[381] Vol. 16 - The Meaning of Survival (3)
Colli descended into the Virtual Zone, and the thirty students split into red and blue teams.
Shirone took a deep breath and tried to relax.
The survival assessment wasn't a one-on-one fight against a person, nor a tactical battle against monsters.
There was no way to win against nature.
Pain was an unavoidable fate, and there were ten seconds left before it hit.
Perhaps because of that, some students who'd experienced it last year were already draining of color from their faces.
"Damn. If it weren't for this, I'd happily stay in the graduating class another ten years."
The thing graduating students wanted to avoid above all else was the survival test.
- Transmitting information to the Virtual Zone. Standby: 5 seconds. 4. 3...
When the female voice announced it, each student reacted differently: some shut their eyes tight, others rolled their shoulders and necks, some fixed a calm, impassive expression to steady themselves.
Shirone stared straight ahead and centered himself. Then someone tapped his arm. It was Iruki.
"Let's make it out alive, Shirone."
- Data transmission complete. Activating Virtual Zone extreme-cold simulation.
Beyond Iruki's bitter smile, the scenery began to shimmer.
The Virtual Zone slid away like turning a page in a picture book, and the summit of a snowy mountain appeared in an instant.
Shirone looked around in surprise.
A cold wind bit his nose, and the snow underfoot reflected the sunlight in a dazzling blaze.
The sky looked close enough to touch.
The surrounding peaks wrapped around like walls, their colors sharp as if oil had been poured over the rock.
"This is… Survival Stage One?"
Even students above Class Two had never seen the exact same setup twice; the survival program was reset for each assessment.
Iruki turned and pointed.
"Start from over there."
Shirone followed his finger and his eyes went wide.
A massive cloud of snow he'd never seen before—and likely never would again—was descending slowly.
An avalanche.
"Shit!"
Many students, like Boil and Pandora, cast teleportation and flew away in the opposite direction.
But a few, including Shirone, stayed where they were.
The avalanche was approaching far slower than they'd expected. It was pouring from an enormous height. That it nevertheless looked so huge meant an unimaginable volume of snow was surging down.
"This isn't a situation made for dodging…."
Kuuuuung!
An astronomical mass of snow struck the summit and shoved the air outward.
A gale like it would tear skin from the cheek ripped through, and a three-hundred-meter-high wall of snow swept the peak in 0.1 seconds.
"Ugh!"
Shirone gritted his teeth and steadied himself.
The avalanche, flowing faster than a rapid, mercilessly hurled him off the summit.
"No! Get a hold of yourself!"
He swallowed the snow that forced into his mouth and forced his way through the mass.
"Puhah!"
The heap was larger than an iceberg and tumbled toward a bottom where the ground couldn't be seen.
From the top of that snow mound, Shirone thrust his face out.
"Puhah! Puhah!"
He spat everything from his mouth and blinked to find the round sun set in a clear sky.
Rising into the air, Shirone kept his flight spell active and scanned the surroundings.
One by one, students who'd reached the same conclusion popped out from the snow that had buried them.
"Shirone!"
When he turned at Iruki's shout, he saw him plastered with snow from head to toe, pointing down.
"Just come down slowly—!"
Before the sentence finished, a white waterfall of snow swallowed Iruki.
Shirone's startled gaze flew upward. The clear sky had been completely blocked by white.
"This is insane…!"
A white torrent flowed across the spot where Shirone had been standing.
"Waaaah, waaahhh…."
"It hurts… Somebody help…"
Colli watched the students tumbling through the Virtual Zone with a pitying look.
From the moment the avalanche struck, all thirty students without exception had gone into a downed state.
"How awful. They were raised so sheltered."
Victory or defeat ultimately rested with the final winner, but that didn't mean students would give up the assessment lightly.
Individual achievement, not just team performance, was visible to the Association and scouts, so they would fight tooth and nail to endure.
"It might be a situation you never need to face in your life. But the world you'll live in is harsher than this. Simply because it's reality, life becomes hell."
"So it's begun already."
Colli hurriedly unclasped his hands behind his back and turned.
"Principal."
Alpheas stood looking at the Virtual Zone accompanied by Vice-Principal Olivia.
"All of them are downed. Well, it's to be expected."
"Even the pros hate it. It's the kind of event that even some alumni—like Tio—won't endorse for lesser-known schools."
The survival assessment was a topic of much debate even at the Association.
It was useful to evaluate real-world ability, but there was a risk of breaking students before they'd had a chance to grow.
Students who didn't graduate would still be valuable members of society in the long run. If there were no mages to open magic shops, to teach, to join the constabulary, to take on guild requests, or to handle administrative work, the magical community couldn't function.
For that reason the Association issued a guideline that the survival assessment should be held only by the five major schools that received more than ten graduation tickets.
Because only the chosen faced it, survival became the kind of story alumni would inevitably bring up over drinks.
If you were asked to go back to school and do it again you might cringe, but that feeling was also a kind of pride for a prestigious institution.
Olivia frowned. "This is the program the Association provided this year, right? Stage One, 'Snowstorm'?"
"Yes. Two minutes remaining. It will feel like two hours to the students, though."
Olivia pinched her brows in displeasure.
"But not a single elimination? That makes it hard to separate the low scorers. I'll have to request they raise the difficulty next time."
Alpheas gave a wry smile and shook his head.
The homeroom teacher seemed desperate to see his pupils wearing finer medals.
"Guuuh!"
