I Can See Evolution Paths

Chapter 60: Everyone Was Looking Away

The white light resolved into the King’s Arena and the King’s Arena was quiet.

Every student who had been on the field was back, and every one of them turned in the same direction within the first three seconds. Not toward the scoreboard but Arthur.

The silence held for longer than silences usually held when large numbers of people were in a room together.

Then a second-year student raised one hand and pointed. "How?" he said.

Another student shook his head. "When did he sit down?"

"I looked at the throne," someone said. "Multiple times."

"So did I," said someone else, from a different part of the field.

"There was nobody there," the first student said. "I’m certain."

"I’m also certain," said the second.

They looked at each other.

Arthur scratched the side of his cheek. "Did something happen?" he said.

The scoreboard shifted before anyone answered him.

The rankings reformed with the specific efficiency of a system that had been waiting for everyone to be present before delivering the result. Names climbed and fell. Amanda. Silver. Leon. The times adjusted and readjusted.

Arthur’s team’s score climbed.

Then it reached the top and stopped.

First place.

No one said anything in the area for a couple of seconds.

Sun stared at the scoreboard for a long moment. "We actually won," he said.

Mithra smiled. "I said we’d adapt."

Vedas was looking at his own hands and then closed one slowly. "We did it" he said.

Arthur had been watching Vedas. "Happy?" he said.

Vedas looked at him. "Very," he said.

Arthur suddenly stepped forward and hugged Vedas tightly. "We actually did it."

Vedas froze. "...Arthur."

Arthur laughed. "I’ve wanted to do that since they announced first place."

Vedas slowly smiled. "...You really are strange."

"So I’ve been told."

Sun laughed and shook his head. "I really thought your plan was insane."

Arthur blinked. "It was."

Sun stared. "...You admitted it?"

Arthur nodded. "I just thought it had a good chance of working."

...

Steven stepped forward from the side of the arena. "The winning strategy," he said, "was not the illusion."

Everyone froze before giving Steven looks of disbelief and confusion.

"Wait... Could you mean what monsters were?"

A second-year student worked through it first. "Them? I mean they were acting odd..." he said, moving slowly through the logic. "Like they weren’t attacking randomly."

"The monsters followed the largest mana concentration," Steven said.

"So Arthur gathered every monster into one fight," Amanda said.

Steven nodded. "Which made the throne the safest place on the field."

Silver laughed. "Then the illusion made sure nobody noticed he was already sitting there."

Steven smiled. "The illusion wasn’t the strategy." He looked across the arena. "It was only the final move. Arthur won because he understood how the battlefield would change."

"The illusion made me look somewhere else." Leon nodded. "By the time I figured it out, he’d been sitting there for more than five minutes."

Steven looked across the arena. "If Arthur had simply hidden, he would have lost. The victory began the moment he understood the battlefield."

The silence that followed had the quality of a room full of people completing the same thought simultaneously.

A second-year student said, very quietly. "Monster."

Someone near the back made a sound that was half-laugh and half-disbelief. "I went back and looked three times."

"I organized a team specifically to watch the throne," a third-year said, "and we still missed it."

One of the eliminated students, watching from the side, laughed openly. "I genuinely cannot be angry," he said. "I just want to know how he came up with it."

"Can we recruit him?" someone asked.

Arthur was thinking about the question about how he did it. "I kept looking for what everyone else had stopped looking at," he said. "Everything important stays where people stopped checking."

Steven quietly smiled. "...Exactly."

Nobody argued.

Because everyone immediately started thinking about what they had overlooked today.

...

Above the arena, in the observation area reserved for faculty, Roland stood beside a professor he had been speaking with before the challenge ended.

The other professor looked at the arena floor. "He keeps winning," she said.

Roland shook his head. "He keeps learning," he said. "The winning is secondary." He watched Arthur scratching his cheek in response to something Sun had said. "He doesn’t win because he has the strongest beast. He wins because he notices what everyone else has decided is not worth noticing."

"Student Council?" the other professor asked.

Roland watched a little longer. "Future expedition leader." He paused. "...The kind people remember."

The professor looked toward Roland. "You sound proud."

Roland smiled. "I am."

...

Ajax came forward last. "Many of you think today’s victory was a trick."

He let this sit.

"It wasn’t a trick," he said. "He understood how you guys were acting and used that to his advantage. You’ll be doing the same thing in real expeditions."

He then glanced toward Steven. "Looks like your gamble paid off."

Steven smiles. "It wasn’t a gamble."

"Oh? You expected him to win?"

"I figure he would have done something amazing... After all, isn’t that round the one that brings out the craziest people?"

Ajax laughed and said. "Ahh, now that you say that. It makes me remember those times."

"You mean us being drop from the sky and you using the other competitors as your shield?"

"Well that’s that too. I’m talking about you taking on–"

"We don’t talk about that." Steven says with a dry look, making Ajax laughs again.

The scoreboard changed one final time.

Fifteen names remained.

The rest disappeared.

Ajax looked at them. "Congratulations," he said. "One more round."

Arthur grinned at the scoreboard.

"One more?" he said.

Ajax grinned back. "One more."

And then, Steven announced the reward before they left the arena.

Each surviving team could request one item from the Iron Hall: a new weapon creation or a full equipment upgrade, whichever the team required. First-class material, senior craftsmen, no cost.

Arthur immediately turned toward Vedas.

Vedas was already looking at his spear.

Arthur followed his gaze and stopped.

