Chương 36: Chapter 36 : The Competition V
The rest of the night, Vega sat down, guarding Philip. Even though his stomach started feeling weird from using too much mana, he needed to preserve. Luckily, the sun had peaked through the horizon, gleaming through the forest. He started to see the lines of the leaves more clearly.
The forest woke up with the rising sun. The birds sang together, creating a cacophony of different species.
Philip opened his eyes, hearing the jarring noise from different birds. He squinted his eyes, adjusting to the light, and saw Vega sitting like a statue in front of him. "You can stop the sigil now."
Vega flinched and finally noticed Philip. He looked at the big guy with tired eyes from staying awake and nodded. He cut off the mana supply to the sigil, and his head ached from the constant use of mana.
Massaging his forehead, he said, "We should find the other inner apprentices."
Philip frowned. "Why?"
"I think all the other apprentices are using this competition to eliminate us."
The realization was drawn on Philip's face. "They are starting the coup."
Vega nodded. He stood and stretched, feeling his legs numb from sitting too long on the hard soil. Even though he had just moved to the more comfortable room, he had gotten used to the feeling of a soft bed enveloping him at night, but he probably had to part with the room after the competition was over.
Philip caught Vega right away. "Here. Just hold on to me. You need to rest now."
Even though Vega was not small, Philip had enough strength to carry him behind. When his body finally relaxed, Vega lost consciousness right away.
The first sound he heard was the explosion. Blinking his eyes to figure out where he was, Philip quickly killed the creatures, blasting them into nothing. Then finally, the shiny purple stone dropped onto the ground. The big guy ran giddily and put the stone away.
"Finally, one magic stone. Oops, sorry to wake you up." Philip let Vega down. "This thing is really rare. Even my mentor didn't really want to use any magic stones during practice. The cost overlap the result."
"How long did I sleep?"
"Enough, I think." Philip pointed to the sun.
Vega nodded. It was about three hours looking at the sun, which had already moved above his head. "Did you find where Nora or Sein are?"
"Not really, no. But I found the ground melting from the corrosive acid in one of Nora's potions."
"Where?"
"Just about to the south from here."
Vega closed his eyes and focused on the vibrations around him. The mana was quiet, but then it started to ripple a little. He ran toward the source and hid quickly behind the bush.
The fight was almost over. Nora was the only apprentice who didn't like wearing her robe. But now, her cloth had several holes with dark red spots surrounding her stomach. He saw a huge spear shoot toward the opponent, killing him on the spot.
Nora glanced toward the source. "Who!?" She finally noticed the big figure and sighed. "It's you! I'm so tired." She took a mana potion from her pouch and gulped it right away.
"Where is Sein?" Philip looked around, hoping to catch the other guy.
Nora shook her head. Her hand reached toward the pouch and took a leather book. "He didn't make it."
"I'm so sorry."
Nora waved her hand and flopped down on the ground. She wiped her face, and Vega saw several tears escape from her hands.
He just joined the inner circle without knowing the personalities of the other apprentices. But from their earlier interaction, Nora and Sein seemed quite close. He wanted to see the book and hoped to find any knowledge about formation inside. But from the looks of it, Nora would keep the book with her.
The inner apprentices were quite a strange group. Except for Vega, the other members were focusing on different professions. But knowing that any profession was really profitable, Vega really liked to learn both crafting and making formations. Unfortunately, Sein was no longer alive, so he couldn't ask anyone in the group to teach him formations.
"How many apprentices did you kill?" Nora asked them after she cried silently.
Philip raised his fingers, but Vega interrupted, "four, including one I killed before I found you. How about you?"
"Three. So it means we only left with... about nine?"
"Just about. "Do you also think that they're starting the coup?"
"Yup. Three apprentices started chasing me after I went inside the forest. You?"
Philip was the same, but he had five apprentices chase him without killing anyone on the way.
Vega shook his head. "I climbed the trees right away after I got into the forest. It's the best way, knowing the trees are too dense inside."
"I didn't think about that. No wonder Professor Addilyn chose you. You are as cunning as her."
Vega frowned. "I don't know about her. Why do people call her scary?"
Philip and Nora eyed each other and sighed. Philip was the one who answered. "She's the oldest and probably even stronger compared to the principal. The only reason she's not in the guild is because of her background. And I feel weird being near her without knowing why." They gave Vega a knowing look.
