Haruki blinks, confused at the way the loner student just told him to stay safe and immediately disappeared.
"That was weird..."
"Hey Haruki! Are you going to join the raid or not!?" A student shouted at him as dozens of students were equipping their gears outside the dungeon.
"Alright, thanks for reminding me, Rin." He thanks Rin, a female student that got isekaid along with the whole class, and joined in with everyone.
-----
Lynda Wynn sighed as she looked at the row of students lining up in front of her as she stood on a podium.
'What is this weird cultural thing they have, most adventurers would just stand unevenly, or maybe in groups with their friends and talk with each other before shutting up and listening to my speech. They're too organised and... Disciplined? That's the word that the oldest hero in this batch said. Maybe our world is too different from each other.'
Lynda Wynn scratches her head, that teacher uses confusing words that have not existed yet in this world, but it doesn't matter right now so she'll just ignore it and move on.
"Heroes! This dungeon in front of us is a beginner level dungeon, usually used by the kingdom to test our warriors, and this time, it's to test the heroes." Lynda looks at the heroes in front of her, noticing that not all heroes are here but that's fine since apparently not all heroes here are suitable for combat, some are better suitable for healing and support. Though that doesn't stop some heroes from wanting to join the raid even though their support is purely for support.
Lynda turned her gaze to the one gloves wearing hero, Haruki, before focusing back on her speech.
"Since there are many heroes participating in this raid, instead of announcing the heroes that are participating, I'll announce the heroes that aren't participating in order to make this speech shorter." Lynda Wynn clears her throat and takes out a piece of paper with a list of names that's been given by the teacher, it's the attendance paper for the students. "Yuki Kai, Kurou Ino, Shion... Oh wait, he's not summoned? Then the next one is... Al?" She squint her eyes to make sure the two letter name is actually there. 'Why is this name so different from the rest?'
"And the last one is... Kanna Ariga." The moment that name got out of Lynda Wynn's lips, the students began to murmur among themselves.
'That caused something... But they don't bat an eye at any other names? Not even the only hero from the same place as them that wasn't summoned here? Oh well, maybe they just don't expect much from them other than that Kanna girl.' Lynda shrugged as she waved her hand to the nearby knights, signalling them to give supplies to the heroes for staying in the dungeon.
"These are foods and drinks for you all in case you get lost in the dungeon and have to wait for rescue. Use them wisely, don't waste it."
-----
All students were given a pouch of bread and a water bottle for emergencies in case they got lost.
Haruki curiously looks at the leather water bottle. 'When she said she'll be giving us bread and water bottles, I didn't expect this...' He straps the water bottle and pouch of bread to his belt and looks at the other students.
'Al disappeared... He didn't even say anything before suddenly pop out of existence, probably a teleport skill that he has. Kurou said that he left to open a restaurant in this world, using his abilities to share the foods of our world to this one. Kanna... I wanted to apologise to her for giving her the cold shoulder and not talking to her at all for more than 3 years but she vanished before I could.'
Haruki sighed. 'I thought Kanna was better off without me with her being successful and getting the highest possible mark in the exam. And the moment I wanted to talk to her again and say sorry to her for not talking to her, she suddenly disappeared.'
Haruki shook his head and looked at the entrance of the dungeon, tightening his gloves.
"Alright, let's get this over with."
-----
Teams are assigned in two, each team will go to the dungeon with a guide, guiding them to the deepest level while letting the team deal with any monsters and traps. If they've succeeded in doing it, then they passed the test and will be guided back to the surface and the next team will go next to pass this test.
"Alright now for the last team... Rin Satsuki and Haruki Sato! When you're ready, speak to your guide that you're ready to proceed with the test."
Haruki clenched his fist, standing up on his two feet while looking determined. Rin raised her eyebrows at what he did as she put her short sword and dagger back in their respective sheaths on her waist. Haruki should not be fighting anyone or anything, he said so himself that he only has a support skill, so why did he tighten his gloves like he's going to fight something?
Does he have some idealistic thoughts or something about needing to protect people? That he should be saving people, or rather, he wants to be the one saving people?
Rin sighed, it doesn't matter anyway, because this world will teach him what will happen to such a naive, idealistic fool.
But it's fine, no matter what happens, Haruki will turn out okay.
Rin is sure of it.
-----
Alex isn't sure what to think of these heroes.
He looks at the pair of heroes that he's supposed to guide. The laidback girl called Rin and the heroic support called Haruki.
Apparently from what Lynda said to him, Rin's abilities are telekinesis and combat mastery while Haruki's ability is transmutation. He doesn't know what transmutation is but from what he heard from other heroes, it's changing something for another thing.
He sighed, the past heroes aren't this... Weak? Have such few abilities? Something like that, though he should've expected this when there's a lot of heroes here that have been summoned other than the usual singular one hero. Must've been the work of Equivalent Exchange.
