Dungeon Emergence

The massive hole that had gouged out the schoolyard.

The wind that had been howling from the bottomless darkness, carrying the stench of rotting flesh and iron rust, abruptly stopped.

At the same time, the black fog spewing from the hole cleared away like a curtain being drawn.

Visibility returned.

But that brought no comfort. It was merely staging to clearly display the scene of despair.

The calm before the storm.

No, that wasn't it.

This wasn't natural silence.

It was the moment a "predator" held its breath before pouncing on prey.

"… What? The wind stopped?"

"Hey look, something's coming out of the hole!"

Carefree voices rose from the students crowded at the windows.

Their hands gripped smartphones, camera lenses aimed at the hole below.

To them, the scene before their eyes was still an extension of an "unusual event."

A movie scene, or perhaps an elaborate prank staged by a TV station.

Viewing through a lens, they unconsciously blocked out reality, feeling like spectators safely watching a show from the sidelines.

(… Idiots.)

I gripped the handle of the "fishing rod case" propped beside my desk and clicked my tongue internally.

Beyond that hole wasn't fiction on a screen.

It was naked killing intent, an inversion of the food chain.

Scr-scr.

An unpleasant sound like something sharp scraping dry asphalt.

A mud-covered hand grasped the edge of the hole.

Not human. Only four fingers, gnarled like dead branches, with black hooked claws at the tips.

Slithering, its owner crawled out from the darkness.

"—Huh?"

"What, a monkey…?"

"A child… but doesn't something seem off?"

With the fog cleared, its form was cruelly vivid against the schoolyard.

What emerged was a small humanoid, about one meter tall.

But not human.

Its skin was a dirty deep green like moss, and its sagging belly was disproportionate to its abnormally developed arm muscles.

A crude animal hide wrapped its waist, and in its hands were a rust-covered machete and a club made from some animal's femur.

And above all, that face.

A hideously twisted hooked nose and a mouth split ear to ear.

Murky yellow eyes gleaming deep within their sockets.

A goblin.

The trash mob of fantasy RPGs.

The epitome of the weakest.

But "that thing" manifesting in reality with physical mass had none of the charm or dopiness of games.

What it possessed was pure, concentrated desire to harm others, to plunder, to violate, to devour.

A living mass of malice that triggered visceral revulsion.

The first one looked up at the school building.

Its eyes met those of the students crowded at the windows.

Heh.

The goblin grinned.

Its mouth corners pulled up as if tearing, exposing yellowed fangs and red-black gums.

That wasn't a greeting.

It was a smile of joy at finding "food."

"Eww… so gross."

"What's with that makeup? Way too realistic."

They still didn't realize.

Still couldn't recognize this as reality.

"Hey! You kids, get away from the windows!"

At that moment, a man in a track suit burst out from the ground floor entrance.

P.E. teacher Sasaki.

The fierce teacher who was both rugby club advisor and head of student guidance.

Hot-blooded and caring toward students, but a muscle-headed type whose body moved before his brain did.

"Hey! You there! Is this some kind of shoot!? Did you get permission!?"

Sasaki strode toward the goblin, his ever-present bamboo sword for guidance patrols in hand.

He probably thought it was a trespasser, or perhaps a prank meant to scare students.

Don't approach, you fool.

I shouted in my mind at the exact same moment.

The goblin's yellow eyes locked onto Sasaki.

The eyes of a predator recognizing prey approaching on its own.

GYAAAH!

With a short cry, the goblin leaped.

Its movement wasn't like a human child's.

A spring-loaded leap like a grasshopper's closed the distance of several meters in an instant, launching the creature like a bullet into Sasaki's chest.

"—Huh?"

The moment after Sasaki made that stupid sound.

The goblin's rusted machete plunged deep into his collarbone.

A dull sound of metal meeting flesh.

Then, fresh blood sprayed like a fountain.

"Gah, guh, gbb…!?"

Sasaki dropped his bamboo sword, clutching his throat as he crumpled.

The blood pouring from his wound painted the asphalt red-black in an instant.

The goblin straddled Sasaki's body and, without hesitation, sank its teeth into his throat.

The graphic sounds of flesh being torn and chewed echoed across the silent schoolyard.

With the fog cleared, that gruesome feeding scene burned into the students' eyes with front-row clarity.

"… …"

The entire school building was wrapped in frozen silence.

No one screamed.

No, they couldn't.

The students at the windows were frozen, smartphones still raised.

A scene too horrific, too detached from reality, instantly burned out the human brain's processing capacity.

Was that acting? Special makeup? Fake blood?

No, it was different. That iron smell. Those twitching limbs.

"Y-you're kidding…"

Someone's trembling voice whispered.

"This is a prank… right? Because the teacher was… eaten…"

Clatter.

The dry sound of a phone slipping from the hands of a girl in the front row and hitting the floor.

That sound shattered everyone's frozen time.

"—NOOOOOOOOOOO!!"

A scream broke the silence.

That triggered the school building's transformation into a wailing hell.

"Mr. Sasaki! He's dead! He's being eaten!"

"No way no way no way!"

"Run! We'll be killed!"

"KYAAAAAAH!"

Panic. Hysteria.

Students rushed to the exits, trampling over each other.

Desks toppled. Screams and shouts intermingled.

Curiosity inverted to fear, optimism to despair.

Beneath that chaos.

The first goblin raised its blood-soaked face and howled high, as if calling its comrades.

GYAGYAGYAGYA!

In response, shadows crawled out of the hole one after another.

Two, five, ten…

Green malice flooded the schoolyard like overflowing sewage.

"It's begun."

I looked down at the scene with cold eyes as I placed my fingers on the fishing rod case's zipper.

Not yet. I wouldn't draw yet.

But my resolve was complete.

The everyday had ended.

From here on was the cruel, simple time of kill or be killed.