"I think we have to hunt the other apprentices. The competition doesn't matter anymore. Vega, we're counting on you to stop anyone and finish the fight fast."
"I agree, we have to use our strongest means to kill them fast, and she went back to the academy. I hope our mentors had enough time to hold the other mentors and mistresses."
They stood up and searched around the forest. Vega was in charge of support. With his knowledge of vibration, he could find any apprentices hidden far away.
The sound traveled faster on the ground. Actually, Philip was the one who suggested that method from his experience working in the foundry. Nora also pointed out that in the air, the trees could block any sound from reaching them.
So Vega tried listening to the vibration on the ground. The problem was that the ground was not only made up of soil and dirt, but in some places there was a huge rock buried inside. Sometimes, the vibration stopped reaching further because he needed stronger vibrations through the denser rock.
He gave up listening from the ground and focused on the air surrounding him. Vega felt something coming from afar, and after pointing out a direction, the three nodded and headed that way.
The fight disturbed the whole forest. Nine apprentices worked together, trying to kill a huge two-headed wolf standing twice their size.
Any creature with more than one head would master different types of elements. From the bushes, he saw the wolf summoning the rocks and hitting them, aiming at several apprentices at once. The other head screamed and spit something corrosive toward the rest of the apprentice.
"Toxic element," whispered Nora after observing the purple liquid sprouting from one of the wolves mouths.
"The adult orthrus is known to be around the same level as an adept." Philip told them.
Vega nodded. He saw the picture once, but he was too lazy and just copied the words without actually reading what the description was.
They observed the fight, waiting until the apprentices got killed by the orthrus, or the other way around. His mentor told him that anyone can kill someone or something higher level than them when working together.
"Can I try to make them a little dizzy? The orthrus can kill them instead of us?"
"No! I bet even your strongest spell won't have any effect on the orthrus, and it will attack us instead."
True to Philip's word, the orthrus glanced at their area and snarled. Luckily, all the apprentices were too occupied trying to hunt the orthrus, so no one noticed the change in its behavior.
The apprentices brought their own style, trying to deal some damage to the wolf. One apprentice stood the farthest away and tried to get the orthrus attention by shooting arrows at it. The arrow curled oddly, attacking the wolf from several different angles.
Another apprentice did his best to surround the huge wolf by throwing some dust to cover the orthrus eyesight. They worked together beautifully.
Three apprentices with the mastery of the water element were in charge of keeping all the other apprentices from the wolf's attack. They used the simplest water barrier, keeping the acid from hitting any of their friends while splashing any rocks with water, making it slow down to give the others time to dodge.
The fight went on and on until Vega finally saw the orthrus start to get tired. Its spell had lessened and focused on charging toward the apprentices with its huge body.
Not long after, the orthrus dropped to the ground with several spots bleeding from the attack. Even with its hard defense, the apprentices tried focusing on attacking different parts of its body and bled the wolf slowly.
After the apprentices made sure the orthrus stopped breathing, one apprentice seemed to be the leader. He cut its stomach open and took out a magic stone larger than Vega had ever seen before.
"Now!"
Vega took out his flute and blew the soft melody with more and more intensity. His mane controlled the melody to reach mostly the apprentice, who used the bow and the leader. His melody started to make the apprentice relax, and their heartbeat lessened.
He couldn't affect all the apprentices; three were still trying to help their leader by cutting some part of the orthrus and didn't notice any changes in their friends.
Philip and Nora came out from hiding and threw their best spells, killing two apprentices right on the spot.
Knowing something was wrong, the other apprentice, who was still conscious, lifted his arm to summon his spell, but he looked down and noticed the hole in his stomach.
With the effect of his melody, Philip and Nora killed all the apprentices easily, and after they swiped the pouches clean from the apprentices, including the huge magic stone, they returned back to Vega's place.
They divided their spoils without speaking much and headed south, going back to the academy.
While Vega was not a stranger to blood, these past two days were the most bloody he had ever experienced. Even with his past living on the street, all the killings made him numb, seeing all the blood all around him. Being prepped together by Nora and Philip, he limps slowly toward the academy.
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strigidae713
strigidae713 Enjoy the chapter. I try to create a story that makes it hard for people to guess where it's headed. Conflict doesn't always end in resolution. Sometimes, the conflict will stay as a conflict to advance.
If you have some ideas about the story, comment bellow and please let me know.
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