They Move When Night Falls
At the very moment Class A was driving a blade into Class I's back in Sector 1-C—
Class B was stationed near a Grade-2 zone in the northwest of Eledor.
By pure chance they had run into Class H, struck an on-the-spot alliance, and were traveling together.
"Esabel."
Billy was the first to catch the change in the sky. He murmured her name under his breath.
"Yeah. I see it."
Esabel turned her head and muttered the same.
High overhead, a luminous green arrow was climbing into the air.
A signal.
"Hey! That's—!"
"A signal!"
"Did they find Class A?"
Unlike the Class H cadets, who immediately broke into noisy excitement the moment they spotted the arrow, the students of Class B merely traded meaningful looks and kept their silence.
Their hands drifted, almost casually, toward their sword belts.
"Lady Esabel, what do you intend to do? Shouldn't we head over there? This is our chance to take down Class A."
Class H's representative, Vesel Hammond, put the question to her as if seeking her opinion—though his whole manner made it plain he wanted to go at once.
"Well…"
She let the word trail off, then took a few quiet steps toward him.
Thud. Thud.
And drew her sword and brought it down on his head.
"…!"
CRASH!
Vesel barely managed to raise his spear in time, catching the descending cut by a hair's breadth.
That was the signal.
"What the h—"
Before the shock could even finish leaving anyone's mouth, every Class B cadet drew steel as one and charged the students of Class H.
Fwoosh-fwoosh-fwoosh!
Not a single word spoken. Each of them closed on a chosen target as if the whole thing had been rehearsed.
"W-what the hell!?"
"You son of a—!"
Class H's cadets recoiled in horror and swept their spears around them. But nearly half of them had already been caught flat-footed by the ambush. Most had a Class B student standing right at their backs, and those throats were cut before they could turn.
The sudden collapse in numbers became a crushing gap in combat power. With the advantage firmly theirs, Class B's onslaught tore through Class H like autumn leaves in a gale.
"What is the meaning of this!?"
Vesel, still locked with Esabel, thrust his spear in a frenzy and shouted.
"Why—why would you do this now…?!"
Betrayal itself he could understand. An alliance that was never going to last until the end—he'd been planning to turn on them later himself. But this—
"We haven't even taken down Class A yet!"
Cutting down your own side before dealing with the common enemy made no sense to him at all.
"We were never going to beat them that way anyway."
Esabel's mouth curved in a faint smile. A heavy sword-stroke smashed his spear shaft aside, and her blade began to bear down on him with the crushing weight of a mountain.
"Kh…!"
"Don't take it so hard. In this kind of game, the one who stabs first is the one who wins, right?"
What they were fighting was a miniature war, and Esabel was no madwoman who insisted on fair play even on the battlefield. Backstabbing a temporary ally for Class B's victory was something she would do without a second thought.
CLANG—!
The duel between Esabel and Vesel ended almost as soon as it began.
A heavy sword.
Vesel simply did not have the strength to withstand the pressure of her blade. The gap in skill had been far too wide from the start.
Thrust!
With a sword through his heart and a look of pure outrage still frozen on his face, Vesel was transferred out of the field.
"It's done."
Billy had already finished off the rest of Class H.
"Good. Let's move!"
Esabel immediately led her cadets into a run—straight in the opposite direction from where the signal arrow had risen.
Having wiped out Goren and every last swordsman with him, Leon and the cadets of Class A stripped the uniforms off a few Class F students they had deliberately left unconscious, then headed for the prearranged meeting point just short of the forest.
There they linked up with the group that had split down the center path, and using ambush and chaos they annihilated the mixed pursuit force of Class C and Class F. After picking up a few more Class C uniforms, they moved on to the next sector, rejoined the final group that had gone right, and cleaned house once more.
By that point the numerical advantage—and the gap in raw power—had become overwhelming. Frisia was a genuine talent mixed in among them, true enough, but she was still a swordsman who had lost to Carotin in the ranking matches.
"Kh…!"
She didn't last long. Glaring venomously, she was eliminated.
Class A hadn't come through completely unscathed. In the last group—already worn down by the long flight—a couple of careless mistakes cost them two people. Even so, for a force that had single-handedly dismantled three entire classes, the losses were next to nothing. Leon had budgeted for as many as five casualties; the result was better than he'd hoped.
"Rest. Brief one."
