Scarlet

As it turns out, Michael’s duels weren’t all battle. They were put into a magical reality where they had to deal with different situations such as being shown and told to heal a certain number of people while still being aware that the other student could attack at any time. And if their patient or a certain number of patients died? They would lose.

Meanwhile Emily’s duels were more varied as both of the fighters in a duel were placed in a place filled with obstacles and terrain, and the fighters had to kill the other one using any means possible. Which is a better way of showing the skills of her category of Guardian, which was apparently labeled as Mixed Guardians.

And Belle’s was a matter of endurance. Since her duel was for defensive Guardians, they both had to defend against an onslaught of attacks made at them from various different directions but were allowed to attack the other student to throw them off in the process.

I kind of like how the university did the various different types of duels, to be honest. After all, why on Earth would they have two healers fight to show which was a better healer?

It just doesn’t make sense.

The others weren’t very surprised that our duels were straight up combat though, for obvious reasons. And while Michael and Emily were a tiny bit surprised by just how well I did, they weren’t surprised that I did well. Unlike Belle, who was shell-shocked for a little while by Michael’s explanation of his duels.

Eventually the ten minutes runs out and I hear a robotic voice echoing from my earpiece.

[The second round of the tournament is now commencing. All students will be randomly teleported to their Class delegated rings of the thirty thousand square kilometer forest in three. Two. One.]

The moment after the thing says one, I find myself instantly appearing inside of the magical reality in the middle of a forest. Then the earpiece finishes.

[The second round of the tournament has begun. Good luck students.]

I look around before the earpiece even finishes, simply listening with my wolf ears for the many demons I can hear roaming the woods in the hundreds of meters around me, along with the few humans I can hear as well. The main difference between the two being that most of the demons are quite clearly not bipedal. Many of them being spiders, others being hounds or huntsmen, and even more being something else that I don’t recognize the movements of. Some sort of springy, liquidy sound. Not sure what.

After checking out the sounds for a few more seconds, I begin sprinting off in the direction of the closest demons to me that aren’t near any other students. Since it would be better to wait a little bit to start targeting other students for their points. Just to let them build up a bit.

I’m quite glad they allow stealing points in the first place, to be honest. Since it makes it so that we Class I students have a chance at the Advanced and Top classes as long as we rob the other students. What with the Class II students not being able to hunt Class I students, and Class III students not being able to hunt Class I or II students.

It also makes sense in an evaluation sense. Since the instructors ranking us should’ve been evaluating us throughout this tournament, and they’ve already seen what the higher Class students can do on account of almost all of them having been here in previous years. So letting them go through and slaughter lower Class Guardians is pointless and a waste of time. Instead they can let them show them how they deal with demons both at their Class, and in the case of the Taracht, above their Class, in the wild. Whereas the Class I students are showing how they will act in a Fracture. Whether they’ll work as a team or by themselves, what strategies they may use, and so on.

And while many of the students may opt to work as a team as it would work better for some of them, a lot will probably opt to work alone as well. Since many of these demons are very weak, meaning the lowest level demons can be killed with ease by a single person like me, and there’s a lower number of healer and support Guardians on average than there are combat and mixed ones. Meaning they aren’t as likely to even find a good group to work together with.

I frown as I continue running straight towards a demon that I hear the earpiece telling me is level 4.

Just too bad that they stuck us in random starting spots, far away from each other. And it looks like I’ll have to run through the weaker demons to get closer in to the stronger ones.

“Why would you do that?” Tar asks, making me frown as I run up and tear the spider demon’s head off. “Just slaughter the lower level demons here while you can and build up as many stacks as you can. It won’t change the number of points you’re getting, since it’ll take a lot longer to kill the demons strong enough to get two points for them anyways. So isn’t it just better to slaughter all the lower level demons?”

I blink in surprise at that suggestion.

“Then you can go hunt the students instead after clearing out the lower level demons around here,” Tar adds, making a very nice plan for me.

After a second, a grin finds its way across my face.

Yeah. That’ll work.

That’ll work very nicely.

Without any hesitation, I immediately rush off, just slaughtering every single demon I hear with ease thanks to their lower level. Which also makes me realize just how important my senses will be for this round, since I can basically tell where almost every single demon – and student – is around me.

Something the other students can’t do. Or most of them at least.

At some point though, I start making a line instead of killing absolutely everything around me. After all, I still want the students around here to get points. And if I kill everything around here, they won’t be doing that.

The grin on my face grows even wider as I continue my killing spree, briefly making me wonder if I’m enjoying this too much.

“For a human? Absolutely,” Tar answers before continuing, “For a blood lycan? No. They might even enjoy this hunt of yours even more than you are.”

Oh. Yeah, that makes sense.