小嫂子的味道

My vision was also repaired and what I saw next was not an academy hall, but a bunch of trees, bushes, and green grass below my feet; it was a jungle.

"Damn!"

I looked around and tried to get a grasp of my surroundings, only after a minute it was clear that I was in a wild area; a forest sort of place.

\'Is this the place Mr. Halls was talking about? If so then I was right to be a bit wary of this exam.\'

According to what Mr. Halls said, this place was also filled with monsters; the monsters that I came to know about just a few moments ago.

Till now, I had absolutely no idea that monsters existed here leaving aside the matter of seeing them. *A world based on a fantasy setting*, this world truly lived up to its description in every aspect.

Still, monsters are monsters. I need to do some preparations or else—

(#%$#$&)

Just when I was about to move and get a look at this area, a sudden beep sound rang in my head; it was loud at starting but the next second it stabilized.

(I\'m sure all of you have reached the location of this exam already, so let me get straight to the point. As I have said before, you all will have to survive in this place for a whole day and if you can do that, then you will pass the fourth exam and will officially be a student of the Zaforths magic academy.

But let me make this clear for once and for all, the place you are currently in has monsters to accompany you, so better watch out for that. You will have to get the drinking water by yourself but as for food, you will find some trees with edible fruits on them; they are pretty easy to find so that will not be a problem.

Also, the exam\'s location—this forest area—is owned by the academy and we have set up a dome-shaped barrier around it, so you won\'t be able to contact or go into the outside world until the exam finishes.

Now, the fourth and the final exam will start now!)

With that, the voice was cut off. \'Was this telepathy?\'

The voice I heard in my head just now was of Mr. Halls\'s, no doubt about it. And judging from the way he was speaking it was clear that this message was delivered to all of the students present here; like an announcement.

It was probably to inform us that we were teleported here by the academy and now the fourth exam will start.

"Seems like a lot of trouble~" I muttered as I began walking forward.

This exam will require a lot of energy from my side, honestly, it\'s a pain in the ass and I don\'t wanna do it but then again, not like I have any other choice.

I again looked around me just in case but the result was the same, no one else was there except for me.

The place where I was a mountain-like place and a few steps on my back was a cliff; a straight fall.

You can\'t label this place as safe and I was the same. Fuck the exam, my safety comes first so I began walking in the opposite direction from the cliff, headed toward an area with many trees.

I didn\'t stop gazing at my surroundings while I did so because I didn\'t want to let my guard down and the other reason was to find any other students.

We were not provided with any kind of map so I was just going in a random direction while I continued to think about some things.

Like what Mr. Halls said in that telepathy message.

He barely explained to us the rules of this exam and all the information we were given was pretty vague. It can be that there were no such rules and this was just a straightforward survival exam but, it was too good to be true.

If this was a novel, then we would have gotten a survival exam based on a battle royal—where we had to kill or eliminate the other students to confirm our victory. Or it could have been an exam to collect some points, items, or something like that, that were hidden in a special spot.

I mean, I would\'ve done that. After all, who doesn\'t like to see random characters getting killed?

Yeah, this scenario will be possible if the author was a lazy person, whose main focus was the ecchi scenes and the plot was just there to move the story forward.

\'Sigh! But this is unlikely to be the reason here, better focus on the logical things.\'

Getting back to the topic, he didn\'t even tell us how the students will fail and pass. And among the ones who passed, how are they planning to give us the grades? Like there were no such things that can differentiate your performance from the others.

For example, assume that five out of ten students pass this exam—I don\'t know how they are planning to fail us but let\'s put that aside for now. Now, for those five students who passed, how will the academy rank them?

Because more or less our exam grades will decide which class we will be assigned to so if there\'s no system to give us a grade in this exam then it doesn\'t make sense.

The only possibility I see is that this exam was just to testify our survival skills and won\'t affect our grades. Then the decision on which class to put the individual student in will be from how they did in those three exams.

This was all I could think of, for now at least. Maybe there\'s something I\'m missing or they are hiding some specific details, but the information I have in hand is too little for me to speculate exactly what they are hiding—or even hiding or not.

So now I shifted my attention to my surroundings; I was walking through an area where a large number of thick lush trees were planted. The ground was covered with long green grass, though there were patches of empty ground at several intervals.

