Chapter 50: Don’t tell my boyfriend it was me, okay? Hehe
Alright then.
At that point, there wasn’t a single real fight happening anywhere. I mean, how could there be?
Thanks to those two pieces of prey, the cave had been completely swept up in an absolutely horrific wave of chaos. They kept charging through tunnel after tunnel, stirring up trouble wherever someone happened to be fighting.
The cave walls kept exploding nonstop, crumbling apart, elements and debris flying everywhere. But thanks to Valkas and Eiros’s sheer dedication, the two of them managed to dodge it all and keep their injuries to a minimum.
And the chaos didn’t stop there, either. The monsters sleeping in that cave woke up and joined in the rampage, to the point where the supervisors finally had to step in once a student’s life was actually in danger!
That’s exactly how out of control things had gotten.
And how much time had passed by then?
Nearly two hours. Yeah, that cave had been an absolute mess for a very long stretch of time.
"Huff... huff... where the hell are those bastards! They’re hiding!"
"What about the tracker? Wait, where’d Raden go?! We need him to track those bastards down!"
"Damn it, of all times for him to just vanish."
Well, they probably hadn’t noticed it themselves, but their little chase had already left several hunter students completely wiped out, unable to keep up with the pace of the pursuit, ending up pathetically trampled underfoot.
Meanwhile, Eiros and Valkas—
"...Phew... I’m seriously exhausted."
They were hiding out in a fairly spacious cavern, though its entrance was hidden up in the ceiling, and even that was incredibly narrow.
Eiros chuckled, watching Valkas slump against the wall looking utterly gloomy.
"Don’t be so dramatic. You know full well they’re way more exhausted than we are, right?"
Valkas nodded.
Sure enough, the hunters had foolishly kept launching attack after attack without pause, draining their own soul essence dry.
For now, Eiros and Valkas just had to hold out for another hour or two—well, roughly an hour and twenty minutes, give or take.
That was a fairly long stretch of time. All Eiros and Valkas could do was hope they wouldn’t get discovered before the role switch, and during that stretch, they’d decided to rest up and get moving again once there were less than ten minutes left before the roles changed.
By then, the hunters were completely unraveled, consumed by pure fury.
***
"Puahahaha...! Wahahaha?!!"
Meanwhile, for Estiel, acting as one of the spectators, this was pure, unfiltered satisfaction.
"Calice! You see that?! Hahaha, that guy’s completely insane! What in the world is he even planning?!"
Estiel couldn’t hold back his laughter, watching the escalating disaster unfold with all its severity.
Across from him, Calice just gave a small smile, though her lips twitched.
"....Haah... That’s genuinely insane. What are these kids even doing? Are these hunters really about to get played like that?"
Hearing that, Estiel laughed even harder, tears welling up at the corners of his eyes and streaming down behind his glasses.
"W-what else can I do? Huahaha, well, this is genuinely hilarious. Anyway, let’s be patient, I’m curious what these star students of the first-year class are going to pull off next—as hunters, of course."
***
"...So, Eiros mocked you guys, said this and that, and just ran off. And because you couldn’t stand for that, you started chasing him?"
"Yes!"
A student nodded fiercely.
Meanwhile, Alen, Erness, Godon, and pretty much every other webtoon character present all let out a sigh—except Erness.
Alen nearly burst out laughing, his lips twitching as he fought to hold it in. He genuinely couldn’t help himself.
"So, where are Eiros and Valkas now?"
"...They ran off and went into hiding! We tracked them, but our tracker vanished somewhere!"
The student scratched at his hair in frustration. All around, countless hunters wandered about restlessly.
Alen looked at all of them, then turned to the others.
"...So, what do we do now...? Because of this chaos, all our earlier prey completely got away."
Lovia, Rein, every single piece of prey each of them had been tracking—thanks to the chaos, they’d all simply slipped away.
"What else? We have to catch them!"
Godon voiced his opinion enthusiastically, clenching his fist, his face darkening.
"...And that guy earlier was from the Others class too... ugh..."
