Chapter 52: To the City Wall
Nothing else happened for the rest of the break.
When the teacher teleported back into the classroom, he looked surprisingly happy. However, seeing his smile, the students’ moods plummeted instead.
"Let’s go to the city borders," the teacher announced.
Nooo!
(;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`)
That was what everyone thought, and some even groaned out loud. Even some of the cool and calm once had panicked face.
Looking at their reluctant faces, he said strictly, "Although we are somewhat safe within the city, do not be fooled by this illusion. At any time, you could lose everything you cherish and be forced to live in the wilds, constantly hunting monsters just to survive."
Seeing the doubtful expressions on some of the kids’ faces, he continued, "The students in the upper classes have seen what the world looked like before the System came, they understand the reality of the world so they work hard to become strong."
"So that when tragedy strikes again, they are prepared."
Hearing this, many of them quieted down but they still looked like they were about to be sent to the slaughterhouse.
(＞﹏＜)
The teacher then left the classroom and the students reluctantly followed.
Carrying Sage in his arms, Night followed him as soon as he left. He was not scared of fighting; in fact, he actually liked this situation.
The only problem was: how was he supposed to hide the sudden disappearance of the monster corpses?
He lightly mumbled his worry, and Lucy soon replied telepathically, Just pretend you are putting them into your spatial ring.
Raising an eyebrow, he mumbled back, The spatial ring is not nearly big enough for that.
Lucy laughed. And how are they supposed to know that? Don’t hesitate to summon us if you are in any real danger.
Lucy:
(¬‿¬)
Night nodded.
Soon, they were outside the main building and reached a white dome-shaped structure.
Night was surprised; this was the very first building he had seen in the city that wasn’t painted yellow.
Inside the dome, the ground was carved everywhere with symbols arranged in a circular fashion, looking like a magic circle. Standing on either side of the circle were two mages.
When every student including the teacher entered the circle, the mages activated it.
The surroundings glowed brightly, the mana density in the dome skyrocketed, and then the circle flashed.
In the next moment, Night felt like he was hurtling through space at a high speed.
He quickly checked his arms and noticing that Sage was still safely with him, he heaved a sigh of relief.
In the web novels he had read in his past life, teleportation sequences like these were usually the exact moments when something terrible happened.
But nothing went wrong. As they followed the teacher outside the destination dome, Night saw the massive city wall looming ahead.
This specific sector of the wall had wide stairs leading up to the ramparts. Following the teacher, they climbed to the top of the wall.
Looking out over the front, he saw an endless forest spanning the horizon. Down below, right near the base of the wall, he saw a large number of soldiers in military uniforms actively fighting off monsters.
Monster corpses already littered the ground, but new beasts kept rushing out of the forest toward the wall.
The monsters looked like massive bison with tiny, disproportionate wings on their backs. And they were yellow in color - the exact same shade of yellow as the city buildings.
Now he was genuinely curious.
Previously, he had thought the city was painted yellow simply because it was the architect’s favorite color.
But looking at this, the reason seemed to be something else entirely.
Interestingly, the section of the city wall right in front of the forest was painted pitch black.
Looking further down the wall in the distance, he saw that the rest of it was painted yellow. Curiously, that yellow section of the wall had no monsters charging at it.
Maybe these monsters naturally ignore the color yellow? he theorized.
He was brought out of his thoughts by the teacher’s booming voice. "What are you guys waiting for? Start walking toward the edge and prepare yourselves. The monsters won’t kill themselves!"
As he said that, the teacher walked toward a soldier who looked like a high-ranking officer. He tapped his chest three times in a formal salute, and the officer did the same.
The officer spoke up, "Mike, are you sure these kids can survive? They didn’t do so well last time, except for a few odd ones. I don’t want my soldiers to be distracted by having to protect students instead of defending the city."
So the teacher’s name is Mike... He sure is loud... Night thought.
Mike replied confidently, "Don’t worry, Colonel Sam. My students have trained hard to prove themselves with utmost dedication. They can easily make short work of monsters on this level."
"Also, the Academy will be responsible for their safety as always, so your soldiers need not worry about protecting them."
Colonel Sam sighed. "Okay. They can head down past the wall."
Saying this, he tapped on his helmet and gave a few quick orders into his comms. Soon, an opening appeared in the wall’s defenses and a wide stair-like structure unfolded, allowing the students to descend safely to the battlefield.
....
Sara’s POV
Sara, after seeing that Night was fine and that he hadn’t needed to use more power than necessary during the duel, she returned to her office to continue the surveillance and to do some office work.
Soon, she received an urgent update from the Desert City military command stating that the number of monster attacks had spiked again, and there had been a few deaths on their side.
