Chereads / The Mask system (TMS) / Chapter 14 - The team

Chapter 14 - The team

Connor was pretty excited about going on a little hunt, he had a bit of experience fighting to protect himself from multiple G-class magic beasts. The forest outside his town was where he adopted different personas and appearances to enter and exit the town.

The forest had no name in fact, it was extremely lacking in animals. He had inquired about magical beasts near them with his aunt and apparently most were hunted by local security who had not much trouble with the lowest level of the beast.

Though they didn't kill all of them since some groups that wished to preserve the magical nature of the forest and would control the animal's amounts in the local ecosystem. So it did leave Connor with some experience fighting but he had no wishes to kill any animals.

Amber Ross then began to inform of the details of the hunt "So! All of you can pick up the basic weapons. You need to team up into groups of 4, there will be all sorts of weapons. From extremely old but now effective weaponry such as swords to a few magic laser rifles. If you have no prior training there's no need to worry just fight to your best ability, we will have some experienced fighters protect you in case you fall into danger. They will be watching from a distance."

Everybody nodded they didn't really wish to question everything though there were a few doubts they'd ask about them a bit later. All examinees started making their groups who made friend groups or with older examinees. There were only around six 20 years olds but they provided the young teens with a bit of security and wanting to join their teams.

While everyone was happy to be able to stick with their friends, there was the occasional last friend being left out of the group everyone mostly was able to find their own place to join in around 20 or so minutes of discussion.

Connor however was surprisingly disgruntled by having to make a team, and that he would be observed he wanted to test out his abilities, but he eventually submitted since even he didn't know when he could lose focus while thinking. He marches towards Sohan's direction; he was just as mentally prepared as Connor, though he didn't particularly have any fighting experience he has received some harsh training.

The last one Connor wanted to bring into his team was the lone girl that he had been hanging in the cafeteria though they were never talked even with how tempted Connor was to do so. She was just standing there in the daze even Connor was sort of confused between whether she was dazed or thinking. Connor approached from the side and waved his hand in front of her face which woke her up in a stupor.

"Probably was spacing out..." Connor confirmed in his mind

The girl raises her hand in Connor's face

"Yeah I'll join you my name is Nia Falls and I'll talk to you guys when the time starts." She walks over to a bench and closes her eyes with her back straight.

Connor with Sohan behind him just watched as she rushed that short sentence, in a bit of awkwardness shaking their heads when they remembered each other's presence. Now they needed to find someone to fill their last spot, and they didn't really have any criteria for doing so. Sohan's golden eyes spot an unremarkable-looking guy standing alone twiddling his thumbs.

"Hi would you like to join us, I'm Sohan Lee by the way and there are 2 other members of our group."

The guy was of an average build, he appeared around 17ish~ years old he had brown hair and eyes, with some parts of his skin being lightly tanned. He had the common look of mild nervousness mixed in with a tinge of excitement, overall appearing like a super plain person.

"Um... yeah, hi I'm Rando Miller I don't currently am not part of a team... as you can see. Sure I'll join you Sohan so who are your other group members?"

He begins to point at them

"The one waving his hand over there is Connor..." As he was saying Connor observed Sohan bringing someone into their group, Connor was wearing a light t-shirt with a mix of grey and black colors from top to bottom, he wore some camo pants and some hiking boots.

"The other one is Nia Falls over there on the bench with her eyes closed." Rando was a bit perked up at seeing the (sleeping?) beauty on the bench. She had long slightly disheveled black hair up till her waist, all-black workout clothes, and her skin was an almost reflective pale color though he couldn't see the color of her eyes since they were shut tightly. She was slim and was mature look a bit in all the right places. She appeared around 16.

Rando was a bit weirded out by this top-notch-looking squad, Connor felt charming, Nia was a rare to find beauty, and even the one who invited him Sohan had an intelligent and leader-like vibe to him.

He was would be the oldest of the group and his appearance was lackluster in comparison he was feeling a bit down.

Connor came over which distracted him from his thoughts "Hi I'm Connor Jobs but I assume that Sohan told you that already."

"Yeah, I'm Rando Miller nice to meet you." Shaking hands they had a brief introduction before planning to lay out some of their abilities.

Connor begins, "Well I have a 4-star superpower, and the weapon I'll be using is a pair of daggers, and I'll be carrying a laser pistol if they allow more than that. I have a bit of experience fighting magic beasts, the G-Ranks I've encountered often come in groups of 4 to 6 I can hold off at least that much. I've never killed one before."

The pair are surprised at the fact that he has a 4-star power while being understanding about not revealing what it is. Sohan has only been trained so he was glad that someone had the fighting experience though he wondered about why he never heard of 14 year old who could do that in their town.

Rando's turn, "Well, I have a 2-star superpower it should help with detecting enemies, I have the basic physical training, and the weapon I have training is a bow, I can't shoot accurately beyond 80 meters but I can shoot 2 arrows at a time at that distance. I can form a single magic arrow with around 3 times the force of a normal arrow."

Now they know they have someone to handle the long-range, and someone particularly talented at that it is quite difficult to form pure mana you need to be at least near mana level 2 to be able to perform one which is a statement not normally used for someone who's only 17.

Lastly, it was time for Sohan since Nia was still busy with whatever she was doing, "Well I have a 3-star power but no real practice with it, I doubt having to use it often. I have received significant physical training and only a minor amount of martial art training. I'm mostly trained in movement arts so I can move around 40km/hour with relative ease. I have no weapons training but I'll equip a spear on myself so I can give some basic thrusts. If necessary I don't mind acting as bait."

Finally, around an hour or so, they brought the necessary equipment to fight. The 3 boys tried to have a discussion but none of them have any experience working as a team so they came up with a few vague ideas but nothing concrete; they decided to just go with the flow with the battles and assist where necessary.

The weapons came in boxes with hordes of them. They each took their respective weapons and Connor was allowed to carry an extra pistol with a holster. It was a sleek 9mm pistol that looked no different from the one which used regular bullets and magazines but instead it use something called a mana cartridge.

They all geared up and Connor noticed the still busy Nia so he went and disturbed her, "Hey we'll be heading in soon." He whispered softly into her ear.

"What the fuck!?" She announced as she shivered with goosebumps crawling on her arms. Connor also had a bit of a heart attack as he didn't expect her to be that jumpy.

They stared at each other in the eyes and Nia sighed, "Ok, let me just grab my weapon also never do that again." Connor nodded silently and simply waited to ask some questions. Nia grabbed her weapon though no one was watching, and Professor Amber Ross stood on a small podium to receive any questions the students have to ask.