Leon spoke only after watching the last Class C cadet transfer out. The Class A students collapsed onto the ground in a heap. Nearly an hour of running and fighting through the forest would leave anyone drained.
Leon, still fresh, remained on his feet and began checking their gear. Of everything they'd stripped from the other cadets, only about five pieces were actually useful.
A bracelet that boosted mana circulation and recovery and could form a mana barrier three times. A face-covering mask whose main job was concealment but also made breathing easier to control. Boots that lightened the step just a little. Pauldrons that could turn aside a qi-edged blade maybe three times and added power to the shoulders. And gauntlets with similar defensive value that strengthened the forearms.
Not great.
Leon clicked his tongue. Anyone who wasn't a complete idiot knew that the quality of your equipment could decide a fight. What they had right now wasn't enough to guarantee an edge over the other classes.
First problem: not enough armor. In a real fight, whether you block a vital once or fail to is everything—and all they had were pauldrons and gauntlets, not a helm or breastplate. Still, armor that could stop sword qi was high-grade gear. You probably wouldn't see any until the Grade-1 zones. Even these pauldrons and gauntlets had been taken off Class C and Class F.
And even setting armor aside, there could be other critical specialty items waiting out there. Which meant, sooner or later, they were going to have to hit a Grade-1 zone…
"Hmm. Fair point—but the other classes will already be swarming that area, won't they?"
Carotin, who had been listening beside him, put in.
"Most likely."
Leon nodded. Excluding Classes I, C, and F, at most six classes remained. The others weren't fools either; they would all be eyeing the central territory. Zone-control points were nothing to sneeze at—even if the gear had already been looted, there was still every reason to go.
"Then we've only got one real option."
Leon made the call. Of the six Grade-1 zones, they had already stripped three. The truly important pieces might be concentrated in the remaining three, but circling back for them meant high risk and only middling return.
"Let them crack each other's skulls over that side."
What they needed was to manage their score. Mass-eliminating enemies had banked them a solid lead, but the early rush that made those kills possible had left them with zero territory held.
"We sweep the outer rim."
Starting from the southwest sector where Class A had begun, they would work the Grade-2 zones. In the end, this evaluation was a land-grab. Wiping out an entire class only netted 1,400 points. Holding three Grade-2 zones for two hours, on the other hand, was worth 1,800.
The Class A cadets reacted as the math sank in.
"Huh… he's right."
"So we don't actually need to fight the other classes at all?"
"You've got it backwards, idiot. You fight because you're trying to take or hold a zone."
"…So we were the weird ones for just charging in swinging."
Once the chatter died down, Leon continued.
"Anyway. We take the outer zones, pick up gear as we go—and then."
They couldn't play pure land-grab forever. Holding every zone with this many people was impossible. Sooner or later a full-scale battle would come.
And that was where Leon meant to use the most entertaining rule of this evaluation: after a set amount of time, the time of day would change.
"When night falls, we move again."
Infiltration. Assassination. Chaos, ambush, melee. Muddying the waters until no one could tell friend from foe.
The things he loved most.
Slaaap—
The languid flick of a tongue across crimson lips was more than enough to snare every male gaze in the room—especially when the woman doing it was a beauty you didn't see every day.
And yet—
"Hmm~?"
"…!"
Anyone whose eyes met hers jerked their gaze away as if burned.
"Boring."
Hera gave a soft little laugh and sank deeper into her chair, both hands shoved into her pockets.
Well. That's how it usually goes…
Most people couldn't even look her in the eye—and yet the boy she'd seen yesterday had been different. Even at a distance where their noses nearly touched, he had held her stare without the slightest tremor, those wild, predatory eyes locked on hers.
She had liked that. A lot.
Her head was already full of Leon.
"So."
Hera tipped her head sideways and studied the person sitting next to her.
"You're Class A's homeroom instructor?"
"I am."
Cheren kept her eyes fixed on the screen, answering flatly, arms crossed rigid across her chest.
"Hmm. So you taught him all that, then?"
Hera's chin jerked toward the display. By "all that," she meant the whole package—stripping enemies of clothes and weapons, lying, stabbing people in the back.
"…No."
This time Cheren's answer came a fraction slower. She was a little taken aback herself, if she was honest.
Hera already knew the answer; she'd only asked for the fun of it. She snorted and straightened her head—then Cheren added something more.
"One thing I am certain of."
"…?"
Hera's gaze swung back. A faint heat had entered Cheren's voice.
"Leon always exceeds my expectations."