AWOOOOOOOOOO—
Ellin froze where she stood.
Her hand instinctively reached for her Ancient Wooden Staff, but of course, it was not there.
She had not brought it because she had assumed she would have no use for it.
She had never imagined a situation like this in the first place.
As Ellin’s face turned deathly pale, Aisel shouted.
“Ellin!”
Aisel knew perfectly well that shouting when wolves were nearby was not a good idea.
But staying quiet would not stop them from coming after them, either.
‘In that case, I might as well.’
Aisel firmly grabbed the dazed Ellin by the shoulders and met her eyes.
“Ellin, calm down. Don’t panic. Breathe in slowly and take a deep breath.”
Aisel’s shout seemed to bring Ellin back to her senses somewhat, and she stared intently at her.
“Wh-What do we do? What are we supposed to do? Maybe this is some kind of cruel prank… But this is the Imperial Capital, isn’t it? This makes no sense.”
Aisel swallowed a groan as Ellin tried to deny reality.
It was not unreasonable for her to think that way.
By common sense, wolves should never have lingered in a place frequented by people.
‘But what if they’re real?’
It was several times better to overreact and laugh awkwardly about it afterward than to keep insisting that it could not be true until the worst happened.
Aisel did not really know what to do, either.
She did not know, but…….
“So!”
Genius or not, a student was still a student.
In a real crisis, what mattered was not talent, but the ability to use whatever skills one possessed right then and there.
Aisel instinctively decided that she could not count Ellin as part of their fighting strength and drew her sword.
If she started panicking too, they were finished.
Aisel drew a deep breath and steeled herself.
‘I have to handle this properly, at least.’
“Get a hold of yourself. There’s no need to panic, so stay calm. We’re going back to the clearing now. If we find anyone separated from the others along the way, we’ll bring them with us. Understand?”
“But I……”
“Don’t worry. They’re only wolves. If we stick together, we can beat them. There’s nothing to be afraid of. The only thing we need to do is stay calm. Panicking will only cause an accident.”
Ellin stared blankly at Aisel after hearing her somewhat harsh, forceful words.
But after a moment, she nodded.
“Good. We’re not pressed for seconds, but we don’t have time to stand around either. I’ll take the lead, so follow me. If you see anything behind us, tell me immediately.”
“Yes.”
Even as she spoke with such confidence, Aisel was every bit as anxious as Ellin.
She shoved the dozen or so questions filling her mind into a corner.
Why wolves were here was something she could think about after they escaped.
The only thing that mattered was the situation directly in front of her.
Nothing else deserved consideration.
Aisel consciously clenched her teeth.
Otherwise, she felt as though something weak and pathetic might slip through her lips.
Screams echoed from somewhere in the forest.
There was crying and sobbing from people unable to control their panic.
Confused shouts erupted here and there, mixed with other shrill voices.
It was chaos.
The entire forest was drowning in disorder.
“Over there……”
“I said it’s fine!”
Aisel shouted before she even realized it.
Even though she had not meant to.
She hesitated for a moment after letting her sharp temper show so openly, but soon widened her eyes and glared.
Ellin stopped mid-sentence and swallowed hard.
Sounds tangled with other sounds until it became impossible to tell anything apart.
How many wolves were there?
Who were they currently hunting?
Who had already been injured?
Just as the howls reverberated throughout the forest, panic seemed to spread like a contagion, blanketing the ground in fear.
Without sound or warning.
The moment one looked around, there was nothing but a fog of noise so thick that it seemed to darken everything ahead.
It was becoming hard to breathe.
How many people here were still managing to stay calm?
Ellin gritted her teeth and finally forced herself to continue.
“There are people over there. If we’re going to bring others with us, we need to go.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Even without her staff, a genius was still a genius.
Murmuring spells as they walked, Ellin located students one after another.
After pushing through the undergrowth, they discovered a group of three—two men and a woman.
When the bushes rustled, the three apparently decided they were under attack and tightened their grips on their blades.
Aisel called out before getting any closer.
“Don’t attack!”
“…People?”
As the tension visibly eased, Aisel surveyed them.
Every one of them was trembling.
Someone had to become the center that held this chaos together.
‘And who exactly is supposed to do that?’
Aisel ground her teeth inwardly.
There was no need to ask whether they were all right.
She already knew they were not, so she boldly skipped the empty pleasantry.
“We’re heading to the clearing first. What are you going to do?”
