Two hours later.
Viswa is standing under a tree as he panted slightly.
He wiped the sweat on his forehead as he looked at two corpses at his feet. Both of them are Stone Crushing Goats. They had their skulls open as two goat horns were stabbed on their heads.
This is the fourth time in the last two hours.
After he ditched the rest of the Orphanage group, Viswa moved faster than ever. For him, the pressure was still not much and he covered a great deal of the distance.
Only now he is feeling some slight resistance that slightly hindered his speed.
Before long he already spotted several youngsters in silk robes.
These noble children are the ones who treated this whole test as a race and they were on a high speed since the start. When they saw Viswa appearing in their line of sites, they are obviously surprised. There is a reason why Orphans are hated a lot.
It is true that these people are made that orphanage kids don't face any consequences, but the thing is most of the time orphanage kids actually benefit from this privilege.
A large number of them constantly fail their tests and barely one or two people pass with a bare minimum score.
So, none of these kids expected Viswa at this place.
When Viswa spotted these kids, they are along with their entourage and they are all resting. He also traces the camps on his way here.
He understood what their strategy is, they are obviously in great physical condition, and in the initial stages in fact, almost to the halfway point, they don't seem to have any effect from the resistance of the forest.
Up until that point, Viswa only came across the commoner kids who gave up, but he never spotted any traces of properly set up camps and he never saw these noble kids there as well.
But after the halfway point, he saw traces of more and more spots where people have rested. These kids obviously decided to clear the first half as fast as possible before taking their sweet time in here.
It is obviously a good strategy, particularly from the looks of it, the entourage these kids are having is just there to serve them.
Even after spotting them, Viswa didn't care much.
It was just his habit of being aware of the surroundings that made him spot all these things, he just overtook them and ran toward the mountain.
Only after that, his speed slowed down significantly. Because he was being targeted by these goats.
After the first attack when he was with the orphan gang, he faced four more attacks.
The first time, it was only one goat and it almost caught him by surprise as it hid behind the trees and hit him from the side. He had to react at the last moment before managed barely dodge it. That stone horn almost stabbed his guts.
After dealing with it, the second attack two goats came from different sides. This time, he tricked them a bit, damaged one, and let it crash into another one, leaving both of them injured.
The third attack was also similar, two goats out of nowhere.
Now, the fourth attack. This time one of them came from the front and another from the back. And the most surprising part is, the visual in front of him.
He could see a few camps set up a few meters ahead. They are all noble camps and they are all looking at Viswa as he dealt with the goats.
Even though they are just a few meters ahead, the goats were not targeting them.
He knew that something is fishy.
And the worst part amongst all of this is, a brown uniformed guy always arrived right after he killed the goats. It is too close and too immediate to call it a coincidence. And it is always the same two guys that arrived.
He knew that he is being targeted and this raised his vigilance to the extreme.
The only upside currently he had are the Karma points. Every time he killed the goats he is losing a few Karma points, but ironically, he is also gaining a few.
And from the visuals he got, it seems like if the Goats were let go or if they hadn't clashed with Viswa there, they would have gone wild in the forest and other candidates would have been hurt.
Of course, the only thing that confused him there is why would someone be hurt since the brown uniformed seniors are just nearby.
But he didn't have the luxury to think about it.
He picked the goat horns and threw them into the survival kit bag before he started running forward.
He gave the noble kids a cold glance as he overtook them.
And among those noble kids, there is one guy who he is extremely familiar with. A guy who has hair almost as valuable as all the kids' life from the orphanage.
As soon as Viswa left, he took out a whistle from his pocket, went into a secluded area nearby, and blew it.
There was no sound coming from it, but after a few minutes, two guys in brown uniforms came forward.
One of them is the guy who almost killed Manavi and the other is his friend that he roped in.
"Young master Kai. What orders do you have?"
"Senior Pat, I don't have any new orders, I am just curious if you still remember my old orders though."
The young man's face turned red. He clearly understood what Kai is talking about.
"Young master Kai, I did try to ambush him many times. The first time he was with the Orphan kids and at that time, he managed to kill the beast by sneaking on it. Three of the orphans quit immediately though.
Right now, we only have two more.
From the looks of it, the second named Jiva is struggling a lot. There is no way, he would be able to complete it. It wouldn't be long before he starts crawling to even moving two feet."
Pat said as he acted like a docile house dog.
Vin who was roped into this looked at him with slight disdain. He got into this just to get some favors from this Noble Kid Kai through Pat. After all, Pat already signed his life away to Kai when he got punished and lost six months' worth of resources.
