Chapter 79
The teleportation of the 961 first-year Kizen students had finished.
And at the same time, the Island Survival began.
“Kyaaaaaaaaaaah! Bugs! Bugs! Bugs!”
“Why the fuck are you poking the beehive, you crazy bastards!”
“Are you not supposed to eat this? Why am I getting rashes on my arms?”
All hell broke loose.
70% of first-year students were from prestigious noble families. They were overly-sheltered people who didn’t do well in their house gardens, let alone islands or jungles.
Such people fell on an island with a tropical rainforest climate. It was natural for there to be wide-spread panic.
Everyone must’ve come fully prepared in their hearts.
Prepared to sleep in the wild. Prepared to not be able to wash up. Prepared to eat monster meat.
However…
“Snake! It’s a snake!”
“I got bitten by a bug!”
“The mushroom is moving!”
When they fell into the jungle, everything was beyond their imagination.
“……Sigh.”
It had already been 30 minutes since the survival assessment began. Meilyn stood up with a stiff expression on her face.
She thought things were a little better for her than the other students. Thanks to Rick, she could attain this information earlier, and she learned survival skills from Hong Feng over the weekend. And these survival skills…
Sshhk.
As she plucked up her courage and stepped forward, swarms of ants streamed out to where she stepped.
“Uwah!”
She backed off, terrified. When the ants appeared, centipedes with dozens of feet jumped out and began to suck at the ants.
Meilyn’s body hardened like stone.
‘……I-I really can’t move even a single step.’
The psychological limitations resulting from the environment in which they grew up were unavoidable. It took her around 5 seconds to realize that, when she backed off into a tree, a red ant crawled onto her shoulder.
“Kyaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
The other students were also in the same, grim situation.
Of course, it wasn’t like they didn’t prepare. Island Survival was a well-known, annual event in Kizen, and the students thought that the core of this assessment was monster hunting and battle between Kizen students, so they only raised their fighting abilities. However…
It didn’t take long for them to realize that that was a mistake.
In these unfavorable situations, every student took the same action.
“Let’s work together!”
“We’ll work together till the end!”
Herd instincts. Standing together when afraid to be by yourself.
And there was little fear of being betrayed, since everyone started with 0 points in the beginning.
Through this, several students got together to form groups and started to come up with solutions using their collective intelligence. This was especially true if there was at least one commoner among the group. They were the best leaders in this situation.
“……What are you guys all doing?”
Lorenna, a commoner in Class B, was looking at them pathetically with her hand on her hip.
Behind her, grown noble men were hugging each other and clinging to a tree. An earthworm was wriggling about and passing by in front of them.
“G-Get rid of that right now!”
“Nanny! Nanny!”
Young masters looking for their nanny appeared one after another.
The unfamiliar environment, hot and humid weather, and the threat of disgusting insects and monsters. They all became hungry quickly, maintaining their condition in the worst situations.
As though Kizen was aware of this fact, they had already started distributing supplies. A magic circle spread in the sky, and supplies began to fall from it.
“Over there!”
“Let’s go!”
The students who saw the magic circle all rushed towards it.
“Huff, huff… We’re here!”
“We’re the first—!”
The moment they climbed through the thick bushes to the open hill…
“……!”
…more than 20 students could be seen eyeing each other up while waiting for the supplies to come down.
‘What’s this?!’
‘……Such keen competition.’
“Everyone, get lost.”
It was then. An unusually large student was walking up the hill.
“If you don’t wanna die, that is.”
Hector Moore of Class A.
As he appeared, some students backed off hesitantly.
Then, a male student leaning against the rock scoffed.
“Bastard, fucking high off yourself. Are you the young master of the Moore family?”
A skinny man. His yellow-colored hair covered his left eye, and he was holding a long rod of uncertain use in his hand.
Hector frowned.
“Special Admission No.10 Malcolm Randolf.”
“Ah, give me a break. It’s been over a month since the school started, and you’re still on that special admission bullshit?”
“You sure do talk a lot for an insect who rode the last bus.”
Malcolm’s eyebrow twitched.
There are only 10 special admissions. Among them, number 10, the last member of them, was ridiculed by the students with slang such as ‘getting on the last bus’ or ‘last bus boarder’.
Of course, there was almost no one who called him to his face, though.
“You’re Class A, aren’t you?”
Malcolm got up while spitting on the floor.
“Looks like that ‘No.1’ in your class isn’t really managing his mates, huh?”
This time, Hector’s eyebrow twitched.
“Fuck the supplies or whatever. I’ll have to beat the shit out of you first.”
“Oh my, how scary~ Try me if you can.”
The two activated their cores and rushed toward each other. At the start of the survival, these clashed, and a roar resounded throughout the island.
This wasn’t the only battle either. There were many fights over supplies, all happening at the same time.
The artifacts that were randomly placed within the supplies were also necessary, but the most important part was food.
“I’m hungry.”
“……Do I really have to grill the monsters?”
However, while most of the students were in chaos for this first day…
There was a boy who stood out.
* * *
Translator – Ramen
Proofreader – Artethrax
* * *
Drag drag drag.
On one shoulder, he had vines, wood, herbs, and fruits. On his other hand, he was holding a monster’s leg and dragging it.