The sunlight was making its way between the leaves of the trees and illuminating the area, there was not much light but it was enough to walk easily without stepping into a pit or something.

"They sure are rich if this whole forest is their property," I said to myself.

I got a feeling in my chest that if I played this carelessly, things might get out of hand.

Hmm, there should not be any problem surviving for one day here, but that\'s when it\'s just about surviving.

There are monsters here too. It\'s not like I doubt my skills—my elemental magic should be powerful enough so I can defend myself if nothing—but at the same time as I have never seen nor faced those monsters before, I don\'t want to underestimate them and invite any risks that can be avoided.

Should I select a place to act as a base or should I keep moving? Securing a place early on will help me to get a place to sleep at night but being at one point for longer can also be dangerous. Which can be avoided by being on the move all the time and getting a temporary place to sleep at night.

Both the options have their own set of pros and cons so it\'s not that easy to decide. \'Maybe I should take some time on this.\'

"Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!"

When I was busy in my thoughts I suddenly heard a scream; it was the voice of a male and it came from somewhere nearby.

\'Just what I was looking for!\' with that thought in mind, I quickly ran toward the direction that scream came from.

I ran through the forest, removing the leaves and branches that caressed my face with my hands. Soon I saw an opening in the wall of leaves and bushes from which a good amount of light was coming.

I slowed my pace and sat on my knees just before that opening, and then looked in that direction.

What I saw was another thing out of fantasy novels, an orc. A monster big in size with a height of almost ten feet, its body was muscular—far more than a pro wrestler—with clay-colored skin.

He covered his bottom half and his private parts with a cloth-like thing that looked more like the skin of an animal. He also held a big, thick, and broad sword-type blade in his hands.

Before the orc, stood a boy my age, he wore expensive-looking clothing and was armed with a long sword.

\'Where the hell did he find that sword from?\' I thought, but that was not important right now. Hence, I shifted my attention back toward the boy.

He carried an anxious look on his face; his eyes were widened, sweat on his temple and he was trembling.

"Khwa!" the orc roared as he took some big steps toward the boy and swung his blade multiple times in the air.

"Ahh! Ahhh! Ahhhhh!!!" the boy leaped backward and somehow survived the first attack while he kept dodging the orc\'s blade while screaming like a mad man.

"This is insane! No one told me that we will be fighting real monsters! I was not prepared for this! Ah, this is crazy!!!"

I was able to tell that he was scared to death and at this point, it was his will to live that was moving his body to defend against the orc.

"FUCK YOU!" he shouted and then darted toward the orc while holding his sword at a certain angle.

The orc\'s broad blade came rushing toward him but instead of getting cut into two pieces, he jumped, stepped on the blade, and then launched himself in the direction of the orc\'s head.

"Die! You bastard!" his long sword emitted a bright light before he swung it at the orc\'s neck.

-Thump!

Someone crashed onto the ground and it was not the orc, but that boy. The orc\'s right hand came flying toward him and punched him before he could unleash his attack.

"Cough! Cough!" the boy tried to get up, blood dripping from his mouth.

"Shit! I\'m bleeding! Hey, stop this exam and get me out of here! Anyone? Mr. Halls? Please take me out or I\'m seriously gonna die here!" he said while facing the sky but his words fell on deaf ears.

-Clank!

The orc attacked him with his blade which the boy defended against with his long sword, but…something broke, it was his long sword.

I was actually wondering for a long time, how that thin sword is not breaking when clashing with that thick and heavy blade. Now it was more or less clear; maybe they never clashed directly and now that they did, the result was there. His jaw dropped; the look of anxiety on the boy\'s face turned into a terrified expression.

"Ah, this is so messed up! I can\'t possibly fight against thing!" he cried as he took a few steps back. Maybe he was going to run now but…

-Slash!

The orc\'s blade came toward him at an insane speed; this was because the orc was now using both his hands to swing the blade.

"Wai-" before he could finish his sentence, the boy fell silent.

The thick, broad blade buried itself in the boy\'s right shoulder, and slicing through his body it came out from the left side of his waist. His body was cut in two in an instant and those two pieces fell to the ground.

The orc then let out a loud roar that made the birds on the nearby trees, fly in the air.

I simply observed all this while keeping my presence hidden and now, what I came here for was clear.

\'So this is how the students will fail, huh.\' I said inwardly.