Ch.198198 – How to Break Through the Professor’s Trap

<198 – How to Break Through a Professor’s Trap>

Giselle felt anxious.

‘My thinking was too narrow.’

She had planned to mobilize outside connections to dig into the Foundation’s darkness for Oknodie’s sake. But while designing the future, an unexpected obstacle had appeared right before her eyes in the present.

“Giselle, don’t fall behind. We need to pick up the pace here, even if it’s pushing ourselves too hard!”

“I… know… Isabelle!”

Giselle’s stamina ranked at the bottom even among the senior class.

To put it bluntly, she was dead last.

Though naturally slow, she had a backup plan.

Even if she came in last for this lecture, she could make up the credits in other classes!

But a variable had emerged.

The massive participation of sophomores.

Unknown penalties for having one’s nameplate taken.

She might lose additional credits.

For her, this was a painful mistake.

<Brooch of Composure>

<Breathing-Corrective Underwear>

The smuggled artifacts that should have lasted until the middle of the running portion, the first event of the triathlon, had already begun to activate one by one, blinking with light.

As her confused mind calmed and her breathing eased, her heart paradoxically grew heavier.

“Isabelle. Please go ahead.”

“Son Ocheon already ran off on his own, but if I leave too, what will happen to you?”

“At this rate, we’ll just be doing the sophomores a favor. Or do you want us to receive penalties together?”

“Ugh… that’s cowardly. Making it impossible to help a comrade.”

“Complete the race for my share too. Helping me means not carrying the burden of knowing someone capable failed because of me.”

Inside Isabelle, the scales weighed heavily between the loss she would suffer by staying with Giselle and her sense of loyalty.

Having been part of an adventure party since childhood, following adults around, to her, comrades were everything—a sanctuary to rely on.

“…I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.”

Isabelle couldn’t meet his eyes and looked at the ground as she put strength into her legs.

Just as she accelerated, someone approached her side, kicking up dust.

She hadn’t heard it.

Hadn’t noticed it.

Someone had gotten this close.

Even though they were running on two feet.

A presence that approached without making a sound, as if existing in a different space!

‘A sophomore!?’

Startled as if seeing a ghost, she looked up to find Oknodie blinking up at her.

“Oknodie! Why are you still here? You should be competing with the lead group!”

“If I just left, Dorothy might be fine, but you and Giselle would definitely fail.”

Isabelle felt ashamed.

This admirable child, capable of competing for first place, had fallen back to help his classmates, while she had decided to abandon Giselle.

But reality was reality.

If they didn’t give up, they would all fail together.

She could feel it even now.

The presence of sophomores pursuing from behind.

If she relaxed her legs and slowed her pace even slightly, being caught was inevitable.

Those armed with determination far beyond first-years would mercilessly take their nameplates and force them to the back of the pack.

“Ah, watch out there.”

“A tree monster!?”

A branch swaying in the wind suddenly came down, blocking their path.

As she twisted her body to avoid it in panic, her field of vision widened, and she saw something.

Wriggle.

The knotholes in nearby tree trunks moved like human eyes!

Unlike practice, the actual midterm exam included elements that interfered with the race.

“If there are such obstacles, then the sophomores…”

“Second and third-years already know about them. Only first-years are unaware of the obstacles!”

“…I won’t ask where you got that information. Is there a way to prevent Giselle from failing?”

“Of course there is! That’s why I came to help.”

Giselle recalled one of the rumors about Oknodie.

Morb, an aspiring knight from the lower class.

The story of a student nicknamed “Black Knight Morb” who never removed his armor.

His effort was admirable, but he was undeniably a burden.

Giselle didn’t want to follow Morb’s example.

“Young lady. If you’re making excuses to comfort me, don’t bother.”

To the proud Giselle, Oknodie simply bent his stubbornness.

“Should I carry you on my shoulders?”

“…I’ll follow on my own feet.”

* *

Hestia felt annoyed.

She broke and smashed every branch blocking her way, so the tree monsters weren’t the issue.

What troubled her, surprisingly, were the sophomore seniors who should have been behind them.

“We were definitely running in the lead. How do these seniors keep appearing in front of us?”

With her abundant stamina forged on the battlefield, she never thought the sophomores from behind could catch up to her.

But after running for about 20 minutes, the situation began to change.

The students who had been in the lead were now harassed by seniors who appeared before their eyes, jumped down from trees, or ambushed them from behind rocks.

“Gyahaha! The reason doesn’t matter. There are just more targets to shoot at!”

Bang bang!

Zigoku happily pulled the trigger of his revolver.

Since forming a team in Dragon Principal’s lecture, Zigoku had been clearing the path magnificently.

Hestia likewise sent seniors flying with punches or hammer blows whenever they attacked.

But there were too many.

Moreover, unlike first-years who fainted with a squeak when knocked down, the sophomores were more persistent.

“Barrier activate!”

“Muscle Memory Falling Technique, activate!”

