Zero Potential: Chapter 17 (Patreon)

Chapter 17

“Shouldn’t you be on bed rest?” Dean Philton found himself asking Professor Chan who had found his way into the headmaster’s office.

“I am fine now. Also, I cannot rest knowing that we have so many different conditions going on, right now.” Professor Chan said. Even though he was upright, there were slight hitches to his movement that denoted he was still suffering from lingering damage sustained from his impromptu battle with the unknown assailant that had found their way on school grounds.

Seeing the obvious disparity between Professor Chan’s words and his actions, Dean Philton could only shake his head in resignation.

“Honestly, I am glad you came. There are a lot of oddities happening on campus. I just got word that an F-Class student made it to the hundredth floor of the dungeon.”

“The hundredth floor of our dungeon?” Professor Chan asked, a note of incredulity in his voce. He, like Philton, had desperately searched for a way to get to the hundredth floor of the dungeon, eventually chalking the idea of more floors being a myth, despite the Divination masters claiming there were many more floors to be found.

“Yes, our very dungeon. There’s apparently more, as they supposedly entered on Survival Mode.”

“You mean, they cursed us all with having to follow in Survival Mode?” Professor Chan asked, a note of anger welling up in him. It was one thing to find the second part of a dungeon, such efforts could even be rewarded, even if they were for an F-Class student. But for that same student to then make the dungeon set to Survival Mode made it so they would now all have to take on the second part of the dungeon in Survival Mode as well.

“Any word on who entered the dungeon?” Professor Chan.

“Yes,” Philton began, as he searched through a few files, then found a sketch that had clearly been drawn by an Illusionist, where they managed to take a mental image and place it firmly on the parchment. “This is our F-Class prodigy that managed to find her way up to A-Class.”

At first Professor Chan just looked at the image of such an impudent student with a sense of pity and anger. They had been given a huge benefit, being allowed to not only try going to A-Class, where they would be exposed to more practical uses of magic and mana, but also the political connections they could make, if they kept their heads down and followed the status quo. For someone like that to have entered the dungeon and then set out for a case of suicide via Survival Mode was almost a form of poetic irony.

Still looking at the image, Professor Chan prepared himself to see the face of a dead man, or at least someone that would die here shortly.

“What, what is this? Some kind of joke?” Professor Chan said, suddenly collapsing as he felt his heart begin to beat with fear. Fear at seeing those calm eyes, it was the demon that had knocked him unconscious not two days ago, and here she was the spy sent from another kingdom staring back at him, mocking him.

Badump, badump, badump.

Professor Chan’s heart began to beat rapidly as fear gripped him, forcing his chest to constrict tightly. Then he more felt than saw the way the room began to spin violently around him as he crashed to the floor.

Thump.

“…he is stabilized, but his heart rate is erratic.” The voice of the nurse that recently discharged Professor Chan from the campus’s infirmary said.

“What? What happened?” Professor Chan said, groggily shaking his head as he tried to make sense of what was happening to him.

“I believe you fainted after seeing Terra Rose’s picture. Do you mind explaining why her face would cause such a problem?” Dean Philton said.

At that, Professor Chan just paused, trying to remember back to what happened. From the shadowing in the room, and the fact that the clock still said it was a while before the hour, Professor Chan realized that he had only been unconscious for a matter of moments.

“I mean, she is pretty, but to lose your head for a student, that is a bit unbecoming.” Philton continued, trying to add levity to the situation.

“No, that is no student. That is the monster that beat me up on matriculation day.” Professor Chan said.

With that both Philton and the nurse stared at Professor Chan in confusion. Then Philton looked over and grabbed the parchment off his desk. “This girl, she is the one that beat you up?”

Hearing that, and once again being forced to face his fear, Professor Chan could only look at the image for a moment before he looked away. Inside, something in him broke, as he realized he had a heart demon, one that only came about from facing a superior opponent and losing handedly. Had the roles been reversed, he knew for a fact that he would have killed the unconscious infiltrator, rather than leaving her lying of the ground.

Professor Chan wanted to argue, but then defeatedly he lowered his head and shoulders. “Yes, she is the one who put me into the coma.”

There was a moment of silence, as Philton took one last look at the image himself, before placing the image face down on his desk.

“Where is she now?” Professor Chan finally asked.

“Last I heard, she beat the hundredth floor and was already making her way further down into the dungeon.” Philton said.

“She made it past floor 100 on Survival Mode?” Professor Chan asked, just for clarification.

Philton just nodded in agreement.

Hearing that Professor Chan could only nod in understanding. Had he been told that anyone else was able to make their way that deep into the dungeon on Survival Mode, he would have laughed. But having faced that monster head on, he remembered bits and flashes from their battle. If what they did could even be considered a battle, as she had destroyed him. Utterly mocked him at every turn, for all his speed and prowess, he wasn’t even able to land a single strike on the monster in human clothing.

“I could see that; we must warn the other students not to follow her.” Professor Chan said.

There was a moment of hesitation on Dean Philton’s part before he locked gazes with Professor Chan and saw the complete look of defeat that filled the professor’s gaze. This wasn’t the look of a warrior who had faced one bad encounter, rather this was the look of a warrior who had his zest and zeal for fighting completely extinguished after one decisive battle. Seeing his friend in such a state, Philton realized that this might in fact be a case where listening to reason was better than rushing headlong into events.

Glowing, pulse.

Just as the moment of silence went on, a communication orb glowed to life on the Dean’s desk. Seeing that it was related to the group that went to the dungeon, Philton couldn’t help but feel obliged to answer.

“One second.” Philton said, holding up a finger to Professor Chan.

