How To Survive A Calamity

"Glad to see everyone could make it."

Deandra stood with her hands crossed before her teammates, donned in the Academy's standard uniform, equipped, this time, with only light pieces of leather armour.

Before her, Don, Trise, and Victor each stood, geared up to different extents.

Except for Victor.

He only carried a bow and a quill of arrows hanging from his waste. He stood there with an iffy expression, Deandra strangely couldn't make out exactly what kind of face he was making.

The group were currently in a strange, dark and grim forest with a dark twilight and blue sky that was blurred and obscured by unseen shadows. Despite it being day, the entire surreal forest was cast in the noir of night.

The burgeoning trees and their lightless, ash coloured leaves eerily moved, whistling faintly in a ghostly wind.

The ground was dried and felt brittle, like a single step would shatter the entire surface like glass. A shattered moon hung high above the lightless canopies in the dark greyish blue sky. The chunks and fragments scattered outward like scattered stars.

At this point, Chelsea looked around and rubbed her shoulders, holding an impressive spear to her chest.

"Yikes. It's too eerily creepy, even for a realistic simulation." She shuddered.

Victor stepped forward, casually walking past her.

"This is merely supposed to be replica of what a real dungeon may seem like. If you're intimidated now, then how would you react during the Exercise."

Chelsea groaned quietly at him. She paused, then addressed him back.

"How are you so nonchalant about this? It's only a simulation, but it's replicating the internal structure of an actual dungeon, you know?"

Victor turned around and gave her a dry look. For a few seconds, he just stared at her, then Victor sighed.

"Waah, I'm so scared."

"That's not convincing at all!"

"Meh," Victor shrugged indifferently, "worth the effort."

"That's enough, you two."

The one who said this was Deandra, who was walking ahead of the group, leading forward. The ash, grim forest was slowly infiltrated by the small group of cadets, the shattered moon fragments cast a pale dim glow over their heads.

The cadets were currently in a highly advanced technological fully immersive simulation chamber. It was an advancement designed and made possible with the combination of both complexities of magic and technology.

It simulated and replicated special conditions and circumstances for practical exercises, while stimulating perception and the senses for realism. And in this case, the chamber was broadly simulating one of many, countless environments and internal structure of a dungeon.

As the group advanced through the forest of thick ashen trees, the gazes of the cadets couldn't help but wonder and linger.

The ground was so dry, every of their steps crunched as they walked.

The short haired Trise looked up with an uneasy expression. She stared at the twilight dark blue sky, one hand pensively gripped her sheathed rapier hanging next to her waist.

Trise gulped and her brows folded.

"Are all dungeons like this?"

The ash coloured trees, the dry brittle ground, the lightless twilight blue sky...there was an encompassing eeriness to the simulated environment tickling at her senses.

At that point, Victor said quietly, in a small voice only he could here, as if responding to himself, equally looking around and absorbing the surrounding.

"Technically, Dungeons are passageways leading to fragmented parts of worlds inverse to our own. So being in a dungeon isn't much different than being in another world."

"What? Oh, i didn't think you knew a lot about dungeons." Chelsea suddenly said from behind him.

Unexpectedly, the lively auburn haired girl had caught wind of his small voice and listened.

Victor turned to look over his shoulder, hesitated and felt the subtle gaze of Deandra, who was still ahead at the front, on him.

"What's with that?'

She seemed to have also been caught on on their conversation.

He pretended not to notice and continued to act naturally as he addressed Chelsea instead in a flat voice.

"I attended a few classes."

Saying so, he glanced back at the figure of Deandra, who had diverted her gaze and attention away from him.

Victor didn't think much of it and just continued forward.

Before the day of the Practical Field Experience Exercise, there was a lot of preparations that needed to he done in such little time. And what better way to gather experience for Dungeon diving than to simulate one itself?

Victor silently glanced around, his thoughts a mystery behind a vague and unreadable expression.

'It's a lot more different than i expected.'

