[Lifespan Remaining: 2 days, 4 hours, 49 minutes.]
Noct didn’t quite get the best sleep, judging by the large shadows underneath his eyes.
He had spent the entire night thinking about the mirror and how the original disaster even happened in the first place.
The entire purpose of the examination was to hunt monsters and retrieve their cores. By the second night, every group should have accumulated enough cores to pass. Which meant that on the third day, they would be free to do whatever.
That was probably when he needed to stay alert. At least for now, confirming whether the key was still within the abandoned chapel was his first goal.
’Still...how the hell could someone get away with stealing the main power core of the mirror and get away with it so easily?’
"Did you manage to sleep at all?" Finn asked from the top bunk, reading a book. "You look horrible..."
Noct sighed, tossing and turning until eventually he decided that he couldn’t sleep regardless and swung his feet over the side. "I slept perfectly fine."
"You look like you died and came back."
"That’s just my face."
Noct was the last of Group Thirteen to leave the tent, and by then the other candidates and his own group were already gathered near whatever gate they wished to depart from.
Group Eleven, the same ones who were planning to go to the western side, immediately glared at Noct as he approached. However, he realized that both Alice and Annie had made their acquaintance with some members of their team already.
Noct scanned them and came to a conclusion quickly. Judging from their attitude as well as equipment, they were most likely commoners who were talented enough to reach the peak of their 2-Star Class, and have yet to advance to 3-Stars.
After a while of checking equipment, Noct managed to catch the names of all four members. The leader, a boy with closely cropped hair that was staring at him in disdain, was Gareth.
While Alice and Annie had been chatting with two other girls in the party. One was ginger and had freckles on her face named Airy, while the other had long purple hair tied in a ponytail who looked like a squire in training named Lucy.
The last was a bookish-looking boy with brown curled hair named Alex. Noct thought he would be a mage, yet the quiver of arrows on his back told a different story.
Still, from what Noct managed to gather from their conversation, all three of them came from a village next to Alice’s, which was probably why they got along so well. It was the classic village slogan of "your talents are too good here! Go to the big city and prove your worth!"
Noct breathed out a sigh of relief, knowing that his decision of going west was correct. Because if this party had encountered the Bone Hound...they would all be dead.
But one thing still bothered him. They hadn’t even entered the examination grounds, yet Gareth’s group already knew where to find the Bone Hound.
Sure, nobles would probably be able to buy the information. Noct didn’t want to be elitist or anything, but there was no way they would know this. So he decided to approach them directly.
"How do you know about the Bone Hound?"
"None of your business," the leader responded. "Thinking of stealing it from us?"
Noct simply sighed, realizing that the guy was completely on-guard. Maybe it was because he was a noble and an Arcadia, but obviously Gareth wasn’t going to answer if he kept asking.
There was no time to pry further anyway, as Instructor Klein stood above the entrance, dressed in his armor once again. Thankfully, there wasn’t a single pinstripe in sight.
"The examination will begin the moment these gates open!" he announced. "Your bracelets contain a map leading back to camp. If you become lost despite that, then perhaps Rexford Academy was never meant for you!"
’Sheesh...way to motivate someone.’
Several students checked their equipment one last time. "Remember that the barrier does not extend beyond the walls. Once you leave, we will only intervene if you activate your emergency signal."
Instructor Klein raised a hand, allowing the wooden gates to be slowly opened, and revealing endless rows of gravestones half-hidden behind a curtain of gray morning fog.
"Try not to join the residents."
And with that, all four groups moved at once.
Robin and his companions instantly set off to the northern path, heading toward the mausoleum district exactly as Alice reported he would.
Noct watched them disappear into the fog before turning west. "Looks like your spying worked."
Alice smiled proudly. "I told you I would be good at this. You should listen to people from the boonies more often."
"Don’t get carried away. You objected to this in the beginning."
The four of them passed through the Western Gate, following the narrow trail leading away from Base Camp D, heading more in the northwestern direction rather than straight west like Group Eleven did.
Several minutes later, the rows of gravestones gradually disappeared beneath a dense collection of blackened trees.
[Graveyard — The Dead Woods]
Despite it being morning, very little sunlight managed to penetrate the cloud layers overhead. What little passed through painted the forest in a dim acid color, just bright enough for them to see the path ahead.
Mist gathered between exposed roots and old burial trenches. Occasionally, Noct spotted something pale between the distant trees, only for it to disappear whenever he tried to look.
Maybe they were some kind of wandering spirit that wanted to scare them away, but well, it could’ve been his imagination.
Yet for some reason, Noct felt a bit out of it today, probably because he was busy using all his brainpower to observe Annie.
The artificer had been rummaging through her soot-covered bag ever since they left camp, pulling out several mechanical parts and fitting them together as she walked.
’Someone like her would know about the internal workings of the mirror. That’s for sure.’
"Found it!"
The pink-haired girl suddenly pulled out a small brass device resembling a compass. Several needles rested under its glass surface, while four thin antennae extended from its sides.
She twisted the crystal embedded in its center, and a few seconds later, the needles began spinning.
"What is that?" Finn asked.
"I dunno, I don’t have a name for it yet," Annie shrugged. "It’s just a device that’s able to sense the mana pulses that originate form monster cores. It should be able to help us pinpoint which direction they’re coming from."
Noct glanced at the device, but the more he did, the stronger his suspicions grew. Still, it was stupid to decide only based on surface-level understanding, so he decided to say nothing and continue on. But just as he did, the ground under his feet suddenly sank.
"Noct, get away from there!"
A skeletal creature launched itself from under the soil. Fragments of its rotten flesh were still visible, and a kind of blue-white fire burned within its empty eye sockets.
But just as its axe was about to reach Noct’s exposed leg, a translucent barrier appeared between them, stopping the attack in motion.
?Ars Aegis?
CLANG—!
Cracks spread across the surface, but the barrier held firm.
Noct stumbled backward while the creature clawed furiously at the obstruction between them. Finn stood several steps behind him with one hand extended. Colorless mana swirled around his fingers, continuously repairing the cracks that were spreading across the barrier.
"Are you hurt?"
"I’m good."
Noct stared at the shield, and a distant memory suddenly came back to him.
Finn had once mentioned to Noct while he was bedsick, that he had no affinity at all. Despite lacking an affinity, the barrier was remarkably dense.
Most affinity-less mages struggled because they couldn’t give their mana any special property, but surprisingly, Finn seemed to never have given up, instead being able to turn that detriment into his greatest strength.
Still, they weren’t out of the clear yet.
"T—There are two more!" Annie called out while looking at her tracker.
A nearby burial mound erupted simultaneously, as another flesh-clung limb pulled itself out from under the grave, shaking loose the soil trapped between its ribs.
But instead of looking like the corpse of a normal soldier, this one still had loose patches of fabric that once belonged to a robe, indicating only one thing:
"...Undead Mages."