Chapter 16: Scapegoat [1]
There was no further announcement.
The moment the instructors opened the path, the expedition began without ceremony or countdown, catching more than a few students off guard.
Although no one had explicitly stated what the true objective of the examination was, an assumption was quickly made.
Reach the summit.
Whether that assumption was actually correct hardly seemed to matter. Within moments, team after team instinctively quickened their pace, eager to secure an early lead before the mountain paths became congested.
There were no plans exchanged, yet it was almost amusing how hundreds of students had independently arrived at the exact same conclusion, as though human beings naturally gravitated toward the same line of thought when left with too little information.
"...."
Ilya walked at the very back of the group, his gaze fixed on the two other knights ahead of him.
Gilbert of House Hohenberg and Jerome of House Madritsch quickly met his eyes before immediately looking away, lowering their voices as they continued walking side by side.
"Just ignore that guy."
"Yeah... he seriously gives me the creeps."
"...."
Ilya heard every word.
Even so, he simply remained silent, neither bothering to defend himself nor pretending he hadn’t heard them.
After several minutes of walking, Siegfried suddenly came to a stop.
The rest of the group stopped behind him, their attention shifting toward the Crown Prince as he glanced between each of them.
"Before we head any farther," Siegfried began, "I think it’d be better if we settled on a marching formation. It’ll save us from arguing later if we run into monsters or rough terrain."
He crouched down and drew a quick diagram in the dirt with the tip of his boot.
"My suggestion is two knights at the front to deal with anything blocking the path, two wizards in the center where they’ll be safest, and one knight together with one wizard bringing up the rear. That way, we’re protected from both directions without leaving anyone isolated."
He glanced around.
"What do you all think?"
"I don’t mind," Elise answered first. "It’s the standard marching formation they taught us during orientation."
Lucie nodded in agreement.
"Works for me. Keeping the wizards in the middle gives us enough time to react if something attacks."
Gilbert crossed his arms as Jerome nodded in agreement.
"I’ll take the front."
"So will I."
Siegfried smiled. "Perfect. Then Gilbert and Jerome will lead the way."
The two exchanged a glance before nodding.
"That leaves me in the rear," Siegfried continued as he looked toward Ilya. "You’ll be with me, Ilya."
At that statement, Gilbert frowned. "...Are you sure about that, Your Highness?"
"Hm?"
"The rear is where we’ll have to respond first if we’re attacked from behind," Gilbert said. "I’d rather have someone... more dependable covering that position."
"With all due respect, Your Highness," Jerome chimed in, choosing his words with obvious care, "House Belozersky is unquestionably one of the Empire’s most distinguished knightly houses. However... Ilya Belozersky’s reputation at the academy is rather... difficult to ignore..."
An awkward silence settled over the group.
Before anyone else could respond, Ilya just shrugged.
"I don’t mind walking in the middle instead."
Siegfried, however, shook his head.
"No."
His answer came so quickly that everyone turned toward him.
"If we’re asking everyone to trust the formation, then we should trust the people in it as well. Besides," he added with a smile, "I’d rather keep the person everyone seems worried about where I can talk to him."
He turned, then winked at Ilya.
In the end, Gilbert could only relent.
"...Fair enough."
With no further objections, the formation was settled.
Gilbert and Jerome took point, Elise and Lucie positioned themselves at the center, while Siegfried slowed his pace until he was walking beside Ilya at the rear, bringing the six-person team into formation as they continued deeper into Mount Serebryany.
"Looks like you’re stuck with me, Ilya," Siegfried said with a grin as he casually placed a hand on Ilya’s shoulder. "I hope you don’t mind."
"I wouldn’t dare."
Siegfried chuckled. "Let’s work hard, yeah?"
The six of them headed forward, accompanied by the sound of crunching snow and rustling pine needles.
"Say, Ilya," Siegfried began, attempting to make small talk, "is it always this cold in the North? I’ve never actually been there, but I imagine it’s even colder than this."
"I’d say this is roughly what a summer day in the North feels like," Ilya replied. "For someone born there, it’s fairly bearable. That said, remaining exposed to the cold for too long without proper preparation can still lead to all sorts of health problems."
Siegfried let out a whistle.
"I knew it was cold, but I didn’t think it was that cold."
"Most people underestimate it."
In truth, however, Ilya couldn’t tell the difference anymore.
Long ago, he had lost any meaningful sense of where the cold began or ended. Whether it was the gentle chill of the capital, the summer breeze of the North, or the biting winds of Mount Serebryany, everything felt exactly the same to him.
It was all swallowed by the endless winter of his Domain, a cold so absolute that even the North’s harshest blizzards seemed almost warm by comparison.
"Yep. The North is waaay colder than this," Elise chimed in as she glanced back over her shoulder while continuing down the trail. "But I think you’re remembering it wrong, Ilya. Even during the summer, it’s far colder than this."
She let out a small laugh.
"Do you remember the first time I visited the North? I caught a fever on the very first day because I insisted on going outside without listening to anyone."
"I don’t."
"Oh..."
The smile on Elise’s face gradually faded.
"Well... I guess that was a long time ago." She forced a laugh. "Right... of course you wouldn’t remember."
With that, she turned her attention back to the mountain trail, leaving the conversation there.
Lucie glanced back and forth between the two of them, her curiosity clearly piqued.
"...Hold on," she said. "You two knew each other before enrolling at the academy?"
"We did," Elise answered with a nod. "Our families have known each other for years, so we’d occasionally meet during social gatherings. I also visited the North a few times when we were younger."