“The professor. We have to find the professor……”
“And how exactly are you going to find the professor in this forest when there are wolves around? Do you actually have a way to find him?”
When Aisel growled the words in a low voice, one member of the group fell silent.
“If you don’t have a concrete plan, come with us. We’ll head to the clearing first and gather everyone there. If we’re all together, the professor will probably come to us as well.”
“What about getting out quickly and calling for help?”
Aisel swallowed her irritation.
“Even then, we can’t just abandon the others. It’s much safer for us to gather together than let ourselves get picked off one by one. We can call for help afterward.”
While everyone hesitated over the decision, a small flame shot into the sky.
Silence descended before someone muttered through clenched teeth.
“That came from the clearing.”
“This… looks like the professor’s.”
The group hurriedly turned toward Ellin.
“How could you possibly……”
Then they recognized her and fell silent all at once.
The Overall Top-Ranked First-Year Student.
Even among countless acclaimed prodigies, she was openly hailed as the greatest.
Ellin stood head and shoulders above the rest.
“That Mana belongs to the professor.”
No one argued.
Ellin was probably the only person there capable of identifying someone’s Mana Trace from a tiny flame like that.
Aisel looked around at everyone and summed up the situation.
“An open clearing is safer than a forest where we don’t know where something might attack from. The professor is there too, and that flame was probably a signal telling everyone to gather at the clearing.”
Once she received their unspoken agreement, she added one more thing.
“We’re heading to the clearing as well. What about you……”
“…We’ll come with you.”
“Good.”
Once everyone agreed, they continued toward the clearing while gathering anyone they encountered along the way.
By the time their group had grown to around ten people, they finally reached the clearing safely.
But the sight that greeted them was anything but hopeful.
Ellin covered her mouth.
Aisel’s reaction was not much different.
Despair, crying, retching, wounds, blood, and the sour stench of vomit drifting from somewhere.
One person in Aisel’s group finally succumbed to the atmosphere and vomited.
Ignoring the disgusting sound, Aisel approached the haggard professor.
“Professor, what about everyone else……?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Aisel, the Second-Ranked Student among the Department of Knighthood’s second-years, Professor.”
Hearing that, the professor clutched his head.
He hardly inspired confidence as the person responsible for holding everyone together, but without even him, they would have had no center at all.
“The others are still… out there.”
“Then we have to go rescue them!”
“We can’t!”
A professor was saying that he could not do it.
There were students out there.
They could be attacked and killed at any moment, yet he was spouting pathetic, weak words.
A professor should never say something like that.
Those were words he should never have allowed himself to utter.
How was that any different from saying he was abandoning his students?
Aisel’s brow furrowed instinctively.
But before her anger could rise any further, a sense of wrongness surfaced instead.
“Why? Why can’t you……?”
“Have you encountered one?”
The professor bit his lower lip so hard that it looked ready to bleed.
Encountered what…?
When Aisel did not answer, the professor looked at her almost accusingly.
She still did not understand what was happening.
After a pause, she asked again.
“No. We only heard ordinary wolves……”
“They’re Demon Wolves. Monsters. Right in front of me… Right in front of me, the students……”
As though blaming himself, the professor raked his hands through his hair and began trembling quietly like a broken man.
Aisel sensed something beyond mere unease—something fundamentally wrong—and unconsciously took a step backward.
‘Demon Wolves? Why would Demon Wolves be here?’
Then had the howl they heard earlier belonged to a Demon Wolf?
Something like that was not an enemy students could handle.
If they encountered one, they would be completely……
Aisel hurriedly shook her head.
This was not the time to think about that.
“Then we should at least go down the mountain and call for help! You should have evacuated the injured!”
The professor raised his head and stared at Aisel.
His expression said that he had no idea what he was supposed to do.
No, it looked even worse than that, as though he were sinking into a bottomless mire.
Aisel was about to press him further, but stopped herself.
He was staying here in some vague attempt to hold his ground, but he had completely lost his bearings.
He looked exactly like a man driven into a corner.
“We’re trapped. There’s a Barrier.”
Aisel froze at the professor’s words.
There were Demon Wolves in the forest.
Injured people were everywhere.
They lacked weapons and combat personnel.
And now there was a Barrier?
They were trapped?
Despair began creeping upward from a corner of her heart.
She shook her head, desperately trying to cast it away, but once fear had taken root, it refused to disappear so easily.
