The further they walked into the forest, the lesser they saw what was in front of them. The paths were barely passable. Wilkas could hardly keep up with him without losing sight of him.
"Do you know how to climb trees?" asked Michael, stopping under a huge birch tree.
"Because I'm a half-elf, you expect me to know how to climb a tree?"
Wilkas misunderstood Micahel. He didn't realize Michael was really going to get onto a branch on top until Michael fired a metal hook from the mark 3 bracers he was wearing around his wrist.
In a blink of an eye, he was on top of the tree. Wilkas looked up at the tree with his mouth wide open,
"Grab this tight"
Wilkas grabbed onto the metal hook tightly. The next thing he knew, he was getting lifted off the ground.
"What the hell?" Wilkas grabbed onto the tree to balance himself. He didn't even want to look down as they were standing too high from the ground.
Whoosh!
A gust of wind flew past his face.
"Why is he here?" Wilkas turned to see professor Steinmeyer standing between them on the tree branch. She was staring at him,
"Professor?"
"What's your plan?" asked Gaya, ignoring Wilkas. After Wilkas went to sleep last night, Michael and Gaya talked about everything through the earpiece. Since Gaya just came up with the plan to send the students into the forest just this morning, Michael was in the dark.
"You know what they say when you want to hide a tree, hide it in the forest. In our case, they might have literally hidden the elf somewhere in this forest. I needed an excuse to get you here" said Gaya.
The way professor Steinmeyer put her hand on sixty-six's shoulder creeped out Wilkas. He couldn't believe how a professor of a prestigious academy like this could have a relationship with a student. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that they might know each other before coming to Mazeroth.
"I did some digging. This place hasn't been monitored by any arrays, so it's safe"
Their conversation didn't make any sense to Wilkas. He felt pretty awkward and unsafe standing on the branch.
Michael had already scanned their surroundings and made sure that they were not being watched. However, he did not want to deploy the drones and Spyders in front of Wilkas. The point was to show Wilkas how powerful his mysterious employer is.
"Keep digging. If the elf is here, I don't think we can find him without any help"
"Let's go searching"
By giving the students the assignment to survive in the forest, she gave both Michael and her the chance to roam through the woods searching for the elf without raising any suspicion.
"Should we take him with us?" asked Gaya,
"Why not?"
The next moment Gaya grabbed Wilkas by the back of his neck before jumping down from the branch.
"Argh, fuuuck" Wilkas screamed,
When they landed on the ground, Wilkas was breathing heavily as he was terrified,
"You sure he'll be of use to us?"
"Hmm"
"Who are you people?"
Gaya put her hand on Wilkas's shoulder. He could feel her gently squeezing his shoulder,
"The people who could make you very rich or very dead"
"ARGHHHHHHHHH!"
Suddenly a scream echoed through the forest. They immediately looked in the direction of the scream.
"Huh? Do you feel that?" asked Wilkas feeling the ground trembling,
The tremble increased by the second to the point it felt like they were having a powerful earthquake.
"ARGHHHHHHH!!!"
The screams of the students reverberated in the forest louder and louder.
"Something's coming this way" Wilkas looked terrified as expected.
Gaya took off from the ground like a bullet through the canopy. It didn't even take a minute before she came back with a pale face,
"We have to go" she sounded alarmed,
"What did you see?" asked Michael,
"We don't have time, there is a fucking mountain troll coming this way"
"What the fuck is a mountain troll?" Wilkas shrieked.
"Come on run" Gaya pushed Michael and Wilkas to run. She could fly away unlike Wilkas and Michael. To hide his ability to use arch energy, Michael had to avoid flying or using any spells. Hence his only way to escape was to run.
"Didn't you read the fucking book they gave you?"
Wilkas almost puked blood. She threw away the book and mocked them for having a combat book. She talked as though she loathed having books for combat class yet at a moment like this, she was yelling at him for not reading the book. It was obvious that she read the whole book unlike what she pretended.
