Apparently, Lucian had escaped from The Follower. That was why the rest of his team wasn’t here; they were hunted down by the monster.

  “Well, they’re soulbound! Won’t they just revive?” Bena asked, the question written on her face.

  Lucian nodded. “Technically they should, but the Follower has them stuck onto a corpse tree. They won’t revive as long as they’re impaled.”

  Thomas shuddered. “Then, shouldn’t we rescue them? They’re probably in pain… dying and regenerating over and over…”

  They all turned to Lucian, but Lucian just shook his head again. “The Follower is too high of level. We’ll all get slaughtered.”

  “Oh. That sucks,” Bena said. “Do you have your flag, at least?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Viviana briefly considered killing him. Now that the fight would be three on one, Lucian wouldn’t stand a chance. Even if he injured one of them, the regeneration provided by being soulbound meant a heavy injury was only temporary. They’d gain a flag for no loss.

  Viviana thought about it for a second. She concluded that Lucian would be worth more alive than dead. And it’s easy to trust him now. Assuming what he said was true, then teaming up with us is his only way to do well in the orientation.

  He’d have to play nice, at least until the end of orientation.

  We should probably start moving to the center of the terrarium. Find the other teams and start collecting their flags.

  Mid thought, a mechanical voice erupted from their flags. Thomas nearly dropped one of the two he held in surprise.

  [Attention students! The radius for point generation will decrease from fifteen to ten kilometers in twenty minutes. Flags will point towards the center.]

  Just then the flags all started waving despite the lack of wind, pointing the little triangular fabric flags in a certain direction.

  Well that makes it convenient.

  The team looked at each other and shrugged. With no other direction they decided to follow the flags. They relied on Bena to use her scout skill. They walked, encountering no anomalies. No other teams. No corpse trees.

  They continued walking for a bit until Bena held out a hand. “I’ve detected something with my scout skill. It looks like… really big dogs!”

  “Those are probably blue hounds. They’re hostile to humans,” said Thomas. “They’re quite good at detection, so maybe we should shift and avoid them.”

  Viviana shook her head. “Lucian doesn’t have any sap.” They could look for some more, but that’d take more time than it was worth. It meant that they had to fight their way through.

  Just great. Viviana wanted to let her mana recover for a bit and then learn how to use [dash], especially after slamming herself into the ground last time she used it. But now that they were going to fight… hopefully she wouldn’t have to learn on the fly.

  Quickly, she went over potential plans with the rest of the group. Bena concentrated for a couple seconds, pinpointing the exact locations of each of the hounds. Viviana was impressed. Just out of curiosity, she asked if Bena could detect their levels.

  “I’m not that good!”

  They continued talking about their next moves. They decided on the riskiest option: an ambush without using shifting, conserving that option for a later time. There were four hounds, so as long as each person delivered a killing blow, it’d go perfectly.

  After discussions they all moved to their designated locations. Viviana placed a lightning sigil in an agreed upon location. She winced a bit, a slight buzzing jostling her head. Her mana had recovered somewhat, but a small amount of respite couldn’t overcome the fact she used [lightning trap] four times today. She was beginning to run into the mental side effects of mana consumption.

  She made a signal with her hands. The group slowly crept towards the blue hounds. Viviana recalled Thomas’s words from earlier. They’ve got good detection, but it’s evidently not as good as Bena’s. We don’t know for sure how close we can get, but the closer the better. As soon as they detect us, we attack.

  They got closer and closer, slowly brushing aside the tall grass with quiet movements. Then they heard an animalistic yet alien growl. One of the dogs had noticed them. The others would soon follow.

  “Let's go!” Bena shouted, rushing in. Viviana ran ahead as well, Lucian and Thomas lagging slightly behind.

  Who yells ‘Let’s go!’ in an ambush?!

  Bena performed a straightforward slash, instantly killing a two meter tall, six legged dog. Viviana rushed deep into the camp, looking for the most aware one. The dog was already aware of her and jumped away, but she followed with a quick [dash]... only to stumble and miss her strike. The dog repositioned again, out of Viviana’s reach.

  Lucian had the same success as Bena, but Thomas was in a similar situation to Viviana. He wasn’t able to deal a finishing blow.

  Now it was two dogs versus four humans, and the fight had just begun.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Viviana thought about retreating to the preplaced lightning sigil, but it was no use. The plan looked better in their heads. I’ve vastly underestimated the size of these dogs. If we ran, they’d catch up in seconds.

  Viviana contemplated placing another lightning sigil, but she was dangerously close to using too much mana too frequently.

  Hastily the team made a defensive circle, swords pointed outwards. A stalemate was held for a brief moment as the dogs circled the four humans.

  Then, Lucian surged forward– probably using a [dash] of his own, landing a clean blow on the face of one of the dogs. Viviana had no time to follow up as the other dog attacked at the same time, catching her sword in its mouth. Thomas and Bena attacked at its sides, but it quickly jumped back.

  Now that we’re fighting on even ground, it’s difficult to land a killing blow. Someone has to distract it while the others attack.

