"Phew! That was a nice haul." A student heaved a sigh of relief as, before his feet, lay around five dead beasts, their bodies still twitching faintly in the aftermath of the battle.
A few steps away was another group of students— a mixture of blue and yellow bands that had decided to group together for this hunt. Beneath them were about five more dead beasts, but their own bodies looked battered, scratched, and drenched in sweat.
"Nice haul? The fuck you mean?!" Another student retorted in frustration, his chest heaving as he wiped blood from his cheek.
"Between us all, we only managed to gather ten beasts, and we are like how many? One, two, three, six. If my maths is correct and it should be, we're supposed to gather sixty beasts in an hour and we only took down ten?" He angrily kicked the dead beast in front of him, its limp body sliding across the dirt.
"I don't know about you all, but I'm exhausted." A blue band student groaned out, his voice raspy. He clenched his fists, opening and closing them, feeling his Ki dwindling dangerously low.
"How long have we been hunting?" Another student huffed and panted, trying to keep his breathing steady. "According to Miss Albed, when the time is up, regardless of where we are, we'll get teleported back."
"What do we do now?" another student— a female croaked out as she held her hair in frustration, her eyes narrowing in panic. "I don't know about you all, but I really want to participate in this tournament."
"Do we look like we don't want to participate?!" a male student snapped back, his voice rising with irritation.
"Calm down, you all! With the time you guys are wasting bickering, we could have hunted a few more beasts already." The supposed leader of the group, a young blonde-haired student with a yellow band on his arm, finally spoke. His tone carried more composure, but even he sounded weary.
"I've extracted the cores." A blue band called out, holding up a pouch. She tucked the glowing cores into it carefully, as though they were her only reward so far.
"Alright, let's keep moving then." The blonde-haired student said as he adjusted his grip on his weapon. He was just about to take a step when his entire body froze. The others stiffened as well, sensing the same thing.
BOOOM!
A huge shockwave erupted, spreading out violently and slamming into them with full force. The ground beneath them cracked as they skidded back several inches, their balance rattled. Every hair on their body rose on end as their mouths went dry from the pressure.
"Wh… what was that?" a student croaked out, trembling in fright.
"Th… th… that aura. Is… is that another beast?"
"It… it felt suffocating. Don't tell me it's a boss."
"No!" the blonde-haired student suddenly shouted, though his voice trembled as he gulped loudly. "I'm sure it's not the boss."
"Then what else can it be?"
"That's what we're about to find out," the leader replied, forcing himself to remain steady as he began walking forward.
"Wait! We?!" someone stammered in protest.
"Let's go." The blonde-haired youth ordered firmly, trying not to betray the fear clawing at his chest. The remaining students gulped loudly, exchanged nervous glances, and then reluctantly followed as they moved into the darkness, weapons gripped tightly.
They took a few dozen careful steps when another shockwave exploded out, shaking the air violently. Sparks of lightning suddenly shot across the area, illuminating the night sky in a blinding flash. For a split second, the students caught sight of a lone figure standing amidst scattered beast corpses.
The figure's face was revealed in the lightning's glare, and the group instantly recognized him.
"Grey?!" They exclaimed in shock, their voices overlapping.
The sparks of lightning also revealed the scene around him— the ground torn apart, charred marks scarring the earth, and thirteen massive beasts lying dead, their bodies sprawled like discarded dolls.
'D… did only him hunt these?' the blonde-haired student thought, his heart hammering in disbelief. 'T… thirteen beasts? Whereas six of us together could only kill ten? If I'm correct, isn't he a yellow band student too?! Then how could he do this? Wait! What was that lightning flash from earlier? Don't tell me…'
His eyes lingered on Grey, wide with confusion, awe, and something else— fear.
'Oh shit! How much did they see? Damn it Grey! How could you be so reckless?! Fuck! What do I do now? Do I have to kill them? Crap! It will be too risky if I did.
If it was only a single student, I could have tried it, but six? I can't possibly kill them all. The academy might suspect something and be on to me. I'm not about to become a wanted fella.' Grey thought, his hands clenched tightly as his eyes darted around, analyzing their every move.
He cleared his throat and took the initiative to speak first, as the silence hanging over them was almost suffocating.
"You know me?" he asked, his tone calm but edged with caution.
"Who doesn't? Wasn't it you, your group, and the direct descendants that were chosen to go handle a portal break a few weeks ago? Yeah! That's where I first heard of your name." The blonde-haired student replied, nodding with certainty.
"Right." Grey muttered, nodding slightly as his gaze fell on the pile of dead beasts.
An awkward wave of silence followed, lasting a few seconds as the group exchanged uneasy glances. Grey simply shrugged, crouched down, and began extracting the beast cores one at a time, ignoring the fidgeting students around him.
'If he killed these by himself, then he should be able to help our situation, right? But will he even help? How did he kill these beasts though?' the blonde-haired youth thought, sweat dripping down his neck.
'Since they aren't asking me anything, I don't need to explain myself. I'll just get my cores and leave.' Grey thought with a small shrug as he finished extracting the last core and tucked it away neatly into his pouch.
'Ten cores for the assessment. That should be enough for me, but I still have time. Maybe I should hunt some more. I mean, this is a golden opportunity to stockpile a lot of sky-ranked cores. I've been making pills from earth-ranked beasts which are honestly low tier, but with these, I should be able to craft stronger weapons and refine higher quality items.
It's not every day I'll come across sky-ranked beasts like this.'
He sighed inwardly, dusted his palms off, and turned around to leave.
"Kindly wait, please!" The blonde-haired student shouted suddenly, his voice desperate. Grey halted his footsteps, one brow raising in mild irritation.
'Did they really see something?' he wondered.
"Please, I n… we need your help." The blonde-haired boy stammered nervously, but his voice held a trace of determination.
"Huh?" Grey muttered as he turned around, his brow arching higher.
"We are stuck. We need to hunt around sixty beasts, but we managed to kill only ten, and we badly want to participate in this tournament. I don't know how you managed to hunt these beasts yourself, but you don't even look tired in the least.
So I request you— kindly help us. We are willing to pay any price for you to help us hunt these beasts so we can at least pass this assessment and get into the tournament." The blonde-haired student declared, his voice firm despite trembling hands. He bowed deeply towards Grey, his head almost touching the ground.
The students beside him hesitated only for a second before following his lead, bowing down as well.
"Huh?" Grey muttered again, blinking rapidly at this unexpected scene, unsure whether to laugh, sigh, or curse.