The skies began to grow dark as the sun decided to end his shift, letting a full moon take its place instead. All of the luscious green around me suddenly felt a lot more menacing, frightening even. Still, there was also a very tangible feeling of serene bliss, being alone under the fragile light of the moon. Even though it was a virtual world, it felt so very alive.
The rest of the day had gone by without anything too exciting happening. Most students had made the decision to spend a large part of the day gathering information, not only about other students but also about the challenges that were part of the event.
What that meant was that I had been pretty bored. I had spent my day just flying around and trying to find something entertaining to watch but, sadly, I did not. Now it was time for both of my bodies to try and regain as much as possible before I fell asleep, as the transformation was continuously sapping a very small amount of mana every second.
'Hopefully, there will be a lot more action tomorrow... If not, I might have to create some...'
=========
My fears had been obsolete, as it hadn't taken more than a couple of hours before another stage was set. The actors this time? Sebastian and Suzan going up against Bellatrix and Adam.
'This might be interesting...'
I wasn't all too interested in seeing the Rue siblings or Suzan fight, as I already knew the characters pretty well from the game. What I truly was interested in was the purple-haired man now holding a spear in his hands.
Sitting comfortably on a tree branch, I had an excellent view of the spectacle that was about to go down.
With all four of them standing in a valley, I was questioning the decision-making of the Rues as it was clearly not smart to use an open area when fighting two close-combat students. While I was pondering why this was the case, I soon got my answer as Bella spouted some haughty words.
"Hohoho, brother, it seems like we have some trash we need to throw out!"
That girl really was the stereotype of a noble, clearly underestimating her opponents just because they got placed in the B-class.
"Shut up, Bella. I've already told you, there is no room for reckless confidence in battle!" Her brother though, seemed a lot more level-headed, probably getting forced into this position because of the impulses of his sister. 'I feel sorry for him...'
On the other side, we had the few-worded Sebastian and an extremely energetic girl with neon yellow hair. "Hey, Sebastian! Are we really going to let her talk like that?! Let's beat her up!"
Seeing Suzan jumping around in excitement, pulling the clothes of the man next to her, it appeared that Adam wasn't the only one to have gotten stuck with someone annoying. For a second I thought I could see the moment when his soul died.
And so, the battle began as Bellatrix pulled the trigger, sending an arrow aimed at the forehead of Suzan.
*Tang!*
A katana had somehow appeared in the hands of Suzan, which she used to skillfully deflect the arrow. Turning her head to Sebastian, he nodded as if to say 'go nuts'. A bright smile appeared on her face as she had gotten permission to fight the blonde girl in front of her.
It didn't take long for Sebastian to move as well, running forward toward the dagger-wielding Adam to make sure he couldn't ambush Suzan. This was also the fight I kept one of my pairs of eyes on.
Just like the spearman must've imagined, Adam was already on his way to stop Suzan from getting in range of his sister but Sebastian had already covered the distance between them. "Shit!" Seeing the spear that was coming down upon him, he crossed his daggers to catch the attack. *Bam!* "You're strong..."
Sebastian kept pouring more strength into his attack, pushing Adam downwards. There was no question about it, the spearman was physically a lot stronger than the assassin. Having no other choice, Adam redirected the attack at the expense of his own balance.
Noticing an opening, the spear quickly went flying back horizontally toward the chest of his enemy, looking very much like it would eliminate him in a matter of a second. Suddenly, the figure of Adam blurred, and he disappeared for a second just to appear a couple of meters back.
Not minding his prey getting out of his attack, Sebastian put the spear at his side and ran forward once again. After all, his mission was to keep him occupied so Suzan could finish off Bellatrix.
*Tang! Tang! Tang!*
A flurry of strikes rained over Adam, who skillfully deflected or dodged all of them. "Tsk!" Sadly, some of the attacks managed to scratch his skin, freeing the blood that was contained beneath. 'I wonder if he has some sort of cooldown on his skill...'
It didn't make sense to me that Adam didn't use his skill again to make space so he could get to his sister, who for the matter was having an incredibly tough time trying to run away from the katana that Suzan swung at her.
Bellatrix didn't appear to have much experience in combat at all, almost as if she was expecting to get to just sit comfortably at range and shoot arrows at her enemies while Adam kept them busy.
Back to the main event, Sebastian and Adam were still busy with their exchanges, the spearman being the one on the offensive while the assassin tried to desperately defend himself. Unfortunately for him, his specialty wasn't head-on battles. He was an assassin after all. So it didn't take long until he was on his knees, his body bleeding all over and his mind exhausted.
Putting the spear next to his enemy's chest, Sebastian opened his mouth for the first time during this whole exchange, "Good match." *Splurt!* The spear made its way into the body of Adam, snuffing out his chances of continuing the event as he got eliminated right there and then.
At the same time, Suzan had finally reached Bella the Bitch. "Please stop! I surrender!" Not wanting to feel the pain of a katana severing her head, the archer forfeited which made her body dematerialize just in time to save her from the incoming sword, much to the dismay of Suzan.