Shirone saw a rock hurtling toward him and fell, covering his face with his arms.
A jolt of pain ran along his arm bones and his nose stung. A clump of snow hit his head.
He'd fallen far enough from the summit that the snow's mass wasn't enough to suffocate him, but the shock rattled his skull.
"My arm—my arm's broken."
Even wrapped in an air shield, he'd fallen too fast for the barrier to absorb the full impact.
Lying prone on the rock, he lifted his head and saw a sharply broken arm bone protruding through the skin.
It was a virtual world, so it would reconstruct soon, but the pain traveling along the nerves was more irritating than in reality.
"Huff! Huff! Huff!"
He'd landed on a rock jutting out from the mid-cliff.
This was better than being crushed. If it stayed this way, he could only hope Stage One would end in time.
Crack. Crrrreeak.
As if mocking him, a fissure appeared in the rock and the place began to show signs of collapse.
Shirone clutched his broken arm and shrugged his shoulder.
"Heh. Heh heh."
He laughed at the absurdity.
"This is a regular exam? Are they trying to kill people?"
He pictured the faces students would make if survival were chosen for the graduation test.
He felt a sudden respect for every graduate in the world.
"All right. Let's see this through."
With eyes burning with resolve, Shirone lifted his head.
As the rock tore away, his body fell toward the ground.
* * *
Sploosh!
What was that?
Hearing the sound of immersion, Shirone opened his eyes.
A cold like it could shatter his mind slammed into him. Students bobbed and sank in the water, foam fountaining up without mercy.
"Is this Stage Two?"
There was an actual process for moving from Stage One to Stage Two, but those who'd gone into the downed state couldn't feel it.
It was designed to leave no chance for them to recover their minds.
"Why can't I use magic?"
He couldn't enter the Spirit Zone. Of course, because this world was simulated, magic wasn't truly blocked—but the system prevented its use here.
"Get to the surface."
Shirone thrashed like a frog and fought for the surface. If he stayed under any longer he'd freeze to death.
Just as he reached up near the surface, his pupils jolted in shock.
He couldn't get through.
What his hand met was a cold, solid wall of ice.
"How am I supposed to get out then?"
A hazy silhouette moved on the ice above. When he pushed his face closer he saw a young boy squatting there.
"I need to get out. I'm starting to suffocate."
Shirone pounded the ice with his fist like an SOS.
After staring for a long moment, the boy nodded as if he understood and pointed somewhere.
"There? If I go there I can get out?"
Shirone jabbed his index finger to confirm the direction.
The boy nodded again and, as if to show the way, walked toward that spot.
Shirone pushed against the ice and followed. Even as he moved, the cold water tightened around his throat.
"This is bad. I can't hold on much longer."
He wanted to reach the opening and breathe freely right now. But the boy's steps were maddeningly slow.
"Hurry! Faster! I can't—"
His will to hold his breath had run out. From now on he simply could not inhale because there was no air.
His body trembled with cold and the terror of death.
At last the boy stopped. He looked down at Shirone and pointed to a spot a couple of paces away.
"That's it!"
Shirone dog-paddled with all his strength. Only three meters remained, but it felt impossibly far.
"I made it! Finally…!"
Bursting with joy, he reached for the exit.
Clack.
A solid wall of ice blocked him again.
"What…?"
His head went pale. Shirone demanded an explanation with his eyes of the boy on the ice.
The boy clutched his belly and snickered, then leaned down and stuck his tongue out at Shirone.
Gurgle!
A mouthful of air rumbled up from Shirone's chest.
"No. Calm down."
He forced the burning rage back down.
The boy, playing with his tongue in a place full of clean air, was infuriating. But getting angry wouldn't change anything.
"Show me again. Where's the exit?"
Shirone pounded the ice with pleading eyes.
The boy considered it like a puzzle, stroking his chin as if conflicted, even with a man gasping for air below his feet.
Shirone felt his head grow hot again.
"No. If I lose my cool now it's over."
At last the boy reached a conclusion. He turned to Shirone and shook his head as if to say he couldn't show him.
"Control your anger. I'm a mage."
Light began to fade from Shirone's pupils. As oxygen stopped reaching his brain, his organs started to fail.
"Anger won't change anything. Don't let go of reason until the moment you die…"
Gurgle!
Gas in his stomach burst up through his mouth. Cold water rushed in to fill the space.
His cells felt like they were freezing.
His dog-paddling stopped and his palm, still pressed to the ice, stiffened and slowly let go.
As he sank, he saw the boy smiling down at him.
The boy watched Shirone's face being swallowed by the abyss.
Then, as if making a decision, he nodded and brandished a trident that had appeared from nowhere.
Kraaaang!
With one strike the ice shattered.
That sight entered Shirone's deadened eyes.
Slowly, frozen nerves conveyed the fact to his brain and his legs trembled, lifting his body a little.
"Puhhaaah! Get out! Get out!"
Bursting to the surface, Shirone greedily gulped air. For the moment nothing else existed in his mind.
"Haa! Haa!"
After about a minute he finally came to.
The ice was calm and the boy had vanished.
"Puhah! Puhah!"
One by one the students surfaced. Amy was not far off.
"You made it through."
Amy inhaled repeatedly as if she'd faced death. Then she spotted Shirone and their eyes met.
She smiled and greeted him, blowing air through her wet hair to toss it back.
"Haha!"
Shirone laughed. It really was hard just to survive.
And that was his last memory of Stage Two, "Ice Chamber."