On the other side of the island, away from Zero were Anya, Leon, and Ellyn occupied by a golem. It was a stone golem, made with boulders as its muscles. It was not a creature that was found on an island like this, hence the only possibility was that the academy had released it here specifically for the exam.
The golem roared, its eyes shone purple, and it smacked the ground with both its hands. The ground shook abruptly and Anya who was standing in front of the golem lost her balance and staggered.
Though, she soon balanced herself and raised her hands as she visualized a pattern in her mind. A magic circle the size of a wagon wheel appeared before her palms and instantly afterward, two thick vines burst out from the ground and coiled themselves around the golem’s hands.
The vines went tight, making it impossible for the golem to move. However, it was pulling them widely and tension on the vines increased, it was clear that they weren’t going to last much longer.
“Ellyn, hurry!” Anya shouted.
Picking up on her call, Ellyn followed her lead and stepped close to the golem. She stood three meters away from it and raised her hand in its direction. She closed her eyes and visualized the magic circle for a custom magic spell.
“Lighting!” she said, and a purple-colored magic circle opened before her palm.
A shot of lighting was blasted through it, and it hit the golem in its stomach. Causing it to take a few steps back. However, it did not have the effect they were expecting. Her lighting was too weak, which meant the visualization of the circle in her mind wasn’t clear.
Two sharp snapping sounds were heard back to back when the golem snatched its hand back and the vines holding it down broke into two. It let out a roar like a bear and thumped its chest like a gorilla.
f𝓇𝘦𝒆𝘄𝑒𝗯𝑛𝗼ѵ𝙚l.𝒄𝘰𝓶
Then it stood on two legs, rather than four, and looked at Ellyn who was near. The golem was double her height before, now it stood even taller. The golem raised its hand and at the same time, a student spoke.
“Thunder.” And it was a male’s voice.
A pillar of lighting rained down from the sky and hit the golem on the ground. An explosion occurred, however, the impact did not hurt Ellyn as she was already pulled backward by Anya.
ƒ𝐫𝒆𝐞w𝗲𝚋𝗻૦𝘷e𝙡.c𝑜𝙢
When the dust from the explosion settled, there were only crumbles of stone left where the once the golem was. Leon walked from within the smoke, with a wide smile on his face. For him, this was normal, an everyday task.
“Here, I got one,” he said and tossed a purple-colored crystal in Ellyn’s direction. She stretched out her hand and caught it, and looked at Leon afterward.
“How the hell is this a hidden task? I mean, this thing was glued on that golem’s back,” Ellyn cursed, her hate showing clear for the academy.
“Well, that’s how it is. This was the second one, right? You keep it,” Leon said, as he walked close and stood next to the other two girls.
“Shouldn’t you keep it? You were the one who killed it, after all,” Ellyn reasoned, however, Leon brushed her off.
“It’s fine, I’ll find another one.”
“You gave one to me too, won’t you lose on points this way?” Anya asked. It was true, Leon had given the other hidden task item he’d found to her.
“It’s fine. It’s not like we’ll be promoted since we’re already in class A. We just have to make sure that we don’t end up in the bottom three, and clearing the exam only should be enough for that,” he explained.
“So why are you collecting items then?” Anya inquired.
“Huh? It’s just for the thrill of it, for fun,” Leon said.
While this idiot might not have realized it, this “fun” of his will cause great despair to many students. Since the number of hidden tasks and items were fixed, and according to Halls, they were quite low in quantity.
By attending them for fun, he was just reducing the number, even more, lowering the chances for the other students to find one even further.
“Oh, I see,” Ellyn said, and then transferred the crystal to her pocket. “Don’t come crying to me if you get demoted.”
The three of them then ventured inside the forest again. The three of them talked as they walked, but today Anya was quieter than usual. She already didn’t speak much, but today she took it to another level.
There was a gloomy look on her face too, which she was trying to hide. And Ellyn, who was walking next to her, noticed this.
“Are you not feeling well?” she asked.
The question took Anya by surprise. “H-huh? N-No… I’m fine.”
“I don’t know, you look kinda… I don’t know…dark, I guess,” Ellyn said, trying to convey what she observed in words.
“It’s nothing. And even if it is, I guess it’s the exhaustion from walking this long in the wild,” she replied and gave the first excuse that came to her mind.
“I see. If it’s hard, then we can stop and rest for a while. What’d you say?”
“No, I’m fine,” she lowered her eyes. “I don’t wanna be any more of a burden,” her last words came out as a murmur, hence no one heard them.
But this was the reason she was feeling a bit down ever since this exam had started. Anya’s strong point was sword arts and magiken, not magic. And since the students weren’t allowed to bring weapons on the island, she wasn’t able to fight at her prime.
This caused a pang of guilt to creep inside her, she thought she was slowing them down. She was feeling down. Because she wasn’t that good at magic and knew only basic spells, she was pretty much useless without a sword.
Although this was just a misunderstanding on her part, Leon and Ellyn didn’t take the least bit of offense from her not using a sword. She just had to realize this.
