Chapter 8: AQC pt.1

Ten months later…

The Omni Hunter Academy secondary field. Almost all students were gathered here for a very specific event today.

“Attention! Attention students!” The principal, Grandmaster Algernon, spoke on the megaphone to get their attention.

The students slowly died down into a silence. The principal cleared his throat before continuing.

“Now, I believe all of you have been informed of what you are gathered here today.”

“YEEAAHHH!!!” The students yelled in unison.

“Today is a special event that we conduct every year, the Annual Quest Completion. About half a year before the annual Hunter exam. It may not be a requirement,however, we will evaluate your skills and abilities and decide whether you are eligible for the exam. This is, of course, for your safety.” The principal said.

“Take this as a pre-exam. Unlike the actual exam, we will monitor you from afar. Rest assured about the AQC being too dangerous for you, we will give a special item that allows you to send a signal to the observers. Any methods, equipment and other preparations will fully be up to you. Now I know that you all must be excited to go,” the principal raised a finger as to press on the matter.

“But I must warn you, whatever happens out there is unexpected and not at all staged by the council. You may move individually or move in groups without any limits. Keep in mind that the time limit is 7 days, if you cannot complete your quest within that time, then you are labelled ineligible for the exam. I believe that is all for now. Good hunting, young Hunters!” The principal ended his speech with an energetic shout that was followed by the students.

“UWOOOOHH!!”

The students then scattered around the school field. There were some that shouted, looking for a teammate, others were running around to find a teammate and some were just waiting idly for the AQC to start.

Matthew was one of the ones that were waiting idly. He was super excited about the event.

‘I’ve already booked a team with Rose. We decided to meet up by the gate, so no need to worry.’

Matthew reflected back his progress over the past months. He had learned so much. He was able to ace his classes with great speed and excellence. Some say he was a prodigy, while others say he cheated somehow. Didn’t matter to him, all he knew was that he had grown a lot. His normal before looked much more buffed now.

He still wondered how he should go about finding a way back to his earth. To be honest, he barely did any reading regarding that or any stuff. He once was even told off by Rose who bursted into a rage.

“Hehehe” Matthew chuckled when he remembered that.

“Ehem! Attention to all students!” A teacher coughed on the megaphone. The time that all students were waiting for has come. “You may begin, NOW!”

Almost immediately, everyone broke into a sprint for the front gate. Students flooded out like water out of a dam. Matthew calmly walked to the front gate where he had agreed to meet up with Rose.

“Oh.” Apparently she was already there.

“What took you so long?” Rose asked.

“What, we already decided, right? No need to rush.” Matthew said.

“Ah?! You really want me to go about it again? If we can finish this early, we’ll get extra points and I’ll have more time for something else!” Rose said half shouting with a pissed off face.

“Yeah, yeah, gotcha.” Matthew extended his hands halfway and backed up a bit from the angry Rose.

“Hmph! Well, we should get going now.” Now Rose was in serious mode.

“Right. Let’s go!” Matthew punched the air as he shouted.

The first step during the AQC was to find a quest to accomplish. What quest that has to be done does not matter, however, points given vary from each other. The higher the difficulty, the higher the points.

Inside a nearby Hunter station, Matthew and Rose stood in front of the board, looking for a quest to do. The board was pretty much empty since they had come in late.

“These quests don’t earn us much points.” Matthew said.

“Maybe we could’ve found some decent ones if we were early.” Rose eyed Matthew.

“I’m sorry okay?”

Rose only sighed as she looked back at the board. “The time limit is 14 days. Maybe we could wait for the quest board to be updated tomorrow?”

“Hmm, maybe? Wait, what’s that one?” Matthew pointed at a certain quest sheet.

“A quest to clear undeads in the forest?”  Rose read aloud the quest’s demand.

“Yeah, should be doable right?”

“Well… Some undead surely are no joke. But with you… Probably doable?” Rose was not sure of their chances.

“It won’t hurt to try, right?” Matthew smirked with a cheery face.

While Rose replied coldly with a miser expression. “No, it would hurt a LOT.”

“Well, it’s worth a lot of points, so I think it’s worth it.”

Rose pondered on the matter for a while before she finally agreed. “We’ll give it a try.”

“Right then.” Matthew tore off the piece of paper from the wall and folded it before keeping it inside his pants pocket.

“We should look for supplies later.” Rose took out her note book that was filled with all kinds of writings.

Matthew recognized almost all of them, Elven, Dwergen, Mison, Cyssian, Coronese, Tiberian, Oceanic and the common tongue of this world, Omnese. It’s breathtaking for Matthew every time he sees her note book.

‘She learned all those languages. She took this Hunter thing way more seriously than I do, apparently.’

“Hehehe” Matthew accidentally let out a chuckle.

“What are you laughing at?” Rose asked.

“Oh erm nothing! Anyway, what are we gonna do now?”

“Let’s go to a shop.” Rose stored her note book back in her pocket.

“Right.”

They both exited the station and made their way towards a shop. All their actions were being watched by someone from afar.

“They actually made a team of each other. Matthew aced in his course while Rose is above average. Both of them are quite exceptional in the school’s ranking.” Riea mumbled by herself as she tailed the two from afar.

