The Protagonist Already Knows

Chapter 35: Day 1 [2]

Suddenly, as I rapidly approached the ground, I felt my entire body slow, and as I looked up, a parachute had popped up from a backpack that had somehow appeared on my back unnoticed.

Countless parachutes popped around me, covering the light-blue sky in a wide array of colors.

Within a few moments, I finally landed on the beach outside the fortress, feeling the burning hot sand immediatly, and spotted a couple of my advisory members.

...

...

...

After about five minutes, all 35 had gathered at the fortress’s portcullis, curiously gazing through the fortress’s open gate and standing under the shade.

Inside the stone-brick fortress, a lush green garden and a stone-brick courtyard surrounded the central castle keep, which was connected to the fortress’s ramparts only by bridges in the sky.

There were only two buildings of note beside the castle keep, which stretched upward and above the fortress’s four watchtowers.

The barracks and chapel, both about the size of our classroom.

Finally, snapping everyone out of their awe, Ren’s calm voice sounded.

"Everyone, check your backpacks: it was the only thing given to us."

Glancing down at my clothes, which had transformed into a black athletic bodysuit, I opened my backpack, finding only my sheathed Dao.

Similarly, other students pulled out their weapons, and, comically, Ren pulled an entire recurve bow out of his backpack.

Finally, all of us walked into the fortress, Ren catiously clicking a lever on the other side to shut the castle’s portcullis behind us.

*BANG*

Standing at the front of the crowd of students, Ren smiled and announced.

"Alright, everyone, get to defending! I believe...there should be cannons and artillery should be stowed away in the barracks, so let’s get them set up on the walls."

"As per the plan, Lily and Leon will leave the fortress and scout outside, while the rest of us set up defenses on the walls!"

Obeying our elected Advisory Exam Leader, everyone moved toward their barracks beside a few, including Ren and Envagel, who were designated to begin exploring the castle keep.

Leon scoffed before leaping onto the fortress’s walls, his hands and legs somehow sticking to the stone-brick wall and ignoring gravity.

Then...he simply ran up the vertical wall, scaling the 35-foot wall in a matter of seconds and landing on the beach outside the fortress.

"..."

Alternatively, Lily just...walked straight and re-opened the portcullis, exiting the fortress and casting an ice spear that flew backward and hit the lever, re-closing the portcullis as she left.

As my classmates began pushing various heavy artillery, like cannons and crossbows that shot arrows three times the size of my body, into the courtyard and onto vertical platforms that could be raised with ropes up to the rampart, I was again reminded of my lack of strength.

The artillery was almost ten times our weight, and yet my classmates moved them around easily while I could barely get one to budge.

Feeling myself useless, I discreetly sneaked off and entered the dark castle keep, which had no light source whatsoever besides the natural sunlight leaking in through the windows.

Additionally, there was no furniture inside the first floor of the keep...or as I later learned, any of the floors.

The 7-floor castle keep was simply filled with nothing...but no one seemed to mind it.

After all, we’d only be in this world for an hour, right?

Recalling Ren’s calm tone, I chuckled for a moment.

We would be spending the next 7 days here.

Because of the arrest of the professor Ren had reported, the Sunken Pearl had decided to conduct a full internal investigation into its staff.

They didn’t want defenseless first-years on campus during this time at all to prevent potential kidnappings, so they had decided to just make us stay here for 7 days straight instead of an hour each day.

Headmaster Cynthia had simply justified saying this by telling parents...that we would be "learning" survival skills, which were much more important than regular classes.

No showers, no professionally prepared food, no comfortable mattresses, and no privacy for these wealthy students... it was no wonder this place would soon descend into chaos.

Seeing everyone outside in the courtyard working up a sweat, I couldn’t help but sigh.

They were using up all their energy because they believed they could simply return to the real world after an hour to rest and eat delicious food.

No one was concerned with finding a source of water, food, or a place to sleep.

Should I step in?

Shaking my head, I just walked up the stairs to the fourth floor of the castle keep.

Using my future knowledge here and potentially messing up the timeline just to help out my classmates from future exhaustion, thirst, and hunger was stupid.

Sure...if lives were on the line, I might have done something, but this simply wasn’t worth it.

The third floor of the Castle keep was completely open with no walls, hot air rushing at me from every side: Four bridges connected each side of the castle keep to the fortress’s walls here.

Stepping onto one of the sky-bridges, I activated Anubis’s Ferry and instantly flew up and into the open sky like a bird, avoiding the sight of my classmates.

Cutting it close, I flew over the fortresses’ walls and managed to descend to a reasonable height before my body re-materialized.

Accurately falling onto the branch of a coconut tree on the island’s beach, I grabbed about three coconuts and placed them in my backpack.

"..."

Then, I sat there, waiting...and waiting, until finally, after about seven minutes, I could finally gather enough mana to activate Anubis’s Ferry.

Flying over the massive lake that surrounded the island, I landed on the outskirts of the massive forest and paused for a moment.

Pulling up my bodysuit’s sleeve, I smiled and gazed at the metal armband lying firmly on my wrist.

To the academy’s examiners, it probably looked like a simple keepsake, so they didn’t bother to remove it when I entered the virtual reality world.