Arthur appeared in his room again, shortly after the alarm was issued. Without waiting any longer, he left his room to find the Daybreak dorm students gathered in the main hall. It was chaotic.
"Everyone, please calm down." Yurirl appeared with his group. "Dean Henrick will be meeting us shortly. Given the circumstances, your classes of martial arts will be postponed."
Yurirl then led the students outside to the central plaza where the Nightfall students were standing there too. There were so many that Arthur didn't find anyone he knew there.
"Hello," Someone approached him, and when Arthur turned to see who, he found Ellen, looking as timid as usual.
"Hey, Miss." Arthur smiled. "Too bad that we ended up in different dorms."
"I only passed because of you," Ellen said. "But I don't understand why would you help someone you don't know."
"You reminded me of a friend of mine, just as stubborn. I didn't help them back then, so it's purely out of self-satisfaction."
"That doesn't mean I won't repay you," Ellen said with a resolute expression. Arthur sighed.
"Well, the only help I need is runes-related." Arthur shrugged. "Do you know anything about that?" He saw Ellen smile for the first time.
"Yes!" She nodded. "I'm not that good myself, but I spent a lot of time studying them. I even got to the finals in the Runes Apprentices Cup preliminary rounds."
"That's impressive." Arthur raised his brows. He never knew about this. "I guess I'll be making some progress."
"Heh, a friend I helped even became the champion. Sadly, he…" Ellen's expression was proud at first before it turned sad. "In the end, I wish I never helped him."
"Don't say that, it has nothing to do with it." Arthur shook his head. "If you haven't helped him, you wouldn't be his friend. That's all that matters."
"Dear Students." Dean Henrick interrupted their conversation. "You have also heard the alarm." Arthur turned to look at him floating in the air. "A horde of monsters started attacking the walls of the forest for reasons unknown. Since our college is responsible for protecting the city, we'll be organizing a hunt."
He waved his hands and their bracelets buzzed. As Arthur opened it, a panel of information was projected in front of him.
"Emergency Hunt: A Class Challenge."
"The dorm that kills more monsters will be the first to choose tasks this year. For those of you who don't know, field training is tasks assigned to Jerano by the public. The dorm that wins gets to choose tasks first based on rank."
Arthur didn't understand why this was important, but the tension rose once this reward was revealed. The two dorms looked at each with such hostility that sparks were produced. Thunder crackled above them as if signaling the beginning of the battle.
"Evan, I told you to stop creating visual effects." Yurirl turned to a guy who was raising his hands. Evan sheepishly laughed and lowered his hands, making the sparks and thunder disappear.
"Caleb, this will be another win for us." Yurirl folded his hands with a smile.
"You said in last year's dorms competition before you ran away."
"My teacher was injured." Yurirl frowned. "You think of that as a win?"
Arthur remembered that Grandmaster Kiren mentioned something about Yurirl's teacher injury against a monster. Did that take place during the dorm's competition?
"And you think of yourself as the Daybreak dorm?" Caleb scowled. "A win is a win, no matter how you try to phrase. Today will be the same."
"Same as yesterday, a nice first-ranker you've got there." Jenny laughed and the daybreak dorm followed suit to laugh. Arthur glanced at Arlo, who was glaring at him with hate oozing out of his eyes and sighed.
It seems today's hunt won't be that easy with Arlo targeting him. The students were then taken toward the walls where they met with the forest watchers.
"The monsters aren't many, a thousand at most. We could've handled it ourselves, but the college has asked for this to be another training for you guys. You don't get a monster's horde every day." The watcher was a middle-aged man with a tattoo on his face.
Another watcher stepped forward and used his bracelet and sent an app to all of the students. Arthur opened his bracelet and found a new app called CoreScan.
"This app allows your bracelets to identity cores. Remember, it can know if this core has just been obtained or not. If you try to scan cores that you already have, you'll be panelized by reducing your kill count." The other watcher explained. "You may go ahead." He crossed his arms with a smile.
