Chapter 23
-Squelch!
‘Kehk?!’
“…Phew.”
The hunting ground after a fierce battle with a group of goblins.
Han Sora quietly let out a sigh of relief as she looked at the corpses of the two goblins lying nearby.
‘That makes nine. Just one more, and this exam is over.’
The practical exam was called Live Monster Subjugation, and just before they entered the gate, the exam proctor had handed them a materials pouch and a pocketknife.
There had been no further explanation, but as the top scorer on the written exam, Han Sora had already inferred how the test would be conducted.
The main materials obtained from a single goblin were its heart, brain, and ears.
In other words, each person was expected to kill three or four goblins. If they damaged the materials while butchering them, they would have to work that much harder.
‘I heard this wasn’t the kind of exam they had last year… It’s definitely gotten tougher.’
Could it be because of the large gate that had suddenly appeared in Sokcho a few months ago? Since large gates of unknown origin had been appearing all over the world lately, the academy seemed determined to screen and select hunters more rigorously.
They probably wanted to admit students capable of performing in the field right away and quickly instill them with the abilities needed to become hunters. It was an understandable reason. That did not mean she particularly welcomed all this trouble, though.
She would probably have to obtain materials from monsters stronger than goblins to receive a high score on the practical exam.
‘It seems like they expect anyone who wants to hunt stronger monsters to enter that forest….’
To be honest, she lacked confidence. She did not feel confident that she could safely subjugate a monster stronger than a goblin.
…More precisely, she did not feel confident hunting orcs with ‘that guy’ as her partner.
-Wham!
“Ugh!”
‘Kehhek!’
That idiot, seriously.
Even if he was only an applicant, how could someone from the Swordsmanship Department still be unable to kill even one goblin like that?
She had thought he might at least have decent abilities as a vanguard despite being a little lacking, but apparently not even that was the case. Seo Woojin’s swordsmanship amounted to nothing more than struggling to hold his own against a single goblin.
…If only the right conditions were in place, she could have hunted orcs and even stronger monsters with ease.
‘…He’ll still gradually improve after he enrolls.’
Perhaps she was expecting too much from her childhood friend, who was barely at the level of an applicant.
Han Sora was also anxious beneath her calm facade as she fired her bow. Her accuracy was not something she could honestly call good.
Only about three out of every ten arrows she fired hit a monster. Accurately sniping a moving enemy was difficult, but even taking that into account, a thirty-percent hit rate was a fatal weakness for an archer like Han Sora.
‘Why does my awakened ability have to be so mediocre….’
‘Piercing Arrow.’ That was the awakened ability she possessed.
Her basic archery ability was excellent, allowing her to launch powerful attacks with little strength, but that was as far as her awakened ability helped her.
Measuring the wind and focusing on the target to land a hit were things she had to accomplish entirely through her own efforts.
Still, thanks to the effort she had put in consistently since childhood after learning about her awakened ability, she almost never missed a stationary target. The problem, as always, was using it against monsters in actual combat.
Aiming at monsters darting about, steadying her breath within a short time, and releasing the bowstring was still far too difficult for her as a trainee.
If only the vanguard would draw the monster’s attention and hold it off for a while, she could somehow land a proper shot, but….
-Squelch!
‘Kehheek….’
“Haa, I-I won…!!”
“……”
With a vanguard who had to fight desperately just to deal with one goblin, she could not properly do anything she wanted.
All she could do was rely on her own skill to dodge, attack, and land her arrows. It was unavoidable that it felt no different from hunting alone.
‘Right, the exam is almost over anyway. If I start nagging him for no reason, we’ll only get irritated with each other.’
Still, because of the bond she shared with her childhood friend from next door, Han Sora decided to let it slide.
…Even though he looked this clumsy now, she held onto the small hope that one day he would become a hunter and be able to pull his weight when it truly mattered.
“S-Sora. Could you help me butcher this goblin…?”
“I already showed you earlier. Why do you keep calling me?”
“I-I’m scared because I burst its heart earlier. Can’t you butcher it for me instead, Sora?”
“Hey, Seo Woojin. I’ve been dying of frustration since earlier, but I’ve been holding it in, okay? You spent ten whole minutes barely killing one goblin, so I had to deal with two at once over here. Are you going to keep getting on my nerves?”
“I said I get it…. If you don’t want to do it, just say so. Why are you getting so angry….”
“……”
Whew.
How had she ever ended up partnering with him?
She should not have formed a party simply because they were childhood friends who happened to pass the written exam together. She should have chosen someone a little more responsible as her practical-exam partner.
‘…Come to think of it, I wonder whether those two are doing all right.’
Cha Eun-joo and Lee Seonho, was it? They were from the Magic and Support Departments.
It was concerning that they had no vanguard, but most of the monsters here were goblins. They probably would not be in any particular danger if they stuck to hunting only the weaker monsters.
‘On the surface, Cha Eun-joo from Magic seemed to be relying on Lee Seonho from Support.’
Wasn’t it normally the Support student, who had little combat ability, who relied on the person with combat abilities?
That Cha Eun-joo girl… magic was even leaking from the tips of her hair, so Han Sora had thought she was quite strong. Was she unexpectedly not much to speak of?
