I Became a Tentacle Monster Blooming in the Academy Garden 43

## Chapter 43 – The First Gate

‘I wonder if they’re doing alright over there…’

“Vivian-nim…! What is that?”

“It’s an alchemical mechanics seal. If you don’t neutralize it by transmuting a specific substance that matches it, it’ll react with everything it touches and explode.”

“Wow…! And that?”

“I don’t know much about magic circles… but it’s probably doing something similar.”

While I was worrying about whether Arachnella and the beastmen were moving according to plan, Vivian and Lani were silently looking down, completely absorbed in watching.

They’d only heard about the special assessment, so being deprived of the chance to participate directly must be quite disappointing.

But just watching seemed to fascinate them, as Lani looked at the students solving the first task of the special assessment below with sparkling eyes.

“Ah, that’s not how you do it.”

“Shut up, you.”

“It’s totium, not gernium.”

“Oh, you’re so good at transmuting? Follow me to the roof!!”

As expected, with so many different kinds of people, there were groups constantly bickering, while others were cooperating very diligently.

“How about trying it this way?”

“Ah… that didn’t work… then how about this?”

One group only had a freshman mage who could solve the problem.

The freshman girl was trembling as she faced a large, unfamiliar spell, unsure of where to start. Surprisingly, a senior student from the smithing department next to her was guiding her.

“Um… there’s a core spell in the center of the magic circle, right?
Do this… like this… then that…”

“L-Like this…?”

“Oh?”

“Wow!! It’s solved!!”

“Weren’t you… in the smithing department…?
Oh…!! How did you know?!”

“Ah, a friend of mine is in the fusion magic department.
I saw it a little bit over his shoulder.”

The freshman girl looked at the male student with sparkling eyes full of trust as he gave her a bright smile, and a rosy atmosphere began to flow in front of the gate.

‘Some people just have it like that…’

Was it just me who felt a little envious watching that?

Judging from the expressions of the other guys next to the pink couple, they probably felt the same way as me.

After some time, students began to pass through the first gate one by one.

They were passing through the gate in a textbook way, or with some clever tricks, as they had learned, and fortunately, it didn’t seem like many students were giving up there.

From what I saw from afar, Carla was also taking things out of her bag, and quickly and swiftly creating a neutral substance with a temporary workshop kit she had assembled from her bag to neutralize the alchemical mechanics seal.

As expected of the daughter of an alchemist family.

Her roommate, who was said to be from the medical department, was also helping her with delicate hand movements.

“Wow!! Amazing, Carla!!”

“You did so well!!”

“Ehehe…”

It definitely felt like Carla was carrying them here.

The cheers of those around her echoed, and Carla was also giving a bright smile.

Whether she had a terrible experience with the spider during the final exam, Carla ended up locking the spider in her desk drawer when she left, so there was no way for me to monitor her separately today.

Well, locking it up is one thing, but she was even tearing up with guilt, like a mother separating from her child, so what could I say to that?

I was just a little disappointed that I no longer had a way to check on her separately in case something happened.

‘What could happen…?
If the plan goes according to plan, nothing will happen.’

My four pairs of eyes, which had subtly turned away from Carla, were soon turning towards the other students.

At that moment, Anne, who I seemed to run into quite often as if we had a connection, caught my eye, and my gaze suddenly began to fixate on her.

Anne, a woman who looked quite similar to her, as if she were her sister, a man with an unidentifiable bird on his shoulder, a red-haired woman equipped with knightly armor, and a strangely unpleasant, arrogant East Asian woman gathered in a group.

As I stared at the group, which somehow seemed to have a significant presence, I saw something so surprising that I might have screamed if I had a mouth.

Seeing the alchemical mechanics seal in front of them, a nonchalant man slowly stepped forward without anyone telling him to, and reached out his arm.

As the man reached out his arm, the eagle on his shoulder folded and unfolded like a mechanical device, as if it were not a living thing, forming a structure similar to a human.

‘An upper body…?’

The mechanical structure seemed to have only an upper body floating without a lower body.

The structure stood silently behind the man, and soon mimicked his movements as he moved his body, using a long mechanical hand to touch the seal instead of the man’s hand.

‘Something like that exists…?’

It could be seen as an advanced application of Barmhausen’s manned and unmanned machine technology, but there was no way I would know that.

All I could think about was that it was alchemy, so maybe they were trying to make gold.

It was an experience that made me realize that the technology of this world was quite advanced than I thought.

Before I could hide my surprise at learning that, the man, who had touched the seal a few times, clenched his fist and pulled it back, then punched with all his might with his mechanical arm, causing the seal to shatter into pieces.

“Without a neutralizing substance…?”

“No… the neutralizing substance must be built into the mechanical arm itself.
The reason he put his hand on it first…
was just to see if the neutralizing substance was valid.”

Vivian, who was also surprised like me, added an explanation in a low voice.

‘Come to think of it, that makes sense.
Now that I think about it, Vivian knows quite a lot…?’

Maybe catching her first was the biggest luck for me?

Anyway, watching Anne’s group, who had shown a considerable impact, easily pass through the first gate, we realized that everyone had passed through the first gate, and we were moving on to see the next gate.

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“Are you telling me to do that? Is that okay?”

The voice of a man holding something that looked like a communication device echoed.

And the other men watching him from around him were also concentrating on it, holding their breath to read the direction of the conversation.

“We’re just doing as we’re told…
I understand… we’ll do that.”

Eventually, when the communication ended, the man roughly put the communication device down on the table next to him and looked around at the other men who were only looking at him.

“They said to proceed as is.”

But at the words that came out of his mouth, the men’s expressions were literally filled with questions.

“They say safety devices are prepared.
It seems like they’re going to take the test as is.”

“Does that mean… without the beastmen…?”

“The beastmen who were originally going to be used to assist the students are said to have been annihilated, and only that spider woman, the final target, is alive…
I guess the academy trusts those milk-smelling students that much.
In the end, the spider woman will be looking for other prey and wandering around the dungeon, and they’re thinking of having the students cooperate to defeat her.”

“Then what do we……”

“We have nothing to do now, my friend.
Go and prepare some popcorn!!”

“Yaaay!! Work is over!!!!”

The academy probably just wants to quickly proceed with the special assessment because they’re in a hurry right now.

Clearly, they would later be held responsible for neglecting the management of the beastmen and the surveillance of Arachnella.

But even considering that, they would be able to settle a generous reward from the academy, so it was only a slight loss for them, and there was nothing to regret.

From the beginning, this was something that only they, with their abilities, could do.

They were all gathered in the room like this now, but with this number, Arachnella would avoid them if she could, so there was nothing to worry about as long as they were careful until they left the dungeon.

“Ha… you guys… then let’s have a company dinner tonight…!!”

The last memory of the man, who chuckled as he watched his fellow mercenaries excited around him, was the floor of the room sinking down with his colleagues at that moment, and the seductive red lips looking down at him with a bright smile, before it was cut off.