NOVPUB
Chapter 31: Regimen Begins: Specialist Hunt
May 11, the snd day of our special training regimen. The teachers woke us up at exactly 7 a.m. and handed us a piece of paper that read: 'Today's Task: Specialist Hunt.' All specialists will be hunted today. If your groupntains a specialist, your job is to protect them. If you don't have a specialist, you must hunt one down from any group, incapacitate them, and bring them back to a designated area to receive a reward of five noble points. Conversely, if you keep your specialist from getting captured, all group members will receive five noble points.
Incapacitate? That can't be right! Additionally, for today's training regimen, you are required to travel a minimum of 50 kilometers. A flood of thoughts rushed through my mind as I read the paper. They wanted us to travel 50 kilometers—more than a full marathon—through a dangerous mountain while either attacking a member of another group or protecting a member of our own. And the most shocking part was that they were handing out noble points like candy.
Noble points are a system created by the government to appoint honorable nobles. These points are mostly given to those who serve theiruntry in the military. If you accumulate enough noble points, youuld bme a noble. It would take a hundred thousand noble points to bme part of a tier 1 noble family.
Since Ava was a specialist, it meant my group would be on the defensive today. The teachers also handed us watches to check if wempleted the 50 kilometers. If we were running a marathon, it would take roughly six hours tomplete. Butnsidering we were on a mountain with no clear paths, it would take a full day for a regular human. However, we aren't regular humans, so it shouldn't take that long.
Seeing the urgency of our situation, we packed our bags and left camp as soon as possible. Once we were a good distance away, we stopped to discuss our plan.
"What should we do?" Ava asked.
"It might seem hard, but we should take the more rugged path through the mountain. It will deter anyone from following us," Leto suggested.
"That's true, but wouldn't it be dangerous?" Ava replied.
"I don't think that's the besturse of action," I chimed in. "The studentsming after us aren't a real threat. The problem ismpleting the 50-kilometer hike. We can easily fend off any attackers."
"I'm not fighting any students from this school, and neither are you." Leto said
"Ha! You're telling me not to fight back when they attack us?"
"That's exactly what I'm telling you. Theyuld get hurt as a result."
"No can do. Fighting back is a good way to succeed, and an even better way is to make sure they get hurt so they won't try to attack us again. I'm not expecting you to hurt someone from your own class, so the best strategy is to target Class B students since none of us are in Class B. Maybe we can break a leg or two; it can serve us later on too by lessening thempetition."
"Are you mad?! This isn't the time for jokes. How can you stand there with a straight face while planning to hurt someone? You are a psychopath, you know that?" Ava asked shocked by my suggestion.
"That's the actual point of this exercise: to eliminate thempetition. The specialists aren't the ones who are going to get hurt; it's the ones going after them. This whole thing seems like a way to thin the herd."
Leto stepped up to me and grabbed me by thellar. "Why don't I do us all a favor and eliminate you right now?"
"Be my guest. This exercise is the perfect excuse for your death,"
"Both of you, stop it! We're losing time!" Ava interjected.
Just then, we heard a rustleming from the bushes, and a group of three boys emerged.
"What are you guys doing?" one of them asked. "You guys having a quarrel?"
"That girl—she's a specialist! She's in my class!" another one shouted.
"We have to do something about them," I said, inching closer to the group of boys.
Before Iuld launch an attack, Leto grabbed my arm, nudging me away from them. His firm grip shifted my focus, and in an instant, one of the boys attacked—it was a Class A student from Ava's class. I stared up at him as his claws came barreling down toward my face.
Given the situation, I would have to take out Leto along with the three boys, and Ava too if she got in my way. Just as things were about to take a turn for the worse, the boy stopped, his claws inches from my face.
His body was frozen, unable to move.
"Noah, you always seem to cause problems wherever you go. I swear, werewolves are such troublesome creatures," Ava said.
"Ava! What is this?" he shouted,nfused. 𝓷ℴ𝓋𝓅𝓊𝒷.𝒸𝓸𝓶
"My snd gift—blood manipulation."
From what I remembered, Ava had said that vampires receive three gifts when theyme of age. The first was the binding vow we used to make antract between us. This must be the snd one—blood manipulation. What a nasty ability to have. I must say, it suits her well.
The others, sensing their groupmate's distress, launched an attack against Ava. Without much effort, she stopped them in their tracks, just like she had with the first boy. She dramatically tightened her fist, causing the boys to keel over in pain. Youuld hear the agony in their voices as they screamed for her to stop.
"Ava, stop this!" Leto barked at her.
"Sin is partially right. We must fight back. I don't see the sense in putting ourselves in danger just to protect the likes of them. Though I don't agree that we should hurt them severely, just enough that they won't attack us again," Ava replied. She released her hold on them and marched up to the boys sprawled out on the ground. "I'll let you go with a warning for now, but if you attack us again, I'll show no mercy."
At Ava's words, the three boys sprang to their feet and took off running through the forest. All in all, things turned out well; we were on the righturse. Though Leto seemed displeased.
Lucifer was right—angels are delusional creatures. Their selfless need to protect every human was downright stupid. After all, you can only protect a few.
At least Ava seemed to share my mindset.