But he is already having second thoughts about the current situation.
They have been deliberately targeting a few kids and one of them seemed to be a real troublemaker.
As his thoughts ran wild, Kai asked.
"So, what about the last kid? I just saw that bastard overtaking right now. My crew is still not ready and I am already pissed that there is already a crew ahead of us. Now even this low-life is ahead of us."
Vin heard this and replied before Pat could talk.
"Young master Kai, I understand your frustration, but the situation currently is very tricky. We have already let 8 goats lose. You should understand that there is a barrier set up around the exam perimeter and it should have been impossible for these goats to come here.
We had to loosen the barrier a bit and let these creatures out.
If the instructors find out about this, we will be in trouble. And there is a chance of the barrier going off, even if it just goes for a few minutes, things would be dire. We can't bear the consequences."
Kai glared at Vin and said to Pat.
"You told me, you found someone capable. What is all this bitching about? I don't care what you guys do, I need that bastard to die. No low-life orphan should be living and studying in the same academy as me.
Do you understand? If you don't do what I say, both of you can expect a fucking miserable life from now on."
Pat and Vin just stayed silent. They didn't know what to do for a moment.
"By the way, what about the crew that went ahead of us? Who are they?"
"We don't know. There is no information about them except for their names. As per their applications, they can only be commoners."
"You are saying, these commoners have such great physiques that they crossed us? Are you kidding me right now? Even though I had to drop a bunch of my people on my way here, their whole crew made it so far and they are still going forward.
I want you to get that information and try to stop them.
Also, where is the stuff I asked for?"
Pat hurriedly searched his pockets before taking out two pills.
Kai put one inside his pocket and held one in his arms.
At this moment, Pat suddenly seemed to have remembered something and said.
"Young master, there is a plan to stop that orphan bastard. Do you want to try it out?"
"What is it?"
Pat started explaining the plan and Kai started grinning the more he heard it.
"Good, implement it immediately."
Pat left along with Vin.
Vin had a frown on his face as he asked Pat.
"Do you really think it is good to mess up the exams this much?"
"What else can I do? I am already knee-deep in this shit. Anyway, because of those orphan bastards, I lost six months' worth of resources. I am not that talented, to begin with, now I lost my major source of resources to grow."
"But still, have you seen that kid perform? He is so strong even before he joined. He is certainly talented and in the future, he would be our superior. What are you going to do about it then? If he finds out about what you did now, you will be in much deeper shit."
Pat halted for a second and was stunned for a moment, but he shook his head and said.
"Then all the more reason to stop him. I already made him my enemy. He suffered a great loss from me, so there is no way he wouldn't come after me. I might as well nip this in the bud."
With that, he hurriedly ran forward.
Two hours later.
Viswa could finally see the mountain clearly. It is just a few hundred meters away. He even saw a crew camping at the bottom.
They are clearly tired and are trying to rest so that they could be in their best shape when they climb.
Viswa himself is not that tired. He is panting a little bit, but that is all. The resistance here is certainly high and now he is feeling the pressure.
He is pretty sure he will have a hard time trying to climb with this pressure, but all he had to do is rest a little bit and he would be fine.
He slowed down and started walking towards the mountain.
The mountain is very steep. It is almost like a vertical wall. It is going to be a little tough to climb like this.
As he was observing and slowly made his way, he sensed someone coming towards him and halted in his tracks. He raised his guard up and got into a fighting stance.
A young man jumped off of a tree and stood in front of him. This man is wearing a brown uniform as well, but he is not as old as Pat and Vin. He might just be sixteen or seventeen years old.
"Are you Viswa from Orphanage?"
The young man asked.
"Yes."
Viswa nodded cautiously.
"I am Teja, your senior. I am part of the organizing committee and my job is to ensure the fairness of the exam here."
Viswa just stayed silent waiting for him to continue.
"I can only react if students hurt each other, hindering each other's progress in the test and I got a report that you are responsible for hindering a candidate named Kai and his friends by stealing their rations.
So, I would like to ask you a few questions."
Viswa frowned and asked.
"I am sorry. I don't know any person named Kai. I think you have the wrong person here."
"But the candidate explicitly took your name and even your description is spot on. Even one of the committee members in charge of guarding you against beasts has testified for this."
Viswa took a deep breath and said.
"So, how long has it been since this supposed robbery happened?"
"A couple of hours ago."
"Then, how many items did I rob? What exactly did I rob?"
"The report only says rations, but it was mentioned that you robbed multiple people off of those things. In fact, there is even a statement saying that you robbed some of the candidates from the orphanage and caused them to leave the test in the middle."
