Chapter 13
“Snooore….”
“……”
“Snoooree….”
“……”
“Snoooore….”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”
I crawled out of the cramped sleeping bag and irritably ruffled my hair.
Had this bastard swallowed an alarm clock or something…? I barely managed to suppress the urge to pinch the bastard’s nose hard and got to my feet.
Since it had been such a grueling day, I was willing to forgive a certain amount of snoring, but this was still far too much.
I stared blankly at the sleeping bags where Ellie and Julia were sleeping peacefully, in complete contrast to this place… then let out a deep sigh and walked toward the nearly extinguished campfire.
‘Why am I in this state….’
Back when I was Evan, I naturally had my own sleeping bag. Even if only two sleeping bags were distributed to a group of four like now, the other three would have tactfully crowded into a single one.
A gloomy feeling washed over me. I glared at the faintly glowing campfire, then pointlessly tossed a nearby branch into the flames.
Crackle-! The firewood burned with a snapping sound, and the flames came back to life a little, sending warmth gently around my entire body.
‘I need to pee.’
After warming myself by the campfire for a while, I sighed and got to my feet. I brushed my bangs back and quietly looked around.
Although the area around the campsite was surrounded by trees, there were no thickets dense enough to completely block my view.
I began trudging east, where the bushes were at least somewhat thicker.
“Hmm….”
After walking for about two minutes, even the faint light of the campfire disappeared, and pitch-black darkness swallowed everything around me.
I activated Darkvision and looked around. At last, I spotted some bushes large enough to hide in. I immediately unzipped my pants and slipped into them.
‘Come to think of it, from now on I’ll have to wear skirts…….’
True to Luminus’s proud history and tradition, girls weren’t allowed to wear pants. Ms. Justina had emphasized that starting next week, when we returned to attending school normally, I would have to wear a skirt without fail.
‘Ugh.’
Even imagining it made me shudder. This was an entirely different matter from simply squatting in a bush to relieve myself.
An unpleasant feeling rose within me, as though the ‘line’ that no man should ever cross had begun to come under serious threat.
I swallowed a deep sigh and lowered my head. A soft, clear trickling sound broke the silence and echoed through the forest.
But just then.
Rustle-
“Huh?”
The sudden sound of leaves. My head shot up reflexively.
‘An animal…?’
The sound had come from the southwest. I swallowed nervously and stared in that direction.
Rustle- rustle-
The sound of leaves being crushed underfoot was growing clearer and approaching me faster and faster. I still couldn’t see anything, though.
‘Shit….’
My heart pounded violently, as though it were beating against my ears. I unconsciously reached into my clothes and gripped my wand.
As a rule, measures were taken to prevent wild animals from appearing during the treasure hunt. This was an exam to assess the students’ magical abilities, not their survival skills.
But it was practically impossible for the staff to search the entire vast mountain and drive out every wild animal. Perhaps for that reason, the animals were driven away indirectly by spreading a scent they disliked across the mountain.
I hadn’t encountered any directly so far… but it wouldn’t have been strange if a few predators that had adapted to the smell were still somewhere in the mountains.
‘Damn it, I left the golem-summoning whistle back at the campsite….’
Every time I heard the sound of leaves brushing together, my mouth grew drier.
After all, the fact that the sound was drawing closer and closer meant that there was a good chance it wasn’t a harmless herbivore like a deer or rabbit.
There probably weren’t any bears, but there could easily be a wild boar.
And as far as I knew… an adult wild boar possessed enough strength to send a brat like me flying clear out of the Empire in a single charge.
‘Ugh…!’
I stamped my feet and tried to tense my lower abdomen, but the sound of water only rang out more clearly. Meanwhile, the rustling leaves had drawn almost right up to me, closing the distance to barely twenty paces.
I could drive it away with magic, but in my current crouched position inside the bushes, I couldn’t even get a proper view.
It was truly a life-or-death moment.
Suddenly, my extraordinary mind came up with a brilliant idea.
‘R-right… sound! I’ll scare it off by shouting.’
I remembered something I had read long ago in an animal encyclopedia. When encountering a predator such as a wild boar or wolf, you should pretend to confront it rather than run away.
Apparently, creatures that had spent their entire lives as hunters often panicked when the situation was reversed and they became the prey being targeted.
Besides, if I shouted, someone might come over here. I gripped my wand and struck the bushes in front of me as hard as I could before shouting at the top of my lungs.
“Get the hell out of here, you idiot!!”
It was a shout stripped of every word except instinct.
The rustling leaves stopped dead as if on cue. Did that really work? I widened my eyes and continued shouting.
“Don’t come any closer! If you take even one more step, I’ll turn you into a whole roasted pig!”
This time, I meant it. The moment that hairy face appeared beyond the bushes, I really intended to hit it between the eyes with a Flame Shot.
After that, silence. I couldn’t hear the rustling leaves anymore.
I caught my breath with my wand pointed toward the bushes to the southwest.
At last, a faint response came from behind a large tree in the southwest.
“……Rene?”
It wasn’t the cry of a wild boar, but a human voice with unmistakably clear pronunciation.
“……What?”
What’s more, it was an incredibly familiar voice.
I lowered my wand and muttered quietly, feeling completely dazed.
“A new student?”
An answer immediately came from the other side.
“Is that you, Rene? Is something wrong?”
The voice sounded slightly surprised, yet worried.
“Did a wild boar show up or something?!”
Then the voice changed, tinged with sudden realization.
“I’m coming right now!”
And then the rustling leaves began again.
The utterly unexpected situation left my mind blank for a moment.
A cold breeze brushing against my damp lower half brought me back to reality.
“Don’t coooome!!”
A more desperate shout burst from me than ever before.
