Chapter 57 Tell Me This Is A Lie!!
All the groups came one after the other to the city, before being taken back to the military's base. There were so many students that it was hard to circulate in the city for about thirty minutes, but once they all went back, everything became calm again.
They all had to go back to the gymnasium to hand in their bag, followed by a speech from the professors, or more precisely, Madison who was the highest ranked professor here, even higher than Azul.
While everything was being prepared, Yugo, Ven, Lidi, Enzo, and Sylvia all met up. All their groups weren't too far from each other, and since they didn't have to stay with their teammates anymore, they all decided to stay together.
"How was your exam guys?" Sylvia asked with a smile.
"It was really nice. It change from the usual spar we do in our fighting class," Lidi answered and smiled back. "Not to add that monsters, due to their numbers were sometimes harder to deal with than humans."
"That's right. When there were just two or three monsters, everything was good, but when there was an entire horde, things weren't as simple," Enzo added his own experience. He would have surely suffered some petty injuries if it wasn't for his mastery over time.
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"Yeah, but we weren't alone, so everything went smoothly. It would have been ten times harder if we were to be alone for this exam," Everyone nodded at Yugo's remark. As he said, they managed to survive the horde of monsters mostly because they weren't alone. They would have to do a lot more things if they were alone.
And that was why this exam was a group exam. It was to make students understand that fighting alone wasn't advised at all. On the contrary, in most situations, fighting alone only meant death. As for the groups where only the high-level fought, they got a pretty hard time and mostly fall behind the other group in terms of the score because they had to rest a lot more than they would have to if everyone had fought.
"I wonder where Kye is thought," Lidi said after some more chit-chat. "He went with three high-level students, so they must have made his exam hard."
"They will pay dearly if anything happened to Kye," Yugo said with a dead-serious tone, quickly followed by a nod from Ven. "So for their own good, I wish he's safe."
"Well, no need to speculate," Lidi said. She still remembered when Kye was fed up with their behavior, so she tried to stay calm, even though it was clear that she too will make pay for Kye's group if something happened to him. "We'll see him sooner or la-..." Lidi didn't manage to finish when Madison began to speak.
"I would like to congratulate all of you for your hard work," She began to speak. "For most of you, it was your first time fighting against real monsters, and I'm proud to say that most of you had surpassed our expectations.
"The meaning of this exam was for you to understand how important your teammates were. It doesn't matter if they are low level. It doesn't matter if their help plays a part only for a second. As long as they contribute, even the most insignificant of help can save your lives.
"So all those who put their teammates to the side because they were either too low level or useless got a hard time during this exam. So I hope that all of you can think carefully about your actions once you will retire to not do the same mistakes the next time an exam will happen.
"And now, here is the score each group managed to get," Madison finished as a giant hologram appeared behind her with all the members of each group with numbers to their side which indicated their total score.
Without surprise, Kye's group came first with 5,000 points in total, being far ahead of the second which had 2,450 points, which was Yugo's group, followed by Enzo's with 2,170, Ven's with 1,950, Sylvia's with 1700, and Lidi with 1650. The others were all far behind, with just a few more going over the thousand points.
Since every monster they killed was an ordinary rank monster, each monster orb valued 10 points. Thus indicating how many monsters the top 6 groups managed to kill. But what surprised everyone was how high the first group's point was. It was as if they spent their whole time fighting without even thinking of resting.
"I would like the first place group to come to my side," Madison said with a smile as Maria, John, and Suha came to her side. Though, Suha's head looked down, whereas Maria and John had big smiles on their faces.
Seeing them go toward Madison, Kye's friends all looked at them with surprise. Not surprised because of the score they get, but because Kye wasn't among them.
"Where is he?" Ven said with trembling hands.
"He's alright, right?" Yugo added with a trembling voice.
"H-he must be late," Enzo said to reassure everyone and himself as well, but he too couldn't help but have a trembling voice."
Though even after a few seconds, Kye didn't come to their side and Madison continued speaking.
"As you can see, our first group had killed a total of 500 ordinary rank monsters based on all the monster orbs we counted," Madison with a proud smile but with a glint of sadness in her eyes. "It's the first time in history that a group managed to get so many scores during a hunting exam, so I would like everyone to applause them for their great score,"
Everyone applauded them and praised them for such a feat. They all shouted their names in praise and the three of them became the idol of a lot of first years students. Though, they all seem to have forgotten about Kye.
Everyone except his friends.
Sylvia and Lidi felt their legs weak and fell to the ground. "No, it can't be," Sylvia said with watery eyes. Kye was like her little brother since the moment he accepted to fight with her in the VR, so she didn't know how to feel when he didn't appear alongside his teammates.
"He's alive, right?" Lidi asked the boys with tears flowing down her cheeks, followed by Sylvia who couldn't contain them anymore.
Yugo, Ven, and Enzo didn't say anything and only looked at Suha, Maria, and John with fiery eyes. Their hands turned white so much that they tightened their fists, and even their jawline could be seen because of how angry they were. Even their abilities began to slowly emanate from their bodies.
They all considered Kye like a little brother whom they needed to protect. He was cute, acted like a real little brother, and never stopped smiling at them. He was like their little angel. A cute little angel that always beamed with positiveness, even when someone looked down on him or wanted to bully him. Even protecting those people from them because they will have already met the lord of death multiple times if he didn't stop them. He also never stopped forgiving them when they did something that Kye didn't like, making all of them like him and cherish him even more.
Madison saw their reaction and was happy to see that Kye has such friends, to not make things too hard for them, she continued. "As you all know, each group was composed of 4 students each. Though, there are only three students by my side," She began to make everyone realize that there was indeed something missing. "Our first group had met a balena, a whale-type monster that had incredible defense and a very strong ice attribute. And to make things worse, this monster was a special rank monster. A rank that you students still can't fight," Everyone gasped hearing that. The ranks of the monsters defined their strength. And there was a total of 7 ranks. From bottom to top, ordinary rank, rare rank, special rank, king rank, lord rank, legendary rank, and last but not least, divine rank. And for first-year students, a special rank monster wasn't even something fathomable so much they were strong. Even some veterans still had difficulties fighting such monsters.
"But despite such differences in strength and Kye being a level one student, he alone faced the balance. He even managed to destroy its two eyes before running away with his teammates," Madison paused to make everyone realize how big of a feat Kye managed to do. Everyone knew Madison's reputation, so even though it was hard to take, they all believed her. "However, this very same balena came back today, and while the four of them were trying to escape, Kye got hurt by one of the balena's abilities, and his teammates didn't manage to take him back with them..."
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