“To have a team composed of these two, I bet they would do pretty good. However, they are not the only elites in the school and what they are about to fight are nonother than demons. “I’ll see for myself how they would handle this.” Riea continued to follow them while observing their actions.

…..

In the forest, Matthew and Rose were walking around to the designated location informed by the witness that was written in the quest note. Matthew took out a map from his backpack and spun it around.

Question marks were visible above his head as he kept spinning the map. Rose snatched it away with an annoyed face and took a look for herself.

“The witness said that they saw the group of undead from a cliff on an open field. From the map, their location where they saw the undead should be here.” Rose pointed with her index finger on the map.

“Oh~ nice work Rose!” Matthew gave a thumbs up.

Rose slapped back the map on Matthew’s chest. “You can’t even read maps. What did you learn in class?”

“I was just looking for the right orientation, is all. It’s not like I don't know how to read it.” Matthew said.

“Yeah, yeah, come on!” Rose walked ahead.

Matthew folded the map and stored it back in his pack and followed Rose.

‘She’s in high spirits. And her attitude… Yep, she really takes things seriously. Scary when she’s like that.’

They kept hiking up the hill where Rose pointed on the map until finally they arrived at the cliff. Matthew looked down from the edge of the cliff.

“Pretty long fall it seems.” From where he was standing, the cliff was around 100 meters above the lower ground. Then he looked at the wide open field in front. “That must be where the witnesses saw them.”

Matthew turned back to Rose. “What now?”

Rose did not answer immediately. She looked at her surroundings. The cliff was pretty open, a good place to set up camp. The field where the witnesses saw the undead was also not blocked from their view. The sun was already starting to set.

“I think we should rest here first. Undeads are usually active at night, so we’ll just watch them for tonight for any activities. Tomorrow, we’ll investigate.” Rose fully explained her plan in mind.

“O-oh, aye ma’am.” Matthew felt like Rose was the boss here and he was only following her.

In his mind, he only thought to investigate immediately and subjugate all the undead as soon as possible without any actual plan. He may have aced the classes, but he still lacked experience. He knew that all too well.

‘Good thing I teamed up with Rose huh…’

The two soon set up camp with two tents. They lit a small campfire to light up the area and cook some slices of meat. After they had their dinner, Rose went inside the tent first while Matthew was on the lookout.

Matthew kept staring at the open field for any signs of the undead. The moon was barely visible behind the clouds, and so it was hard to see anything.

Matthew thought about learning night vision magic or dark sight magic at the moment, but from his experiences he never could draw out any magic. The teachers say that was only natural. People could only utilize either astra or magic, but very rarely both.

Matthew didn't think about it much further. He focused his astra and tried to sense if there was anything within his field of senses..

As far as his astra went, he did not detect anything. His senses had sharpened by a lot compared to before he started. Matthew felt a little bit of pride in himself.

He suddenly felt like something was behind him. He immediately looked back.

There was nothing. Even the presence that he sensed before was gone. Matthew wanted to approach the bushes to check just in case, before a loud moo came from the field.

MOOOOO! MOOOO!

His attention was immediately switched towards that sound. He glanced over the cliff and squinted his eyes. In the distance, he saw a giant buffalo was attacked by a group of zombies.

The giant buffalo struggled around a lot and was kicking and thrashing violently. There were small zombies that clinged onto it while the bigger ones were holding it. The buffalo was completely overpowered.

Zombies, although they have zero intelligence, their brute force was not to be messed with. A normal zombie would have almost five times the strength of the average human. Depending on how much magic was poured into them during the process of making one, they are stronger when more magic is poured in.

This basic knowledge about monsters was common to all Hunters. Matthew knew by how buffed the bigger ones are, their summoner must be pretty good. And by numbers…

“Seven small ones and three big ones. Not a hard number to deal with honestly, but the big guys could be trouble. Should I take them out first? No, no, Rose said to observe for tonight. Investigate tomorrow. But… What if we lose them by tomorrow? Hmm…” Matthew pondered by himself for a while. Then, rather than he just kept wondering, he took action.

He tugged his jacket as if prepared to take them on. He then proceeded to the tent and entered, however, he did not enter his tent.

“Oi~ Rose~ Wake up~” Matthew gently shook Rose’s shoulder to wake her up. He had a bad memory of the last time he woke her.

Rose moaned and spoke in a really low and sleepy tone. “What is it?”

“There are some zombies out there taking down a giant buffalo.”

“Eh what?” Rose shot up into a sitting position. “How many?”

“Eleven in total. What should we do? Wait until tomorrow to investigate?”

Rose was conflicted, she cupped her chin. “We should follow them now, but at night, we have a disadvantage. Those things don’t rely on sight but rather smell. If we follow them, we’ll get caught by smell.”

“So we should wait for tomorrow after all?” Matthew asked.

“Hmm…” Rose fell in deep thought.

“You know, we could follow them if we look out for the wind direction.”

Rose flinched into realisation. “Yeah, right! We could do that! Excellent Matt!” Rose said happily.

“Hehe! Thanks, now come on. Get ready, we’re hunting toni…” Matthew’s words trailed off.

Rose noticed Matthew’s behaviour. She followed where his eyes were laid on and....

“KYAA!”

A slap came to Matthew's face.