Chapter 199: When?

Chapter 199: When?

For several seconds, nobody spoke. Tenfort floated where he’d been left in the air, staring in the direction of the rubble that had once been a mountain. Todd and Isabel exchanged glances, then looked to Emily.

A similar scene played out in Evergreen’s viewing room. Even Evergreen’s construct looked completely baffled.

“Did two fighting Rank 6 mages just stumble across the exam?” Lee asked.

“I think so,” Noah said, blinking. “It sounded like the first guy was here for something, though. Weird coincidence.”

“Does this mean the exam will be canceled?” Moxie asked with a concerned look.

“They may end the exam in its current state. It’s already been going for several days,” Evergreen said.

Noah’s hands clenched at his sides. If the exam ended now, then Isabel, Emily, and Todd would all fail. James presumably would too, unless he’d managed to get his hands on a token while he was invisible.

Eline was so close to them, but if they didn’t know she had the tokens, then it wasn’t going to do them any good. Luckily, it looked like Isabel had come to the same conclusion.

“Todd,” Isabel whispered, the screen still picking her voice up clearly, “This is pretty bad. The exam might get called if people that strong are in the area.”

“Shit,” Todd muttered. “We still don’t have any–”

“Which means now is our chance,” Emily interrupted. “Everyone’s distracted, and Tenfort can’t just have the cannon reactivate to pull us back early. They’ll have to pull everyone, and that should take at least a little bit. If we can find a group of students or some monsters, we’ve still got a chance to snag tokens before everything goes to shit.”

“Great. Where?” Todd asked. “Has James come back yet?”

The air behind Todd rippled. He spun as James appeared behind him, wiping some snow from his forehead and flicking it to the ground. Todd suppressed a curse.

“Can’t you make at least a little noise, man? You scared the shit out of me.”

“Literally?” James asked.

“What? No.”

“Good. That’s happened to me a few times. Revin does the same thing, but he always says I’m too loud.”

“Not sure I’d go around admitting that,” Todd said with a curt laugh. “And Revin is delusional, I didn’t hear a thing. Did you see–”

“Yes. And yes, I found something.”

“Really?” Emily asked, her eyes going wide. “Where?”

“There’s a girl heading in our direction. She’s got a giant bag slung over her shoulder, and it’s stuffed full of something. I have no idea what, but it was pretty bulky and she looked confident. It’s possible she’s collected a bunch of tokens.”

“Seriously?” Emily grabbed James by the shoulders. “Where? What direction?”

“From the really patchy trees,” James said, slightly flustered from how close Emily was. He looked like he couldn’t decide between trying to throw her arms away and hide or just sitting there and accepting it. “She’s not doing a good job of hiding at all. You should see her pretty soon.”

Good shit, James. But... Eline wasn’t coming from the trees.

Noah glanced over to Tenfort’s screen, but the proctor was still staring at the rubble of the mountain in disbelief, trying to figure out what had happened. Based on how easily Ferdinand had defeated Tenfort, Noah suspected Tenfort wasn’t in any rush to get close to the mages. It was probably only a matter of a few seconds before he made his final decision.

“They can’t,” Isabel said, a cold smile on her face. She reached into the bag and pulled out four tokens. Two tendrils of stone wound out of the ground and snagged Eline’s feet, taking advantage of her shock to bind her in place.

“We aren’t Rank 1 anymore.” Todd smirked. “That would be lame, wouldn’t it? Could you imagine?”

Eline tugged at her feet, then bared her teeth. “If you think I’m just going to–”

Todd’s fist slammed into her stomach again and Eline doubled over, the air knocked from her lungs. His second blow caught her in the head and she crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

“Don’t monologue while you’re trapped,” Todd told Eline’s body. “That’s just bad form, really. Honestly though, Rank 2 is such a significant improvement from Rank 1. I feel so much stronger. Didn’t feel it when I was practicing against you guys.”

“That’s because we were also Rank 2,” Isabel said dryly. A small frown passed her features. “If she loses the bet, doesn’t that mean Revin kills her?”

Noah blinked.

Rank 2? When did all of you hit Rank 2? Sneaky little buggers. They didn’t even tell me.

“Maybe we should leave her a token?” Todd offered, nodding down to Eline.

James appeared beside him, and Todd let out a slew of curses.

“Don’t do that,” James said, his face deadly serious. “Revin will take it really, really poorly if you interfere with his plans. She lost. She doesn’t deserve the tokens. Besides, going unconscious is basically a loss.”

“I’m not so sure I want her blood on my hands. Defeating someone in a competition is different from killing them,” Emily said.

“Revin won’t kill her. Probably.”

“Are you sure?” Emily asked.

James hesitated for a moment before nodding. “It’ll be fine. The other girl left, by the way. Hightailed it the moment Eline went down.”

“Weird.” Isabel frowned, then shrugged. “No weirder than half the other things we’ve dealt with, though.”

Todd’s rock armor fell away and he pressed a hand to his neck, letting out a slow hiss through clenched teeth. “You think we should be worried about the mage screwing with Tenfort?”

“Why bother?” Emily asked with a laugh. “Either he kills us or he doesn’t. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

The others nodded. Noah leaned back, rubbing his eyes and staring at the screen.

“That’s your fault, you know,” Moxie said. “The lackadaisical view toward life, that is. They should be terrified.”

“They’re effective. Being frozen in place helps nobody.” Noah’s hands were clenched so tightly that his knuckles had turned white. “But when is that idiot proctor going to get the kids out of there? They’re going to get killed in the crossfire.”

“Maybe Tenfort has something to do with the attack that launched Ferdinand away?” Moxie offered. “He hasn’t moved for a while, so maybe things are under control.”

Noah blinked. That was a possibility. Tenfort had been still for almost a minute now, just staring in the direction of the ruined mountain. There was a good chance that he was somehow associated with whatever had attacked Ferdinand.

“Yeah, you must be right. I can’t imagine what else he’d be doing.”

But... seriously, when did the kids hit Rank 2?