Arriving back at the test area, Koku was informed that the test had already begun and was, therefore, told the specifics on their way there. Koku looked at Celestia before she left and requested to be immune to the sight of the magic mirror for this part of the test.
She sighed and agreed. Although she was curious, she respected his decision. With this, both Celestia and Daen left through a magic door. Koku was curious about those doors and how they seemed to blend in with their surroundings.
For example, the magic mirrors blend in with their surroundings until someone enters them. In this case, the magic mirror creates a little distorted effect; however, it remains see-through. So as Koku finished the thought of the magic doors, his attention was focused on the test.
"This part is called the Labyrinth hunt. The reason being, because in this, we have to find our way to the center of the labyrinth, all while being teleported here in random locations. Everything we kill gets you points. Best of all is the fact that the monsters here are tamed, and when dying, the one responsible gets points added to their score. To top it all off, we all start at zero and can all see our points after the test." Koku sighed as he knew he'd have to fight much more, all while nearly dying a few hours ago.
(A few hours later)
Koku had been walking and slaying weak monsters such as goblins and figured out that he was in the outer areas, practically the farthest away from the center, where the weakest monsters were. Koku had been walking around for around 30 minutes and could see that it was getting dark. "Time flows differently here than outside," Koku remarked, and after a few more minutes of wandering around, Koku heard a faint scream.
Koku rushed over there, and the scream sounded like a female's scream. After getting there, his suspicions were right; a girl no older than him was on the ground looking at a goblin slowly walking toward her with a knife it had taken away from a boy it had just killed.
Her eyes screamed terror and innocence. Koku slowly walked up from behind the girl, which she didn't notice at all, and the goblin began running at the girl. She screamed again, this time putting her hand in front of her, as if she was trying to push it off.
But right before the goblin was able to do anything, Koku split its body in half with his aura sword. The blood of the goblin spilled on the girl's face and clothing. "Tell me, why didn't you try to fight back?" Koku asked the traumatized girl. As he asked her this, she began to turn around.
"Will she be useful?" Koku pondered as he watched her mess her words up. "I-i was scared," she finally replied. "Scared? Then why not fight if you're scared?" he asked her, trying to see the extent of her will. "I-i don't know," hearing her answer, Koku almost determined she was useless. Therefore, he was going to leave, but he heard her say something interesting.
"Please help me get to my brother Yuusha! I promise he can protect us and help us be strong." Hearing this made Koku's interest in her peak. "So she does have getting strong in mind, but…she's weak as it stands out." Koku told himself as he agreed to help her get reunited with her elder brother.
Koku pulled a rag out of his pocket and gave it to her so that she could clean her face. The girl wasn't expecting this and didn't say anything but took the rag and did, in fact, clean her face. "Before we set out, what's your name?" Koku looked her in the eyes as he asked this. "My name's Emiko," she smiled as she responded, and after that, Koku told her his name, and they began moving.
About 20 minutes in, Emiko was talking about her name. "My name means, smiling child... My mom gave it to me before passing away." Getting distracted by the now night sky within the labyrinth, Emiko asked Koku what his name meant, and so he told her, "My name, i-it means black." After telling her this, Emiko began interrogating Koku. "Why did your parents name you Koku? you're not black, you're white silly," Hearing this Koku looked her in the eyes and could very well tell this girl was indeed a 6-year-old.
She was too innocent and simple-minded. "You should save your energy, also please keep it in mind that monsters can hear us too," with this Koku kind of told her to shut up. But as luck would have it, it wasn't on his side…she continued to talk for hours.
After those hours passed, Koku smelled something and heard something in the distance. He could smell blood, knowing what it was, he immediately got behind Emiko and placed his hand over her mouth. She was confused, but as Koku pulled her into the corner of the massive pathway, where a log had been, she realized something was approaching them from ways off.
Both Koku and Emiko would not make a sound for minutes; the monster later passed by and was visibly strong; they could tell by its looks. "It's a dread bear, so a pretty nasty monster to face, and by the looks of it, it's killed someone already." After it passed by, Koku took this chance to take Emiko and sneak out of the area.
This would be easier since the blood on the dread bear was messing with its sense of smell, and it being nighttime made it hard for it to see. Not a word would be muttered in that night, and just as daybreak was arriving; a roar heard ways away.
"It's caught onto us." Koku grabbed Emiko and began running. "Is it after us?" she asked all worriedly. Koku looked at her dumbfounded and asked himself how was it possible to be so dumb-minded.
So after 20 minutes of running passed many monsters, Koku stopped running and placed her down. "Go hide." Koku told her as the dread bear was about 3 minutes away from them. "It's going awfully fast," Koku told himself as he saw it come into his plane of sight.
