should we have? Do you want a daughter or a son? Where will our newlywed house be built? Will we be fine?”

“Don’t worry, Yennekar. I’ll make sure to not let a drop of dirt fall on your hands. Alright, let’s go. The morning sun is rising. Let’s run towards the sun that is rising so brightly like we’re a happily married couple. Hahahaha!”

No way!

She had touched almost every single business in the world, but she was ridiculously awful when it came to the dating business. Now that she had come around and was a bit self-aware… Without fail, Lortel’s pupils were trembling again.

“Yennekar, Ed has already somehow been rescued…! It’s really, really infuriating that he ended up getting seriously hurt while getting kidnaped…! He is laying on his sickbed, calling out your name! He may fall back into a coma at any moment, so I came over here looking for you! You have to go to the camp now!”

Lortel, who was smart, started to think things through.

Given that there is circumstantial evidence that the underground waterways were where Ed had been abducted to, she needed to kick Yennekar out.

“Wh-What did you say?”

Yennekar was completely surprised as she made a little squealing sound. She quickly grabbed her wand, holding it close to her chest as she ran out as fast as a bullet.

She passed by Lortel, her footsteps going up the hill and out of the underground waterways.

Hearing the sound of her retreat slowly getting softer, Locky quickly began to deduce just which of the pathways Ed ended up getting taken.

But that time didn’t last long at all. The sounds of the footsteps gradually started to get louder as Yennekar popped out from around the corner.

“But, Lortel. Why would you tell me that?”

Lortel swallowed her breath.

“As soon as I figured out Ed’s location, I hurriedly ran over here like an arrow at lightning speed. And I’ve been staying around the entrance over here the entire time, so how would he have managed to get saved? Who was the one that saved him? I was the first one to arrive, so how did he manage to get saved without me seeing it at all?”

For a moment, Lortel completely stopped listening to Yennekar chattering.

She wasn’t caught off guard at all. On the contrary, she spoke back in a cool, composed tone. There was a bright smile, like a blooming flower, on her face.

“Or maybe that didn’t happen.”

“You’re seriously too much!”

Yennekar was furious, like a ball that had been inflated to its limit before being stepped on and popped.

Seeing her stretching her arm out and waving her oak wand around in the air, it sort of looked as if she was whining.

But Lortel wasn’t going to back down, either.

Ed Rothstaylor always seemed to be an indifferent person, but he was always grateful for what he received, leaving a debt in his heart that he would make sure to pay back later.

So the favor he would repay if you saved his life… Ed would never take something of that level lightly.

The first person that was able to find and rescue Ed would properly receive that favor from that honestly somewhat unfriendly human being. It was a different type of favor compared to the purchase of theSeal.

It wasn’t an opportunity that was available for many people. There was only one person who could arrive first. In the world of a desperate race, there was no glory allowed for second place. It was a world dominated solely by the winner.

“This is not the time to be doing this, Lortel! But…”

Yennekar knew that fact very well… but before that, it might be a situation where Ed’s life was seriously at stake.

She was going to tell her that it wasn’t the time to have a war of nerves, but…

“…Lortel, you came alone, didn’t you? This could become even more dangerous if you were cowardly and ended up bringing your company employees along with you! Hmph!”

Yennekar, who successfully managed to add on a justifiable reason, began to express the fairness of it all as well.

“I also asked Lucy to help me out at first, but… She didn’t listen to me at all. She just let out a yawn and began going out for a walk… She completely ignored what I was saying and kept on moving at her own pace… That’s why I’m also alone.”

“Aha… I see.”

Lortel grinned as they blankly stared at each other for a while.

Yennekar’s cute and lively smile made it look like a cozy dandelion would start to bloom from its seeds.

“I’ll go take a look at the east section of these waterways, Lortel.”

“Okay, I’ll try searching the other side, then.”

It might be a situation where Ed’s life was seriously in danger. Wouldn’t it be too irrational for the two of them to keep trying to keep each other in check in such a situation? That was why they decided to at least keep a minimal amount of decency with each other.

They didn’t say anything of the sort to each other, but they seemed to have reached such a compromise.

However, as soon as the two of them split up and turned their corners, they both began sprinting down the waterways as if they were waiting for that moment.

Since ancient times, a world of winning was a heartless one.

***

Patter

The sound of a cloud of dust falling down.

Even though they were in a space deep underground, a ray of sunlight cut through the air of the underground library.

The little girl that was crouching started to stand up, straightening out and stretching like it was her usual behavior… She shook her head a couple times before she straightened her witch’s hat, looking around.

Would it be more appropriate to call her idiotic or ridiculous?

In front of common sense, no matter how thick it might be she was someone that would cut through it easily, like tofu.

It wasn’t even high-ranking magic. It wasn’t magic that she used in a specific way, either.

It was just her pure, overwhelming magic power. That was it. For that lazy girl, even such a beginner-level magic power refinement process was just a chore.

She was simply a monster that was born with an unbelievable level of magic power resonance.

By tapping into her inherent and natural magic power levels, she was able to break through the surface and continue forward towards the place she’d felt Ed’s presence, all while releasing her magic power.

Even with the bare minimum effort, refining her magic power or controlling its flow to increase efficiency was all an annoyance to her.

It simply surpassed ignorance, to the point of being absurd. It was like cutting an apple with a chainsaw.

At that point, it wasn’t even anything like magic. It was just overwhelming physical violence.

***

The hall was filled with marble fragments that had scattered when the ceiling of Soul Library collapsed.

At Lazy Lucy’s feet was the unconscious Banshee Reina, who had been completely overpowered and crushed.

“Eughyaaak—!”

The way she yawned and stretched was exactly the same as usual.

Standing at the top of a pile of bookshelves that were crushing Banshee Reina’s body, she looked down at me with a sleepy look on her face…

“Hi.”

Lucy sounded like she was still in a daze.

“I was bored, so I came to save you.”

Holding back a throbbing headache, I swept my hand over my face again and again.

Ahh…