The forest outside Aigis Academy was quite a dangerous place even for top-ranked second-year students, that was why two teachers were sent in with them in case any of them got into any form of trouble. But other than that, the Academy also needed another way to keep a close eye on the students during this exercise and that was where the drones came in.
The students participating in the event weren't informed of this but they had stealth drones following each team.
The question of how the teachers would be able to tell if any of the rules were broken never bothered most of them but this was the way.
The stealth drones despite being invisible were programmed to keep a good distance from the teams they were following but despite that, some of them were able to pick out their presence.
Arsha picked up on the drone as soon as he walked into the forest with his teammates but he kept quiet about it.
Right now, the drone was filming his team live and broadcasting the footage to the students and teachers who seemed to be quite interested in what was going on at the moment.
Team seventeen seemed to have caught a scavenger courtesy of Arsha and they wanted to see what was going to happen to her.
Yeah, the person Arsha just smashed into a tree was a girl with long brown hair and brown eyes and the number twenty clearly displayed on her watch.
"Owww." She groaned as she slowly sat up on the ground with her hand on the back of her head.
"Clara?" Maya called.
Her rank being an even number indicated that she was in class A so it made sense that Maya recognized her.
"Oh, hey, Maya, looks like you landed yourself in a strong team," Clara remarked with an awkward smile on her face.
She was trying to shift the mood away from the main situation but unfortunately for her, Arsha wasn't one to engage in small talk.
"You're lucky." He said as he moved closer to her.
He didn't look particularly angry and that was what scared her the most.
She refused to take her gaze off him as he moved closer to her because she believed that the second she did that, something bad was going to happen to her and now that he was standing quite close to her, she was staring up at him.
"You're lucky there is a non-aggression rule in this tournament, if that wasn't the case, you would be returning to your teammates with a broken leg." He uttered staring her dead in the eyes.
Those words sent shivers down her spine as she sat there frozen and unable to say anything.
After seeing what he did to Aqua the other day, she had every reason to be terrified.
After making sure that she understood the implications of trying to steal his kill, Arsha turned to his teammates.
"Jayden, have you extracted all the crystals?"
"Yeah, I just got the last one," Jayden responded before throwing the dead monkey he was holding aside.
"Maya?"
"Got it." She answered as she held up the green crystal core from the monkey he threw down for her.
"Good, we'll be leaving now."
He didn't bother looking at Clara as he began to make his way out of the area with both of his teammates right behind him.
"Sorry for that, Clara, but maybe you should refrain from trying to steal our kills from now on." Maya expressed with her gaze on her.
"Got it." She responded with a nod.
She was just staring off into the distance like someone who had just seen a ghost.
'And I thought I could win him over with my looks.'
The three had only walked a little distance away from the monkey territory when they suddenly heard dings from their watches.
Arsha quickly brought up his watch at that moment to see a leaderboard displayed there and team seventeen being their team was in first place with thirty-four points.
"There's a leaderboard?"
"Yeah, I had no idea," Jayden commented.
"I think it only activates whenever a team acquires crystals seeing as this is our first time acquiring crystals," Maya noted.
"Yeah, that makes sense."
"So team five is in second place and team ten in third place," Arsha muttered.
"I think team five is Preston's team and team ten is being led by Claudia, they have twenty-nine and twenty-five points respectively, they're doing quite well." Jayden articulated.
The leaderboard they just saw was available to everybody including the students back at the Academy who were looking at it being displayed in their classes now.
"Well, looks like you weren't kidding about your brother, his team wasn't even on the table just a few minutes ago but they just shot their way to the top in one go," Lena remarked with her gaze on Ariel who had her gaze fixated on the screen with her arms crossed.
"The teams behind them aren't far off though."
In first-year class B, Chloe could be found staring at the screen in the classroom with her head on her desk and a lollipop in her mouth.
"Not what you would expect from someone termed a defective Mage." She commented with the lollipop still in her mouth.
The second-year students participating in the exercise had similar reactions to the students still at the Academy and that included Claudia's team who were busy fighting off a pack of intermediary-tier wild dogs.
"Well, I can't say I'm surprised." Claudia smiled before slicing off the heads of the beasts surrounding her.
"Will you stop smiling so much when you talk about him? You're not supposed to be rooting for him when you're also part of the game." Jessica huffed before cutting down one of the dogs that was trying to escape with numerous wind slashes.
"Hey, who said I was rooting for him?" She retorted.
The attention of the girls was soon called to the side where Erwin could be seen punching one of the dogs mercilessly even after it had ceased to breathe.
He seemed to be angry about something and the dog happened to be the perfect punching doll to release some steam.
"Take that." He said just after getting up to match the beast's face.
"What is wrong with him?" Jessica asked with a confused expression on her face.
"Don't ask me."
The exercise continued for over twenty minutes with Team Seventeen still on top with fifty-five points now, Team Five was still right behind them with fifty points, and in fourth place was Team Ten with forty-seven points.
At the moment Arsha and his team had just wandered into an open space devoid of any trees or grass, it was a huge space but it was still surrounded by huge trees and thick bushes.
"I wonder why nothing is growing here," Jayden remarked with his gaze on the floor.
He stared at the hard dry floor for a while before turning to Arsha to see if he could get an answer out of him.
"Don't look at me, I don't know, it was like this the first time I was here." He said before taking a step forward.
He was just about to take another step forward when he suddenly felt a shiver run down his spine and look ahead at that moment, he saw a purple glow.
It wasn't just ahead, he saw them on both sides, and just as he quickly turned around, he saw one behind them too.
"No." He gasped. "Jayden, get down!"
"Huh?"
A huge red tail came swinging his way at that moment but just before it could hit him, Arsha grabbed him and pulled him down.
"What's going on?"
"Maya, press that help button!" He instructed quite abruptly.
"Um….okay."
She quickly pulled the button out of her pocket and was just about to press it when a red tail from the side came flying her way.
She wasn't fast enough to avoid it as the tail slammed into her and sent her flying forward knocking the button out of her hand in the process.
"Arghhh." She groaned as she crashed to the floor and just kept rolling forward.
"What is going on, Arsha?" Jayden asked in a trembling voice.
He had never seen Arsha so panicked before so seeing him like that now was freaking him out.
"Run Jayden, get as far away from here as possible."
"What do you mean..."
He wasn't able to get that question across as Arsha quickly charged toward Maya at that moment.
She was slowly trying to get up on her feet when the red tail that sent her flying came descending on her, revealing its pointed tip now but just before it could reach her, Arsha grabbed her and got out of the way.
As if losing their button wasn't enough, for some reason, the drone monitoring them was on the floor and unresponsive.
"What are those?" She asked, trying to keep her composure.
"Scorching scorpions, once that tip pierces your skin, you're done for." He disclosed before jumping to the left to avoid a tail slam from the Scorpion.
He was slowly regaining his composure when he suddenly heard a scream of horror and pain coming from just up ahead.
He quickly switched his gaze to the area at that moment to see Jayden hanging in the air with three scorpion stings piercing through him.
"There's three of them over there?" He gasped as his face was suddenly consumed by an expression of pure terror.