Drrr!! Whirr! When the continuous fire of magic bullets subsided as if they had run out of energy, Megatron immediately trapped the blue trolls and tied them up with a durable metal rope it had prepared beforehand.

The blue trolls were still alive, managing to regenerate their bodies even after being attacked by Juggernaut’s bullets, which each had the firepower of a machine gun; it was clear that they were no ordinary trolls.

-I heard that their regenerative abilities are incomparably superior to regular trolls…but this is disgusting, maybe even terrifying.

The variant evil beasts of the Zone of Evil usually were wild monsters transformed by unbelievably strong transcendental beings’ power. Put another way, it was like a monster undergoing a transformation after being exposed to extremely distorted radiation. Monsters like these were all over the Zone of Evil. It was a relief that the blue trolls’ combat ability had decreased and that their weaknesses could easily be seen in exchange for their enhanced regenerative abilities.

Davey spoke into the crystal as he walked on the ground, which barely had any snow despite the strong blizzard from not too long ago. “How many points including this one?”

“It’s one hundred points per bottle of their blood. Since we got about sixty bottles of blood from the trolls we captured, we should be at around six thousand points.”

Davey nodded in satisfaction as he heard Illyna’s response from the crystal. He said, “Let’s stop here since the cut-off is five thousand five hundred points.”

“We’re not getting more? Even though it’s only been half a day since we started? Shouldn’t we keep our scores high? I’m sure there’s going to be a bonus.”

“There’s no need to overdo ourselves and get points. Just recharge during the time you were going to spend on that.”

Illyna looked somewhat dissatisfied with Davey’s response, but she said nothing. She then asked, “Then, what do we do? The second test is over now. If you weren’t so ridiculously strong, we would have had a hard time capturing them alive and taking their blood; it’s not an easy task, you know. The other pairs are probably still struggling.”

Like Illyna had mentioned, it was true that she and Davey had finished the test at an astounding speed. Davey had found the blue trolls and led them out into the open using Sniper. Then, Illyna, who had been carrying Caldeiras, which was smothered with holy power, had lured them to where Davey was. Then, Juggernaut and Davey proceeded to attack and catch the blue trolls. Afterward, they simply strolled over to take the blood. Their plan was slightly peculiar, but it worked out very quickly, especially considering that Davey was only taking this test with his alchemy.

“Anyway, your tracking abilities are incredible. Have you hunted like this before? How are you so good?”

“You’ll also naturally get better if you starve for a month because of your poor tracking abilities.”

Humans would go insane if they were to starve for a month; Davey did not have his current powers when Hercules, the self-acclaimed ‘Survival Expert’, had thrown him into a forest without telling him anything. Under those harsh conditions, he had managed to improve small skills like these to survive.

‘There are scorpions over there. What? They’re poisonous? That’s okay; as long as I don't die, everything is my protein.’

“What… You starved for a month? What did you do?”

“Let’s leave it. It’s not something I really want to reminisce about.”

Illyna stuck out her lips and pouted as she sat on the tree stump nearby. “Be honest. You said you were in a coma for over six years, right? Were you lying about that? Did you actually stay someplace else?”

‘Damn smart kid. This is why I don’t like kids who are quick.’

“It’s true that I was in a coma. I was in a situation of life and death after Carlus shot me with an arrow.”

Illyna frowned. “Carlus, you say… The second prince of your kingdom?”

“Yeah, him.”

“Oh my… You’re saying that he shot an arrow at his older brother?!”

Davey didn’t understand why Illyna was getting so mad when it wasn’t anything related to herself. He heard her yell, “I knew that he had a bad personality, but it’s worse than I had ever imagined!”

It wasn’t like royalty did not fight in the dark, but it seemed like shooting an arrow toward one’s own brother felt a little different; although, Davey thought that shooting an arrow was the same thing as putting poison.

Illyna widened her eyes as she huffed and puffed. She asked, “But you did nothing? Why didn’t you ask me instead? I’ll help you. I don’t like to use the empire’s power, but they do have that sort of power.”

“Who says I did nothing?”

“What?”

“Don’t worry about it; everything is going according to plan.”

Davey knew that there would be fewer variables the more prepared he was; the world never went his way.

“Still…”

“Maybe you can stop the Pallan Empire from intervening unnecessarily.”

Davey was joking around, but it seemed Illyna took it quite seriously. She said, “Davey, no matter how strong someone is, they should not fight with milit…”

That was when…

“Something’s off.” Davey abruptly stopped in the middle of his tracks and looked around.

“Off? What is?” Illyna also came to a stop.

“The surrounding air was feeling a little disorganized from a while ago… It’s strangely familiar…” Davey trailed off and reached out into space. Then, he grabbed Illyna, who was tilting her head in confusion, by the collar. He tugged her into his arms.

“Hup?!”

Then, Davey held Illyna as she flailed around and put his hand over her mouth. He shushed her. “Shh.”

“Hmm!! Umm?!”

Davey could distinguish the strangely familiar feeling as he looked around while holding Illyna, who was flailing with a flushed face of bewilderment, tightly. He whispered, “There’s a barrier similar to the one in the knight order’s headquarters covering this forest.”

