[Lifespan Remaining: 2 days, 10 hours, 15 minutes.]
The man was in comfortable, deep-red pajamas, with thin white pinstripes.
Despite his ridiculous appearance, his fierce eyes swept across the surrounding camp as he attempted to pinpoint whatever he had sensed moments earlier.
While underneath the veil, Noct held his breath, as even just breathing wrong might give them away.
Unlike in Altaire, the man currently looking for them was a 4-Star Knight, and a competent one at that. Even with Noct’s talent, a gap of two stars was hard to bridge.
Instructor Klein stepped closer in their direction, causing Noct’s blood pressure to rise. There weren’t a lot of places to hide in this wasteland, so all he could do was hope that the instructor passed by without noticing.
"I could’ve sworn I felt something..." the man frowned, taking another step toward them.
He finally stopped directly in front of him, where Noct could see every individual pinstripe decorating the man’s pajamas. Klein was close enough that he could’ve reached out and touched either of them without even extending his arm fully.
Under the veil, neither Noct nor Alice dared to move. Even the act of whispering or even shifting their feet wrong would be enough to give them away.
The instructor took one final glance, his blade ready to be drawn at even the slightest disturbance. And for a single second, his gaze stopped directly on Noct.
’Go away...’
Klein looked right at him, getting even closer.
’Please go away...!’
The man’s face stopped right in front of Noct, before pulling back. He let go of his sword and headed toward a nearby bush.
"Must’ve imagined it..."
Noct nearly collapsed from relief when the man finally turned around and walked away. But instead of returning to his tent, Klein stopped beside a dead bush only a few steps from the transportation mirror.
The instructor glanced both ways, before starting to unbutton his pants.
’You’ve got to be kidding me.’
Soon, the unmistakable sound of someone relieving himself against the dead bush filled the silence.
Noct stared straight ahead, desperately pretending that none of this was happening. Alice squeezed her eyes shut and remained completely motionless beside him.
Of all the dangers Noct expected to encounter inside the Graveyard, being forced to hide beside a half-asleep instructor taking a piss had never crossed his mind.
After what felt considerably longer than it actually was, Instructor Klein adjusted his pajamas and released a satisfied sigh.
He walked back across the camp without noticing the two students standing only a few steps behind him.
The flap of his tent closed, and Noct finally exhaled another breath, feeling like everything was just a fever dream.
Alice, on the other hand, was not faring so well. She had pretty much sunk into Noct, like a little kid that saw something she was never meant to see.
"Wha—wha—wha...."
"Just do your job," Noct sighed. "You’ll forget...in ten years."
The girl slowly managed to calm herself, closing her eyes once more to listen in on Robin’s conversation. And Noct finally managed to study the inner workings of the transportation mirror.
And what he saw...could only be described as the work of a genius.
Various threads of mana intertwined together to form a cohesive structure. Every input was the output of another, allowing mana to flow efficiently and the machine itself to work flawlessly.
Perhaps that was why a teleportation device like this could work all the way in the Graveyard.
Teleportation magic normally consumed an absurd amount of power. Most transportation arrays required dozens of mana crystals or refined monster cores for a single journey. Simply maintaining one was enough to mark its owner as wealthy.
But that didn’t make sense in Noct’s head whatsoever, as he saw the various conduits that connected the mirror in an extremely delicate way.
According to the events of the game, Robin had deduced that the portal not working when they needed to leave, was because it had run out of mana. But that would be impossible.
With the efficiency in the mirror’s design as well as abundant source of available mana cores in the area, it really would’ve been impossible.
But this system couldn’t exhaust its entire reserve after a single journey. Even if it remained active throughout all three days, there should’ve been more than enough power to bring every student back to Rexford.
There could only be one reason why they weren’t able to return to the Academy: Someone stole the main powering core.
But before he could dwell on the fact for any longer, Alice suddenly tapped his shoulder. "We should head back before anyone else catches us..."
"Right."
Keeping [Curtain of Darkness] wrapped around them, he guided Alice away from the transportation mirror and back through the camp. Passing by Klein’s tent, Noct could hear the man snoring loudly from inside.
’He’s out cold...’
Neither of them spoke until they slipped through their tent flap and allowed the spell to dissolve. Finn was still snoring on the bunk above while Annie remained curled beneath her blanket on the opposite top bunk, seemingly undisturbed by their return.
Alice removed her cloak and sat on the edge of her bed.
"I heard Robin’s plan."
Noct placed his sling bag on the floor. "Go on."
"They’re heading toward the northern mausoleum district tomorrow morning. Apparently, one of the nobles in his group knows about a crypt where 2-Star undead gather."
If he remembered correctly, that was the very edge between the yellow and red zones. Noct scratched his chin, trying to anticipate his movements.
"So they’re going straight for it..."
Alice nodded. "Robin wanted to begin in the outer burial grounds, but the others convinced him that they would fall behind if they spent too much time fighting weaker monsters."
That sounded about right. He was a protagonist who always began with the safest and most reasonable plan.
"They’re leaving as soon as the gates open. If we want to avoid them, we should take the eastern path. It’ll be safer and—"
"No," Noct shook his head. "We’re going to contest the western path with the team next to us. That’s the most efficient path."
"What? Why?" Alice tilted her head in confusion. "They put four teams in one camp for a reason, Noct. It was meant to be one direction per team."
"Alright, then you guys head east," Noct simply shrugged. "I’ll go west."
She wasn’t sure why Noct was so insistent, but couldn’t argue with him because of how confident he was in the decision. Alice simply sighed and rolled into her bed, not saying anything more.
What he couldn’t tell her was the fact that something existed on the western path. Like the tent next to them figured out, there existed an abandoned chapel with a 3-Star monster guarding it.
But why would something like that be there? Because it was protecting something, a guardian of sorts. And Noct knew exactly what was inside—a key, that opened the most dangerous dungeon that existed in the Graveyard.
’The Hidden King’s Tomb, huh? This is going to be troublesome.’