Watching Godon turn pale, Alen looked at the others, trying to get some kind of answer.
Reina, her expression still cold and unreadable as ever, glanced at each of them in turn, then simply turned and walked away.
"...I’m going to go find Rein."
That’s all she said.
So Alen turned his attention to Erness, who’d been smiling cheerfully this whole time, which made Alen shudder. He used to think of Erness as a kind, friendly, beautiful girl, but after seeing her up close a few times now—
His instincts kept screaming at him that this girl was anything but ordinary! She was genuinely not normal, and that thought left Alen scared more often than not.
"...My darling’s up to something interesting. Do you think he’d be sad if I ruined it for him?"
"....?"
Erness tilted her head, letting out a soft sigh, her expression turning sorrowful.
"...He’d get mad, so maybe I shouldn’t interfere, right... hmm... no, no, he needs a little punishment."
Right then, Erness’s body suddenly vanished, making Alen flinch, not knowing what to do. So he just stood there quietly, waiting, for whatever reason.
Then, a few minutes later, Erness reappeared, dragging along a hunter student with a face gone completely pale.
It was Raden.
She dropped the student’s body, then, with a mischievous smile curving her lips, said:
"...Don’t tell my boyfriend it was me, okay? Hehe."
Then, her body vanished instantly, as if she’d never even been there. The hunters’ gazes finally landed on the tracker in question, their pupils sharpening into dark, star-like points.
Raden, gasping for breath, raised a trembling hand and pointed in a direction, his face pale and etched with pure misery.
"...Over there, the bastards are hiding over there... hic... hic... please... find justice for me!"
Raden wept, looking genuinely tormented. The hunters immediately looked toward the spot he’d pointed to, struggling to spot the gap he meant, so just as they moved in to check it more closely, something happened.
Thump—!
Craaack—!!
Booom—!!
Eiros slammed his massive sword into the rocky floor, kicking up a thin cloud of dust—thin, but more than enough to make the students flinch.
"Urgh...! Th-there! Those bastards are right here!"
Then Valkas appeared, quickly yanking Eiros along and hauling him off at a terrifying speed.
But just then, Alen appeared from the side, as though he’d already predicted they’d come through that exact route.
"Hi there?"
He greeted them lightly, then—
Slash—!
Starlight energy scattered, tearing through the air. Eiros and Valkas froze for a moment, but reacted quickly.
Eiros swung his sword, faint sparks of red lightning pulsing along its edge.
Craaack—!!
Clang—!!
Their swords collided, but only briefly, since Valkas immediately yanked Eiros away. On the other side of them, Godon suddenly appeared, his entire body hardened into something like solid stone.
"Raah...!"
He roared, throwing a punch that could’ve easily shattered every bone in Eiros’s body.
"Valkas! Damn it, hurry!"
"I know!"
Boom—!!
It was close, genuinely close to the point where Eiros could have ended up in a truly miserable state. Luckily, Valkas poured out even more soul essence in the final second, ensuring that burst of speed was just enough to dodge the attack.
Then...
"CHAAARGE!!"
More attacks from the hunters came surging in at an incredible speed. Eiros and Valkas went pale, especially once they saw a thick cloud of dust billowing up straight ahead.
Then came a piercing roar, as a swarm of Awakened-tier monsters came charging straight at them.
"H-hey...!"
"I know!"
Valkas sped up his flight. He shot forward faster, closing in on the monsters, and just as they were about to collide, Valkas veered sharply to the right.
Right then, the pursuing students slammed straight into the monsters instead. The bitter smiles on both their faces shifted into ones full of triumph.
Sure, a few things hadn’t gone exactly according to plan, since they’d had to bail out earlier than intended.
There were now roughly twenty minutes left before the role switch.
The screams of students and monsters behind them became the one and only symphony of destruction that was, somehow, all too pleasant to listen to.
On the professors’ map-monitoring screens, nearly everything was now covered in red dots.
For the first time since the exam began, there was no longer any such thing as hunter or prey. The entire cave had turned into a full-blown battlefield.
And all of it, because of the mischief of just two people.
***