“Obviously, you’re not going to actually kill him,” Drim made sure to hammer that point. “If you get any of your color on Pox’s fur or clothes, you pass. Don’t be too hesitant. The little fluff ball is surprisingly durable. But if you go out of your way to actually try and hurt or kill him, well, graduating from this place will be the least of your worries.”
“Oh, and this will be our only activity for the remainder of the day. So that means once your ‘kill’ is confirmed, you have the rest of the afternoon off—free to do as you like, but I do have some literature I’d like you all to read at some point in your spare time. Doesn’t have to be today. However, this also means that until you pass this test, you won’t be allowed to leave. No dinner, no bed, for however long it takes.”
“Easy!” Wricker was the first to take the challenge. He sprinted over to the rack of weapons, of course grabbing the great axe. The man then coated the edge using the can closest to him, not even checking the color—a lovely shade of red that made it look like he’d already killed a hundred beasts.
He then charged over to the waiting monster and swung with all his might. It was a horizontal slash, that if the blade was sharp, would have cleaved Pox’s head clean off. The attack was so fast that it was a blur, and the human already had a self-satisfied smirk at his carnage.
But then the monster was nowhere to be found. Had he been hit so hard that he was sent soaring. A few of the other students glanced around, trying to find their so-called target. Only when Wricker got a lick to the face did he understand what had happened. The human then held out his axe in front of him with Pox standing on the flat of the blade.
“What the?” Wricker shook the creature off his weapon and then tried to follow up by chopping his axe down at the ground while the monster laid still. But Pox did a slight roll at the last second, easily dodging the attack. This only annoyed the human more, who unleashed a fury of swipes, all of which the agile little fluff avoided with a series of condescending hops.
As Wricker continued his failed assault, the rest of the class took their time picking out their weapons and coating them. “What’s GotchaGoo?” One of the students confusedly studied the can they were holding.
“Ugh,” Drim groaned, both at the product and that he’d have to explain. “It’s a failed commercial product designed for training situations like this, so you can identify when you’ve made a hit. The creator desperately wanted my group to invest in it. And after we refused, he sent us a few dozen pallets as ‘samples’ to try and change our mind. Though I think he just wanted to move some of his supply.”
“And now we’ve been trying to get rid of it, since it can damage any recycling machinery or drainage if disposed of normally. At the very least, it does its job in this instance. And it comes in a variety of colors. Speaking of, I don’t know what the rest of you are waiting for. This doesn’t have to be a one-at-a-time test. As long as no one else fighting Pox is using your color, feel free to gang up.”
The students took that advice and about a dozen of them, one of each color, all began to hunt the mini monster. For all the good it did them. Since there was only personal incentive, there wasn’t much in the way of teamwork. And Pox had an easier time dodging the group than he did just one fully-focused person. They were practically tripping over each other, the crowd colliding and just making it all the more awkward, harder for them to try and attack properly.
Hagath was the first one to complete the assignment. She waited patiently outside the huddle of students that were all shamelessly ganging up on the creature. But when the right moment came, she dove straight into the pack, slipping through the cracks, catching Pox off-guard and nicking him in the side of his face with the tip of her sword.
While the little creature was obviously a bit annoyed by the blindside, he was content a moment later. Pox wiped the GotchaGoo off of his neck, which came off easily since at least that part of the product worked well. But he then immediately shoved his small fist into his mouth and slurped down the colorful goop as a snack, since it could only qualify as trash.
Unexpectedly though, the victorious woman didn’t rush off immediately. Instead, she stuck around to watch the rest of the class, loitering close to the instructor. The woman asked him a dozen questions about monster hunting, wanting to pick his brain for all she could now that they actually had an impromptu private lesson.
She was rather studious, and it only reinforced Drim’s belief that the woman must have been a former knight. He wondered what would happen if Jaid were to show up. Would they recognize each other? Hate each other? Or maybe they had no shared connection whatsoever, but it would still be interesting to see with their similar personalities. Maybe he’d have to think of an excuse to drag along his fellow Fiend one of these days.
“Are we allowed to use ranged weapons?” a girl wielding a crossbow with a small quiver full of cushioned bolts approached the teacher to ask. She would be taking over the color that Hagath had freed up.
“That’s certainly fine,” Drim confirmed. “Though I don’t know if it will go as you expect.”
But the girl still tried it anyways, despite the teacher’s wary words. Pox caught on immediately, but instead of dodging the attacks he veered right into them. The monster opened his mouth wide and caught the bolts, quickly munching them down one after the other as he continued to juke the rest of the students. They were nice little treats for all of his hard work.
As the hours of the afternoon trickled onwards, a handful more students managed to pass. Wricker finally managed to get a slice in that coated Pox’s suit red with blood-looking goo. He’d used the crowd to his advantage, waiting for the creature to be cornered with nowhere to run by the rest of the class.
Kleff eventually got his win as well, but only when the students had begun actually working as a team. They’d started timing their attacks, taking them in turn and rallying as small groups to ambush the monster from multiple sides at once. He was allowed to actually use his regular tonfas, but had been restricted against using any of its mechanisms. And he’d managed to trip Pox’s legs when he was ducking from a barrage of other weapons.
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Sadly, though, he was still in the minority of the group that had passed thus far, even though the day was encroaching into the evening. He went to get his dinner, but like a few others, he eventually returned to the field after his break to watch the rest, bringing along the reading material that their teacher had suggested.