It felt like a hallucination.

“What?”

The barrier was so thin that it was nearly undetectable. In fact, a part of Davey’s senses, which were a mess, had come back as soon as he recognized the presence of the barrier. He wondered why there was a barrier like that in this forest when it was inefficient and hard for the administration to cast something like this other than near the knight order.

“This way.”

As Davey suddenly changed directions and moved fast, Illyna held onto Caldeiras and quickly followed even though she was a little flustered. From the light shining on the white silver sword, it seemed like Caldeiras was neutralizing the barrier with its powers as the divine sword.

“What’s this smell… Gag!” Illyna, who had followed Davey for quite a while, covered her mouth after murmuring about the nasty scent in the air.

It was the nasty smell of blood; the odor was so intense that it seemed like dozens of people had spilled blood all at once. It was something that would’ve gone unnoticed if Davey hadn’t recognized the presence of the barrier and the strange familiarity.

Davey silently climbed up on a tree and frowned at the horrors happening in an empty field not too far from him. “The knight order? What is this…?”

The dozens of people who were dead all wore the same uniform: the clean and simple uniform of the Alpha Reinforcements. Davey was sure that they were the proctors of the test watching over the trainees.

Pitter-patter!! As soon as Illyna saw what had happened, she quickly ran over to the members of the knight order who were lying in their own blood. It seemed like she was trying to save someone who might’ve been alive, but…

-They’re all dead.

The corpses’ condition was much more horrendous than Davey had thought; some of them were almost buried in the snow. He commented, “It hasn’t been long since they died.”

Davey wondered how it was possible to gather these many members here and slaughter them all without a sound. There was no way of knowing if there was a Swordmaster among the enemies, but there were so many suspicions surrounding their deaths.

“All of them…are dead?” Trembling, Illyna was trying her best to remain calm, but it seemed like she couldn’t easily come out of her panic.

‘Makes sense.’

Although they had never met, these people were Illyna’s seniors who had bonded together as family under one mission. There could be some people she knew among these people since there was still some exchange between the official knights and trainees.

-She is furious.

Davey tried to close the eyes of the cold, lifeless bodies, but they had already frozen. That was when he heard a faint moan from a place not too far away from the atrocity.

“Davey! A survivor! Someone is alive!” Illyna cried out.

There was one person lying in the silence: a woman who was quivering with her head down while leaning on a tree.

“Stay there.” Davey made sure Illyna stayed where she was so that she wouldn’t cause any trouble. Then, he slowly approached the woman and put two fingers on her neck. Her pulse was… “Hm. Very healthy.”

Shhhh!!

Crackkk!!!

That was seemingly the trigger word. The woman, who was moaning like she was about to die, suddenly pulled out a dagger from her chest with a twitch and stabbed it into Davey’s neck; it was a perfect assassination scenario. It was a dangerous attack that would’ve sliced the neck artery in half if it succeeded.

However, Davey was much more advanced than the woman in terms of assassination skills; all she was doing was trying to show off her skills to someone who was much better than her.

‘It would still be hard to get me when I don’t know the attack is coming. How brave of her to try even when I saw it coming.’

“Wh—What?!” The woman was flustered upon hearing the clean cut of a sharp dagger cutting a human hand. She basically looked dead a moment ago, but she was now staring at Davey in perfect condition. It was as if all her injuries were an act.

“Greetings. You’re new to [Unwavering Body], right?”[1]

As soon as Davey gripped the woman’s dagger like a vise, Rinne came flying at the speed of light and just landed a dropkick to the woman’s waist. She treated everyone fairly and did not go easy on the woman attacker.

“Keugh?!” Since Rinne weighed over two hundred kilograms, coupled with her kick, the woman felt like she had been hit with a huge dump truck or something similar.

Davey knew how stupidly powerful that dropkick, which Rinne used its entire body for, was since he had felt it before as well.

-Is it normal to think of an attack that would be lethal to normal human beings as just a child’s tantrum?...

The attack was so clean, like it had been planned for a long time!

Rinne, who had flown in like a wrecking ball and kicked the woman away, stared at Davey with shining eyes and an expressionless face; it seemed like she was expecting something. She commented, “Missile dropkick. Analyzed that it was a very effective and powerful attack.”

“S—Sure, good job.”

“Ahem!” Rinne liked Davey’s praise a lot. She puffed up her chest while putting her hands on her hips in great satisfaction. Even in a situation as uncertain as this, a non-human being like her was nothing but relaxed.

It was rather strange that Rinne had overpowered—no—turned that woman into pulp, so a silence momentarily came over the surroundings.

“Man, just come out. It’s getting harder to pretend I don’t know you’re there.”

There were spills of blood on a pure, white field of snow. As Davey shouted while standing in the middle of the chilling space, Illyna looked around on alert. However, she clenched her jaw as if she was struggling to find the enemy.

1. A reference to a meme of Lee Seung-Chul greeting someone in the audition program, ‘Superstar K’. It is often used when welcoming someone into something. ☜