During this time Professor Chan used the moment to once again stand up, but soon felt the soft hands of the school’s nurse on him, helping him up gingerly.

“Report.” Philton said, answering the crystal with a no-nonsense voice.

“The student has stopped their progress into the dungeon. An exploration team has been deployed with ten members to try to secure the remains of the student.” Professor Helga said, her voice filled with arcane power that was easily enough to power both ends of the communication device.

“Don’t follow after her. We must reassess the situation.” Dean Philton began, but he was soon cut off.

WHANNK WHANNK!

Just then an alarm rune went off, one that was seemingly echoed on Professor Helga’s side.

“What? What is that?” Professor Chan found himself asking.

“That is Helga’s recent addition, a tracking rune that lets us know when a student has left the area of the school grounds.” Philton said, quickly, then turned to the orb to see Helga nodding her head in agreement.

Seeing that he got it right, Philton looked slightly alleviated by the head shaking praise of Professor Helga, who could have taken over the role of dean a long time ago, but chose to stay at her position. He still wondered about her true intentions, but for now he was grateful for her to be on his side in this.

Then just as that happened, a second orb began glowing on the Dean’s desk, though he was waiting for this one.

“Hello.” Dean Philton said into the crystal, denoting that he had to provide most of the energy in this communication channel to keep it going. Thus, he began with the statement trying to make sure he could be heard, unlike when the line instantly burned to life under Helga’s expert mana usage.

“First Air Wing here, do you want us to go out and search for the student that left campus?” The leader of the First Air Wing spoke.

Hearing that Dean Philton paused, logically that was the course of action. A student left the premises, and then an air wing was sent to retrieve them.

Philton was about to encourage them to do just that, when he saw Professor Chan out of the corner of his eye. Seeing the now defeated warrior, Philton paused, as he mentally went over assets, resources, and most importantly personnel.

“No, don’t go after the student, we will send out divination hunters for her. For now I need you to go to the dungeon entrance and assist Professor Helga with the evacuation of key Class A personnel, to include the prince and the other children of upper royalty. For the moment we can consider this initial foray into the dungeon over.”

“You want us for evacuation purposes?” The wing leader asked, trying to clarify the sudden change in commands.

“Yes, will that be a problem?” Dean Philton asked, a note of steel filling his voice.

“No, just double checking.” The wing leader said, then turning away from the crystal he could be heard calling out to the background. “You heard him boys, we are on an evacuation mission now.”

With that the line to the aerial unit abruptly ended. Then before the Dean could gain control over his thoughts, Helga cut in, as she was still fully sustaining the first communication line.

“So, we are to evacuate the dungeon?” Helga asked.

“Yes, for the time being, we need to move everyone out. Then we will conduct a wide search of the land for the missing student.”

As he spoke, the Dean pulled out a map of the school’s property line. There with a glowing dot at the bottom of the map was a spot where the map and warding schema that Professor Helga installed lined up to show where the breach occurred.

“Is that the student escape map?” Helga asked, clearly raising herself up to view around the room and see what the Dean himself was doing on his end of the communication crystal. Normally such actions would be considered rude, but given Helga’s inherent status as a widely revered arch mage, and the fact that the Dean knew he was all but powerless to stop Helga if he tried, he could only nod in agreement. Not like he could hide the product he was looking at from its creator.

Professor Chan looked on in amazement at Professor Helga’s prowess with magic, the way she was effortlessly able to maintain a two-way communication crystal, and then bypass security wards to allow her image to peer around the room was frankly marvelous and a credit to her abilities as a mage.

Such magical prowess was beyond most mages with A Class ability in magic, like Professor Chan. Mentally he wondered how he could take down such a monster, if the situation ever arose. Fortunately, he did not need to do so, as they were on the same side, for now.

Then before he could get into starting his own information sharing venture, yet a third crystal began to light up and thrum with power.

Seeing yet another orb light up in such a short time, the Dean could do little to keep his ire in check.

“GAH!” He spat, but then once he saw the grand size of the orb, he paused as he realized what, or rather whom that call was from.

“Helga I have to let you go.” The Dean said, taking his hand off the first crystal and thereby severing the connection. Helga could have stayed and forced the connection to remain open, but without a grounding agent to the area, like the Dean, her efforts would be costly in the form of mana. That and she also realized exactly who was trying to get ahold of the Dean right now. Seeing the orb, Helga quickly remembered why she never strode to go higher than her current position as a mere professor at the Academy, as she knew that eventually she too would have had to answer that crystal if the situation ever came about, and when that crystal called you better do three things, answer, have an answer ready, and be prepared to act even with the correct answer ready. No, that was not a life Helga would have wished upon anyone, let alone her worst enemy.

Still, Helga’s curiosity couldn’t help but be heightened by the sudden interruption. So rather than keep a full connection between the lines, Helga made it so only information could travel to her. Doing this she was able to hear first the greetings of her king to Philton. Then she heard the king say with all seriousness in his voice, he said the message that was only spoken about in legends about the cataclysm and ending of the world.

Three words, were enough to cause Helga to immediately disconnect the line and curse her nature for wanting to listen in. Not that it changed anything, as word of those three words would soon hit the world, and likely spark a light of change that everyone would need to be prepared for.

The three words might at first seem innocuous, until you realize the reason why those exact three words would be stated.

The words that the King of Beltaon spoke would later cause nightmares and chills to run down Helga’s spine, as she had been fortunate to never have to hear such words within her lifetime. Honestly, she hoped that the words would never be spoken, but alas that seemed to be something that would not happen in her lifetime.

The words that would forever change the world were as follows:

“It has begun.”