"FUCK! FUCKING BITCH! COME BACK HERE!"
Angry at the fact that she had just spent almost ten minutes dodging arrows and running after Bellatrix, she was repeatedly stomping the ground in an attempt to get rid of her frustrations.
The fight had been pretty impressive, both Sebastian and Adam were adept at using their weapons, and thinking about the fact that they hadn't even mastered weapon enhancement, they would surely get pretty powerful in the future.
However, although the fight had been quite entertaining, I wasn't happy. 'He never used a single skill...' The biggest reason why I wanted to watch the other students was to try and figure out what they were able to do, but Sebastian didn't show me anything other than his proficiency in the spear.
I knew a bit about most of the students but, although I didn't remember them all too clearly, I had no idea how their skills worked in this world. There was a very real possibility that the skills they had didn't act as they did in the game, just like mine didn't. Sebastian was also one of two students that I had no information about at all.
'At least I got to see what Peter's Manual can do...'
As I had gotten to spectate the match between Sophie and Peter, I had been able to conclude that he had the Warlock Manual. It was pretty similar to the Witch Manual that Anna had, but instead of focusing on curses, it used dark powers to summon entities from another world. That was the origin of the hands that grabbed Sophie.
'Can't be helped... I will just have to follow him for the rest of the event and hope that he shows me more in the future...'
****
[Sophie's Pov]
"Arthur, I don't know if I can go on..."
We had gotten into an incredibly difficult situation, and I couldn't see any way out of it. At this point, I had already surrendered myself to my fate, ready to give up on the event and instead focus on the dueling tournament.
He crouched down, getting to the same height as the me who was leaning against a tree in anguish, "Sophie, I understand that you are in pain... But we can't just give up like that!"
Arthur was so sweet, desperately trying to encourage me to continue, but there was nothing that could be done. "I'm sorry Arthur... You must go on without me."
I thought I could see some tears starting to emerge in his eyes as he took my hands in his, "Sophie, I know you are hungry but don't give up!"
...
Yes. The dire straits we were in were all a result of me being extremely hungry, hungry to the point where I thought I could feel my insides eating themselves. Now, it might sound silly but there was a very practical reason as to why this happened.
We had been clearing out one of the mini-dungeons, a goblin cave with a goblin general as the last boss. It had been pretty easy, I was just ravaging through them with my claws and Arthur had been skillfully overpowering them with his sword, as to finally end the life of the general with his sword shining in a golden light.
The problem started afterward. I had completely forgotten that my transformation rapidly depleted my vitality, creating a desperate need for me to eat. And now, I had to pay the price.
Putting my hand on Arthur's cheek, I opened my mouth for the last time in this world, "I surrender..."
"SOPHIE, NOOO!"
Coming out of the capsule, I was surprised at seeing that the teachers had brought in an incredibly old CRT tv on a desk with wheels. It was just like the time in middle school when my teachers would let us watch a movie in class.
In front of the tv, they had brought several chairs in which not only Mr. Brown and Ms. Turner sat, but also Brad, Bradley, Anna, Sarah, and Peter.
'Huh... I thought I would be the second one to go...'
In my mind, I was sure that Peter would have been the only student to get eliminated, but it turns out that there were quite a lot of people out here already.
On the CRT, I got out just in time to see Bellatrix scream 'I surrender!' before it turned to static, liberating the focus of the focus.
"Oh, Sophie! Did you get your ass handed to you by some monster?"
Getting up from her chair, Anna walked over to me, bantering as always. Laughing I reciprocated, "Haha, not at all. I chose to surrender for other reasons. But by the sounds of it, you did? I guess it's hard for a bitch, I mean a witch, to survive."
As we were having fun, Sarah also made her way to our side. "Greetings Sophie. I see that your endeavor ended prematurely. My condolences."
She had fully reverted into royalty mode, walking tall with her moderate chest sticking out.
"Please stop, Sarah. We have talked about this."
While I was telling Sarah off for not acting more like a normal girl with us, two more capsules opened up with Bellatrix and Adam climbing out of them.
"Adam! Why didn't you defend me?!"
The girl was furious, enraged that her brother hadn't been able to watch her back during the fight. Adam, however, just explained himself calmly.
"I told you before the event, we probably shouldn't have teamed up. There is no synergy between an archer and an assassin, even more so when Sebastian was fast enough to keep me busy during the entire fight."
"Tsk!"
Turning on her heel, Bella just clicked her tongue and sat down in one of the chairs, ignoring my amused expression.
'God, she is such a bitch...'
Our short time at the academy had let me get a somewhat good grasp on a lot of my classmates, and if there was one thing I knew, it was that Bellatrix Rue was an absolute abomination of a person.
Overly prideful and elitist, with no sympathy for anyone other than Mike, whose pants she seemed to desperately want to enter.
I felt sorry for her brother who had to put up with her just because they shared the same blood.
"But Sophie..."
Sarah initiated another conversation, breaking the brief moment of silence that had emerged as we watched the siblings come out. "Yea? What is it?"