Though just a simulation replicating a Dungeon, the structure was unlike anything he'd almost imagined. The dark realistic and lightless sky, the eerie forest of ash coloured trees, all of it were a far cry away from the underground cave structure of the Inheritance Dungeon of Laplace.

If anything, didn't the Idea of underground tunnels and structures fit more for the image of a dungeon?

Yet, here...

Victor looked up.

'There's even a moon.'

Although it was dead and broken.

"What could have even caused that?" Chelsea, who walked up next to him, said, staring at the broken sky, in a bemused voice mixed with awe and horror.

"It really feels like we're in another world."

"We shouldn't let our guard down in a real dungeon. Let's cut the chatter and focus, there's a reason why we've come here." Deandra's stern voice cut through, her bright red hair swayed very gently in the dry wind that raced past.

Deandra's words pulled the cadets back to their reality.

And just then, there was a small, subtle and imperceptible shift in the atmosphere. Victor looked forward, his gold eyes shimmered, unseen.

At the same time, Don said in a heavy voice, his expression grim.

"Something's coming."

"Take your formations, just as we talked about!" Deandra's voice spat out an order, and the cadets moved and scattered into positions.

Don took to the front, standing shoulder to shoulder to Deandra.

Chelsea raised her spear, and Trise pulled out her rapier; the both of them registering the second line in the formation behind the Vanguard held by Don and Deandra.

And lastly, Victor kicked off his feet and back stepped backwards, knocking an arrow to his bow with a calm expression behind the girls.

It wasn't much, but this was the initial formation Deandra could come up with for her group while taking into consideration the attributes and weapons of the members.

At that point, Don snickered and said over his shoulders.

"Hey, 1499, don't be a nuisance."n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Victor just stared and remained silent, his expression unmoving as he held up his bow.

Deandra had the small leisure to glance at the formation of her teammates one last time. Don's words managed to have her gaze linger longer on Victor who held up the rear at the very end.

Her brows furrowed at him.

"Can you really use that?" She glanced at his raised bow.

Last she recalled, during his duel against Ceres, hadn't Victor used a spear before?

But now, instead, he brought along a bow.

Victor met her inquisitive gaze without much change and shrugged.

"More or less."

That response was... unsatisfactory.

"More or less?" Deandra growled.

The whole formation was designed to accommodate the nature and characteristics of all the members. That means, the positions may be more effective and different, if Victor's weapon wasn't a bow and a spear.

But after that, Victor said nothing more and proceeded to ignore the red haired.

Deandra too, though unsettled with doubt, no longer had any more luxury to waste time.

She pulled out a magnificent long sword gracefully, and raised a Powerful stance.

Then at the same time, a small tremor ran through the dried and brittle ground as a low echoe reverberated. The ash leaves ruffled and the thick forest bush swayed, and something lunged out of the forest, pouncing straight at the group.

A humanoid monster with a stunted stature. Black bristling fur outlined the outlay of its muscular body, and jagged fangs protruded from its wide salivating more.

Immediately, Trise shouted in alarm.

"Kobold!"

And there wasn't just one.

The bushes ruffled unnaturally as multiple dark figures lunged mercilessly at the group's formations from almost all over.

Deandra solidified her stance. Find your next adventure on empire

"Look alive!"

Faint sparks ignited in her burning red eyes.

"Do not look away!"

She raised her sword, her grip tightening.

"Hold the formation!"

Resplendent flames erupted from the blade, and Deandra brought her sword down in a magnificent descending arc.

At the same time, the wind unnaturally bent to Don's will, bolstering the smouldering flames of Deandra, like gas to a fire, until it billowed outward into a raging inferno.

-BOOM!

A sea of vibrant yellow flames surged forth, devouring a vast pasture of the forest before the formation.

The attacking monsters were caught off guard by the blistering heat, Deandra's magically conjured flames were scattered and empowered by Don's wind, expanding their range of destruction.

And at the same time.

•[Skill <Lock On> Level 2 has been activated]

Victor pulled on his bow and let an arrow run loose.