33 Risen#re

The morning arrived quickly and the watches on all the student wrists began to beep one after the other.

As they looked they saw that they had been assigned a role along with a bunch of info explaining the changes in the focus of the expedition.

The first thing they noticed was the teams they were assigned too.

<Main Base> - Commanding officers, Lirian, Edith

<Exploration 1> - Commanding officers, Media, Cole

<Exploration 2> - Commanding officers, Tobias, Wentian

They were all placed in one of the groups and as they read through the changes in the expedition, they realised what the significance behind each group was.

Then they read the new roles they were assigned.

<Vanguard>, <Pyromancer>, <Explorer>, <Communications>, <Guard>, <Scout>, <Bodyguard>, <General>, <Water Replenisher>....

Under their role a prompt gave them the details of their duties.

Another prompt appeared besides their assigned roles.

<Your position has been assigned based on the tasks you've done over the course of the expedition, depending on your contributions in different areas, your role maybe re-assigned.>

<N/T each candidate will be selecting 5 captains based on the effort put in by each individual, all captains will be assigned a single men luxury tent, and high-quality rations once a day.>

<N/T each candidate will be selecting 2 lieutenants to serve under each of their captains, the position will be assigned based on the effort put in by each individual, all lieutenants will be assigned a luxury sleeping bag and high-quality rations every second day.>

---

"Any complaints?" Lirian asked with his best smile as he faced the crowd of students gathered in front of him.

He knew from the very beginning that there would a few that weren't content with their new roles in the expedition.

There was a burst of noise as the students clamoured over each other to get their complaints heard, Lirian raised his hand and they quickly silenced themselves.

He raised his finger and a wisp od silver energy shot out forming a circle around a girl, she had been very loud in her complaints and Lirian had heard her voice despite the clamouring students.

"Would you care to come forward and state your problem?" Lirian gestured for her and smiled pleasantly.

The girl walked forward with confident steps, "I'm Klea form class 8 – A," she introduced herself and glanced at Cole whom she shared a class with, "I'd prefer to move to the vanguard, a support role doesn't suit me," she said with confidence.

In the audience all of class 5-A winced loudly as they saw the smile on Lirian's face, it looked perfectly lovely and innocent, but they knew it was an omen of doom.

As people looked at them strangely, Mordred ignored them and offered a silent prayer to the girl, 'May your next life be free of misfortunes,' he thought bringing his hands together.

Lirian reached out to fast for the girl to react and wrapped his hand around her neck and lifted her in the air like she was a rag doll.

His action took everyone by surprise, Cole looked on wide-eyed as the girl from his class was dragged across the ground and struggled in vein against Lirians grip.

Klea's eyes trembled violently as she continuously tried to hit Lirians hand and make him release her, but it didn't matter if she punched or kicked Lirian seemed to feel nothing at all.

She didn't know where Lirian was dragging her too when she felt that the sound of the crashing waters was growing louder and when she realized where she was being taken to it was too late.

Lirian dangled Klea over the edge of the water fall and she clasped onto his wrist with all her might and held on for her life, as she looked down below she almost fainted from fright the only thing keeping her conscious was her desperate desire to live.

"Do you still have a problem with your role?" Lirian asked loudly with a cold voice.

She immediately began shaking her head wildly while trying the reach out her toes to touch the ledge.

"I can't hear you," Lirian mused innocently and leaned further out, his action gave her an even bigger heart attack, because she could tell that if she tried to struggle one bit both of them would fall over.

"n-n…-n-no," she crooked out with the last of her breath.

"Louder," Lirian whispered to her, he moved his hand a little to let her take in some air.

"No," she said with a shaky voice.

"I didn't catch that, the waterfalls very loud," Lirian said loudly.

"NOOOOOO! I LOVE MY ROLE!" she shouted with all the strength she had left.

Lirian pulled her back and tossed her onto the ground, she slumped down without any energy and a dead look in her eyes as several of her classmates came running to help her.

"Does anyone else have a complaint to tell me I'm happy to hear you out?" Lirian smiled pleasantly like nothing noteworthy had happened.

Absolute silence was the only thing that greeted him as the student were busy shaking from shock, hack even the candidate's were shaking and Lirian told them that he was going to do something extreme, but they had never imagined he would go so far.

"Aww," Lirian sighed in disappointment, "And here I was hoping that there would be someone willing to sacrifice themselves, so that everyone could understand what I'd do to someone that causes me to feel real annoyance."

If Lirian earlier actions were terror inducing they didn't know what to describe his words as, because they already found it impossible to even think of acting out of line.

Lirian sighed and shook his head with a thoughtful expression, "I suppose that since no one would like to act as a sacrifice, I can only leave it up to your imaginations to think of what would happen to those that earn my ire," he announced for all of them to hear.

"I do hope that all of you give it a lot of thought in your days to come, especially those that won't be seeing me until the return journey, it would be a pity if I have to remove you when everything is almost over," Lirian's cold voice hung on the air like the icy chill of winter not allowing any of them to forgot a single word for an instance.

Hinata's eyes trembled more than anyone else, and she felt her heart leap into her throat, if Lirian could be so cruel to someone for simply having a different preference from him, what would he do to her if he found out that she was trying to kill him.

For the first time she felt genuine doubt in Telamons plan, and an unprecedented fear washed over her.

---

An hour later the students were filling out in perfectly straight lines while cursing their parents for giving birth to them, what they had just experienced was far too much for their young minds to handle.

Lirian's 'little talk' and left them with nothing but pure fear and dread, the moment when he held Klea over the edge of the waterfalls by her neck for complaining about her assigned role they came to realize that they were dealing with a complete madman.

It was Lirian's way of showing them that should they step out of line a far worse fate would await them, and those that were in the exploration groups were extremely glad that they wouldn't be in Lirian's group.

Lirian remained in the camp as Media's group headed for the river crossing and Tobias's group headed in the opposite direction.

As the teams reached 500 meters away from him, alerts kept coming up on his watch.

<A member of your group has left the range of your device; you cannot contact them.>

It was part of the design to ensure that they couldn't use the watches to communicate with each-other when they were too far apart.

That way any reports they made would have to be in person, and the groups had to maintain fixed lines of communication, it was why the communication role was so important.

Lirian turned to face the remaining five hundred students, "Does anyone have a problem with their assignments?"

"No Sir," he heard them shout in unison like a well-trained regiment as they stomped on the ground.

"That's good," Lirian said in a tone that said that's what he expected to hear, "Get to work, dig the trenches and set up a defence, our group is small so there is a good chance that we'll be attacked by the creatures that have been following our trail."

The sounds of picks and forks cutting into the ground and busting rock soon competed with the sound of the ever-flowing waterfall.

Unbeknownst to them the skies of the world they were one was busy as numerous ships silently approached in stealth mode.

The ships hovered in the darkness of space waiting for the moment to strike.