Deaths...
In the last six years, a soldier rarely ever died on duty.
In fact because of the city’s incredible defenses, the Desert City residents enjoyed the kind of peace only seen during the old times - back when there was no apocalypse and the ’Nightmare’ hadn’t yet appeared in the Antarctica region.
Now, that specific region was known globally as a ’Death Zone’, ranked first among the many terrifying Death Zones on the planet.
It was termed a Death Zone because even the absolute strongest among humanity would inevitably die if they ventured into those places.
Of course to a weakling, every region outside the city walls was technically a Death Zone.
Thinking about the military report for some time, the students current progress and also taking Night’s unique situation into consideration, she had decided to alter the schedule.
In the mornings, when the monster hordes were at their peak according to the reports, the upper-class students would defend the city.
And from the afternoon onward, the newbie classes would take over the defense.
She had previously informed the teachers about this sudden change in schedule, which was exactly why Night and his class were now slowly making their way down toward the monster horde.
In stealth, she followed Mike’s class all the way to the city wall.
When Teacher Mike confidently told the Colonel that the Academy would be responsible for the students’ safety, he explicitly meant her.
With the city’s powerful magic arrays at her disposal, protecting them was easy for her.
....
Night’s POV
As he walked down the stairs toward the battlefield, he checked his energy reserves.
[Energy Value (EV): 11,001]
Taking a sharp breath, he didn’t know if he should cry for the massive loss or be happy. He had lost more than 10,000 EV in an instant.
All of that EV went into boosting Sage to match his current level. It couldn’t be helped; it was an automatic process required by the bond.
Since he was about to enter a life-or-death battle, he decided to be extremely cautious and upgrade some skills. He absolutely refused to depend solely on the Academy to keep him safe.
From what he could gather, he was attracting trouble left and right, so he decided it was best to play it safe and spend some EV to strengthen himself now.
He quickly checked his status.
Status
Name: Night (Nightmare)
Race: Homunculus (Artificial Human)
Class: Summoner
Level: 16 (EXP: 985/1700)
Energy Value (EV): 11,001
Aspect: [Nightmare]
Titles: [Awakened], [Ambitious Hunter]
Skills: [Sensitive Nose (Common) (Lvl. 10)], [Beast Instinct (Common) (Lvl. 10)], [Basic Knife Proficiency (Common) (Lvl. 10)], [Pack (Rare) (Lvl. 4)], [Advance Claw Proficiency (Rare) (Lvl. 1)], [Wind Dash (Uncommon) (Lvl. 1)], [Wind Overdrive (Epic) (Lvl. 1)], [Summon (Common) (Summons - 1/1)], [Body Modification (Common) (Lvl. 1)]
Unique Skills: [Nightmare Domain], [Summon Evolution]
First, he checked his strongest buff.
[Wind Overdrive (Epic) - (Lvl.2) - Cost: 1000 EV]
(-_-)
Skip.
[Pack (Rare) – (Lvl. 5) – Cost: 500 EV]
What is with these upgrade costs... do you want me to sell my kidneys?
Skip.
[Beast Instinct (Common) - (Lvl. 11) - Cost: 1100 EV]
The cost for Level 11 was not reduced as he had naively hoped it would be upon leveling up.
What to do? he pondered.
Night:
(?_?)
[Beast Instinct] was a must. At times it could be slightly unreliable against truly masterful opponents, but it had also saved his life multiple times.
As a Summoner, the [Pack] skill was a must-have as well for team synergy.
[Wind Overdrive] was the only major boosting skill he had that drastically enhanced his physical attributes.
After pondering for a moment, he realized it was better to spend his energy to survive now rather than hoard his EV for the future.
More strength meant more ways to find avenues to generate even more EV safely.
First, he upgraded his [Beast Instinct].
Checking the updated skill prompt:
[Beast Instinct (Common) (Lvl.11)]
[Description: Gives the user the instincts of a beast. Mark a territory and you will be notified when something enters it.]
Wow!
The description had actually changed and he immediately felt the skill shift quantitatively in his mind.
He could suddenly "feel" what level of threat each student around him possessed, despite none of them having any active intention of attacking him right now.
This is just a Common skill? What will happen if I level up an Epic skill to Level 11?
He was incredibly excited to find out, but that expensive experiment would have to wait.
Next, he focused on [Pack].
He upgraded the [Pack] skill all the way to Level 10. It cost him a painful 4,500 EV. Together with the 1,100 EV spent on Instinct, he was burning through his reserves fast.
[Energy Value (EV): 5,401]
Before he could even think of upgrading any other skill, the yellow bison-like beasts were upon them.
≡≡≡≡(🐗 Ò_Ó)