Standing still and waiting for the bear to arrive, Koku saw something else behind the bear. "Great… all those monsters are following it too," Koku had seen many goblins and monster wolves behind it. It really wasn't a big deal if they didn't have the dread bear there, but since they were there.
Koku now had to deal with distractions on top of the dread bear. Nearly there, Koku got into an aggressive knight stance and readied himself for impact as the dread bear would be there any moment. The other monsters being slower were still ways away, roughly around 4 minutes away, as to the bear being less than a minute.
Once the minute was over, the dread bear lunged out at Koku as it ran at him. Koku dodged by sidestepping and barely slashed at its face as he did; After dodging Koku used an aura slash and jumped back even more since the bear had turned around and was trying to bite at him.
Seeing that biting wasn't taking it anywhere, the dread bear stood on its 2 legs becoming this tower of thick hide and powerful attacks. "Not much time till we have visitors," Koku muttered as he then looked back at the bear and dodged a strike from the bear.
"It doesn't seem all too strong, was I wrong?" Koku questioned himself, and just then he remembered the guide, the section on beast monsters… "The dread bear, a beast stronger in attack than defense, but still very heavily defended, this monster may seem strong at a moment's notice, but really isn't as strong as they get…their power comes from having the ability to reduce physical damage taken by 30% and magical by 35%, added onto its enraged state, you'd have a monster 3 times stronger than its former self." This was the information Koku could remember.
But as he did, Koku saw its paw swiping towards his direction, Koku ducked down to avoid it, but then another came his way, and this time Koku jumped back using another Aura slash, this time hitting its stomach.
This made the bear grunt, and then it let out a loud roar, its eyes turned red with rage, and Koku knew it was time to try something he'd wanted to do earlier, "She's not here, and this might be risky," Koku thought, as Emiko could peek her head around the corner of wherever she was hiding and see his abilities. Not only that but everyone in Paladonia would see them too.
Koku, however, wanting to avoid sustaining any damage decided to try it out. "Come forth," Koku muttered out; after doing so, a dark purple circle formed on the ground and spat out a monster; then another and another, until there were 5 of them.
The bear got off of its 2 feet and began rushing at Koku, and the moment it began doing so, the monsters Koku had summoned, which were the Cratrus's, shot quills at it. It was clear that the moment they shot the quills, the dread bear had no chance.
The quills dug deep into its thick hide, but being enraged, the bear felt no pain and kept rushing at them; this is when the bigger Cratrus who didn't shoot any quills, began walking slowly towards the bear. Its four legs tensed up for a moment, and doing this the Cratrus dashed forward faster than even Koku could see.
Upon seeing the Cratrus move its head to the side, facing Koku. Koku saw the bear's neck, and after seeing this, the bear collapsed but it wasn't over; the other monsters had arrived; Koku looked at the monsters and he sighed, "Kill them all."
With this, the 5 of the Cratrus began going wild on the monsters. A minute later, they were done, and Koku un-summoned them. All this time Koku was calm…on the outside, "Woah, they really helped, wonder if I can summon them infinitely," Koku was far from cool-headed inside. However, after a few seconds, he regained his composure and he called out to Emiko.
After a minute, she peeked her head around the corner and ran towards him. "Wow! you beat them all by yourself, can you-", Koku interrupted her and simply told her that he needed some silence since they might be deep into the Labyrinth.
She complied really quickly and for the rest of the test, Koku made his way deeper into the Labyrinth and killed monsters as they made their way to the end goal. After getting to the end of the labyrinth hunt, Koku found out that himself and Emiko were the first to arrive.
After waiting for a bit, the remaining students arrived and so did Yuusha, Emiko's elder brother. When he arrived and saw her with Koku, he yelled at Koku for being around his sister. After that, Aron arrived and budged in between Yuusha and Koku who wasn't really paying any attention to Yuusha. After the test results came in, the instructors present at the moment read the list from the top score to the bottom.
"Of the students who entered this test, 64 remain. In first place, with comes in Yuusha with 7,803 points. Second place is Koku with 5,963 points, and in third is Aron, with 3,031 points and…" the proctor kept reading the list all the way until he got to the bottom.
Ending this test, the students were all exhausted, and wouldn't have expected this. They were given a day to rest up; Koku saw this as an opportunity to recover his strength and try some things he wanted to try out. So after they were all led out of the Labyrinth, they were all taken to these rooms they'd be able to stay at, on top of that they were having a feast later that night.
Not being interested in all of that, Koku ventured off on his own, and what he came across was unexpected, "What?" Koku questioned the thing in front of him.