His face was smeared with mashed fennel to prevent insect bites, and he wore boots on his legs.
‘I-Is he native or something?’
‘What a shocking sight.’
When the students saw him, they all looked surprised. He looked perfectly localized, despite it only being a few hours since they arrived.
‘I heard that there’s nothing to eat here.’
Simon smiled delightfully while putting the ingredients into the subspace.
‘But there’s plenty! It’s like a paradise of food!’
Simon was wandering in all directions, taking all the fruits, herbs, edible animals and monsters, strong branches, and materials.
‘Maybe he’s familiar with the jungle?’
‘Was he once a treasure hunter?’
The current appearance of Simon was enough to even bring out a sensation of envy hidden beneath the surface for many students.
Some students approached Simon and asked,
“Hey, would you like to join our team? We can take responsibility for combat.”
“If it’s fine, could you please come with u—”
Simon shook his head with a smile.
“I’m sorry, but I plan to spend the first day by myself.”
After soundly rejecting all offers, Simon took the axe in his hand and swung at the large plant in front of him.
Crack!
Then, the body of the plant split, and a sugary fruit came out. Simon took it and moved on.
Some students approached the fruit-bearing plant when they saw Simon do it. When one tapped the plant’s body, the leaves suddenly split like an insectivorous plant and swallowed the student whole.
“Isn’t that how you do it?”
“Agghh! You crazy bastard! Don’t just watch and do something!”
People just got into trouble by following him.
Even after that, Simon’s movements were feisty. He was walking along with his skeletons, sweeping away all the useful materials on the island.
“Oh, I didn’t expect to get this here.”
Simon picked up a lot of floating plants from the stream. It was a plant called water hyacinth, which could survive even a human treading on it as long as it was in the water.
In addition to that, he also got wild coconuts with high sugar content that contained a lot of water, as well as some sorghum that could be used as a spice.
And above all, the strangest thing about Simon’s movement was that, while the vast majority of students were advancing toward the center of the island, Simon was walking toward the sea.
He was going in the complete opposite direction.
[Hey Boy.]
Pier also questioned this point.
[Your will to search Big Krum is admirable, but wouldn’t this put you too far from the center?]
“It’s fine.”
Simon chuckled.
“I’ll catch up to them all tomorrow.”
[……?]
Perhaps because he was proceeding in the opposite direction to the other students, the crowds became rarer, and the traces of the students started disappearing. On the other hand, monster attacks became more frequent.
Of course…
Pow!
Crack!
The monsters on the island were no match for Simon’s summons.
Currently, Simon could control four undead units at once thanks to training with Pier.
‘It’s a level 2 monster ‘wrecker’ this time.’
A six-legged monster with a long snout, reminiscent of a leopard, was running toward Simon.
When Simon stretched out his finger, a skeleton with a shield ran out and collided with it.
“Leg.”
And a skeleton holding a spear thrust it over the shield into a leg, limiting the wrecker’s mobility.
“Arrow.”
A skeleton archer’s arrow stuck in the monster’s eye.
Blood dripped from its eyes, obscuring the wrecker’s vision.
“Detour.”
A skeleton went to the side and swung its sword.
The sword was struck deep in its neck, and it dropped to the ground, dead.
“Nice, well done.”
Rattle.
Rattle.
Skeletons waved their weapons and celebrated their victory.
Simon approached and squatted in front of the monster’s corpse. When he took the tongue pad and brought it close, the tongue stretched out and swallowed the monster’s mana.
His score increased by 2 points.
“This is also inedible. Let’s go.”
Pier’s clone, who was watching this scene, smiled. Simon’s skeleton operation was getting better and better.
Just like that, Simon left the jungle and arrived at the beach. It was a place with a small dockside. The servants were moving their luggage, and two assistant teachers were guarding the place.
“What?”
And one of the assistant teachers was someone who had a bad relationship with Simon.
Brett, the assistant teacher for Combat Magic, said while frowning,
“Why are you here? Students are prohibited from entering this place. Get lost.”
Brett waved his hand.
Simon let out a wry smile and bowed his head.
“Or what?”
Brett hit his chest with his fist.
“Do you want to go against me because the students aren’t enough for you?”
“I’ll pass. Take care~”
Simon made a clean refusal and left the place. He left the beach and headed back into the thick forest.
‘Seeing that that man is here, it should be somewhere close.’
As Simon looked around him, he noticed a stretch of cobwebs connected like a road.
When Simon walked along with it, he saw a large cobweb spread out at the end of its destination. A bracelet was placed on it.
That was the subspace bracelet.
“Now it’s time for us to meet Pier.”
[Kuhehehe!]
Simon looked around carefully just in case.
In the sky of the island, there were magical instruments from Kizen headquarters called ‘Observers’ roaming around and checking the situation.
Since the entire first-year was thrown in for this assessment. The test wasn’t administered by the professors but by Kizen headquarters directly.
‘Okay.’
There were hardly any students here, so the Observers were nowhere to be seen.
Confirming that no one was looking at him, Simon put the bracelet on his arm.
Then, after he clenched his fist three times in a row, the bracelet’s subspace opened in the air.
[Kuhehehehehe! I waited for so long!]
And what came out of it was Pier and a troop of conscripted skeletons.
The Legion appeared on Kera Island.
——