But Calista unperturbed by Calista's red face and curled fists continued to watch the monitor to get a glimpse of the number of points that Shiranui had managed to accumulate. She wanted to brag about her student to Mabel as soon as she managed to find her name on the monitor.
Calista had already seen the extent of his strength so she didn't even count him as one of the candidates. He was someone who could unleash strength equal to or greater than her if he wanted to. He was an anomaly in the test.
Therefore, it was not right for her to match her student against him. Shiranui was strong in her own right and did not need to be compared to a monster like him for recognition.
But Mabel was unable to understand why Calista was acting so calm and distant as if she didn't know the person who was making such huge achievements.
In this way the two equally frustrated women were on toes the whole time; one who wanted to find out about the status of her student and the other who wanted to figure out the secrets that the kid named Zavier was hiding.
Zavier in the meanwhile was ravaging any group he met in the forest with the help of his clones. While previously he had been capable of handling entire teams by himself, lately it had grown more difficult to do so. No because the weak had been ruled out early and only the strong remained in the competition but because the number of participants in each team continued to increase.
The disparity in numbers was to the extent that even Zavier felt it difficult to keep track of all the participants once he engaged in battle. It had happened to him when he had been flanked by two large teams from both sides. He later found that the two teams had allied together to take down any other teams in the competition. As a result, even though he managed to take down the two teams despite the number disparity; he couldn't stop all of them from leaving or running in between the fight.
He didn't bother chasing after those who had already run away before the conclusion of the fight. After all, he didn't want to be someone who let go of the prey in hand to chase after the one in the bushes. He had already eliminated many of the participants so his main objective was already complete. It was already impossible for the remaining party members to survive on their own now that everyone was running about in large groups.
Zavier was suspicious of the fact that despite the greed and hunger for more points, participants were gathering into huge troupes. This was something that was against their innate nature. Zavier wanted to figure out the reason for that. Considering their current situation, he felt like he was lacking knowledge that everyone else was privy to except him it seemed.
To get a change of perspective, Zavier changed over to his original body that was busy leading the team that comprised of girls from his school and Andrew.
The information flooded into him like a runaway train and whispered all the little pieces of information in his mind. Zavier soon found out everything that the group had been through. It seemed that despite the fact that he had tried to keep this group out of trouble while he was gone, they had run into quite a few participants.
Each time they encountered someone, the opposing group tried to bring them into the fold but they had denied every time and had defeated them. After all, Zavier knew that the other members of the team needed to gain points as well.
The reason that all the groups had given them was that there was a trio of individuals who were peerlessly strong and were running amok in the test region. They were so strong that not even two large groups together had been unable to defeat them.
At first the group hadn't bothered to take them seriously but when the same thing repeated itself over and over again from different mouths, they felt the need to find out the truth.
From one of the survivors of the attack of the trio, they managed to uncover the information that the only way to escape the trio was to have a large group which was so large that the trio was unable to concentrate on a single individual.
That's why they were building up a large team to make sure that they could survive the first round till the end.
The distinguishing trait that each group revealed about the supposed monstrous enemies was that each of them was supposedly wearing a mask and similar but odd attires.
Zavier finally understood the crux of the whole matter. There was no one else to blame for this convergence of participants except himself.
He was the real reason that the size of the teams was constantly increasing. After all he had robbed a large number of participants and had not bothered to eliminate them from the match. This had caused all his victims to roam around in the testing region which had started the rumours that were working against him to such a large extent. It stated that the trio of the masked men were actually a group of highly lethal and combative individuals whose combined strength was something that none of the teams could counter. Moreover, the trio specialized in attacking all the elite students to get a hold of their cards.
If it had been only to that extent the public wouldn't have been so against them. The reason was that the trio also raped any beautiful women that they came across in the competition. Any of the girls could eventually succumb to their animalistic libido. The trio was being portrayed as a bloodthirsty group consisting of brutes who were slaves to their libido and bloodlust and who enjoyed partaking in slaughter and rape of young girls.
The rumour that was spreading around had exaggerated the details and had been blown out of proportions to make his team look like a villain and had turned him into some kind of a common villain to all the participants or the final boss that all of them had to take down before the end of the competition. However this was only one of the reasons.
The more important reason was that such a trio could not be allowed to move on to the next round where all the teams would suffer against them. They would surely breeze through the next round if the teams were unable to stop them at this stage using the power of their numbers.
As the rumours grew in influence, the number of students per team started to increase as more and more students started to actively seek cooperation instead of seeking short term profit by stealing more cards.
They had to make sure that they had a way to survive against the trio after accumulation of points. After all, the points collected would only end up benefitting the monstrous trio if they didn't find a solution to that plague.
Even Zavier's team now consisted of more than ten individuals. While he was away, they had added some more students in the group excluding the four girls and Andrew who had been there from the beginning. The new students were quite talented as well considering that Kacie was the one who was acting as the leader in the meanwhile. She had a sound judgement and cool mentality to appraise the value of an individual according to Zavier's thinking.
Like the others, they too wanted to avoid the fearsome trio who were busy looting and hounding the forest as they pleased.
While Zavier was contemplating and digesting the consequences of his actions, an uncomfortable look appeared on his face. Nadia saw that Zavier looked quite worried and slapped her hand on her chest with gusto but all Zavier saw was her flat as board chest and thought that her hand must have gotten hurt hitting that flatness.
"Big Brother Zavier doesn't have to be worried about that group. If by chance we encounter them, I will protect big brother. I might not look like it but I am very strong."
As she said that, Nadia bent her arm with her fist towards the sky in an attempt to show her biceps to Zavier. Zavier found her antics quite cute but he also knew that her strength really wasn't something to scoff at. She really had the strength to uproot teams all by herself. He had previously seen the scene of destruction that the constant lightning strikes around her had caused.
Zavier only looked at her and smiled affectionately while patting her head but didn't say anything. He was contemplating how to solve this dilemma. If it continued the same way he might end up becoming the hidden boss of this game that everyone would raid together. He didn't know how to explain to the others that they didn't need to be worried about the legendary trio coming to find them.
Shiranui had been itching to get close to him ever since she had spent the night with him. She had given him her most precious thing and she was not wrong to have some expectations from him too. Still, she didn't impose herself on him from the get go and gave him the space that he needed to acknowledge the position that she had in his heart. Her aloof appearance and cold expression was nowhere to be seen and a beautiful smile adorned her face throughout the journey through the forest.