In any case, he still has a job to do, guiding the two newbie heroes to the end of the beginner dungeon.
-----
Tight spaces in this dungeon is terrible for swords user due to them unable to swing it anywhere without their blade hitting the stone wall, but for these two.
"Haruki."
"Right!"
Rin brought her small dagger up and due to its small size, it didn't hit the ceiling of the cave, a goblin is feet away and is out of range of the dagger, but as she swung the dagger down, the dagger suddenly turned into a long sword and it cuts the Goblins in half.
"Spear."
With the spearhead forward, Rin charges forward, piercing through multiple goblins that have no way to run because of the tight passage.
Rin continues to charge until there are 5 goblins that got pierced through the spear and she stopped and looked at Haruki, using her telekinesis and breaking the spear into multiple small pieces and letting the goblin corpses fall to the ground.
"Knives."
The multiple pieces of a broken spear float up in the air, turning into throwing knives and she pointed at the darkness in front of her. Immediately, the knives launched in the darkness ahead at high speed, Alex and Haruki look on with wide eyes as they could hear the pained screams of goblins but Rin stayed composed.
Rin turned to Alex. "So the final room is right there, right?" Rin points at the darkness in front of them.
Alex blinked, still surprised that this duo is able to reach this floor at such a fast pace and their teamwork is amazing too. Looks like these heroes are powerful after all. "Yes... The room is right ahead, you have to find a special artifact in the room and bring it back outside the dungeon and to Lynda."
Rin looks at the room and turned to Haruki. "Haruki, go ahead and find it, we'll wait here for you."
"Alright." Haruki nodded and went inside the room ahead.
Alex looks at the man going to the room ahead alone and turns back to Rin. "Are you not going there? It's dangerous for your friend there to be alone y'know."
Rin shakes her head, not concerned at all. "It's fine, Haruki will be okay, besides, we don't need to bring back the artifact, right? This is just to test us if we can come back from this dungeon alive. And the artifact is just to prove that we actually did go to the deep part of this dungeon."
Alex looks at her with wide eyes, it's only been 3 minutes and she has already found out the true purpose of this test?
"What with the look? I think anyone from my world will be able to find out about it. And if they're not talking about it then they probably just didn't care." Rin shrugged as she squinted her eyes in the room ahead to look at it better since it's pretty dark in it.
Then suddenly, both of them can hear the sound of the floor breaking down in the room ahead. Rin looks at the room for a few seconds and turns back to Alex. "Alex, can you go back and report the situation to Lynda? I'll go ahead and check on him."
Alex nodded and hurriedly left, leaving her alone as she headed inside the room and looked at the hole in the floor.
Rin saw Haruki deep in the hole, waving his arms at her. Looks like Haruki is in the unexplored part of the dungeon.
"Rin! I'm here! Can you lift me up?" Rin looked down at him, her face hidden from Haruki's perspective.
"Haruki... Whether you survive or not, nothing will change." Haruki's face looks confused as his arms slowly stop waving.
"What..." "What you can do, everyone else can do better way more efficiently." Rin continues to look down at him as she uses her telekinesis ability to fix the hole in the ground, making the only light source he has gotten smaller and smaller.
"You're alone, Haruki, no one will miss you. They'll just think you ran away just like that childhood friend of yours." Rin's voice echoed through the darkness around him, suddenly a small lighter fell in front of him. He looks up to see the hole is now only as small as an eyeball, but he can still Rin's eyes staring at him through the hole.
"I'll feel guilty if I just leave you here with nothing, so I gave you a lighter. It won't be too dark for you now." Haruki looks at the lighter for a few seconds before suddenly hearing the sounds of rocks scratching against itself and he looks up at the cave wall in front of him. An arrow formed on the cave wall pointing deeper into the cave, he looks up and sees that the hole has fully closed up now.
Now he's alone with nothing but a lighter and a sign of direction showing where he has to go.
-----
He walked further into the dungeon, lighter in hand that's only showing a small speck of light amidst the utter darkness.
"These arrows, they're probably leading me to the exit of this place. I trust Rin to lead me to it... And even if she stopped making the arrows, the people outside will probably find out about my absence and will search for me in this place."
-----
The arrows have stopped appearing now, maybe Rin has left him? No... She hasn't abandoned him yet... Her telekinesis probably just can't reach here and make another arrow... Yeah... So he should keep going further and trust Rin's original direction.
-----
It's cold... It's dark... How long has he been walking? He could've sworn that someone, or something, is following him, watching his every move but still, He still needs to continue on, he needs to press forward to escape from this place, even when he wrapped his arms around himself for warmth and exhale in exhaustion, letting out visible cold breath of his.
