Chapter 47 Volume II - 13: First Time to See a Creature
Chapter 47 Volume II - Chapter 13: First Time to See a Creature
I let out a deep sigh and relaxed myself again, but then I saw that Adrian was still standing.
"Why are you standing?"
Adrian had turned his gaze away from me. He was just looking between the trees. The strange thing was that there was nothing but leaves.
"Si-"
My words were interrupted by a tremor that shook the ground like a violent earthquake, followed by an extremely violent explosion.
I quickly looked in the direction of the sound, the spot Adrian had been looking at for some time, and then I saw smoke rising from it.
"Wh- what?"
I was so shocked that I had accidentally spoken out loud.
Why is this happening?
In the original story, students hunt creatures in groups for the preliminary. The group that told me to crush Adrian brought a few overpowered creatures to the preliminary to test him.
In the end, even though Adrian is badly wounded, he manages to subdue the creatures with Julian, Celine, Lucia, and an archer girl named Alice, whose place in the story is just as important as theirs.
But now, when I\'m already involved and they\'re watching the illusion I\'m showing them with the flying cameras, why are they acting on their own? It\'s... just ridiculous.
That\'s what I was thinking, but then suddenly something occurred to me.
So, it\'s really what I thought... They don\'t see me as an obstacle in Adrian\'s path but as another candidate with just as much potential.
Damn... then they must have wanted to increase the difficulty of the test since there were two candidates in the first place. Why didn\'t I think about this even though I had my guesses...?
We need to do something fast, or many important figures like Celine and Julian could die.
"We have to go."
I stood up quickly and turned to Adrian, a blank expression on his face.
"Aren\'t we going to get out of the illusion field by going there?"
He\'s right... but as I thought before, I don\'t think those guys have time to mess with me. And just in case, I\'ve already put guards on Clara and let them move if they see any kind of activity.
Adrian looked uncertain, so I smiled slightly at him and spoke again.
"Please, can you help me one more time?"
We have to be quick... because in the original story, Adrian was directly at the site of the explosion, whereas now he is here and with me. Without his help, we could suffer huge casualties...
Adrian first looked at me with an emotionless expression, then he tried to smile and I must say he was much more skillful than the previous times.
Seeing his smile, I widened mine.
"Thank you, let\'s go."
I sheathed my sword and turned toward the site of the explosion, Adrian following behind me.
I hope we won\'t be late.
*******
We have been running at a brisk pace for quite some time now... I am not sure how long it will be before we arrive, but one thing I do know is that things are not pleasant there because of the screams I can hear.
Another scream rose up ahead of us, but this one was much closer than the others. So I quickened my pace and only a few seconds later, Adrian and I came out into a clearing.
"What... is this?"
Adrian froze in his tracks in astonishment.
Students running here and there, creatures chasing them, other students desperately trying to fight the creatures, and blood... lots of blood.
I\'d seen blood before and I was expecting it, but I still couldn\'t help feeling nauseous and averting my eyes.
\'Not now, Aiden.\'
I took a deep breath as Sith\'s voice echoed in my mind.
He was right, this was not the time.
I turned my eyes back to the scene in front of me and held myself as much as I could, looking at the most conspicuous place in the area.
About fifty meters ahead of us were three creatures easily over two to three meters tall.
One was a well-built monkey with goat hooves and a snake tail, another was a large mammoth with scales, and the last was a bird of prey with all its feathers colored red.
They were exactly the same as in the original story... The only difference was that they were no longer a game. They were real, and just by looking at them, I could feel that I was not their direct equivalent.
Of course, these creatures weren\'t just standing in the clearing.
Celine, Julian, Lucia, and a girl with silver hair named Alice were fighting them, but at least none of them seemed seriously injured yet.
I was glad that my fears had not come true.
"Where are the professors? And... why aren\'t the students eliminated and teleported even though they are injured?"
Adrian couldn\'t make sense of what he was seeing. And he was right, but he was missing something.
"Look up there."
I spoke indifferently. Adrian\'s astonishment grew as he listened to me and turned his gaze upward.
Almost directly above us, we could see a flying device that surrounded us with a transparent energy field, just like the one I had used a few minutes before. Of course, the purpose of this device was not illusion, but to create a barrier that was extremely difficult to break.
So much so that even the professors couldn\'t bring it down.
"The stupid barrier not only separates us from the professors but also neutralizes the return rune on the suits."
Adrian clicked his tongue after my explanation.
"So no matter how badly we\'re wounded, we can\'t go back."
"Yes."
Adrian strangely didn\'t question how I knew this. Gripping his spear tightly, he tried to help the students, but I quickly stopped him.