"If the monsters see a large group of humans, they'll run away. This will decrease our chances of hunting a lot of them, so we'll use the squad system."
"Can't we hunt on our own?" Doli asked. "They shouldn't be that dangerous."
"There are a few true-monsters, so we'll stick with the squads." Yurirl turned to the crowd and spotted Arthur. "Alexie, you should join us."
"What? Why?" It wasn't Arthur that protested, but Jonah. Yurirl pointed at Arlo's direction discreetly and lowered his voice.
"Do you think he'll forget about what happened to him yesterday?" Yurirl made a point. "It'll be safer for Alexie to join us for now."
Arthur looked quietly at Yurirl, not buying what he was saying one bit. Yurirl believed in fair play and not interfering with other people's issues, so it didn't make sense that he wanted to help Arthur now.
'Is he trying to keep an eye on me?' Arthur wondered, feeling slightly upset. After all, being with Yurirl meant pretending he was weaker than he is. Although that applied to everyone, Yurirl's eyes were special.
"If that's the case…" Jonah hesitated.
"Would you keep protecting me for the rest of my years in Jerano?" Arthur said to Yurirl. "If Arlo wants to come after me, then let him. I don't need protection or babysitting. If you have another reason for including me in your squad, then I'll happily listen to it."
"Hah," Yurirl sighed and looked at Arthur quietly. "Fine, but team up with Alice. As for the rest, make teams in five minutes. We don't have time to arrange a strength-balance, so the arrangement would be as follows."
A message was sent to all of them.
"Four students per team, the ranking should be as follows. Leader: 1st to 50th. Member: 51th to 100th. Member: 101th to 150th. Member: 151th to 200th."
Arthur's ranking after yesterday's event was 163th, making him the last ranker on the team. He walked toward Alice who looked at him with a smile.
"I guess I'm lucky today," Alice said with a smile.
"To be paired with someone as weak as me? Your definition of lucky is abnormal." Arthur shrugged.
"Don't stand too close to her, Linan." A voice interrupted their conversation as a man walked over. He had a serious and bowed to Alice. "Young Miss."
"Rise, Sebastian." Alice sighed, clearly helpless. "I've told you to not call me that in the academy."
"I serve you everywhere," Sebastian stood up. He then turned to Arthur with an icy expression. "Your little stunt yesterday might have worked, but petty games won't last you long."
"Yeah, sure." Arthur waved his hand. Before he could say anything, Sebastian grabbed his collar.
"I won't tolerate your disrespectful attitude around the Young Miss." Sebastian's face had a terrifying frown. "One more misstep and you'll find yourself swimming in the ocean."
"Miss Alice," Arthur didn't respond to him. "Does your servant have any insurance? I think he'll need to reattach his hand if he doesn't let go."
"You arrogant..." Sebastian gritted his teeth in anger at Arthur's disregard. Alice pulled his hand away and he let go.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Linan. He's rash, please forgive him." Alice said with an apologetic expression. "It'd be best, however, if you didn't threaten him. That wouldn't look so good on me."
"Very well." Arthur adjusted his collar. "We need one more member."
"Oh, I already have someone in mind. She couldn't participate yesterday because her ability was unstable after the second test. She should be here any minute."
Arthur frowned when he heard this. He felt someone approach them from behind and turned to see the familiar cold expression.
"Miss Alice, thank you for taking care of me today as well. The healer said that I was healthy enough to participate." Amelia bowed deeply. "These gentlemen are..."
Even though her words were polite, she was cold and distant as Arthur remembered her. He knew she was taking the exam with him, but he thought she didn't get accepted when he didn't see her around.
Now, however, it seems that her ability was unstable after the second test. The interview might have been conducted for her separately, making her a little late to show up.
"This is Sebastian Morgman and this is Alexie Linan."
"Hello, Mr. Morgman." Amelia shook his hand before turning to Arthur. Looking at her with a daze, Arthur took her hand as he shook it. "Hello, Mr. Linan. I've heard about your plan yesterday, brilliant but you might have made an enemy of one of the strongest students around."