Yuji’s camp burned brighter than most that night — a wider clearing, reinforced barriers humming faintly at the edges, a fire built up generously enough that it pushed the surrounding mist back a good ten feet in every direction.
Mikey sat near it with Kei close by, the noble friends scattered around in various states of half-sleep, the whole arrangement carrying the particular tension of people who’d decided comfort mattered more than caution.
Yuji stood up abruptly, rubbing the back of his neck like something had crawled across it.
“Ugh,” he muttered.
“Something’s…”
Mikey’s eyes came up sharp, wind stirring faintly around his shoulders even though there was no wind to speak of anywhere else in the clearing.
“What now, Yuji?”
Yuji paced a few steps, thunder crackling faint and involuntary at his fingertips.
“I feel something out there. Something heavier than the usual beasts.” He shook his head, like he was trying to shake the feeling loose.
“This isn’t normal island mana. It’s worse. Way worse.”
“Seriously?” Kei’s voice stayed cool, but her attention had sharpened.
“You’re not just saying that because you’re in a mood?”
“I swear it’s real.” His jaw tightened.
“My bloodline senses this kind of thing. I’m not imagining it.”
Mikey rose slowly, and the air around him seemed to go still in a way that had nothing to do with wind at all.
“I feel it too,” he said quietly.
“Something’s watching us tonight. And it’s not the island’s usual mana signature. This is something else.”
“Let’s pull everyone together,” Mikey said, already moving.
“Nobody dies tonight because they were too proud to ask for backup. We’re stronger as one group than scattered across a dozen little camps.” This chapter was copied from novelping(.)com without permission.
“Grouping everyone might just attract more attention, though,” one of the noble friends said, hesitant.
“Better that than getting picked off one at a time in the dark.” Mikey didn’t wait for further argument.
He gathered a short burst of wind under his feet and leapt into the nearest tall tree, voice amplified by the same wind as it carried out over the jungle canopy in every direction.
“Everyone! Gather at the central clearing! Something dangerous is here — now!”
In Nagi’s camp, Gota jolted upright from his watch shift the moment the sound reached them, alert in a way that suggested his body had understood the urgency before his mind fully caught up.
Kakame’s shadows twitched restlessly at his shoulders.
Nicolle sat up fast, blinking sleep away.
Nagi’s eyes opened calmly, like he’d been listening for exactly this the whole time he’d appeared to be resting.
“Mikey’s calling everyone!” Gota was already reaching for his staff.
“What’s going on?”
“Sounds urgent,” Kakame said, already scanning the tree line.
Nagi stood without hurry, closing his hand around the hilt of his short sword.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“No point ignoring something like that.”
“I’m coming too,” Nicolle said, already on her feet.
Students converged on the central clearing from every direction over the next several minutes — some still half-asleep, others alert and weapons drawn, all of them carrying the particular unease of people woken by a warning rather than an alarm.
Mikey stood at the center with Kei beside him, a soft, cold glow of ice light lifting from her palm to illuminate the gathering faces.
Yuji stood near them with his arms crossed, tension still visible in the set of his shoulders even now.
“Listen up,” Mikey said, voice carrying easily across the clearing without needing to be raised.
“Yuji and I both sensed something strong out there tonight. Not the island’s normal beasts — something higher. A+ rank, maybe above it. We don’t know numbers yet.” A pause, deliberate. New chapters come out on NovelPing first.
“But it’s watching us. All of us.”
A murmur rippled through the gathered first-years, fear threading through more than a few of them.
“Stay in your groups,” Mikey continued, “but keep those groups close together tonight — no wandering off alone, not even to the latrine, not even for five minutes. We’ll rotate watch shifts across the whole camp instead of each group handling it separately. If something attacks, we fight together. Understood?”
Nods rippled outward.
Nobody argued.
Gota leaned toward Nagi, voice low.
“He’s really stepping up. Didn’t expect that from someone with his rank.”
“Good,” Nagi said, watching Mikey with something quiet and considering behind his usual calm.
“Better than everyone panicking in their own separate corner of the jungle.”
High above the gathered clearing, hidden in mist thick enough to swallow sound as well as light, the man in black watched the combined fires bloom brighter as the students clustered together — watched, with something that might have been mild appreciation, how quickly the strongest one among them had organized fear into order.
“How efficient,” he murmured, mostly to himself, the words coming out smooth and unhurried, almost admiring.
“Herding the frightened little things into one convenient pile. He’s making this easier than I expected.”
One of his demons shifted restlessly in the dark behind him, hunger radiating off it in waves that had nothing to do with patience.
“Master. They know we’re here.”
“They *suspect* something’s here.” His smile didn’t reach anything resembling warmth.
“There’s a meaningful difference between suspicion and understanding, and it’s a difference I intend to enjoy for as long as it lasts.” He tilted his head slightly, studying the clustered fires below like a man reading a particularly satisfying opening move in a game only he could see the whole board of.
“Let them feel clever for grouping up. It won’t matter in the slightest once we decide to collect.”
The demon beside him let out a low, eager growl, and for just a moment the man’s controlled stillness cracked into something closer to genuine delight — a soft, private laugh, gone as quickly as it arrived, folded back beneath that same unbothered calm.
“Patience,” he said, to himself as much as to them.
“The boss taught me that much, if nothing else. Good things come to those willing to watch a little longer.”
Below, the combined fires of the central clearing burned on, small and warm and entirely unaware of exactly how closely they were being read.
*End of Chapter 16*