After the little mental breakdown Vanessa had when she accused me of being the apprentice of a great rune master or a hidden member of some powerful noble family, our journey through the labyrinth continues, but the team's atmosphere is somewhat uncomfortable and stressful.
I feel that Vanessa's suspicions have infected the rest of the group aside from Hilda who seems to find everything a little amusing and tragic at the same time, she seems like she doesn't know whether to defend me or laugh at the situation. Not one of my fellow men has the courage to ask me any questions.
Not that it was going to help much, I would just answer that Vanessa's crazy theory is crazy and I'm a normal guy involved in a lot of different things, not one of them would believe me, I wouldn't believe it if I was in their position because my sincere answer is very suspicious.
How I can't convince them that I'm not what Vanessa accused me of being when the answer can only seem a little real if I told you about my eyes that it's an inheritance from my father who was a member of a noble family who it's probably powerful. On reflection now I realized that Vanessa's theory isn't completely wrong, I can actually be considered a hidden member of a noble family, which is so hidden I don't even know her name, the only mistake she really made was thinking that I had a guide to help me.
I'm in a sticky situation right now, I didn't really expect my feat of opening the portal to result in the current uncomfortable situation, but since I can't do anything about it without risking further worsening my situation, I'll just go ahead and deny everything. If someone really wants to interrogate me, I'll just go crazy and make everything confusing and incoherent.
Our uncomfortable trip went off without a big deal for the next few hours, the first change happened when the light started to dim, neither one of us was tired or hungry because it wasn't so long ago that we stopped to rest and eat, to get ready. to the challenges we would face inside the labyrinth, but that doesn't change the fact that nightfall has many meanings for us.
The first and only this dusk is not just happening to screw with our perception of time, as the matrix's challenges will change because of the dusk and the confirmation that we will all have to spend the night inside a rune matrix and it would be good to be able to find a stable matrix so that we can rest at night, since the decision was most known and rest since this test can last for days.
But before it really got completely dark, we found what I feared the most, when entering a matrix, I noticed three colored auras when I did terrain recon. Within that matrix to a group of three people who are prepared to ambush us.
I'm sure their intent is this, because the three warriors are hidden in three different spots around the center of the rune matrix where there is a small stone altar that is filled with mana and elemental energy. Obviously, this altar must have something to do with testing this matrix and is being used as bait by these gray core warriors, but it's a shame for them that I can identify their presence before they identify mine.
My group is still out of their field of vision, at most they have noticed that someone has entered the matrix, it seems their plans are to ambush the other students and eliminate them from the test as killing is prohibited. But this puts me in a bad situation and the only way to win here is to go around it, if I open the portal we just went through and thus do a round through the matrices around this one I will be able to avoid this ambush, but if I do that, I'm sure the examiners will insist on taking three spots off my team, electing that I failed to recruit these three warriors, even though I haven't seen their faces or communicated with these three.
I motioned for my team to stop and I focused my attention on each of the auras in turn to try to find out as much information about them as possible without getting any closer to them. I have to come up with a good plan to have any chance of recruiting them into my team, with the addition of three more strong warriors my team shouldn't have too many problems facing the rest of the teams in the center of the maze.
The three warriors hiding in front of me have the gray core in the intermediate stage, this tells me they are older students than me and by their background they have experience in ambushing targets, maybe they are part of one of the groups that married criminals for points of the institute. Two of them have elemental energy inside their body, one of them has the wind element and the second one has the earth element, as I'm so far away I can't analyze the flow of their auras very accurately, but I can tell they are aware of the around them, but they're not ready for a battle yet.
I turn to my companions and wave them closer and be silent. I whisper in the smallest volume I can manage.
"There are three warriors ready for us to ambush in the center of the matrix, let's divide the group into two parts, one will be the bait and the other will be our own ambush. Hilda, Vanessa and Amael will be the bait, they will probably be more comfortable attacking a group with the same numerical amount and when one of your targets is a wizard, even if he looks like a warrior too."
"More to ensure that they're going to attack you and I have an idea, when you get closer to the center of the matrix where there seems to be a stone altar there that must have something to do with the challenge of this rune matrix, Hilda and Vanessa will start fighting and only after they started screaming had Amael tried to break up the fight. I doubt the three warriors will miss the chance to attack them in this scenario, but Amael remember to be ready to use your magic to defend against the three warriors."
"The moment the three warriors attack the bait will be the moment for the second group to act, each of us must approach the enemy warriors from behind, but to make sure we don't get discovered we need time to go around the side of the matrix to stay in the blind spot of our targets, I'll take the one farthest away."
"But to have enough time to do this, Hilda's group has to go very slowly, if you want, you can already discuss on the way there. Any questions?"
Hilda raised her hand and asked me a question I didn't expect.
"Is it if they don't attack?"
I had forgotten about that option, I actually forgot two options.
"If they don't attack, we'll still ambush them from behind, but we shouldn't hurt them, just by threatening them from behind they should surrender. But if these three are elves, you can attack them with the intention of hurting memo, there's no chance that the elves will join my team, I'd rather lose all three places than accept traitors in my team."
With my plan ready, I started to sneak towards my target, with me was Mauro. He didn't even have experience in this type of attack, so I thought I'd better guide him to the point that his target is to tell him to position himself so he doesn't make a mistake, controlling him so he has less chance of my plan goes wrong.
As I made my way to my target, having left Mauro behind. As I made my way, I started to hear Hilda and Vanessa arguing, when I explained my plan, I even had some doubts if they would be able to deceive the three warriors, but then I remembered the relationship the two have.
Their voices became increasingly clear to me, even though I didn't understand the content of their discussion, I could feel the anger behind each negative word they used to describe the other, but they still managed to control themselves because I didn't, I saw neither an insult directed at their family nor any very sensitive subject.
Of course, I wasn't in the sensitive subject category, because I heard Vanessa screaming that Hilda's boyfriend was an effeminate person and a coward, she managed to create a very detailed picture of what Hilda's boyfriend is like, even if she doesn't. saying my name, I'm still pretty sure she's getting back at me, pissing me off with parallel insults that were all wrong.
She came from an effeminate boyfriend who was only with her for the Menfis family money and wasn't man enough to be a real man in the relationship, but ended up describing a boyfriend who would be a womanizing pervert who will pass her various illnesses to Hilda, I hope she doesn't go too far and spoil her role as bait.
By the time I got to my position I was already rooting for the damn stupid elf in front of me to attack Vanessa. Yes, when I approached my target, I noticed that he had pointed dark circles and his body was very thin.
This day is getting better and better, I just lost three spots on my team.