Week 9 Midterms (3)

Wednesday morning.

We headed for the Dungeon Building's surface level to sit the midterm exam. The entire first year had gathered in a vast hall the size of an auditorium, and at its very center a massive teleportation portal yawned open. There was no need to leap straight into it, of course — dozens of small magic circles glimmered softly across the floor instead. Each was sized just right for two people, so their purpose wasn't hard to guess.

Seo Ye-in and I picked one circle and stepped onto it. Seen up close, her face looked less drowsy than usual — she must have rested properly the day before.

I held a fist up in front of her like a microphone.

"A word for our viewers, please. What is your current charge level, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in percent?"

"...Seventy?"

Seo Ye-in answered with a tilt of her head. A rather vague figure, but seventy percent was still seventy percent. At ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that level, she ought to stay on her feet until at least evening.

A glance around the hall turned up plenty of familiar faces. Beomi, mercilessly chomping down on the hand of Park Nari from the neighboring class.

"Myaow."

"Beomi. Ow. Quit. Biting. Me."

From the look of it, she hadn't brought the Life Cube in with her — fair enough, since the item was meaningless without nature-attribute items to store inside it. From Beomi's perspective, that amounted to having her private villa confiscated for three days, so a royal sulk was only to be expected.

A little ways off, Shin Byung-cheol was chattering away at top speed while Go Hyeon-woo nodded along, taking it all in. Then their eyes met mine, and we exchanged a light nod of greeting.

On another side, Han So-mi bounded about like a rabbit with both hands pressed to her head, while Song Cheon-hye watched the performance with utter solemnity.

I'd love to know what that conversation's about.

And in yet another corner, Hong Yeon-hwa was nagging Baek Jun-seok with a look of profound distrust. Then she spotted me, faltered for a beat, rolled her eyes this way and that, and offered a small, timid wave. When I waved back, her face lit up — if she'd had a tail, it would surely have been swaying in time with it.

"...?"

This side of Hong Yeon-hwa seemed to strike Baek Jun-seok as deeply strange; he simply kept glancing back and forth between the two of us.

As the appointed hour drew near, the homeroom teachers emerged one by one. True to form, Lee Sudok strolled in dead last. That man truly couldn't care less about his students.

"We begin shortly. Everyone onto a magic circle."

The students filed in, two to a circle. Seo Ye-in edged a little closer and quietly took hold of my sleeve.

Weeeeng—

Before long, a mechanical hum rose from beneath our feet, and the softly glimmering magic circles began to burn brighter and brighter. Soon the floor was so flooded with light that the circles themselves vanished from view.

FWAAASH!

White washed over my eyes. By the time my vision returned to normal, Seo Ye-in and I were standing alone in the middle of a forest.

We had entered the midterm dungeon — the uninhabited island.

The scoreboard floated before us, displaying our HP gauges, our survival items, and any crystals we held along with their charge status. Naturally, it was a blank slate for now.

"Wait here a moment."

"Okay."

Leaving Seo Ye-in where she stood, I kicked off the ground. Picking out a tall tree, I swarmed up it in seconds and scanned our surroundings from the crown.

Yeah, I can place us.

As befitted a grizzled veteran, I had the island's geography memorized in full, and that alone was enough to pin down our current position. Compared to the other students, dropped blind onto a nameless island, it was a colossal advantage. And when you have an advantage, you ought to milk it for all it's worth, no?

I climbed back down and held out a hand to Seo Ye-in.

"Take hold. We're moving fast."

"Hop-hop?"

"That's right. Hop-hop."

"Let's go."

Seo Ye-in clasped my hand, and we took off through the forest. Trees and thickets, boulders, the odd passing beast or monster — every manner of terrain whipped past at the edge of my vision. And whenever a real nuisance appeared — a cliff, a massive rock, a cluster of monsters —

"Jump."

"Jump."

Fwoom! Fwoom!

Combining Wind Force, Levitate Zone, and Featherwalk, we cleared each obstacle in a single bound. After a few rounds of sprinting and leaping, the view opened up onto a broad, flat rock.

This was our first destination. Nothing special about the spot itself — but it was about to become very special indeed.

I pointed at the wide-open sky.

"Look up there. What do you see?"

"Sky."

"Exactly. And now, a present is going to come down from it."

"A present...?"

Seo Ye-in tilted her head, but kept her eyes on the sky all the same. And less than a minute after my announcement—

SHWEEEEENG—!

A jet fighter appeared out of nowhere and swept around the island in one swift circuit. Right behind it, cube-shaped objects large and small came raining down like a bombing run — until parachutes blossomed open mid-fall, their speed dropped sharply, and only then could we make out their proper shape.

Supply crates.

Inside ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠each were items to aid survival. With inventories sealed, we had to endure three days empty-handed, and in that situation, supplies were rain on a drought — claiming them was pure profit, no two ways about it. The teachers, mind you, had only vaguely mentioned that "supplies would be provided from time to time," never saying exactly when or where they would drop. I, on the other hand, had that part mapped out to the letter as well, which was why I'd moved the instant the midterm began.

Sure enough, one crate touched down precisely before our eyes. I kicked the parachute aside and gripped the lid.

"Shall we see what's inside?"

"Yeah."

The subspace bag was a stand-in for an inventory. The knife, an essential tool of survival. As for the calorie bars — a measly two, nowhere near enough to fill a stomach. Just enough to make the point that the rest we'd have to provide for ourselves.