Adrian looked at me in surprise, but I ignored him and let out a deep sigh.
At least we still have hope... There are more than a hundred students still alive, and our enemies are barely fifty people apart from three huge creatures.
We can get out of here with as few casualties as possible.
I took a deep breath, poured mana into my vocal cords, and shouted at the top of my lungs.
"Stop running or fighting without thinking, fools!"
My mana-charged voice rang out so loudly that it was ear-splitting in the field. Even the students and the creatures turned to me in surprise.
"Those with healing skills, gather together! The healers will be fronted by mages and archers capable of ranged attacks! And in front of them will be the close rangers with strong defenses who can protect everyone! And if your general level is E and above, help fight these three huge creatures! If you don\'t stop running you will only die! I think you value your life... Have you never seen a fucking creature before?!"
After what I said, everyone stayed where they were for a few seconds.
"H- he\'s right!"
"He\'s right! We are really going to die!"
There were still some people running away in fear, but at least a significant number of students had listened to me.
"Adrian, run to the three big beasts. I\'ll help you after I take care of this place."
"But... is your general level even \'E\'?"
I smiled slightly in response to his question.
"Don\'t worry, I have a few things at my disposal."
Adrian looked at me worriedly but sighed when he saw my determination.
"Okay."
He trusted me. Even though I had betrayed him a few minutes ago, he was still on my side and I couldn\'t help but be happy.
"Thank you."
With that, Adrian gripped his spear tightly and charged at the monkey, which seemed to be the strongest of the creatures.
After Adrian left my side, I took another deep breath and prepared to bark orders.
\'Behind you! Watch out!
At the sound of Sith\'s voice, I threw myself to the side as fast as I could, but I felt a large burning sensation on my back.
I unsheathed my sword and turned around to see a gray wolf with red eyes and strange patterns on its fur.
There was blood on its front paws; my blood.
I clicked my tongue and focused my mana on my back. I tried to look at it, to anticipate its next move, but in the process, I noticed something strange.
Am I... shaking?
Ah... It\'s the first time I\'m in front of a creature, I\'m excited and involuntarily scared.
Even though I\'ve prepared myself for this a thousand times, I feel like my knees would give out if I let go.
\'Snap out of it, idiot! Isn\'t that exactly why you yelled at the students just now?
I gritted my teeth, raised my sword, and looked the wolf in the eye.
I... I\'m not from this world, so I\'m still not used to this kind of thing. But I know that in the future, I will always be at the edge of danger and will struggle to live.
I know that well, but if I stay here like this... can I survive on Lunerra? No... I have to get used to these things.
I gripped my sword even tighter and took my stance, sharpening my gaze.
I can do this. So what if it\'s a creature? I can defeat it...
The wolf growled angrily at me. Then it charged at me in a rage, but I had already radiated the mana in my body even before it charged at me.
A spherical area with a radius of two and a half meters centered on my body suddenly appeared before my eyes at an angle of three hundred and sixty degrees.
The moment the wolf entered this area, I had a good enough view to count its hairs, so I had a general idea of where it was going to attack when it charged at me, and I stepped to the side.
The wolf passed me with a slight look of surprise as its eyes slowly turned to mine. I ignored him though, twirled my sword in my hand, and drove it into the belly of the wolf that leaped past me.
It all happened too fast. But still, the feeling of my sword slicing through flesh, the warmth I felt in my body as the wolf\'s blood splattered on me... Everything rushed into my brain and I struggled not to vomit.
I disconnected from the surrounding mana and my vision returned to normal. I tried to steady my breathing and looked at the wolf\'s dying body.
Soon it stopped moving, the light in its eyes slowly fading.
"I did it..."
I didn\'t mean to speak out loud, but I didn\'t care. I had killed a creature... a creature!
When I saw the blood flowing from the wolf\'s wound, I felt sick again. So I turned my eyes away from him.
I knew I had to get used to the image, but now I had more important things to worry about than him. For example... the students gathered together in the way I had just told them.
I took a deep breath when I saw what kind of situation they were in, and then I shouted loud enough to be heard clearly.
"Frontline, close together, the creatures are sneaking in through you! Wizards, don\'t spend all your mana at once! Split into groups of three and take turns casting spells. Archers, keep shooting until you run out of arrows! Healers, emphasize performance over speed! What good is fast healing if the person you heal is not fully healed?!"
I kept barking orders and keeping them in order until I could see no major flaws.
Well, at least these guys were able to quickly do what I said without question.
They didn\'t care who was leading them in this chaos, they wanted to survive and what I said made sense.
An involuntary smile appeared on my face. Acceptance was a great boost to my ego and now, even if I left them to their own accord, they could take care of these low-level creatures.