[35] A Bridge That Cannot Be Crossed (2)
To the spectators watching from afar, where a fierce psychological duel was being fought, it all just looked like a mass of students leaping off at once. The contest was playing out in fractions of a second.
"You're not down until you hit the ground."
Even as the cliff came within a step, Shirone's body did not glow. That made the students watching feel their hearts pound even harder. Shirone pushed off the edge and leapt as far as he could. A terrifying sense of buoyancy. Gale-force wind buffeted him; mountain birds dotted the dizzying space far below his feet.
Shirone focused only on teleportation. At the critical point of his leap, his body flashed and sprang forward in a burst of light.
Shirone was the last to finish the first turn. Naturally, when they moved into the second turn the rankings flipped: the group that had taken the earliest start fell to the rear.
Shirone made up the gap from his run. Most importantly, he managed to squeeze ahead of Mark by a hair.
Mark startled when he saw Shirone spring up from behind. How late had he been to start if someone could pass him on the first turn? The lead group was still within ten meters, so positions could still change, but the collapse of his plan left a bitter taste.
"You bastard! Don't you stop there!"
With a hair's-breadth timing difference, Shirone and Mark cast teleportation almost simultaneously.
* * *
Ten minutes before the promotion exam began.
A girl with a gloomy face was heading for the practice field.
Erlang Maria.
The third daughter of the Erlang family—a third-rank noble house—she had shown magical talent early and entered Alpheas School of Magic. She was nineteen years old.
Although she was stuck in Class Seven and even ridiculed by Mark, who was four years younger, it wasn't that she had never stood out.
She had entered the school at ten and fought fiercely for nine years. But at some point the competition began to feel meaningless.
She couldn't see why she had to claw her way into higher classes. Promotion only meant the start of new competition. Her life had become a marathon with no destination.
"Haah. What am I even doing?"
Maybe it was because she'd missed the right moment to push forward. From the moment she realized she was the oldest in Class Seven, everything felt hollow.
The chance that a Class Ten entrant would rise to Class Seven was about forty percent. Beating less than half the odds was something to be proud of.
Maria had felt on top of the world when she reached Class Seven at fifteen. But the joy was short-lived, and she grew afraid of the ever-narrowing gaps for advancement.
Ironically, her best grades had been in her first year after promotion. After that, her scores slid, and now she was at the point of being looked down on by freshmen.
She was afraid of competing. It felt like she had to risk everything—be more relentless, more flawless. Every time she thought that, she felt suffocated.
Was she staying at the school out of habit, because a little passion still remained, or simply because the time she'd already invested felt too precious to waste?
Maria, who had entered the school because she loved magic, sighed at how she was losing herself.
Promotion exams felt like someone else's problem. But staying behind in a classroom with kids doing self-study wounded her pride.
She wandered without direction, then suddenly turned toward the practice field.
Maybe the summit was full of dazzling talents locked in fierce competition. Seeing them would deepen her self-loathing, but she could feel her passion's lifespan running out.
Grasping at any straw, hoping for some incident to jolt her even a little, she moved in that hollow way.
"Huh?"
From the summit, Etella's illumination magic flared. The blue light meant preparations were in full swing.
Student cheers echoed. Maria, lacking the confidence to go where those cheers reached, stopped. Their cheers were not for her.
"My place isn't up there. Only the outstanding ones from Class Seven belong up there."
At that moment a devilish thought took root and guided her feet.
At first she'd only come because she couldn't ignore the existence of even a single possibility.
By the time she came to her senses, she was already at the control room for the Uncrossable Bridge.
Maybe it wasn't over yet.
Clinging to that hope, she opened the control-room door. An employee sat in a chair, yawning. Normally an instructor would accompany a promotion exam, but today the bridge's control devices were switched off and staff had been mobilized for student safety, so no teacher was present.
The relaxed employee stretched his legs and whistled. But soon his eyelids drooped and his head slumped.
Maria was standing behind the sleeping employee.
Relaxation sleep magic barely affects a mage, but it works well on someone with no magical resistance.
She inspected the bridge's controls. The Air Net's safety device indicator was showing active, and on the side was a rotary switch to adjust the Uncrossable Bridge's difficulty.
She touched the safety-button with a fingertip. Her whole body trembled. Was this the right thing to do? No—setting right or wrong aside, could she really handle the consequences at her level?
All she had to do was press the button. If it were anyone else, the result might be horrific, but when someone is obsessed with something, only the sweetness of reward fills their mind.
Maria pressed the button. Once she acted, it was almost laughable how simple it was. No sudden catastrophe, no miserable outcome—she had only pressed a button.
The Air Net lights on the cliff lost their red glow.
