After a very long bus ride, we arrived at our destination. Stepping out of the vehicle, I had to take a second to take in the surroundings under the morning sun, as the sight was something that I had never experienced in my life.
A far stretch from the city streets of Rellea, we were now surrounded by wondrous nature after having traveled through the extremely dry and dirt-ridden plains that most people knew to be the wastelands.
However, that picture of the wasteland was quickly blown away in me after seeing the lush forestry ahead of us, filling my eyes with fabulous green accompanied by the subtle chirps of birds acting as the background music.
'Wow...'
I had no idea why, but something about this brought with it a sense of calm that I had only ever felt when I had spent my time in the darkness with Lucifer. As if this was the place that I belonged to, a place that I inevitably would someday call my home.
It wasn't just this specific forest that I was talking about, because even when I looked around and saw the stony plains that we had traversed to get here, that feeling didn't disappear at all.
In this one moment, a moment of feeling my whole entity becoming one with...
"Move your feet! I want all of you to find the groups you belong to and gather around me!"
Unfortunately, Dona, the military commandant, had appeared, and her shouts had regretfully brought me back to reality. The reality that I would be forced to spend four days out here with a man that I was pretty sure hated my guts more than anything in this world.
Looking around, it wasn't hard to find that man, standing like a lighthouse with his red hair to guide his teammates to come to him. As Lydia and Jessica, a black-haired girl from the B-class had already gathered by his side, I felt like I had no choice but to join them.
All of us were already dressed in gray leather armor that had been lent to us from the academy, and although we were technically allowed to bring our own gear, it appeared that none of the freshmen had done so.
In my head, I assumed this was because of pride, that no one wanted to make it seem as if their superior armor was what put them ahead of the pack. Still, I felt like it was quite a stupid notion.
Because there was no doubt that the red handle sticking out of Will's sheath on his hip belonged to an artifact in the form of a sword. To be fair, I also brought an artifact to this excursion. The artifact that I had gotten as a gift from Dona.
Now sitting on my arm, I always felt a bit giddy when looking at the silvery bracelet with black tribunal markings engraved in it. It was a spatial storage artifact with the added effect of being able to store a certain amount of mana, acting as a battery in case I would run low.
"Seems like all the groups are ready now."
Having made my way to the group, where my arrival had merely been welcomed with brief looks and Will gritting his teeth, holding himself back from saying anything, Sir. Ainsworth took a step forward from the group of teachers in front of us. Consisting of some familiar faces, but also some that I had never seen before.
Dona was, of course, one of them, but there was also Mr. Faer and Mrs. Bright in the line. Adding the other teachers, I felt like they were probably pretty keen on making sure no students lost their lives during this week.
Then, Mr. Ainsworth started his presentation of what would be going down during this week.
"Good morning everyone! Today will be the start of your first official ranking event at Augustus, and it will be a very traditional hunting session. As some of you might have noticed, in every group there should be one person that has chosen the leadership course acting as your group leader."
'I'm aware...'
"As the group leader, they will be responsible for the group as a whole, making sure that everything goes as smoothly as possible. However, this also means that the other group members have a responsibility to listen to their leaders."
This wasn't something that I had any clear objections to, as I was somewhat sure that even if Will disliked me, the pressure to perform should be enough to keep him from doing anything that would risk making us fail the assignment. And that pretty much meant that he wouldn't want to lose a party member just because he held a grudge against me.
As Sir. Ainsworth talked about the forest that we were about to enter, and how we were supposed to go separate ways to minimize the risks of running into other groups so that we wouldn't have to compete for prey, along with other important stuff, it didn't take long until we started preparing for departure.
"Now, you will have ten minutes to speak within your groups about how you will face this week. After that, we will be sending one group into the forest at a time, starting with group 1."
"Come, let's talk over there."
"Yes."
"Sure."
"..."
Pointing to a big rock on the outskirts of the forest, not even a minute had passed before Will took command, leading us away from the rest of the students.
With Lydia jumping up and sitting down on the rock, showing off some impressive agility, and the rest of us standing beside it on the ground, Will kicked off the discussion.
"Let's start by clarifying our roles. Lydia, you're an archer, right?"
Swinging her legs on the rock, the brown-haired girl looked like she was very used to these kinds of environments.
"Yeah, but I also specialize in scouting by using earth magic. So as long as the monsters aren't up in the air, I should be able to locate their positions."
Nodding his head, seemingly pleased with her answer, he went on to the black-haired Jessica, who stood with her arms crossed and a very expressionless face.
"Jessica, I already know that you are a wind mage, so I assume that you will act with Lydia to support me from the back. Also, I know that you are disappointed that you didn't end up in Matthew's group, but please do your best anyway."
Flicking her head to the side, I now understood the reason why she had seemed so grumpy.
"I always do my best, and it's not like I care that I didn't get to go with Matthew. I will see him when we get back anyway."
Despite him looking a bit skeptical of her answer, Will decided to just go along with it.
"Alright, if you say so... Then, as you might or might not know, I will act as the center of the party. Although I specialize in swordsmanship, I am also capable of some ranged attacks if needed. So I am probably the most suited to fighting the most flexibly. That being said, I will most likely act as the vanguard most of the time."
Putting his hand on his sword as if to prove that what he said was true, he then turned his sights to me, piercing me with his green eyes that struggled to keep their warmth when seeing the one they disliked so very much.
"And finally we have you, Aarick. From your match with... From your match with Hugo, you are an ultra-close-range fighter, right?"
'From my match with who? Eh, whatever...'
Even if I wanted to question what he was actually going to say, I decided it would be for the best to just bite my tongue. I was in enough of a precarious situation already that it felt very unnecessary to provoke the hero of the academy even more.
Bringing out the claws on one of my hands, just to make sure Jessica also knew what I would be fighting with, I confirmed what he already knew.
"Yeah, I'm a melee fighter."
Probably expecting me to say more about my way of fighting, or what other specialties I had, a minute of silence arose, making me wonder if I should have told them more just for the sake of it.
Then again, I had already gotten instructed by Dona to act like an irregular, who often wanted to keep their abilities a bit secret from the world, or at least not reveal the mechanics behind the abilities.
An example of this was my ability to float. Even if they knew I could 'fly', they had no idea how it worked and that it was because of me manipulating gravity. In this specific case, it might not matter much, but the fact that I could deliver attacks with more power than what my body should be capable of was still something that could catch people off guard.
"Cough! Well, then I guess we can move on. After we..."
As Will spoke about what he thought we should do during this week, I suddenly felt a very intense look coming from above me. Turning my eyes upwards, I managed to briefly see the brown-haired girl sitting on the rock quickly turning her head away, not wanting to get caught looking at me.
'Is she still interested in me?'