The sophomores used all sorts of defensive measures to prevent immediate retirement and continued the race.

Lotta, who had initially displayed the agility unique to martial artists, had long since become tearful as her stamina was drained.

“Eek! Please don’t leave me behind!”

“Huh? Why should I care about a weakling’s circumstances?”

“Zigoku. Don’t be like that. Now isn’t the time for first-years to compete against each other.”

“Tch. How boring.”

“Think of Oknodie and bear with it.”

“What does he have to do with this?”

Zigoku responded with indifference.

Then she glanced around cautiously and asked quietly.

“Would Oknodie dislike it if we abandoned Lotta?”

“He wouldn’t dislike it. That child is generally merciless toward the weak.”

“What? Then it doesn’t matter.”

“But he wouldn’t like it either. He might learn from watching you. Do you want to make Oknodie into the bad child everyone gossips about?”

“Of course not. I’ll never do anything that would please those rats who talk behind his back.”

The three continued running through the seemingly endless forest, matching Lotta’s pace despite Zigoku’s reluctance.

Lotta, whom they had considered just a burden, presented an intriguing hypothesis.

“I think we’re going around in circles.”

“What? That’s impossible. We’ve memorized the course many times.”

“Wouldn’t it be more convincing if memorizing the same course was actually a trap?”

In a normal race, this would be nonsense.

But at Gift Academy?

It was plausible!

“There they are! Three first-years!”

“Get them!!”

“Attack all at once!!”

As they tried running off the path, occasionally encountering tree monsters and sophomores, the forest began to change around the three.

Suddenly, several sophomores burst out from nearby as if they had been waiting.

“We won, you brats!”

Zigoku kicked a fallen sophomore’s backside and burst into laughter.

As they continued through the forest, this time a dozen sophomores appeared before them.

“I’m running low on bullets.”

Zigoku’s laughter faded, replaced by a sour expression.

As they pressed on, this time twenty or thirty sophomores appeared in a large group.

“This looks fucked.”

Even Zigoku, who was happy just pulling the trigger, couldn’t bring herself to do so against the alarming number of sophomores ahead.

And there was no guarantee this would be the end.

“…Can you climb a tree and scout for a moment?”

At Hestia’s request, Lotta climbed a tree with effort.

Her stockings tore and developed holes as they caught on the bark, but Lotta, whose stamina had been drained from keeping up with the top runners and fighting consecutive battles, couldn’t care less about stockings.

Her impression after climbing to a high place and looking around was even more disheartening.

“Oh my.”

A circular forest path.

In the sparsely scattered clearings in the center, sophomores waited in ambush for first-years.

While the first-years were trapped on the circular track, the sophomores had quickly seized the exit routes.

Absurdly, the way out of the forest was an aerial staircase leading from the massive tree in the center of the forest to the river on the other side of the ground. Getting there seemed impossibly daunting.

“How is it?”

“It’s structured like this.”

After climbing down, Lotta drew the forest’s structure and the sophomores’ ambush positions with a branch so Hestia and Zigoku could see.

There was indeed a reason why the competition was set for 12 hours.

Hestia suddenly remembered.

Oknodie, who was weaker than her in strength, inferior to Skola in archery, and always in that questionable second-place position in many areas.

The secret to his rise as co-valedictorian wasn’t outstanding combat ability but outstanding wisdom.

-Some of you may be stronger, have better skills, or be more powerful in combat than those who passed. All of that is outside this examiner’s interest.

-The wise advance before the strong, and if wisdom is lacking, one must have combat ability superior to anyone else to advance. A score of 100 points is proof of this.

Minerva, the examiner of the second gateway entrance exam, had said it too.

Wisdom is more important than strength.

They had relied solely on stamina and ran blindly, but stamina without wisdom had made them run faster and farther around the forest than anyone else.

As a result, they failed to read the sophomores’ movements.

By the time they understood the situation, they who thought they were in the lead had fallen behind.

“Is Oknodie trapped somewhere in the forest too?”

“I don’t think so.”

In the entrance exam, Oknodie had been the wisest among the participants from the A-group borderlands.

Hestia’s thoughts were soon proven by an astonishing sight from across the forest.

“Huh? W-wait. The forest is moving.”

“What nonsense are you talking about? Do we look like we’re in the mood for jokes?”

“It’s true, I tell you!”

While Lotta was scouting from the tree again with nothing else to do, Hestia quickly climbed to the treetop with her excellent jumping skills, and Zigoku with her sailor’s sense from climbing ship masts.

Seeing this, Lotta felt dizzy with indignation, wondering what all her struggling to climb had been for, but the two had already shifted their attention elsewhere.

“Those are tree monsters. Why are they moving?”

“Look there. Someone’s leading the tree monsters, crushing the sophomores and clearing a path.”

“Huh? That’s…”

Hestia, familiar with battlefield dynamics, identified the most important vanguard, and Zigoku, who had developed enhanced vision magic during her pirate days, identified who it was.

“It’s Oknodie.”