"Really? You two don’t act like childhood friends at all."
"Ah, that’s—"
"People naturally grow apart," Ilya cut her off. "Time changes everyone, and we haven’t exactly spent much time together these past few years. "Even so... I still consider Elise a precious friend."
"...."
A small smile bloomed on Elise’s face. She lowered her gaze, as though trying to hide the fact that those simple words had made her happier than she had expected.
Not long afterward, Gilbert suddenly raised a hand.
"Stop for a moment."
The six of them immediately came to a halt.
Ahead, planted beside the trail, was a waist-high stone pedestal engraved with the academy’s crest. Atop it was a glowing crystal sphere, while a sheet of paper floated several inches above it through magic.
"So this is one of the objectives..." Siegfried murmured.
As the Crown Prince approached, the paper slowly unfurled by itself.
[Objective One: Emergency Supply Retrieval.
A logistics cache intended for an expeditionary unit has been scattered after a magical landslide. Locate and recover five academy supply crates hidden throughout the surrounding forest before continuing your ascent. Every recovered crate must be transported together to the designated checkpoint marked on your maps.]
The moment the final sentence was read aloud, the crystal sphere flashed brightly.
———!
Six small points of light appeared upon each student’s academy-issued map, scattered throughout the surrounding woodland.
"So we have to split up?" Jerome asked.
Gilbert immediately shook his head.
"Not necessarily. The crates could be trapped, guarded by monsters, or perhaps too heavy to carry alone."
Siegfried folded his map before looking at the rest of the group.
"Let’s stay together for now," he suggested. "There’s no point saving a few minutes if someone ends up getting isolated. Besides, if this is only the first objective, I doubt the academy intends to make it that straightforward."
No one voiced any objections.
Each objective paper listed not only a unique cargo identification code but also a brief location hint to narrow the search.
Rather than marking the exact position of every crate, the academy had instead provided vague descriptions of nearby landmarks, forcing each team to navigate the mountain themselves before confirming whether they had actually found the correct objective.
Following the directions written on the paper, Gilbert once again took the lead as the six-person team stepped off the mountain trail and into the dense forest.
They crossed a narrow stream, climbed over several fallen trees, and continued deeper under the towering pines until the trees gradually began to thin around a small clearing.
Gilbert suddenly slowed to a stop.
"I think that’s it."
"Ah."
"There."
Hidden under a cluster of snow-covered shrubs was a large wooden supply crate bearing the academy’s crest. Judging by its size alone, it would take several people working together to move it.
Then another voice echoed from the opposite side of the bushes.
"Oh?"
The six of them stopped in their tracks.
Emerging from the other side of the clearing was another expedition team, their eyes immediately settling upon the very same supply crate. For a moment, neither side moved as both groups realized they had arrived at exactly the same objective.
"...Well," Siegfried began with an awkward smile. "That didn’t take long."
"Oh! Your Highness?!"
One of the girls from the opposing team brightened in surprise before waving enthusiastically.
"Elena?" Siegfried greeted with a laugh. "Looks like we’re competitors this time."
"Elise?" another girl called out. "You’re on his team?"
"I guess we are," Elise replied with a helpless smile. "I wasn’t expecting to run into you this early."
Lucie also let out a chuckle as she recognized another familiar face among the opposing team’s Magic Department students.
Unlike the wizards, however, the knights remained silent.
Ilya’s gaze slowly shifted toward the armored students standing at the front of the opposing formation until recognizing one particular face.
"...Helene."
"Ilya?"
For a second, Ilya and Helene stared at one another across the clearing, while everyone else glanced back and forth between them, immediately realizing that the two teams were not made up entirely of strangers after all.
"Well," Siegfried said with a light chuckle, "it doesn’t look like either of us is in a hurry to start fighting."
From the other group, Elena nodded.
"I’d rather not waste time either. Why don’t we first make sure we’re actually after the same objective?"
"That sounds reasonable," Elise agreed.
Both teams reached for the objective parchments they had received earlier.
"There’s a cargo identification code written here," Lucie pointed out after reading the bottom of the page. "Every supply crate should have a matching code engraved somewhere on it so teams don’t accidentally recover the wrong cargo."
Gilbert immediately walked over to the crate and brushed away the layer of snow covering one of its corners.
"Found it."
A small brass plate had been fastened to the side.
Cargo No. S-17.
Jerome glanced down at his parchment.
"...S-17."
Helene’s team also lowered their eyes to their own objective sheet.
"...S-17?" one of their wizards read aloud.
A moment of silence followed.
Gilbert frowned. "...That’s going to be a problem."
Lucie looked from the crate to the opposing team before reading the code on their parchment one more time, just to make sure she hadn’t made a mistake.
"No... it really is the same..."
"...."
"...."
Both teams found themselves facing an objective that only one of them could reasonably complete.
"Surely... there has to be more than one—"
"No," Gilbert replied, shaking his head. "The paper was very specific. Every supply crate is unique, and each objective corresponds to a single cargo code. If both of our teams have been assigned the same crate... then only one of us can complete this objective."
An awkward silence settled over the clearing.
"Well..." one of the opposing knights began hesitantly. "Are we actually supposed to fight over it?"
"I have a proposal," Gilbert said. "Rather than turning this into a full-scale battle between twelve people, why don’t we settle it with a duel? One representative from each team. The winner takes the crate."
The opposing knights exchanged uncertain glances.
"That... sounds reasonable."
Gilbert nodded.
"In that case, we’ll have Ilya of House Belozersky represent our team."
Every pair of eyes immediately turned toward Ilya.
"...Huh?"
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