She started fidgeting with her fingers, her gaze gravitating towards the ground as she forced herself to continue, "Umm, you didn't happen to see James in there, did you?"
'Ah... Guess we are pretty similar after all.'
It didn't take a genius to figure out why she asked that question, she wanted to know if I had any information about how her interest was faring.
"I'm sorry, but I never saw him in there. Let's just sit down and wait, he is bound to show up on the screen at some point."
"Un..."
Nodding her head, a bit sad, we all sat down and waited for the next fight to start. As the time inside the VR world was acting on a 10:1 ratio, with the crt slowing down to show us the fights at normal speed, we shouldn't have to wait for long before something happened.
'Thinking about it, I'm surprised that idiot is still hanging on... He is going to be a pain when he gets out though, seeing as he made it further than me...'
****
[James's Pov]
"I'm bored..."
"Yea, me too..."
Two birds were sitting in a tree, having once again been submitted to the torment that is boredom. After the last fight, ending with Bellatrix and Adam getting eliminated, things slowed down again. Having already spent four hours waiting, I felt like I had to do something before night fell.
Chewing on some bark, the only food I had managed to come across, I began to make a plan to shake things up. As I knew where all of the students were currently located, at least in general terms, it didn't take long for me to come up with something.
'This will be fun!'
****
[Adriana's Pov]
Things were going well for me and my partner Trisha. Even though we had only eliminated the muscle brothers, we had killed a lot of monsters and solved a couple of puzzles. We would surely get a good score if we survived for long enough. This was my ticket to the A-class.
It was a bit frustrating though. Even if I had no issues with moments of silence, it was wearing me down to walk around with Trisha who almost never opened her mouth. It was completely going against her human nature.
The humans I had met during political and diplomatic meetings, were all letting their mouths run until they ran out of saliva, something most elves hated a lot. I was probably one of the most talkative people of my kind, a trait I had acquired after socializing with humans a lot in order to be used to bring our countries closer together.
There were a few students at Ainu that originated from Aldon, but they only consisted of either beastmen or dwarves. I was the first elf to ever attend an academy in Mensch, something that a lot of conservative elves found to be an atrocity. Elves were the nobles of Aldon, meaning many found it beneath us to mingle with humans.
That also made it even more embarrassing that I was part of the B-class instead of the A-class. Even though I could logically understand that humans developed faster, and I would probably get a lot stronger than all of them in the future, it hurt my pride a lot.
Throwing me out of my thoughts, the rarity that was Trisha speaking happened, "Look".
In front of us, there was a cloud hovering just a little bit over a meter above the ground, having a very specific shape. It was in the shape of an arrow going a little bit back and forth. 'What...?'
I recognized that substance so very well, it was made out of mist, making it obvious who is responsible for it. Looking at Trisha, she just shrugged her shoulders as if saying 'You choose, I'm up for whatever'. It was the same as when we had solved the puzzles, she had been leaning on me to do the thinking.
My mind quickly ran through a couple of scenarios, trying to figure out what James was thinking. There were two sides to the coin, both making me feel very stressed out about the whole thing.
On one hand, one could regard the arrow as being too obvious of a trap for it to truly be a trap, pretty much pointing to the fact that if he was going to bring us into a trap, he would've done so a lot more cleverly. On the other hand, it could be a triple-layered trap, where he expected me to assume it was a trap even though it was too simple, meaning he wanted us to either stay where we were or go in another direction.
'My head hurts...'
The royal princess of Aldon wasn't stupid, but this was such a mindboggling situation that I couldn't make up my mind about what to do. At the same time, if he wanted us to stay here he was already winning by me spending time thinking about it.
Minutes passed by, as I was still unable to make a decision, and when Trisha opened her mouth again, I knew I had fallen for James's trap. "We have company."
"Looks like we are finally going to get to have some fun, John! My greetings princess, unfortunately, I can't let you leave this place!"
****
[James's Pov]
What's the best kind of trick? A trick where all choices lead to the same outcome! And that was the kind of trick I had just let Adriana experience.
In reality, it didn't matter if she chose to stay or follow the arrow. If she chose to follow the arrow, I was planning on leading her and Trisha right into the clutches of Sebastian and Suzan, while I at the same time sub-me had conjured another arrow showing Mike and John the path to Adriana.
It didn't even matter if they chose to just walk in a different direction, as I would be able to lead Mike and John to them as long as they didn't walk in the opposite direction, where, as stated, Sebastian was.
The main factor as to why this plan worked in the first place was the fact that Mike and John hadn't ever seen me use my mist, therefore assuming the arrow was part of an event in the forest. They never thought that an introverted raven was sitting on a branch above them, orchestrating a very simple, yet efficient, trick to make sure the stage was set.
"Looks like we are finally going to get to have some fun, John! My greetings princess, unfortunately, I can't let you leave this place!"
Adriana didn't back down after hearing his words, instead, she took a step forward to protect her honor. "Greetings, Mr. Denver. And I'm also sorry, sorry because I can't accept your words!"
'Aaaahhhh, finally! Some entertainment!'
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