“Hang in there!”
But the new student’s voice was drawing even closer. It no longer sounded merely urgent; I could even sense a firm resolve in it.
I had a sudden intuition that there was no way I could stop that headstrong idiot now, no matter what. I hurriedly began pulling up my pants.
“Gah…!?”
But for some reason, my pants wouldn’t come up properly. With my hands stiff from panic, I couldn’t even manage to unroll the waistband.
“Rene!”
And at that moment, the new student suddenly emerged through the bushes.
The startled student’s gaze landed on my face, then slowly—very slowly—slid downward.
“Ah.”
The student froze, still clutching the wand tightly.
It was a suffocating silence. And in complete contrast to that cold stillness… my face began to grow hot as if it were burning.
And a moment later… a thin, trembling voice that startled even me barely slipped between my parched lips.
“Get the fuuuuuck out of here!”
※※
“……Sorry. I shouldn’t have hit you, either.”
“Ahaha… it’s okay. I’m the one who should apologize.”
The new student sitting beside me forced a smile. An unmistakably vivid handprint still remained on the left cheek, embarrassing to look at.
Honestly, even I couldn’t understand my own impulsive behavior. Objectively speaking, there was no particular reason for me to be ashamed just because someone of the same sex had seen me naked.
With an inexplicable sense of guilt, I averted my gaze and desperately tried to break the awkward atmosphere.
“So what brings you all the way out here?”
“I couldn’t sleep, so I was taking a walk.”
“You couldn’t sleep? Aren’t you tired?”
“I am. But for some reason, I couldn’t fall asleep.”
The new student shrugged and laughed playfully.
“Maybe I came to meet you, Rene. Like fate.”
‘……Yuck.’
I didn’t know anything about women’s hearts, but I could confidently say that no woman would be moved by a cheap line like that.
When I answered perfunctorily, “Oh, really?”, the new student seemed to become even more embarrassed. They gave an exaggerated ahem and cleared their throat.
“Then why did you come this far, Rene? Your campsite is much farther in.”
“There wasn’t a suitable place nearby. No matter what, I couldn’t just pull down my pants right in front of the others.”
“Even though we’re both girls?”
“Whether you’re a girl or a boy, some things need to be respected.”
Besides, I wasn’t a girl in the first place.
“Then where is your campsite? As far as I know, there aren’t any other campsites around here.”
“You checked personally?”
“Well, yeah.”
More precisely, I had checked the locations of the familiars.
Each group had one familiar belonging to the teacher assigned to supervise and score it.
“I see.”
The new student nodded in admiration.
“Yeah, my campsite is pretty far away. Probably about three hundred paces west of here.”
“That’s a pretty long way for a walk.”
“I was walking while looking at the night sky, so it felt like I got here in no time.”
The new student flashed a smile and looked up at the sky. The Milky Way really was breathtakingly beautiful when viewed from a remote mountain like this.
“Huh, I guess even our top student doesn’t have anything to worry about?”
“Worry about what?”
“You’re aiming to make it to the final test tomorrow too, aren’t you?”
I hadn’t heard anything about it, but surely their group hadn’t still been stuck on Stage Two.
As expected, the new student chuckled and nodded.
“I suppose so. Maybe I should’ve gone to bed early, just like you said, Rene.”
Then the student stood up and stretched.
“Well, let’s end the small talk here. I’ll walk you back to your campsite.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Don’t be like that. I’m doing this because I thought walking all the way to your campsite would make for a sufficient stroll.”
With that, the new student began walking west.
I let out a small sigh and quickly caught up behind the student.
“Kairos.”
“Why?”
“There’s something you need to know.”
“Me?”
The new student tilted their head and looked back at me.
I nodded and spoke directly.
“There’s a suspicious group. A group that cleared Stage Three much faster than yours did.”
“Huh?”
I was telling them just in case.
There was no way they would blatantly cheat, but it couldn’t hurt to be careful.
“How did you know that, Rene?”
“Ellie’s familiar found out.”
“Ah… right, you’re in the same group as Ellie.”
The new student nodded as though only just realizing it.
The student soon smiled gently and said,
“Yeah, I know about them too. It was Martin from Rinos Dormitory, right?”
“You already knew?”
“Yeah, someone in my group uses familiars too.”
The new student said it matter-of-factly.
……Well, I suppose there was no way the student wouldn’t know if Ellie had noticed it. I shrugged, feeling oddly deflated.
“Then never mind.”
With that, I quickened my pace again.
The new student giggled and asked in a playful voice,
“Were you worried about me?”
“Not at all. I was just trying to keep tabs on that bastard.”
The final test would undoubtedly involve some competition. If necessary, I was even prepared to form a temporary alliance with Kairos.
“I see.”
The new student quietly followed behind me.
After that, we didn’t exchange many words. In the awkward silence, only the sound of our footsteps walking side by side filled the stillness of the night.
“Rene.”
The new student spoke in a low voice when we were almost at our campsite.
When I turned around, the student was looking at me with a smile.
“We’re buddies before we’re students from different groups. If you ever need help, you can come find me anytime.”
Does this bastard not know what a group assignment is…? I snorted and shrugged, then gave the student a suitably indifferent answer.
“I’ll think about it.”
Still, for the sake of a high score, I wouldn’t hesitate to accept the student’s help.
When the campsite lights came into view in the distance, the new student said goodbye to me and turned around. I stopped there for a moment and watched the student’s back recede into the distance.
‘That aside… was the student actually allowed to come this far?’
The question suddenly occurred to me, but since the person in question was Kairos, I didn’t give it much thought and turned away.
“Phew….”
Sure enough, the distant campsite was already echoing with the loud snoring of the underachiever.