Viswa clenched his fists and looked at Teja coldly.
"With all due respect, the allegations you are throwing at me are far too preposterous. I won't just stand here and take this shit."
Teja frowned at this response.
"I am just asking you questions to confirm if the allegations are true."
"I am sorry, they are not. And I feel a bit insulted by these accusations. I would have appreciated it if you had done much more thorough research before coming to question me."
Teja's frown deepened.
"Please watch what you say. It is not a good thing to say something like that about the organizing committee."
"Of course, it is not nice to accuse me either. Do I look like someone who likes allegations?
Anyway, since you are saying that there is already a complaint, I would like to ask how you want to proceed."
"Generally, the committee member who has spotted this scenario would immediately react and disqualify the person who committed these acts.
But for some reason, the committee member missed and got the complaint late, so we cannot surely say that you did the deed without proof.
So, this needs to be investigated."
"Okay then, I am fine with that. Perform your investigation and if the results say that I am the one who did these things, I will accept punishment from the academy, but I will not stop taking the exam.
I will proceed forward and will complete the test.
If the investigation results are against me, you can disqualify at that time."
"That works, I will talk to the instructor incharge."
"But before that, I would like to file a complaint."
Teja frowned and asked.
"About what?"
"Unfairness of the organizing committee. I suspect that someone from the organizing committee has been targeting me and the rest of the orphans.
On my way here, I was attacked by the beasts five times and I had to kill those beasts by myself. I haven't received any help from any of the organizing committee members.
And their timing is so immaculate that as soon as I killed the beasts, they appeared to clean them up."
"What kind of beasts did you encounter?"
"Stone Crushing Goats."
Teja's eyes widened in disbelief. Because those beasts are not supposed to be in the exam at all. He quickly organized his thoughts and said.
"I will look into it. Please proceed with the exam. Sorry for disturbing you."
Teja said and disappeared from there.
Viswa walked forward with a frown. He has been facing trouble after trouble in such a small test. He decided that it would be better to finish it off as soon as possible.
He ran forward and reached the foot of the mountain soon.
There he looked at the crew that is resting. They all looked at Viswa, but they appeared to be unbothered by them.
But Viswa on the other hand, felt a weird feeling from them. Particularly, there is one guy among the crew who had aqua-colored hair.
He gave off a very weird feeling.
Viswa turned to the mountain. It looked more like a very steep and high wall. He took a deep breath and rubbed some coarse sand on his palms before jumping up and catching a hold of the protruding rock.
The crew that was camping was stunned but then revealed a knowing smile. There is a reason why they stopped here and Viswa also understood that the very next moment.
The pressure over the mountain is many times higher. When he climbed two feet, he felt the pressure increase on him significantly.
But he didn't cower, instead, there is a grin on his face.
He didn't hesitate any longer and increased his speed. Even though the pressure increased by a large margin with every step, he just took it on his chin and charged upward.
At this moment, not only the crew was stunned, Pat and Vin who are watching from within the forest were dumbfounded.
"Why did that Bastard Teja, didn't do anything? Wasn't he always acting righteous about these things? Why the fuck didn't he arrest this lowlife?"
Pat cursed indignantly.
Vin shook his head and said.
"Pat, I am done with this."
With that, he didn't even bother giving any explanation as he left.
Pat felt troubled. He already promised Kai that he would deal with this, but even his well-thought plan was gone in flames. He could only curse himself for his bad luck.
As he was thinking of how to remedy the situation, he saw Kai already walking over with his crew.
Half of his crew was left behind, they are exhausted and are already done for. He only had half of his crew left and he just happened to see Viswa climb up skillfully like a monkey.
Before long, Viswa already turned into a small dot in his sight.
Viswa climbed without stopping. There are indeed some large enough protrusions where he could have stopped and stood there for a while to rest, but he didn't.
He pushed himself further and moved faster.
He finally reached the top of the mountain by evening and he was surprised by the scene in front of him.
On top of the mountain, there is a building that looked like a temple and the middle-aged man who gave them instructions at the start stood at the entrance with a smile.
"Congratulations on being the first person to reach the top. Please get inside. There are some academy instructors inside who will tell you what to do next."
Viswa nodded and walked in, but right at that moment, he suddenly heard the middle-aged man speak again.
"Congratulations on being the second person to reach the top."
Viswa was surprised and turned around only to see the guy with the aqua-colored hair standing there with a grin on his face.
His gaze landed on Viswa. There is a strange glint in his eyes that made Viswa uncomfortable.
Viswa turned around and walked into the temple.