Chapter 292: Planning of hunters

Within twenty minutes, the fifty teams, each consisting of three to five freshers, had spread out across the forest, maintaining a distance of one kilometre from their neighbouring teams as they began climbing the hill.

Fifteen minutes later, eight teams were attacked by hunters at eight different locations. Just as Aria and Lorenzo had explained, none of the teams engaged in combat. Instead, they remained on the defensive while informing the neighbouring teams.

The hunter could have easily defeated the team, but with four or five freshers working together and focusing entirely on defence, breaking through their combined defences still needed a few minutes. That was enough time for a neighbouring team to arrive, forcing the hunter to retreat.

Eight ambushes by eight hunters against eight different teams had resulted in eight complete failures. Naturally, the proud seniors, who had never even considered working together to defeat the weak juniors, were forced to hold an emergency meeting.

"These freshers are moving like an army on a drill," the hunter wearing the angry face mask muttered, kicking a piece of rubble on the ground. "As soon as I attacked a group, they switched to complete defence, refusing to counterattack until reinforcements arrived."

"Tch, the same thing happened to me," the hunter wearing the sad face mask added, his voice carrying a similar note of annoyance. "Those cowards only attacked when they had a significant numerical advantage."

"I thought we could easily pass this practical if we simply ignored Noah," the hunter wearing the surprised face mask added with a deep sigh. "If this continues, we won’t be able to obtain a single token. We should form a team of our own and take down their groups one by one."

The other hunters shared similar sentiments and chimed in, agreeing with the hunter wearing the surprised face mask.

All their eyes turned towards the neutral-faced hunter, who was sitting on a rock in a relaxed posture. His short, uncombed auburn hair swayed in the wind. His rolled-up sleeves revealed numerous scars along his broad forearms.

"What do you say, Gareth?" the hunter wearing the pouting face mask asked. "If we all work together, we can easily defeat them before they have a chance to call for reinforcements."

Gareth, wearing the neutral-faced mask, rose from the rock. "You can form a team or fight individually, for all I care. I’m only here to fight Noah and Vlad."

With that declaration, he walked past the other hunters, his unhurried steps producing a crunching sound as he moved deeper into the forest, crushing the dry leaves beneath his feet. The only reason he had even bothered to listen to them was to ensure they wouldn’t plan to ambush Vlad or Noah together. Those two were his prey.

Having formerly worked as a mercenary before joining the academy, Gareth understood the law of the jungle. He had faced enough life-threatening battles to distinguish himself from his peers. He had believed that no one his age could match him.

However, after joining the academy, his delusions were shattered when he suffered his first defeat at the hands of someone his own age. Seraphina Cendral.

From her mana pool to the lethality and speed of her attacks, she completely outclassed Gareth. He couldn’t even land a single meaningful hit during their sparring match.

Next came Noah Silva, a loudmouth who looked down on everyone as though they were beneath him. Frustratingly, Noah outclassed Gareth in the very skill he prided himself on: Aura Control. What infuriated Gareth even more was that Noah had never publicly revealed that he possessed Aura. Their duel had remained a secret. So had Gareth’s second defeat.

These two defeats taught Gareth that high nobles were indeed born with a silver spoon in their mouths, one called talent. No matter how hard he trained, he would never overcome the limitations of his bloodline.

But his third defeat completely changed his perspective. It had come at the hands of a commoner, after all, a mere freshman who was even younger than him. His defeat at Vlad’s hands taught him that what he lacked wasn’t talent but proper training.

For the past month, he had been swinging his spear until his hands bled. Now, he wanted to test the results of his training against the very two individuals who had previously defeated him: Noah and Vlad.

He drew his phone from his storage ring and opened the map. Several red dots were scattered across the mountain, revealing the locations of the juniors, or more accurately, their tokens.

There were also some green marks among them, indicating the locations of the forest tokens that the juniors had already found.

Amid the numerous dots scattered across the map, only two red dots stood in complete isolation, with no other marks nearby.

"These two must be Noah and Vlad," Gareth said excitedly from behind his mask. He decided to pursue whichever one was closer to his current location.

A gust of wind swept through the forest, stirring the leaves as he bolted towards the isolated red dot.

Meanwhile, the other hunters formed an alliance to take down the juniors, swallowing their pride in the process. After all, passing the exam was more important than protecting their egos. They decided to begin their ambush with the team at the leftmost end.

"Angry Face, there’s something I’ve been wondering about," the hunter wearing the sad face mask said as they moved through the forest, some travelling along the ground while others leapt from one branch to another.

"What is it?" the hunter wearing the angry face mask asked.

"There are only eight of us here," the sad face mask stated, his eyes moving across the hunters around him. "There’s one more hunter who didn’t join us, apart from Gareth."

He rubbed his chin beneath his mask and asked, "Do you know who that hunter wearing the joker face mask was?"

The angry face mask thought about it briefly but shook his head. There were many students who had received compartments. Embarrassed by their poor performance, some might not want to reveal their identities. The one wearing the joker mask must have been one such person.

"I don’t know either," he answered.

"Strange..." the sad face mask murmured. "He disappeared as soon as the hunt began. I wonder what he’s doing..."

---

"Hahaha, these hunters aren’t nearly as dangerous as the professors made them out to be," a round-faced, heavily built boy laughed, resting his chubby hands on his waist. His brown hair was neatly combed and slicked back against his scalp, glistening under the sunlight with a sheen of oil. "They couldn’t even defeat a single team. This practical is so easy that I’m actually disappointed."

"Exactly, Lord Leo," an equally arrogant voice came from the clearing ahead of him, belonging to a lanky boy standing a few steps away.

He swung his sword in a wide arc, flicking the last traces of sap from its blade. Behind him lay the corpse of a Demonic Orchid, its thick vines twitching lifelessly on the ground. The soil beneath it had turned into a muddy swamp from the green liquid leaking out of its split stem.

The boy reached into the flowered mouth of the plant monster and pulled out a green token. He shook the slime off it with a look of disgust. "It would have been better if the academy had brought more hunters, or at least some powerful ones like Lady Seraphina or Lord Raphael. What can a bunch of trash who received compartments possibly do to us?"

"Precisely!" Leo nodded, his double chin wobbling with the motion. "No wonder that commoner managed to defeat so many seniors in the Arena Tournament. They were all just a bunch of weaklings. I’ll participate in the tournament this month and break into the top ten in one go!"

"Wow, Lord Leo, you’re amazing!"

The girl clinging to his left arm pressed herself closer to him, her eyes sparkling with admiration. "Top ten in one go? Nobody else would even dare to make such a claim!"

"Only you could accomplish something like that, Lord Leo," the girl on his right added, hugging his other arm so tightly that his sleeve wrinkled. "While everyone else is still crawling, you’re already soaring through the sky."

Leo’s belly puffed out further with pride, his chest swelling as much as his round frame allowed. He made no effort to hide the smug grin spreading across his oily face.

"Does that mean you’re even stronger than the Crownbearer?" the girl on his left asked, blinking her big eyes at him.

"Of course I am," Leo declared, raising his chin. "I can defeat that commoner with a single spell."

"Is that so?"

"Of cours—," Leo’s words stopped mid-sentence.

That voice didn’t belong to any of his team members. Leo slowly raised his eyes, following the source of the voice.

On a high branch of the tree above them, a man dressed in black was hanging upside down, his legs hooked around the wood to support his body and his arms crossed over his chest.

His face was concealed behind a mask.

The mask of a creepy joker, its smile stretching from ear to ear.