  So Viviana rushed forward herself, not paying attention to Lucian’s fight. She weaved and parried the dog’s bites and paw swipes while Thomas and Bena circled around again, looking for a killing blow.

  She heard a grunt from behind. Lucian was injured.

  I have to end this quickly and help him out.

  Viviana kept on deflecting attacks like a matador, weaving in and out. Then, she saw an opportunity. Her blade was out of position, but her other hand wasn’t. She punched forward with her non-dominant hand, activating [dash] at the same time. Her vision blurred as the mana fatigue hit, this [dash] barely pushing her over the edge.

  She slipped.

  Shit, is this really how I get eliminated? No, if I angle myself just right…

  Viviana headbutted the two meter tall, six-legged blue dog.

  The blow just connected, knocking the dog’s massive head backwards. Bena used the chance to slash at one of its legs, causing it to buckle just barely.

  Thomas charged up a massive overhand swing, killing the beast finally.

  [You have slain a level 2 blue hound.]

  [+3 exp] [shared]

  Viviana ignored the window as she focused on the remaining dog, only to see it crumple to the ground as well. Lucian had killed it solo.

  He’s stronger than I thought.

  Viviana made a mental note to adjust how dangerous he was. If he did betray them, he might be a challenge.

  “Is everyone alright?!” Bena asked, voice a little too loud for Viviana’s liking, adrenaline still running through her. And I’ve got this crazy headache.

  Viviana nodded in response to Bena, and then looked at the rest of her team. Everyone was breathing heavily. Lucian was bleeding from his arm, but when she met his eyes, he simply nodded. His regeneration was kicking it, after all.

  Despite Bena’s excitement, both Thomas and her looked tired. Thomas had [strike], the same ability that Oscar had. It was definitely draining to mana. Bena used a lot of mana maintaining [scout]. Lucian probably used a lot of mana to escape from the follower. Viviana felt more exhausted than all of them combined.

  So they opted to just sit there, recovering their breaths, scooting away from the monster bodies slowly decomposing.

  Thomas let out a wry chuckle, glancing away from Viviana. Bena just laughed, while Lucian stared at her.

  “What?” asked Viviana. “Something wrong?”

  “...you’ve got a crazy bruise on your forehead,” said Thomas.

  “You look like a rhino! But with a lump instead of a horn!”

  Viviana rubbed her head. She felt a massive lump forming on her head. It’d go away with time, like all injuries did for the soulbound, but it still hurt like hell. I thought it was just mana fatigue. No wonder my head hurts so much.

  “I thought I heard a bonking sound. Did you… headbutt a blue hound?” asked Lucian.

  “I suppose I did.”

  “Why’d you do that?”

  Viviana shrugged. “It was optimal.”

  “Huh? Stop trying to act cool!” Bena said. “The blood on your face was pretty intimidating, last time, but now you look like a unicorn! If I had my phone…”

  Bena laughed. Lucian gave a small chuckle, and even Thomas had a small smile on his face.

  Are they… making fun of me? I’ve never been…

  Unbeknownst to her, Viviana’s face turned a little red. “It was optimal!”

  It didn’t take long for the group to get moving again. Viviana’s forehead lump had already begun to fade, fortunately. Bena had explicitly stated that if she could get her phone she’d take a picture, and Viviana could not have that. Viviana was once again thankful that soulbound regeneration was a thing.

  Eventually the flags stopped pointing towards the middle of the terrarium. According to the proctor, that meant they were in the zone where the flags still generated points. This zone of point generation was now a ten kilometer radius. They had no idea how many teams were still alive at this point, but the decreased point generation radius surely meant that number was getting smaller.

  Should they get into a fight, Viviana liked her chances. They’d have a numbers advantage against any solo team. Assuming that most soulbound that just joined the academy were level one or possibly two, numbers would make all the difference in a fight.

  “What do we do now?” asked Bena. “Should we look for the other teams?”

  Viviana nodded. “We should. We’ve got numbers, so we should win any fight we decide to take. Not to mention we’ve got sap, so we can shift for ambushes.”

  Lucian shook his head. “Are you sure that’s wise? If we get eliminated somehow, they’ll take our flags and we won’t get any points from them. If we just stay hidden until the end, we’ll not only place high, but get points from holding the flags.”

  “...there’s no way,” said Thomas. “They want us to fight… so they can have an accurate ranking scale. They didn’t tell us… how many points you get for out-surviving the other teams…I don’t imagine it’ll be high…”

  That makes sense. Viviana nodded in agreement. “There’s definitely gonna be a large incentive to fight versus not.”

  “I see a big hill over there! Let’s get some high ground!”

  The team nodded in agreement.

  They climbed the hill in a matter of minutes, soulbound properties allowing their stamina to be much higher than the average human’s. What they saw on the other side was terrifying.

  “...It’s a…”

  “It’s a corpse tree!”

  Like a mockery to their efforts, six blue hounds were impaled on a tree with low hanging, spiky branches. Each of them was brutally cut open, entrails spilling on the grass.