Of course, this wasn't the end of it.

The supply crates had only just fallen, so everyone would still be flustered, dashing for the nearest box. Which meant we weren't too late either — well worth being greedy for one more.

I held out my hand to Seo Ye-in.

"Let's go. Play it right, and we can snag another."

"Let's go."

Fwoom! Fwoom!

Bounding along on Wind Force once more, we reached the next destination in no time. And when we opened the supply crate sitting there all alone—

"How did we pull sleeping bags right off the bat?"

"We got lucky."

I had promised Seo Ye-in that instead of bringing her tiger plushie in, I'd find her a sleeping bag — and thankfully, it hadn't taken long. Whether a mere supply-issue sleeping bag could actually stand in for a B-Rank living item, though, remained to be seen.

KWA-KWA-BOOM!

Explosions rang out in scattered bursts all over. A scramble for the supply crates had broken out among the students, by the sound of it. With the crates so few in number and the parachutes deploying in plain sight, conflict had been inevitable.

KWAAAAAM—!

Somewhere off to one side, a pillar of fire shot high into the sky. That was Hong Yeon-hwa, a hundred percent. She sounded closer than I'd expected — we might even cross paths if things went well.

"Just in case, let's check one more spot. Hand."

"Hand."

The odds had shifted toward there being nothing left, but it was still worth the walk. Hand in hand with Seo Ye-in yet again, I kicked off the ground.

Fwoom! Fwoom!

Hop after hop brought us to the third location. We started toward the supply crate visible in the distance — and stopped in our tracks at almost the same moment.

"Already looted."

"Empty."

The crate was hanging wide open. We'd already claimed two on the way over, so someone beating us to this one in the meantime was hardly strange. Moreover, an open crate meant—

Shweeeng!

a very high probability that another student was nearby. From the grass on either side of us sprang a swordsman and a rogue.

Byung-cheol's friends, huh.

Both belonged to Shin Byung-cheol's little crew — same class as us, but in truth we were barely more than nodding acquaintances. So I had zero intention of going easy on them. All the less so, seeing as they'd struck first.

Seo Ye-in and I split apart as if on cue, each taking one.

Ratatatatat!

Seo Ye-in met the onrushing rogue with a stream of fire from her assembled assault rifle. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠A dozen-odd magic bullets hammered into him in one straight line, from his belly to the bridge of his nose. He flopped face-first onto the ground mid-charge, exactly as he'd come.

Shweeeng!

I tilted my body, and a longsword grazed past my shoulder by a hair's breadth. Before the swordsman could swing again, I stepped in deep, seized him by the collar, and cast Wind Force. The instant he floated an inch off the ground, I slammed him straight back down into it.

THUD!

"Kgh—!"

The swordsman wheezed, the air driven clean out of his lungs. Seo Ye-in looked down at him quietly for a moment, then drilled a magic bullet into the space between his brows.

Ratatatat!

Moments later, the two fallen bodies vanished as though evaporating. As with any surface-level dungeon, the safety system had ejected them outside. Anyone ruled combat-incapacitated dropped every survival item and crystal they carried, and could only re-enter after a six-hour waiting period. It was a penalty ruinous to one's midterm — which made staying unharmed the best policy of all.

And there, in the spot where they'd vanished, their survival items lay abandoned. Presumably the contents of the third supply crate.

An alarm trap was a device that warned you when another student drew near. As for the calorie bars — they'd only gotten a measly two as well.

Tallying up everything from the three supply crates:

"Not a bad start."

"Hop-hop again?"

"No. Let's leave the crate farming here."

By now, most of the supply crates would be empty. Running ourselves ragged would only end in wasted effort, while needlessly raising the odds of bumping into other students. Better to turn our eyes to the next objective. At this stage, there were only two worth considering: get our hands on a crystal and start charging it, or shore up our survival base.

I gave Seo Ye-in the choice.

"Which do you want first?"

"...Crystal?"

"Love it. Crystal run — let's move."

"Let's go."

We set off. There was nothing to rush for, so we took it slow, staying alert to our surroundings. Somewhere along the way, Seo Ye-in tossed out a question.

"Where do they come from?"

"Crystals?"

"Yeah."

"First up, treasure hunting."

There were any number of ways to get your hands on a crystal, and treasure hunting was one of them — unearthing crystals cunningly hidden in every corner of the island. As we'd learned in the Sweep raid, it was the Academy's way of testing whether we'd comb through even the tiniest details.

Then Seo Ye-in pointed up ahead and asked,

"Do they give one too?"

"Kerrk."

"Kehk."

A pack of goblins stood blocking our path. They weren't worth lifting a finger over, so I stayed out of it and answered her while Seo Ye-in rained magic bullets down on them.

Ratatatat!

"Killing monsters does drop them, but from goblins? You can pretty much write that off."

I'd sat this island midterm more times than I could count, and the monsters I'd put down along the way numbered in the thousands. Of all of them, I could count on one hand the occasions a goblin had dropped a crystal.

"So for drops, pin your hopes on the tougher ones — Headhunters, trolls, that crowd. For now, though—"

I stopped mid-sentence and shut my mouth.

The goblins Seo Ye-in had swept away with her barrage of magic bullets. And there, glinting among the bodies, was a red crystal.

"It dropped."

"...What a trash game."

[180] The Support Ate It All