Ranking System

"How is everyone?"

"My shoulder has been scratched."

Clyde, who was fighting two bears, had been injured. He gave a wry smile, not expecting to be hurt this quickly. Alya, recognizing this, had hurried and tried to heal him to her fullest ability.

"Your injury has been healed. Clyde, how are you feeling?"

"I'm feeling in top condition. Alya, thank you for your help."

Looking at Alya, I could see that she was blushing. Clyde was too dense to recognize her feelings, but that didn't matter to me.

"Beatrice, how about you?"

Unlike Clyde, I could see no scratches. I wanted to ensure there were no hidden injuries in an unexpected situation.

"I'm fine. I had fought with the smaller one. It didn't bring too much trouble."

"I see... then are there any other monsters in this cave that have monsters similar to these levels?"

If there are monsters stronger than these bears, we have to leave. While this fight wasn't threatening, there were other monsters we could hunt.

"There shouldn't be. If there were, a monster here could hide their presence."

"Then we will continue exploring. Clyde, Alya. Are you both ready?"

Ruining their moment, I had to call them out. The two stood up and were ready to continue traveling.

After walking for a few minutes, we eventually reached the end of the cave. What we found was the nest of the bears.

There wasn't much to this place, but when you look at it, these bears had a treasure for us. We could use these monsters as our reward.

"Who knew we could be this lucky?"

Clyde shouted at our fantastic luck. I also can't help but be amazed by our luck. With this, our lead would increase by a considerable margin.

"How are we supposed to fit all of these?"

"Didn't you listen to the rules?"

"I can't help it... There were too many people distracting me."

In a critical exam like this, he manages to do something wrong. I had to explain what we do with all these corpses.

"We can call for an instructor to collect everything we have."

"But won't that invalidate our points? We didn't hunt these monsters."

"No, these count. We hunted the bears for these. Isn't that our objective?"

Clyde couldn't find anything wrong with my logic. All we could do was hope these things counted. The teacher had given us a signal by chanting how they would appear. Artifacts these days are so useful.

"Alya, do the chant."

"Eh???"

Surprised by my call, Alya turned flustered. I don't know who came up with the chant, but I was definitely not going to do it.

"Oh! Mighty teacher! Please answer our call!

A teleportation circle had appeared on the floor, and a teacher we recognized had appeared. I can now see why this chant was added.

"My students, it looks like you have done something interesting."

"Mr. Rosewell."

Mr. Rosewell is a narcissist and is our fighting instructor, known for his lance. He was competent in his teaching. The only flaw I could see was his narcissism.

"Mr. Rosewell. We have limited our inventory space."

"As expected of my students. Your points will be recorded by the staff. Do well, and you will gain an opportunity."

After taking our hunted monster's corpse, Mr. Rosewell disappeared. The prize was never mentioned, but if our teacher says there is an opportunity, something great will happen.

Everyone understood what he meant. Our group's motivation increased with Mr. Rosewell's words, and we left the cave.

~

[Charles POV]

This irritation that I'm feeling... While snooping on the group of four, the two siblings gave off this feeling of wanting me to eliminate them.

Personally, I had no qualms about killing them now, but their talent was something I couldn't ignore. They are younger than me, but their strength is already this high. I wonder what skills they have. Even so, my gut instinct told me to eliminate them now.

"Let's just meet them now."

After meeting them, I will make my choice then.

[Third-person POV]

The four had exited the cave, but Mira and Clyde felt the overwhelming power coming back at a magnitude of 100.

"Clyde! Mira! What's wrong!"

Alya screamed, seeing the two about to be crushed by the sheer force of an entity. Beatrice tried to check on their conditions.

"I didn't think you would fall upon meeting me."

A different voice had appeared, which spooked everyone. Charles descended upon them and dispersed all of the pressure, crushing them.

The four looked at Charles with caution. To the four, this was an attack. After all, this pressure of his had hurt Mira and Clyde.

"No need to be so hostile. I didn't think you two would be crushed. If you two will allow it, I would like to ask you to put away those irritating auras you two have."

Sensing Charles's nonhostility, the four lowered their weapons.

"What irritation are you talking about?"

"The black light that is coming out of you It's irritating. Anyone longer, and I would have to wipe you."

Hearing Charles' threat, Alya paled. Out of these four, only Alya recognized him. Considering what he had said, he would stay true to his words if Clyde and Mira didn't stop bugging him.

"Wipe us out? Do you think you can do that here?"

Beatrice shouted in anger. Being treated like ants is an insult to anyone. Beatrice held her weapon and pointed it at Charles.

"Beatrice! Stop!"

"It's been a while since someone in this world talked to me like this in this world. How cute."

By showing Beatrice her place, the pressure the twins had felt earlier was now on Beatrice. Charles' pressure was crushing Beatrice's body. She felt her bones being crushed every second of it. At this rate, she would be immobile for the whole exam.

"Please stop!"

Alya begged Charles to stop what he was doing. But before he could do that, Clyde instinctively attacked and tried his best to take Charles down.

"Naive."

Instead of being struck, Charles had Clyde kiss the ground. Charles didn't need to move a finger and had already destroyed two of the team members.

Mira somehow guessed what aura Charles was talking about and retracted it. She stood there, thinking about what she could do.

"I apologize for what my brother and friend had done. Could you please release them?"

Knowing that they stood no chance against the man in front, all Mira could do was beg to keep her brother and friend safe.

Charles wanted to see how Mira would react in the face of desperation. Instead of stopping, he pressed his power harder against the two. To his surprise, instead of Mira getting stronger, it was Clyde.

"PLEASE STOP!!!"

Alya didn't sense Clyde's power rising, so she could only scream in desperation. Once again, Charles went ahead and increased the power, again cracking Clyde's bones.

Like a cockroach, Clyde's health didn't decline. Even though Charles wasn't using much strength, he was impressed with how Clyde could grow.

"Do you also want to give it a try? Your brother had surpassed you in a few seconds."

See how much Clyde has grown. He had offered the same training he had given to Clyde. Mira stared at Charles in disbelief.

She wasn't sure if Charles was joking or not. She had seen how Clyde had grown incredibly, but Mira felt that kissing dirt wasn't something she wanted to do in public, and hearing that Clyde was stronger didn't sit well with her.

"Please do."

"Huh???"

Alya was confused about this discussion. She was confused by why Mira would accept such a proposition. Mira was the most reasonable person in the group, so she thought she had misheard when she heard what she said.

Charles, without waiting anymore, pushed Mira down to the ground. With a lot of pain pulsing inside her, the sound she tried to make was invalid.

Unlike Clyde, Mira's power didn't grow. Charles increased the power a little more to check if anything were to happen, but in the end, Mira fainted with nothing happening. With Mira down, Charles glanced at Clyde.

"You. What's their name?"

"Eh???"

Alya, who had been in the middle of this chaos, was stunned by Charles's sudden question. While she hasn't been attacked, her three friends were. She didn't expect Charles to come here to do this stunt. Now that he had asked for their names, she was about to blank out.

"The twins are Clyde and Mira."

Alya spoke in a hurry, scared of pissing Charles off. Charles nodded at her and looked at Clyde once more. Before leaving, he told Alya one thing.

"Tell Clyde that I will be seeing him again."

And just like that, Charles had disappeared. For the first day, Alya felt that it was too hectic. She looked at her comrades, who were asleep. Knowing that it was dangerous here, she individually dragged them back into the cave.