Surprisingly, he found that the fighting had almost entirely stopped, but not because the remainder of the class had passed. No, they were all huddled together as a group, their butts on the ground, some using each other’s backs as leverage to stay upright. All of them were exhausted, some fully collapsed with their arms draped over their eyes.
“How the hell is that thing so Cosdamned fast?!” one of them panted.
But the answer to what was meant as a rhetorical question became immediately obvious. Their target wasn’t getting a break like the rest of them were. Instead, he was still being chased around, but not by one of the traditional students, however. Drimini, still clad in her school uniform, was chasing the monster around, hammering after him with a giant wooden mallet that she’d created with her own powers. She was trying to pass the test too.
Pox, who was originally a rather lackadaisical creature who spent most of his days sleeping, eating trash, and clinging to the back of Drim’s head, now lived a rather active lifestyle. Everyday he played with his sister who seemed to have a near limitless supply of energy. So as a result, he had become quick and squirrelly himself in order to keep up with her. Not that it really showed since his fur made him look just as squishy and chubby as he always was.
Drimini finally overtook her prey and smashed him down with her mallet, flattening him like a pancake. She giggled, but then absorbed the weapon and helped Pox back up to his feet. After checking to make sure he was okay—though still obviously reeling—she hugged him and then flew off to find more fun elsewhere, proud of her accomplishment.
“Wait, he has to be haggard after a beating like that, right?” One of the students realized. “Maybe this is our chance if we all rally together.”
But the opportunity was too short lived. Pox reached down into his pouch, which since he was clothed made it looked like he was shoving his hand straight down into his pants. The mini monster then pulled out a handful of uranium candies and stuffed them into his mouth. After happily chewing, he swallowed it all, and then his entire demeanor changed. The creature was bursting with energy once again, infused with power and the strength to carry on.
This only led to an even bigger morale drop from the watching students, who had lost their one hope at an easy win. Eventually, though, they did pull themselves up from the dirt, pushed through the pain and exhaustion, and resumed their assault. That was the real point of the test, and their teacher smirked from a distance, having long since made himself scarce to really increase the feeling of helplessness.
The test was never meant to be a big issue for the students who were already well versed in the ways of monster hunting or such a burdensome life in general. It was to weed out the weaklings and force them to push past their limits while hungry and exhausted. That was the most important part of being a hunter in The Slayer’s mind: the will to keep going and climb over the hump when things got difficult. If anyone actually abandoned this test, he’d have them removed from the class since they didn’t show the drive to improve.
To their credit, though, none of the students bowed out, even when the sky was pitch black and the exterior lighting had to be cut on to illuminate the Field. Kleff had wanted to stay and support them to the end, mostly Jordi who was still amongst the handful of remaining students yet to ‘slay’ their target. But even he reached his limit at some point in the dead of night, having already read through the suggested readings thrice.
He had just enough energy left though to help out in another way. “He’s not like other monsters,” the man called out to the remaining students who were doubled over from exhaustion yet again. “That much should be obvious. He won’t try to fight back out of instinct or self-defense. Since he won’t come towards you driven by emotion, you need to find another way to lure him to your advantage.”
Honestly, Kleff didn’t have an obvious plan to follow up his own advice, his brain was too tired. But hopefully it would inspire something in one of them who had moved well past exhaustion into borderline mania. He wanted to stay and watch the results, but if he didn’t get to bed soon, the next day would be ill conducive to learning, something he couldn’t allow. And their teacher was undeniably recording the whole thing anyways.
It took a while for the remaining few to come up with a decent plan, realizing that they’d have to do something when their limbs stopped responding how they were supposed to and were no closer to actually landing a hit. At some point, they ceased attacking entirely and vanished from sight, though never fully left the area.
Pox got bored waiting around, so he laid down and tried to get some shut-eye himself. While it looked like he was sleeping, his ears were clearly still at attention, waiting to snap him out of his daze at any moment. But even the monster didn’t expect the next thing that made a light noise. It was a paper ball that had been chucked nearby.
And then another one landed a few feet away, and another. Obviously, it was some ploy by the students, but the Teaching Assistant didn’t really care. He had run out of treats in his pouch, so who was he to refuse a late night snack? The fluffball uncurled and got up to follow the trail of paper balls, gorging himself on one after another, until he finally fell right into their trap.
Jordi jumped out of a pile of leaves that had been roughly halfway through the trail. Instead of using her previous practice spear, she had a goo-covered knife in her mouth, and her hands were completely empty. The woman lunged forward, snagging Pox in her arms and then squeezing him tight into her chest with all of her strength. She swiped her face downward, coating the top of Pox’s head with the GotchaGoo from her blade.
“I got him!” the girl spat out her knife and called to the others. They quickly approached, all driving their own weapons forward as Pox desperately tried to writhe himself free. But there was no escaping that woman’s death grip. All he could do was bite her arms, but then he’d risk getting disgusting human blood in her mouth, and the creature would rather just take the loss than deal with that.
The monster’s face was ‘slain’ from all sides, painted with a rainbow from all the different colors of the remaining students. While it could be considered a cheap victory, a win was still a win and they’d all cooperated in the end, though Jordi had done the bulk of the work. Even if Drim would disqualify them later, which he wouldn’t, they didn’t have the strength to carry on, putting it all in that last gambit. Then finally, they all marched to bed as the sun began to rise, desperate to get any sleep they could before their next lesson.
Out of courtesy, their instructor delayed their start the next day by an hour, but he also forbade the entire class from eating breakfast in exchange. The Slayer had something special in mind for the next meal.