A few tears leaked from her eyes, but she clenched her teeth fiercely.
“Then break the Barrier……”
“I can’t. My specialization… isn’t Spell Studies.”
This professor was hopeless.
He had no will to solve the situation at all.
There was nothing there but an adult who could barely take care of himself.
Aisel forcibly put strength into her voice.
“Anyone here who can fight! Anyone who knows about Barriers! Raise your hand!”
Despite how fiercely she shouted, no one responded.
Most of them simply trembled helplessly, steeped in despair.
Trembling would not provide an answer to this situation.
For what felt like the hundredth time, Aisel clenched her teeth.
‘I wanted to save this, but…….’
If she did not somehow change the suffocating atmosphere, they were finished.
Steadying her breathing, Aisel poured Mana into the blade of her sword.
The intense glow drew people’s eyes.
One by one, they raised their heads.
Then several more.
Once more than ten people were looking, eventually everyone turned toward Aisel.
Aisel drove the point home.
“I’m Aisel, the Second-Ranked Student among the Department of Knighthood’s second-years. I heard that the creatures here are Demon Wolves, but they’re still within a level I can handle.”
Within a level I can handle?
Not even close.
If that were true, she would have already gone out there to kill them.
“I can slaughter Demon Wolves.”
Even fighting a single one in a one-on-one battle would be difficult.
“Trust me.”
I don’t even trust myself… and I’m telling everyone else to trust me.
Aisel sharpened her gaze.
‘But I have to say it.’
“There’s no need to sit here trembling. Is there anyone here who can fight? Anyone else from the College of Martial Studies who volunteered for this practicum with me? And anyone knowledgeable about Barriers? Raise your hands.”
One hand rose, then another.
Those with swords at their waists stood up, while Mages carrying Wands merely lifted their faces and looked toward Aisel.
“Honestly, I don’t know whether this will work. I don’t. But we have to try something instead of sitting here in a daze and waiting for someone to save us. The Mages here should work with the professor to break the Barrier. And the rest of us……”
She trailed off and looked around.
There was no Swordsman here at her level.
Still, they were better than nothing.
Aisel took a breath before continuing.
Even so, she could not abandon the others.
‘I’m sure I was saying exactly that only a moment ago.’
Yet now that she knew the creatures were Demon Wolves, fear prevented the words “I’ll go rescue them” from leaving her mouth so easily.
Having made her decision, Aisel opened her eyes.
“We’ll defend this place.”
The moment she learned they were dealing with Demon Wolves, going back into the forest became impossible.
She could all too easily envision them being ambushed among the trees and wiped out.
‘Are we really left with no choice but to rely on everyone fending for themselves?’
Please, do not stay isolated.
Please make it to the clearing on your own.
There was nothing she could do but hope.
Just as the situation seemed to have been roughly organized, one Mage spoke up.
“There’s a third-year. A female senior who specializes in Spell Studies, and she’s especially knowledgeable about Barriers. If it’s her, then surely……”
Aisel turned around sharply.
The student from the Department of Magic hesitated when their eyes met before continuing.
“She could probably… break it.”
It was not certain.
But…….
Aisel steeled herself.
“Then where is that senior?”
Instead of answering, the Magic student merely looked toward the forest.
Ha…….
Aisel barely managed to swallow the curse rising in her throat and swept her gaze across the group.
“…Any volunteers? To go find that third-year senior?”
No one raised a hand.
Of course they did not.
They had barely escaped that living hell moments ago.
There could hardly be anything more insane than willingly going back inside.
Dangerous Monsters could emerge from anywhere.
This was a real battle with absolutely no protection.
Entering the forest was practically the same as walking to one’s death.
“…I’ll go with you.”
“Ellin?”
Aisel had been lost in thought, but she immediately cut her off.
“No. You stay here and help dismantle the Barrier.”
“I don’t know much about Barriers either. I wouldn’t be much use here. More importantly, how are you planning to find a single person in a forest that large?”
‘And how exactly are you going to find the professor in this forest?’
Those were the very words Aisel herself had spoken only moments ago.
Ellin threw them straight back at her.
Her cool, penetrating gaze seemed to say that she had seen through everything.
Aisel, momentarily lost for words, bit her lower lip.
Ellin pressed the point further.
“You saw me find those people earlier. Let’s move together. I’ll find that senior, and you keep watch ahead of us.”
The moment she said those words, what they had to do next was practically decided.