Chapter 169: Weakling
The sun's brilliant glow fell over the trees, creating shadows across the grassy, muddy terrain as a gentle breeze rustled the leaves above.
The students stayed near the Eldertree, looking at the parchment paper in their hands with a frown on their faces.
They kept picking up different kinds of plants, fungi, and flowers to examine them more closely, but some of them didn't have any idea what those herbs and spices looked like.
For fear of encountering monsters, no one dared to go too far into the forest.
Yuri crouched beside a plant with unique, different-colored leaves.
The plant had a total of seven leaves, each leaf a different color of the rainbow.
"This must be something, right?" Yuri looked behind at Adam. "Is this part of the list?"
"That's Rainbow Plant; is it included in the recipe?" Adam asked.Th.ê most uptodate novels are published on n(0)velbj)n(.)co/m
Yuri read throughout the parchment paper, then regretfully shook her head.
"No..."
"Then we keep searching." Adam said and looked deeper into the forest. "I doubt the teacher included any of the herbs and spices that are in the vicinity of the Eldertree. I have a hunch that she wants us to go deeper into the forest."
"Isn't that dangerous?" Yuri asked. "There are monsters."
"We won't go too far," Adam said.
He saw that all the students had only ventured ten meters out into the forest. They all could still see the door that led back to the institute, a door that was guarded by Ilkin and Willibert.
Bertha was just standing still, annoyance in her features. She looked like she was always annoyed by something.
"Let's go." Adam said, and Yuri reluctantly followed after him.
Other students watched as they walked away, and no one dared to follow them.
A distance away, Terry awkwardly stood behind Noel, who hadn't spoken a word and was just looking at the plants, the roots that protruded from soil and seeds.
Noel clearly didn't know what any of the herbs and spices in the recipe looked like-however, Terry knew as he had studied well, but he was too afraid to say anything.
The silence was killing him.
At this point, he would prefer Noel's verbal bullying, as at least it would be clear that he was angry.
Noel dug his fingers in the soil and ripped the roots of the flowers out of the ground.
He had a cold look on his face, and he couldn't help but remember a conversation he had with his brother a few days ago.
...
A few days ago, somewhere in the real world.
In a well-furnished room with a gaming console and a flat screen TV showing action-packed gameplay.
"Argh..." Noel gritted his teeth. "I won't apologize to anyone..."
"Hah..." His brother let go of him and shook his head. "Fine. I hope the S-ranker thinks that
you are far too insignificant to care about."
Noel clenched his hands, anger swelling up inside him.
...
At the Eldertree Forest.
Noel stopped ripping the roots, his eyes flashing with coldness.
"H-hey, I-I think I saw one of the plants deeper in the forest." Terry said nervously behind
him. "T-Terminal Claus Plant, I-I think I saw it."
Noel turned around to look at the nervous-looking young man, and then the anger inside him
started to boil over.
Without any warning, Noel grabbed Terry by the hair and smashed his face into the dirt,
causing his screams to come out as muffled pleas for mercy.
"Shut the fuck up." Noel said coldly into his ear. "I'm done with your bullshit."
Bertha witnessed it, but she didn't seem to care as she simply averted her gaze, pretending
like she didn't see a thing.
Instead of focusing on the class, she was thinking about what dress she should wear later tonight as she was going to meet with Renard once again.
The other students saw it, but just simply averted their gazes and focused on finding the herbs
instead.
Noel removed Terry's face from the dirt and turned his head just so he could stare into his
eyes.
"You think you're bully-free because you are following S-ranker like a fucking puppy?"
Terry's eyes looked unfocused, and he didn't dare to speak another word.
"You're still the same fucking coward as before, and it is only a matter of time before he gets
tired of you as well."
Noel said and smashed his face on the dirt again.
"Know your place, weakling!"