The cracks were deep, it was obvious the spear had reached its limit. He took the spear gently, both hands, the way you took something that had been through more than it was built for.

His thumb moved across one of the larger splits.

Vedas sighed. "I couldn’t stop Mephistopheles."

Arthur immediately shakes his head. "You did."

Vedas looks confused and Arthur smiles. "You stopped him long enough."

Vedas trembled before shaking his hed and saying. "I... I still don’t like it."

Arthur grinned and said. "You wish you won?"

"I wanted to win..."

"Good."

Vedas eyes widened. "It’s?"

Arthur smiled. "It means you aren’t content and I’m happy about that. I want us to keep growing endlessly without stopping."

"Arthur..."

Arthur then sighed. "Still... It seemed the role I gave pushed you both as far as this could go," he said. Then he looked at Vedas. "So let’s find out what further looks like."

Vedas was quiet for a moment.

"Together," he said.

Arthur nodded. "Together."

For the first time since the tournament began Vedas smiled without hesitation. Leon walked over with Mephistopheles following behind him, golden scales still carrying faint scorch marks from the battle. The dragon looked toward Vedas, and for a brief moment neither beast looked away.

Leon stopped in front of Arthur and he smiled with his eyes shining.

Arthur blinked. "...You’re happy."

Leon gave a short laugh. "I am."

Arthur tilted his head. "I beat you."

"You surprised me." Leon looked toward the battlefield they had left behind. "I thought I’d figured out how you think."

He shook his head. "I expected another strange strategy." A pause. "I never expected... that."

Arthur scratched his cheek. "...Thanks?"

Leon laughed. "I mean it. You forced me to look at the battlefield differently."

Arthur smiled. "I’m glad."

Leon folded his arms. "Don’t misunderstand. I’m still planning to beat you."

Arthur nodded. "I know."

Leon glanced toward Mephistopheles. "And next time... I won’t let you disappear."

Arthur’s smile widened. "I’ll probably do something completely different anyway."

Leon laughed again. "...Good."

Arthur looked toward Mephistopheles.

The Golden Dragon stood proudly behind Leon, its golden eyes fixed on Vedas.

Arthur quietly said, "...He’s become terrifying."

Leon looked back at his partner. "He refuses to fall behind."

Arthur could almost feel Vedas’ frustration through their bond.

The fear.

The determination.

Leon noticed Arthur looking at Vedas. ""Looks like I’ve pulled ahead."

Arthur grinned. "Not for long."

For a second neither of them spoke.

Then Leon turned. "That’s exactly what I wanted to hear."

Mephistopheles followed.

As he walked away, Leon spoke without looking back. "Don’t become another predictable future for me... Arthur Cronwall." He paused. "Keep being the toy I can’t destroy."

Arthur laughed. "Then you keep being one of the keys that helps Vedas grow."

Leon smiled without turning around. "I was planning to." "I suggest you go upgrade that spear," he said. "Mephistopheles was very disappointed."

Vedas trembled before glaring harder at the golden dragon.

"Already planning to," Arthur said. "And next time we promise. The spear will once again pierced those golden scales."

Mephistopheles didn’t stop or turn around. "Good... You are not allowed... To disgrace me."

Vedas’ eyes narrowed. "I won’t."

And they left.

...

They were almost to the corridor when Arthur heard it.

Two first-years, talking without particular awareness of who was nearby.

"That’s the partner of the Goblin Commander, right?"

"That’s what I thought too," the other said. "But I heard someone call him something else after Round Two."

The first. "What?"

"A monster."

"Oh? Not bad... But I think the madman would be better... After all, I doubt anyone sane would think of a plan like that and still be so laid back."

"That’s true..."

"It also does go well with his previous acting of crashing into the Academy."

Arthur blinked. "...Madman?" He looked toward Mithra. "I don’t think that’s accurate."

Mithra smiled. "It is."

Sun nodded. "...It really is."

Athena adjusted her glasses. "Yes."

...

The Iron Hall arrived as heat before it arrived as architecture.

They felt it twenty meters from the entrance, the specific warmth of furnaces operating at a scale that buildings were not usually designed to contain. The glow from inside was visible through the gaps in the enormous doors, shifting colors, orange and gold and briefly white where something was being worked at temperature.

The hammers were audible as notes.

Arthur stopped at the threshold.

He looked at the molten rivers beneath the crystal walkways, at the great furnaces breathing along the upper walls, at the weapons and pieces of weapons in various stages of becoming what they were eventually going to be.

Arthur narrowed his eyes.

Something moved.

At first he thought one of the craftsmen had picked up a weapon.

Then he realized...

Nobody had touched it.

A silver sword slowly lifted itself from a workbench before gently rotating through the air.

Nearby, a spear shifted on its own.

The crystal embedded in its shaft pulsed once.

Its blade quietly reshaped itself before settling again.

Further inside, a massive war hammer repaired a crack running across its head. Molten metal flowed backward instead of downward, sealing the damage as though time itself had briefly reversed.

Arthur stared. "...They’re alive?"

"Some weapons carry memories." Athena smiled. "Some carry beasts. And some... eventually develop a will of their own."

Arthur’s eyes widened. "...Weapons can evolve too?"

Athena looked toward the endless forge. "The Iron Hall believes everything can evolve."

Arthur quietly smiled. "...I really like this Academy."

The doors opened.

The heat arrived completely.

Arthur looked across the endless forge. His eyes shone. "...Then... How far can evolution really go?"

He took one step forward into the Iron Hall that seemed endless.

He smiled. "...Let’s find out."