-----
Hungry... Thirsty... That's what he's feeling for days. That's what it feels like for him anyway, he has no perception of time here, no sun or clock in this dark cave. He held his stomach in hunger, he began to think that he had been abandoned but he quickly shook her head to get rid of such thoughts, walking limply forward further into the dungeon as he focused his mind to think about this dungeon.
'How big is this dungeon?'
-----
He fell to his knees, his lips dried and his stomach empty. There's no source of water and food at all in this cave even though he has walked for god knows how long.
He punches the ground, making blood spurts out of his hand.
He looks at his bloodied hand with a tear in his eyes.
"I don't want to accept it..."
"But..."
He continues to punch the rocky ground with tears in her eyes, crying yet full of rage.
"She abandoned me... Not just her... Everyone did... My own classmates... Even those guys from the kingdom..."
He scratches the jagged surface, until his hands hurt, until his hands are more bloody than before, until his nails begin to break and is slowly pried from his fingers.
"Aaaaahh..."
He finally stopped hurting himself, but not because of pain, but because he doesn't have enough stamina left to even move.
"I... I..."
The presence that he felt earlier, the one that was watching him when the arrows had stopped appearing.
They're revealing themselves.
The predator has found the right moment to strike their prey.
When the prey is at his most broken, exhausted state.
But he, Haruki, kept mumbling to himself, ignoring the predator getting near him, it's mouth drooling at the sigh of prime meat in front of it.
"I... I..."
Haruki, despite his current state, in surprising calmness, slowly moves his hand to his sides as he gets on his two feet.
The predator stopped approaching it's prey as it looked at him with caution.
Haruki's hand twitched.
"I will kill them all."
-----
Transmutation.
The power to change a state of being to another form.
Like turning mercury into gold.
And when such an ability is long range, it's proved to be quite helpful no matter what.
But what happened when it got out of control?
What happens when the owner of such power is in a mental breakdown and their power reacts to it in kind?
Simple, it will change everything around him.
Even living beings.
-----
"ROAAARRR!!!"
The creature in front of him roared, it immediately dashed towards him, intending to kill him immediately before he could do anything with his power.
But the moment its claws were inches from his face, its claws got shorter, but it didn't give up, it keeps getting closer and closer, and its claws got smaller and shorter in kind and now its claw isn't even a claw anymore, just nails. Even all of its claws turned into nails like that of a human's one.
But that's fine, it still has its front legs to strike him with.
But right when it did, it missed, or rather, it didn't reach him.
It got closer to him yet again and this is when it realised something.
Its front legs have turned into arms, human arms with 5 finger hands and nails. Skin that's covered in some kind of cloth.
"Wha-"
She puts her hands on her mouth, wide eyes and is confused. What's happening? What sound did she just make? She usually only lets out growling noises.
"What's... Happening..."
In her moment of confusion, she didn't feel the warm yet cold fingers of the man before her wrapping itself around her neck.
A squeeze.
Arms outstretched, reaching for the man in front of her.
But she can't reach him, her arms are short like that of a school girl after all.
And soon, the girl's body fell limp.
-----
Haruki breathes heavily as he looks down at the girl that he's holding by the neck, drool drips down his chin and into the girl's face.
"So cold... So thirsty... So hungry..."
He brought the unconscious girl closer to him as he began to sniff the neck of the girl. The girl's arm limply hangs at her sides.
"Rin... Satsuki..."
Same face. Same shape. Same size. Same hair length. Same hair colour. Same eye colour. Same ear size. Same fingerprints. Same arm length. Same leg length. Same. Same. Same. Same. Same. Same.
"Hahh..."
Other than her not wearing the red bow on her hair and her clothes being different, like an inverted coloured school uniform but with fur on some part of it, she still looks like the same Rin Satsuki.
"So... Hungry...."
He opened his mouth wide...
... And bit the girl in front of him on the neck.
-----
"Yawn... I didn't know doing paperwork in mediaeval magical time is this tiring..."
Rin Satsuki said, walking around the town alone after making that report to Lynda Wynn.
"...Hmm?"
Her eyes went up in confusion as she accidentally stepped on something hard and round.
She looks down to see what it is.
A skull stares back at her.
"AH!"
She fell to the ground backwards, at the middle of the fall, she caught a glimpse of her surroundings.
Everything is dead, tree dried, skeletons everywhere, buildings ruined and destroyed.
And right when her body fell to the ground...
"Hey, are you okay?"
A voice calls out to her and as she blinks, life has returned to the world once more.
"What..."
She looks up to see one of her classmates, Kurou Ino, looking down at her in worry as he puts his hand out for her.
"Yeah... I'm fine." She takes his hand and gets on her feet.
"Oh thank god. I was worried there when you suddenly fell like that. Anyway I need to go now, later!" Kurou said as he ran to an important looking building so that he could open his restaurant.
Rin sighed and turned around, walking in the opposite direction.
"I'll see you later... Haruki."