Chapter 108: She Gasped
With a wry smile and a shake of his head, Kyle pulled out the same crimson Distress Rune Stone from inside his clothes—the same type used by the third-year students—and crushed it without hesitation.
Crack.
A crisp sound rang out as the rune stone shattered into specks of red light and dispersed. Almost at the same moment, a unique Mana fluctuation spread outward from the point where it broke. It was the signal meant to notify any judge-teachers nearby.
“All right, I’ve called the teachers,” Kyle said to Ryan, his tone now completely relaxed. “Since you got the Blank Rune, you should have all twelve now, right? Congratulations. You’ve earned a slot. Once the teachers get here, they’ll take you straight out of the forest for the final evaluation.”
Ryan nodded to show he understood. Then his gaze shifted to the side.
Lillian and Rex were still standing where they were, and the expressions on their faces could only be called spectacular.
From the terror and despair at the beginning, to the shock of Ryan suddenly appearing to help them, to the astonishment of that lightning-fast exchange, and finally to this abrupt, harmonious scene that looked more like acquaintances greeting one another...
The sheer amount of information had clearly overloaded the brains of this young duo. They were huddled together now, their heads nearly touching as they discussed things fiercely in lowered voices. Every so often, they would sneak glances at Ryan and Kyle, their eyes full of curiosity, confusion, and a little bit of fear.
Looking at the way they seemed to want to ask questions but did not dare, whispering and muttering to each other, Ryan suddenly remembered something.
He took out the pure white Blank Rune he had just obtained and carefully tucked it into the inner pocket close to his body, together with the eleven attribute runes he had gathered earlier.
Then he picked up the backpack, now more than half-empty and mostly containing duplicate runes and a few basic supplies, weighed it once in his hand, and casually tossed it toward Rex.
“Catch.”
Rex had been busy pricking up his ears while listening to Lillian whisper her theory that Ryan and Kyle must have known each other beforehand and were staging some kind of act. At the sudden shout, he let out a startled “Huh?” and fumbled to catch the backpack tossed his way.
It landed in his hands with a solid weight.
“What are you doing?!” Lillian jumped in fright and immediately punched Rex in the arm. Her ice-blue eyes went wide as she lowered her voice and scolded him, “You idiot! What if there’s some kind of trap in it? Or something dangerous?”
Rex scratched his head and looked down at the plain, unremarkable backpack in his hands. “I don’t think so, right? He just saved us.”
“Th-That’s true, but...” Lillian faltered for a moment, then stiffened her face again. “But he’s Ryan Velt! Who knows what he’s planning!”
Even as she said it, she knew perfectly well that, when Ryan had fallen into danger during that fight with Kyle, her heart had leapt straight into her throat. She had been so tense that her fingernails had dug into her own palms. That contradictory feeling only made her more irritable.
“But, Miss,” Rex pointed out with perfect bluntness, “weren’t you really nervous just now while Ryan was fighting that senior? I even heard you quietly suck in a breath.”
“Wh-What are you talking about?!” Lillian’s cheeks instantly flushed bright red, like a cat whose tail had just been stepped on. “I was worried that senior would lose! Y-You’re talking nonsense! I was worried that if Ryan lost, that guy from the Intermediate Department would just turn around and come back to beat us up!” The more she spoke, the louder her voice became, as though she could bury her guilt beneath sheer volume.
The two of them were still arguing like children, one red-faced and indignant, the other woodenly trying to reason things out, as if no one else in the world existed.
Ryan had no interest in listening to their childish squabbling, and just then, a faint sound of something slicing through the air came from the forest.
Two instructors in gray teaching robes, their auras steady and composed, appeared at the edge of the clearing like ghosts. Their gazes fell first on Kyle, who had crushed the rune stone, and then on Ryan standing calmly beside him.
One of them, a stern-faced middle-aged male instructor, walked over to Kyle, checked his condition, and nodded.
The other, a younger woman, came to Ryan and spoke in an even tone. “Student Ryan Velt?”
“Yes,” Ryan replied.
“Please show us the runes you obtained.”
Ryan took out the twelve runes from inside his clothes—eleven of differing attributes, and one pure white Blank Rune.
The instant they were brought out together, a faint resonance passed between them, linking them into a single soft halo of light.
A flicker of surprise passed through the younger instructor’s eyes. She examined each rune carefully, especially the pure white one. Once she confirmed everything, her gaze toward Ryan became a shade more solemn.
“Very good. You have gathered all twelve runes, fulfilled the hidden condition, and obtained priority evaluation qualification. Please come with us.”
Ryan nodded without speaking and silently followed behind the two instructors.
Kyle also brushed the dirt from his clothes and walked beside him. As the defeated examiner, he too had to leave and report the result.
The three figures quickly disappeared into the dense forest, as though they had never been there at all.
In the clearing, only Lillian and Rex remained, staring at each other in confusion, along with the suddenly acquired heavy backpack still clutched in Rex’s hands.
Silence lasted for several seconds. There was only the faint sound of wind brushing across the blackened ground.
“He... he just got taken away like that?” Rex stared in the direction they had disappeared, his face filled with bewilderment. He instinctively hugged the backpack tighter. “Those teachers looked so serious. Did he clear it? That’s amazing!”
“The moves just now were so fast I could barely see them! That fireball came flying in—WHOOSH—and he dodged it in a flash, then BAM... and when that sword came out at the end, it felt like even the air froze! He’s way too strong!”
Lillian also stared in that same direction, her ice-blue eyes churning with complicated emotions—shock, lingering fear, embarrassment, and a reluctant admiration she could not deny.
Hearing Rex praise Ryan so openly seemed to stab at a nerve. She suddenly snapped out of it.
“Hmph!” She turned her face away sharply, lifting her chin out of habit and trying to make her voice sound full of disdain. But the faint tremor at the end of her words, and the fingers unconsciously twisting at the corner of her clothes, betrayed her. “Wh-Who knows what kind of trick he used! Even if... even if he really was kind of impressive... that just means he hid himself well! He’s been acting all along!”
And yet, when Rex mentioned that final breathtaking sword strike, the image of that deep blue light and the plunging temperature reappeared in her mind of its own accord, making her shiver.
That had not merely been impressive.
That had been a kind of strength that chilled a person from the depths of the heart.
Rex, of course, failed entirely to notice the complexity hidden in her words. Instead, as though he had found someone who shared his opinion, he nodded eagerly in agreement. “Right? Right? You think so too, don’t you? No wonder he managed to beat Senior Eleanor flat!”
“Wh—?!”
Lillian reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. She instantly exploded, whirling around with ice-blue eyes that looked on the verge of spitting fire. Whatever complicated feelings had been left in her heart were burned clean away by that single outrageous sentence.
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