"Man, there are hardly any that are a match for us! How about it? Shall we go deeper?" A blonde teenager boy asked from a tall and lithe, black haired kid of similar age.
"Not until you complete the task you have at hand." Before the black haired kid could reply, a middle-aged man in garbed fancy red robes interrupted.
The blonde boy and the lithe boy, who were talking to the middle-aged man were also in some sort of red coloured uniform. Behind the man, in fancy robes were two girls sitting on small boulders, in similar uniforms voicing out their opinions.
One having shiny pink hair and a well developed body. While the other one had black hair like Hugh.
"Yes, Sir. I agree with Theron, we should head deeper, the beasts here are barely our match." Saya, one of the girls standing behind the man, stood up and said. While the other girl just nodded her head in agreement to her friend's words.
"Who do you think the instructor of this mission is? Stop treating this mission as a joke!" The instructor said lightly, but his words carried enough pressure for kids to not be able to refute, so they had no choice but to grit their teeth in silence.
They didn't speak up afterwards, knowing full well that it was their bad luck being assigned to the instructor, who was known to the whole academy by the moniker of "Savage reaper".
Some say he fought in war outside the continent and then retired to the northern continent and started instructing the next generation. But no one in the academy, except the headmaster, has seen him fight seriously.
"Hey Hugh, how many more to go?" Saya asked the lithe black haired boy, whom the blondie asked for agreement before.
"It should be 69. We aren't here for long, after all." Hugh answered in his deep voice.
"We should hurry. There's a herd of some Rank C beasts, we should barely be able to complete our first objective, if we kill them all." The black haired girl briefed.
"You sure about that, Venus?" Saya asked, visibly skeptical of the information provided by the black haired girl.
"You doubt my sister?" Hugh asked in annoyance, prompting her to snort but she didn't say anything more. This wasn't the first time this was happening after all.
Theron the blondie and the haughty Saya were both friends from two different rich noble families and got along well, but they absolutely didn't like mingling with the two siblings from the lowest noble lineage.
"Vee, In which direction?" Hugh asked, calling her sister informally to calm her down.
"There," she pointed with her light blue short-sword in a certain direction. And the entourage of the five people proceeded in the said direction, with the instructor at the back, walking leisurely with his hands in his robe's pockets.
Their first objective was to eliminate 100 Rank-C beasts in one day.
After about half an hour more of walking 'cautiously', the kids and their instructor reached a small circular clearing with a small lake spanning roughly 20 metres in length and 10 metres in breadth inside the clearing.
Unlike the dense forest that barely let any sunlight in, the clearing was directly under the sun, making the lake shine beautifully and reflect the calmly moving white clouds.
On one side of the perimeter of the lake, there was a herd of around 80 deers either peacefully drinking water or laying on the cold and soft grass around it.
"Beautiful…" Muttered a certain pink haired girl, peeking from behind a thick tree on the periphery of the clearing.
"We're not here to admire the beauty, think about how to kill 'em all soon so that we can head deeper and be done with it." The Blondie grumbled in irritation.
"Fine… So what's the plan?" Saya asked, as they all stopped peeking and sat down on the other side of the tree.
"They are deers, and in a huge herd. According to me, we can't kill them all. It would be lucky of us if we could even kill half of them–!"
"Who are you to decide that?" Theron asked, before letting Hugh complete his analysis.
"If you don't want to contribute, then shut up!" Surprisingly, it was Saya who silenced Theron.
Theron on the other hand, looked too shocked to even retaliate.
"You, go on." Saya said, motioning Hugh to continue.
"So I was saying that we should trap half of them and kill them, instead of targeting them all at once since we don't have enough manpower for that." Hugh recommended, not minding pink haired girl's words.
"How're we going to do that?" Saya asked, arching a brow. All the while, Venus kept her silence, secretly keeping an eye on Theron to keep him from making things harder for all of them.
While the person in question stood up and rested his back against a different tree, with his eyes closed.
"You can surround them with your earth magic and we three can finish them?" Saya asked after some deliberation.
"No, we can't do that. My earth barrier will only be strong enough to hold the charge of ten deers if I pour half of my mana into it, and in our case here, we have almost 70 of them, I can't hold all of them…" Hugh contemplated to himself with his chin resting on his thumb.
"I can stun some of them." Theron added with his eyes still closed.
"Hmm that would certainly make things easier. Alright, so here's the plan…" Hugh thought a bit more and shared his plan with others, while a certain middle-aged man laid his back on top of a thick branch of the tree the kids were under, listening to their 'planning' all along.
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In the clearing of the forest, a herd of deers was resting at the bank of a certain clear water lake.
One of the Sleeping deers, raised its head from the ground and gazed in the direction of the periphery of the forest. But all that entered its vision was thick foliage filled with mild darkness, in contrast to the completely lit clearing.
Not finding anything out of the ordinary, the deer put its head back on the ground and tried to sleep.
Suddenly, there was a gust from one side, and multiple semi-visible blades flew in the direction of deers who all raised their necks in unison as if scripted.
In a second, all of them realised the situation and stood up to run in the opposite direction. But as soon as they did, a wall of dirt rose up two metres tall and five metres wide, barring their way, but none of them seemed to falter.
All of them started running towards the wall and accelerated as they ran, lowering their heads to point their antlers towards the wall, intending to ram through the wall.
As soon as they neared the wall, their pace declarated, because the ground was too soft for smooth running of a creature weighing over 200 kilograms.
In a few seconds, all the deers reached the wall and around forty of them rammed into the wall, making dust fall off of it and cracks appear all over it, but astonishingly, the cracks also kept closing up as new ones appeared. While the others overtook the wall and ran in random directions to find a peaceful place and complete their beauty sleep.
Behind the wall, a teenager with black hair and lithe body crouched on one knee, with both of his palms on the ground, and his eyes closed with a frown on his face, indicating his unstable focus. If someone paid enough attention, he was perspiring a lot too.
All of this happened in barely five seconds. By this time, the wind blades also reached the deers, making gashes appear on the bodies of deers that were unfortunate enough to be at the end. To anyone looking, it would look as if an invisible sword slashed and hacked at the golden-brown bodies of the deers.
—Shreeik!!
The ones inflicted with gashes shrieked in agony and decided to run over the one who caused that agony. Suddenly, a black haired girl appeared above one of the deers who turned around to face its assailant.
But in her hands were two short swords, one being bright blue as sky while the other being deep blue, resembling deep waters.
With the light blue one touching the poor deer's neck, and in the next second, a deer's neck flew in air and blood splattered on her pretty face and on the nearby deers, painting their brown fur red.
Meanwhile, a middle aged man in fancy red robes, watched the show sitting on the branch of a tree with one of his legs dangling below and another resting on the first one, all the while eating an apple.
"Theron! Saya! Get Ready!"