[9/10]
‘Sigh, what good does it do me to think about that? I have enough problems of my own right now.’
Still, they had seemed like nice people. If they really ended up enrolling later, she would like to become friends with them.
Just as Han Sora finished processing the two goblins and was reluctantly about to help Seo Woojin, who was still struggling—
‘Grrrrrr!’
“……”
A mysterious cry came from somewhere, and her gaze shifted toward the depths of the forest.
“Hey, Sora…. If you’re done with yours, can you really help me for a little while…?”
“Wait, Seo Woojin. Be quiet and listen.”
“What are you going to nag me about this time….”
“I’m not nagging. Don’t you hear something coming from the forest?”
“What sound? You’re just making an excuse because you don’t want to help me….”
‘Grrrrrrrr!!’
“……”
“……Huh, huh?”
…She definitely had not misheard it.
The moment a cry that sounded like a monster came from the depths of the forest she had avoided because the atmosphere felt ominous—
Han Sora, suddenly gripped by a sense of foreboding, hurriedly picked up the materials pouch she had set on the ground and stood.
“Hey, Seo Woojin! Get up, quickly! We don’t have time for you to keep sitting there!”
“I-I haven’t finished processing it yet!”
“Something strange is coming this way! We don’t even know what it is, so shouldn’t we run first and worry about the rest later?”
“Y-you’ve almost collected all your materials, so it doesn’t matter to you! Even after I finish processing this and collect it, I still need five more….”
“Ah, seriously!”
Even so, Han Sora could not bring herself to abandon her partner, so she reluctantly helped him butcher the goblin’s head.
…Not long afterward, three people hurriedly burst out of the forest.
“S-Seonho! We’re out! We’re outside!”
“Hek, hek, hek….”
“Keep running for now! We have to get far enough away that it can’t chase us at all!”
Lee Seonho was running out of the forest with someone held in his arms, while Cha Eun-joo clung tightly to him.
And… there was one more unidentified woman with her face covered by a veil.
Before Han Sora could figure out what was happening, Lee Seonho seemed to recognize her and spoke to her first.
“Huh?! Han Sora?!”
“What are you guys doing? Why are you in such a hurry….”
“You can’t stay here either, so run! If we stay here, we might all die!”
“D-die?! What are you suddenly talking about….”
“An owlbear, huff…. A-an owlbear appeared, hngh….”
The veiled woman struggled to add an explanation in a breathless voice.
Han Sora briefly wondered whether the dangerous monster the woman had named was really approaching, but she soon realized that what the woman had said was true.
-Crack, crack!
‘Grrrrrrrr!!’
“W-what is that?!”
A monster came crashing into view, snapping enormous trees like stalks of straw.
⁎ ⁎ ⁎
Found her.
I had managed to find her.
I had considered the worst-case scenario of having to do nothing but run until someone from the academy came out if I failed to find Han Sora, but whether by coincidence or fate, I had run into Han Sora and Seo Woojin.
This meant I had finally gathered the minimum force needed to face the owlbear.
‘Grrrrrrrr!!’
“W-what is that?! Why is something like that in the academy’s practical-exam dungeon?!”
“I don’t know! Anyway, if it catches us, we won’t even leave bones behind, so run as fast as you can!”
“Aaaaaah! What is it, seriously?!”
Running alongside me as I carried Cha Eun-joo, Han Sora suddenly shouted in irritation.
Behind us, Kim Isabel, who had grown somewhat tired from running all this time, and Seo Woojin, who had been physically weak from the start, were running after us.
‘The conditions are in place. Now all that’s left is for this to somehow turn into a battle scene.’
Normally, just thinking of fighting a bear nearly three meters tall would be insane, but that was only so long as everyone could escape safely.
If it became impossible for everyone to flee and they were forced to fight, Han Sora would participate in the battle somehow, even while frightened.
-Thud!
“Aaaah!”
Perhaps because she had been running along the forest path for too long, Kim Isabel finally fell to the ground in exhaustion.
It was the signal for the full-scale battle to begin, just as I remembered from the original.
“Isabel!”
“I-Isabel!”
Cha Eun-joo and I were the first to react, stopping in our tracks and turning to look at Isabel, and Han Sora soon wore a worried expression when she saw the fallen woman as well.
She was the kind of person who could not ignore someone else’s crisis, so she would surely try to help somehow. The fact that she had brought Seo Woojin, who had been little more than a burden at the beginning of the story, along with her in the first place was itself proof of her character.
…Unlike Han Sora, of course, her childhood friend was a selfish bastard who cared about no one but himself.
“Hey, Seo Woojin! Go get that fallen woman and hurry….”
“I-I’m not doing it!”
“What?!”
“I can barely run by myself! What do you want me to do?! I don’t care whether she makes it back on her own or not!!”
“Hey, hey, Seo Woojin!! You bastard!!!”
Even Han Sora could not tolerate such cowardly behavior from Seo Woojin, and she ended up spitting out a curse.
‘Yeah, thank you from the bottom of my heart for acting so pathetically.’
If you’re that scared, go ahead and run as far as you like on your own.
By the time you regret it and come running back, I’ll have finished everything already.