* * *
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosive sounds burst from the crowd. Twenty students flashed in succession, streaking through the air a thousand meters above the ground.
By the time the third turn was underway, the distance between the lead and rear groups hadn't widened much.
It looked like a huge column of bodies in motion.
But differences in skill surfaced. Many who had taken early starts couldn't endure the emptiness underfoot and began to falter mentally.
"Huff—huff! Are we really falling? From here?"
Looking down revealed an endless precipice. Whether the safety device was actually installed or not, the idea of dropping a hundred meters—even if it were safe—was terrifying.
As the Spirit Zone weakened, teleport jump distances shrank. The more that happened, the more quickly gaps opened with the lead group.
The Spirit Zone demands an extremely delicate mental state; if concentration slips even a little, it can't be sustained. In the end, students in the rear who failed to execute near-perfect teleportation began to plummet.
"Ahhhhhh!"
"P—please! Save me!"
Wahahahaha!
Upperclassmen watching from the other side burst into laughter. Having experienced the Uncrossable Bridge themselves, they found the floundering juniors amusing. Teachers smiled and carefully recorded evaluations of the eliminated students.
But the festive mood reversed in an instant.
Teachers everywhere raised their heads in alarm. There was still time for the Air Net to catch those who fell, yet no siren had sounded.
"What the—! What happened? Control room!"
"I'll go check!"
Sade cast spatial teleportation. A flash shot into the sky and bent toward the control room.
"I'll save the students first!"
Shiina dove toward the cliff and teleported down at terrifying speed. Etella, watching from the other side, sensed something was wrong and leapt down as well.
"Principal, what should we do? Should we stop the exam?"
Alpheas exhaled. With two Grade-Six certified mages already on the scene, the students would be fine. Whether to continue the exam, though, was another question.
From the school's perspective, stopping the test would be easier. But if they did, the students who had fought to stay in the lead group would suffer an unfair loss. As long as safety could be ensured, it was better to respect the participants' will.
"Let's watch for now. We can keep about twenty people safe. Wouldn't ending it now belittle the students' passion?"
Shiina and Etella rose up from the precipice together. Students trapped in the Air Net rose with them.
"What's going on? Something must be wrong."
Seriel peered into the air with a telescope. Other students buzzed at the unexpected turn.
But Amy didn't get swept up in the panic. With Grade-Six instructors present, no stupid accident that led to a fatal fall would occur. Besides, the lead students were still composed. She'd be the same—Class Five was on the line; safety was secondary.
Meanwhile, in the mid-ranking group, noticeable commotion broke out. Seeing teachers dive below and drag students back made them realize something was wrong.
"No safety device?"
What had let them endure the fear so far was that, however close to the real thing it felt, it hadn't been the real thing. Now they were truly hovering over a thousand-chi drop.
"Ahhh! No!"
"Teacher! Save me! I'll forfeit the exam!"
"Aren't we going to die at this rate?"
Students in the mid group began to fall one after another. A spectacle unfolded as teachers flashed lights and rescued students.
Even so, the lead group's run didn't stop. They knew the safety device had problems, and they cheered all the more.
"This is our chance! Let as many as possible fail."
They'd been raised hearing they were unmatched geniuses before entering the school. Their pride was on a different level from ordinary peers. So far the lead group had advanced 270 meters—an impressive distance for Class Seven.
Shirone still held first place. Mark and the operation squad took turns passing him, but each subsequent turn they were inevitably overtaken. During Shirone's sequence of twenty-seven teleportations, his leap distance per turn was exactly ten meters with no margin for error.
"Only teleport, again and again. Erase the idea of combos."
The mechanical routine Shirone had honed for this test was paying off. When certain conditions are met, humans can be far more precise than machines—an unconscious compulsion born from repetitive obsession. People who exploit that compulsion are frightening; once they decide to do something, they bulldoze through barriers like a machine.
"Damn it! He's persistent as hell! What are the others doing!"
Mark was irritated. Shirone's refusal to yield the lead left no room for the operation squad to intervene. When he glanced sideways with a fierce look, the operation-squad girl next to him flinched. It was a silent pressure to begin the final measure.
Their plan: a mutual suicide.
But the safety device was off. She doubted whether it was truly the right thing.
"No. I have to do it. Whether I die now or live a failed life, it's the same."
She drove her focus to its peak. If she gave up finishing and cast teleportation, she could snatch the lead for a moment.
She chained rapid teleports and cut off Shirone's path from the front. At the same time, another operation-squad member blocked Shirone's left flank.
With both his front and flank cut off, when the girl reduced her speed, Shirone had no choice but to shorten his leap distance.