Although Michael did not know what a mountain troll is, he wasn't going to wait around. He started to run towards the castle as Wilkas ran behind him.
"GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!"
A thunderous growl shook the forest as they were running.
"I hate this place" Wilkas shouted while he was running,
They ran as fast as they could without looking back. However, the trembling indicated that the mountain troll was getting close to them. The sound of trees shattering and cracking could be heard on top of the screaming sounds of the students.
Seeing the light at the end of the forest gave Wilkas enough boost to push his body to the extreme. As a half-elf, Wilkas was born with extreme agility and speed. No human had ever outrun Wilkas. He was able to run through the woods as the forest was his playground thanks to his nimble body and the training he had since he was born.
Nonetheless, he was barely able to keep up with sixty-six. Surprisingly this was sixty-six did not look like he was pushing his body to the limit. He seemed calm and collected regardless of the mountain troll chasing them.
With a final push, Wilkas and Michael jumped out of the woods and reached the ground between the forest and Mazeroth castle. They saw students running to the castle like a bat out of hell.
Michael was neither in the shape to fight nor wanted to fight the mountain troll which would defeat his purpose of staying anonymous.
"GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!"
After putting some distance between the forest and them, they heard an ear-piercing thunderous roar coming from behind. They looked over their shoulder to see a fifteen feet humanoid beast with gray skin, a bald head, and overgrown ears roaring to the sky. In its giant hands, it held a grown tree. The troll used the tree as a club.
The troll's belly looked as though it just ate a few buffalos whole. Even from a distance, the putrid smell that came from the mountain troll made Wilkas's face go green.
"RUN!" Gilrine's shout attracted Michael's attention as well as the other students.
It was not like Michael planned to stay put and watch the troll. He was just momentarily stunned to see a mountain troll in real life.
"Run human, the troll is resistant to all magic attacks" Michael heard Gaya's voice in his head.
Defeating a fifteen feet giant without spells was impossible, even for him. He was strong but not strong enough to defeat the mountain troll. It would squash him like a bug if he picked up a fight with the troll. Besides, Michael had no intention to fight with the troll. The more he pushed himself, the harder it would be to prevent the third person from showing up.
"Where the heck are the professors?" Wilkas asked while running with him,
"Calm down boy" Michael saw Gilrine approach the troll with his hands reached out,
"What the fuck is he doing? It's not a dog he could tame" Wilkas growled looking over shi shoulder,
The mountain troll surprisingly stopped roaring. It tilted its head looking at Gilrine. The troll stood still as Gilrine slowly approached the troll daring not to make any sudden moves.
"GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!"
Yet, when he was just a few meters away from the troll, the troll's eyes flickered in red as it raised the tree in its hand high in the sky to squash Gilrine with it.
BOOM!
The very next moment, a rainbow color beam shot out from the sky and landed between Gilrine and the mountain troll. The force of the beam pushed the mountain troll a couple of steps back. The bright light radiated from the beam made the troll close its eyes for a second.
Michael knew it was a teleportation beam and he wondered who would step out of the beam. Wilkas on the other hand expected a bunch of people or the guards or the professors to step out of the beam to kill the troll.
However, who was there when the light beam disappeared was a girl in ocean blue robes. She was taller than average girls and wore clothes that screamed wealth. Her raven black hair fluttered in the wind. Michael could not see her face but by the look of her arms, he could tell she was a trained warrior.
Standing in front of the mountain troll, the girl never moved a muscle. She remained as calm as the sea.
"Leave" the girl ordered Gilrine. Her authoritative voice shook Gilrine as his legs automatically started to move backward.
Michael failed to see any magical fluctuations around her which meant just like the students, she was too unable to use arch energy.
"GRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!"
The mountain troll changed its target from Gilrine to the girl in front of it. It once again raised the tree in its hand higher to attack the girl.