Ughh..." I groaned as I woke up.
I slowly opened my eyes and saw that I was laying on a beach, surrounded by palm trees and sand.
"Looks like I arrived..." I told myself as I stood up.
"Ah..."
I turned around when hearing the noise, and found five people behind me.
One of them was a green haired elf wearing a red shirt and black pants, while the other was a tall guy with blonde hair.
It was obviously Daemon and Mina, and the others were respectively:
-Leon: some brown haired guy who's only purpose during the arc was to die at the beggining to show that it was dangerous, he ranked 6th at the powerscaling test for some reason.
-Kyle: the supporting character I killed during the powerscaling test, I hope the grudge doesn't cause problems.
-Sarah: blue haired beauty who is unexpectedly smart, she becomes a heroine later on but also gets forgotten by the author as the main character didn't interact with her anymore.
The arc was normally supposed to be composed of five people per island, but the fact that I am here meant I was an anomaly as there were only one hundred people in the class originally.
After finishing making my analysis, I heard the others twitch a bit and all get up at the same time.
"So this is the practical exam huh..." the others looked around and said.
There were palm trees everywhere, and the ocean was calm, it was an idyllic place, next to the beach was a giant forest taking up the center of the island.
But I knew better than anyone that this was no paradise, this was a battlefield where you could lose your life at any moment.
"Where am I?"
"Why are we here?"
Looks like they were realizing that they weren't the only ones in here.
They didn't have the time for realization that a robotic voice and a holographic screen appeared before our eyes.
[Practical Test - Island Escape]
[The six of you will have five days to escape this island, any means can be used to do so, you have to cooperate with each other to achieve that goal.]
[The island itself is filled with low/middle level monsters so watch out.]
[Good luck, it will be needed.]
And then it disappeared, leaving us in an atmosphere dominated by the sounds of nature.
"Looks like we are stuck together for the next few days" I spoke up, breaking the silence.
"Oh come on, it would of been better if I was alone" Daemon replied in an annoyed tone.
"This is a teamwork exam, so deal with it blondie" Mina defended me, which seemed kinda weird, at this point of the novel she would follow Daemon anywhere and stick up to him at any occasion, yet her she was shouting at him.
"Hehe~ it doesn't matter, let's introduce ourselves and then we can figure it out" Sarah spoke, breaking the tension.
"Fine" the protagonist sighed, "my name is Daemon, I use a magic sword"
"My name is Leon, I'm a sword user too" the brown haired guy said.
"I am Kyle, I am an assassin so I use daggers" the tall guy added.
"I am Mina, I use bow magic" the elf girl smiled.
"I am Kaine, I use anger magic" I told them.
"Anger magic?" Daemon asked.
"Yep, anger magic" I answered, "too lazy to explain."
"Sarah, as for me I can use water to create all sorts of attacks" the blue haired beauty finished.
After getting a good grasp of each others abilities (except mine cause I lied), we all got up and looked at the ocean.
"Can't we just traverse it?" Leon pointed, "doesn't look that dangerous"
That's a fatale mistake Leon, honestly even though I have the ability to save you by stopping your idiotic attempt, I didn't want to, because this was needed to make the others realize it was dangerous.
Also the six of us share the same amount of points as it's a team based exam, so it doesn't really matter if you die, you'll still get a good grade because we'll figure out a way to get out.
But...
"Stop" I held his shoulder as he was about to jump in the water, "we don't know what's in there it could be dangerous, plus the teachers wouldn't make it that easy."
He shook me off though, "you're not the leader are you? I'll just go a bit then come back."
You can't say I didn't try I guess.
And as soon as Leon took the first step into the vaste ocean, I turned around.
"Let's go" I told the others while gesturing them to follow me.
"Huh? Aren't we waiting for him?" Mina asked me.
"No, he's not coming back, it's a waste of time."
The four other participants looked at each other then at me as if I was speaking some unknown language and decided to stay back to look at Leon's excursion.
He was pretty far away from the shore now but he was still going.
"See, nothing is happening" Daemon said while staring.
There were two ways to escape this island.
The first was to find the ruins door and grab the three keys scattered around the island to open it, and after passing the challenges you'll reach a teleporter who will help you escape.
And the second one was to do the exact same thing, except you need to find a secret entrance in the ruins before the challenges, and inside of that secret room was a high-class weapon.
You needed to use that weapon to kill it.
As soon as I finished reminiscing about the novel's events, the five of us could see Leon suddenly struggle to move.
Here it was.
The monster blocking the escape from the island...
Something huge came out of the water, it was a a giant octopus with spikes on its head and dozens of tentacles all around it's orange body.
It grabbed Leon's legs with one of it's giant tentacles and tried to sink him under the water, and no matter how much he struggled to get out of the monster's grasp, it was a high-ranked one, so he had no chance.
And then before our eyes, the octopus grabbed Leon's unconscious body and ate him like he was a bug.
[Leon Ford, Eliminated]
"What the fuck?!" Kyle shouted.
"We should get away from here" I said.
"But Leon-" Mina tried to speak but I interrupted her.
"Is dead, let's go."
And so we ran towards the forest, leaving the beach behind.
I knew everything about this arc to succeed but it doesn't mean I can be reckless about it.
We just need to escape this island to get a good score and it will all be good in the end.
And so it began, the island arc, the most dangerous one yet, I just hope my current skills will be enough.
[Anger meter: 64/100]