The Cursed Extra-Chapter 124: [2.72] When the Textbook Confirms Your Worst Fears

Chapter 124: [2.72] When the Textbook Confirms Your Worst Fears

"The most dangerous thing in the world is a test designed so you can’t win."

***

The Collapsed Mine. That was Team 7’s assigned section. His team’s section. The area they’d been studying for the past week. Memorizing every tunnel and junction. Planning their approach routes and fallback positions.

He’d walked those maps in his mind a hundred times. Rehearsed the assessment until he could navigate the tunnels with his eyes closed.

Now he wondered if that familiarity was nothing but a comfortable illusion. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

"The Fool’s Gambit," the girl continued. Her voice dropped to barely above a whisper. The name had weight to it. The sound of something that belonged in cautionary tales told to first-year students around dormitory fires. "That’s what the textbook calls it in Chapter Seven. Trying to use complex maneuvers in unstable terrain where the environment itself is more dangerous than the enemy. It’s not just tactically unsound. It’s suicidal. The kind of mistake that gets entire squads buried alive because someone wanted to show off their knowledge of formation theory."

"Shh!" The librarian’s stern voice made both students jump. Her face had gone red with irritation. One bony finger pointed accusingly at their table. "This is a place of study, not a debate hall. If you wish to discuss tactical theory, take it to the training grounds where your noise won’t disturb serious scholars."

Marcus and the girl exchanged glances. Some unspoken communication passed between them before they hastily gathered their materials into untidy piles.

The girl shot one last look at the warren maps as she stood. Shook her head slowly as if disappointed by what she saw marked on the parchment.

"Some people never learn," she muttered. Just loud enough for Rhys to hear as they passed his table. Her eyes might have flickered toward him for just a moment. Or he might have imagined it. "They see a challenge and think they can outsmart it with textbook tactics and academy training. Never considering that maybe the challenge is designed to kill them. That sometimes the test isn’t whether you can succeed. It’s whether you’re smart enough to recognize when success isn’t possible."

Their footsteps faded into the library’s depths. Swallowed by the endless rows of shelves until even the echo of their passage disappeared.

Rhys sat alone with the sudden, overwhelming silence pressing against his ears.

He stared at the space where they’d been sitting. His mind raced through everything he’d just heard. The specific references to the Collapsed Mine. The warnings about structural instability and goblin tactics. The emphasis on defensive positioning over aggressive maneuvers.

It could be coincidence.

Students discussed assessment strategies all the time. Especially this close to the actual event when nerves were raw and anxiety ran high. Every study group in the library was probably having similar conversations.

But Rhys had learned long ago, in the blood-soaked mud of Blackwood Glade’s palisade, that in matters of life and death, coincidence was usually just another word for "something you should have paid attention to."

He stood abruptly. His chair scraped against the stone floor with a sound that drew another glare from the librarian. The warren maps crinkled in his hands as he gathered them. His fingers steadier now that he had a purpose. A direction to channel the formless dread that had been eating at him all day.

Three shelves away, nestled between treatises on military engineering and siege warfare, sat a thick volume bound in faded brown leather.

A Tactician’s Guide to Warfare.

Rhys pulled the book from the shelf. Its weight solid and reassuring in his hands. The binding showed signs of frequent use. Cracked spine. Worn corners where countless fingers had gripped the leather. Pages that fell open to well-studied sections with notes scrawled in the margins by previous readers.

Someone had underlined entire passages in red ink.

Someone else had written "IMPORTANT" in block letters next to a diagram of tunnel formations.

He flipped through the Chapters. Scanned headings until he found what he was looking for.

Chapter 7: Common Tactical Errors in Underground Combat.

His eyes found the relevant passage almost immediately. As if the words had been waiting for him all along:

"The Fool’s Gambit: Any attempt to employ complex flanking maneuvers in narrow, structurally compromised tunnels. This tactic, while effective in open terrain where units have room to maneuver and retreat, becomes catastrophically dangerous in underground environments where enemy forces can exploit architectural weaknesses to create pincer ambushes. The confined space that makes flanking seem attractive also makes escape impossible when the maneuver fails. Historical records indicate a mortality rate exceeding 80% for units that attempt complex formations in unstable underground terrain."

Rhys read the passage twice. Then a third time.

Each word seemed to burn itself into his memory. Etched warnings across the inside of his skull.

Below the main text, a smaller note caught his attention. Written in italics as if the author felt the need to emphasize what should have been obvious:

"Particular caution should be exercised in abandoned mining operations, where previous excavation may have compromised structural integrity in ways not immediately apparent to surface observation. What appears to be solid stone may in fact be a carefully balanced network of supports and voids, held together by nothing more than habit and luck. Aggressive movement or the use of explosive magic can trigger catastrophic collapses with little to no warning. Many promising young soldiers have met their end not at the hands of their enemies, but crushed beneath the very terrain they sought to conquer."

The book trembled slightly in his hands.

Rhys set it down on the table with exaggerated care. As if sudden movements might somehow make the warnings more real.

He spread his team’s assigned maps beside the open pages. Smoothed the creased parchment until every detail was visible in the library’s soft magelight.

The Collapsed Mine section stretched across three separate tunnel networks. All of them connected by narrow passages and marked with small notation symbols that he’d previously assumed were standard cartographic markers. Survey points. Mineral deposits. The usual technical details that mapmakers included for completeness.

Now, reading them in light of the textbook’s warnings, they took on a more sinister meaning.

Structural assessment points. Load-bearing calculations. Stability ratings expressed in numerical codes.

He cross-referenced them with the engineering treatise two shelves over.

The numbers were far lower than what he’d initially assumed.

Half of them were in the yellow range.

Three were marked in red.

Team 7 wasn’t just being sent into a goblin warren.

They were being sent into a death trap.

A section of tunnels that any experienced miner would refuse to enter without extensive reinforcement work.

Rhys’s fingers found the locket beneath his shirt. The small portrait of Elara warm against his chest. Her painted eyes stared up at him from the tiny canvas. Frozen forever in the smile she’d worn on her seventh birthday. Before the sickness had started stealing the color from her cheeks.

His sister needed him to succeed. Needed the stipend and opportunities that came with staying at the academy.

But she needed him alive even more.

The question was: what could he do about it?