Actually, most students did make way for me when I shouted ‘move’.
“I-I got out of your way!”
“Sorry. I just wanted to say that.”
Bam! Boom!
But I didn’t care.
I crashed into everyone’s backs.
“Kuack!”
“You’re too much……”
The students that collided with me flopped away like paper cutouts and either went out of the course’s bounds or became so separated from me that they would never be able to catch up.
There were no exceptions.
Even if the target was someone who I became quite close with, such as Seta Malkiri.
“R-Ruin?”
He was running while riding on that guardian that I beat up last time.
After seeing me run like crazy behind him into the mid-ranks, he asked me while terrified,
“You…… When did you catch up to me? I swear that you were the last to…”
“Seta.”
“……What? Why are you saying my name like that? I’m getting nervous.”
“You understand, right?”
“……”
Seta nodded his head, having understood my intentions, and made a determined expression.
“So it starts again. The fight that we never finished. Alright……”
And then, he shouted while drawing in the reins around the neck of his guardian,
“Run, you stonehead! It’s the end if we get caught!”
“Grrrrrrr!”
Operation Name,
Run like the wind away from here.
As Seta attempted to drastically increase his speed and make distance from me, I just kicked the guardian’s butt with my feet.
Bang!
“……Uck!”
The guardian stumbled forward and hit its head into the ground pitifully with a bang, throwing its master off its back.
“Ruiiiiiiin!”
“Sorry!”
And I heard Seta’s shout of resentment as I bolted past him.
Well…… Seta, since I kicked you lightly, you should still be able to run.
Of course, it would be pretty hard to ride that guardian now.
I kept running.
And then, after running for a while,
“Chi! Chiek!”
The scene of multiple students fighting off a goblin horde could be seen.
But I didn’t slow down.
Rather, using the speed I had accumulated while running, I punched forward.
Bang! Boom!
“Chiek? Th-that guy. He’s not human. Chiek!”
With one fist, I froze multiple goblins at once.
With one stride, I launched myself at the other students.
Whether they be goblins or students, I threw punches equally at everything I saw and just ran forward.
Nothing could stop me.
And at some point, there was no one in front of me.
Other than the ‘front-runners’, that was.
Naturally, they were definitely running ahead of me.
But as I ran faster than them,
‘……Found them.’
Like this,
I was able to find them.
* * *
“……So you eliminated everyone else?”
“Well, not all of them. A few of them should still be running and trying to catch up.”
“……”
Irene looked at me, baffled at my explanation, and I turned before smiling brightly at Doom, who was standing behind her, analyzing me with a cold gaze.
“There’ll be no interruptions now.”
“……”
Taunt.
This small taunt provoked Doom to react, and in an instant, he summoned a Spirit Horse, dark in colour like his outfit, and sat on its saddle.
As he tugged on the reins, raring to go at any moment, Dylan became flustered.
“Doom, we’re in the trapzone right now. There’s no way you’re thinking of just blitzing through, right?”
“……”
The trapzone.
This was a castle ruin built from heavy stone walls.
The hundreds of permanent traps laid here to protect the treasures in the underground vault preyed on the intruders that entered the ruins.
The treasures had all already been taken out, but the traps still remained.
All contestants that set foot here could land themselves in an ice net or take fatal damage from arrows that appeared out of nowhere.
The reason that such a trapzone existed on the course of this ‘running competition’ where every minute mattered…
This was a race between magicians.
There were multitudes of methods that could be used to get past this trapzone, and there was also the safest method.
‘Disable the traps’.
* * *
* * *
This was a test of a magician’s danger sense and their knowledge.
Because of this, time could be wasted here.
The time taken to disable a trap was also part of the test.
However, the method Doom had chosen was a little different.
“Ruin.”
“You called?”
“I’ll see you at the end.”
Break through.
Neigh—!
He forcefully tugged on the reins of his Gray Spirit Horse and rushed into the castle ruins.
He deflected arrows using his sword and slow magic and overcame nets with horsemanship.
He protected using mana barriers against traps he couldn’t dodge and destroyed any traps he fell into.
Magic, swordsmanship, horsemanship. Maybe this was a method that only Doom Prime could use, as he was proficient with all 3 of them.
“……As I thought, he’s impressive. Hoo. I can’t waste my time here either.”
Looking at this, Dylan shook his head and Irene immediately started disabling traps.
‘Disable the traps.’
The ‘only’ method of passing through the castle ruin’s trapzone.
However, it had one fatal flaw.
‘Disabling each trap takes too long.’
It was impossible to try and catch up to Doom Prime while disabling all the traps.