One hour and fifteen minutes had passed since the start of the exam.

I wanted to believe that after escaping the maze I was at least halfway to the goal, but I had no way to be sure of that. My latest glance at the terminal showed me that two people had passed already. That left ten more spots remaining. No matter what I had to make sure I took one of them.

After ten years in the program, I absolutely refused to fail here.

Memories of my time in the program played in my mind as I ran through the ravine. Although the four other graduates that had come here with me had gone through the same program, we had never met until after our graduation roughly one month ago. Kids were divided up into groups of roughly twenty. Your group was the same one you did basically everything with. We trained together. Ate meals together. Slept in the same room. Besides those in your group, the only other people you would see would be those in charge of the program.

For ten years, the other kids in my group were the closest things I had to friends. We weren’t able to leave the facility we were in, but we had each other. I kept to myself usually, but there were a couple of others I made occasional small talk with.

I could even recall one time some of us snuck out of bed and raided the pantry for food. We put to use the stealth training lessons we had learned and somehow pulled it off without anyone finding out. To this day, I wasn’t entirely sure how we managed to not get caught that night, but we secretly had a special little feast with the food we stole. That was the happiest I had seen most of the kids in my group in the entire time I had known them.

But reminiscing on the past wouldn’t do me any good now. I wouldn’t be able to see their faces anymore. Because only one person from each group could graduate from the program.

The layout of the ravine seemed fairly straightforward compared to the maze from earlier. It was a one way path for the most part, with different paths at various altitudes since nobody seemed to come out from the maze at the same passageway. Every now and then, the paths merged or diverted, but they all kept going in the same forward direction.

I had seen a couple of other examinees here and there, but they were either at a much different elevation than me or were on the other side of the ravine. I could probably use my grappling hook to reach the ones at higher elevations, but I didn’t see the point right now. Fighting other examinees was only going to waste energy, and by the time I climbed up or slid down they would have a lead on me anyway.

After several more minutes of running, I stopped to take a short rest. Between the maze and now the ravine, I had used up a fair bit of stamina. I could keep running for a bit longer if I wanted to, but pacing myself was also important.

Pulling out my terminal, I checked the map again. Now that I was out of the maze, it seemed to show a much wider area from my location. The top right still showed that only two people had made it to the end so far. The only question now was how many others were ahead of me.

Figuring out the trick to the maze had cost me a bit of time, but it also wasn’t obvious enough that just anyone would figure it out right away. Regardless, I couldn’t afford to wait around for too long. I needed to keep moving.

Cutting my rest time short, I closed my terminal and slid it back into my pocket. I was about to move on when suddenly I heard something. The sound of pebbles tumbling down the cliffside.

And it was coming from above.

Looking up, I gasped as I saw a blond-haired teenage girl sliding down the cliffside towards me. In her hands was a six inch knife. She was only a few meters above me when our eyes made contact but once we did, she kicked off the cliffside and swung her knife down at me with a vertical slash.

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“Meurt!”

I managed to react just quick enough and dived out of the way, barely dodging the slash. I rolled and jumped back a bit to further distance myself from the girl as we both stared each other down.

I was relatively confident in my hand-to-hand combat skills, but my opponent had a weapon. And after dodging her initial strike, she was bound to be feeling the pressure. Even a rat could be dangerous when cornered. However, if I could take the knife from her, I would have a weapon of my own for this exam.

Whether taking the knife came before or after killing her though, I would have to wait and see.

The girl spoke to me again. “Je ne t’en veux en rien, mais je ne pourrais continuer sans ta mort.”

Whatever language she was speaking to me, it clearly wasn't english. This exam attracted people from all over the world so I suppose it wasn't too surprising that I would encounter someone speaking another language. But regardless of her native tongue, my goal remained the same.

Our stalemate ended as the girl decided to take the initiative and speed towards me. I stood my ground, eyeing her carefully. She brought her arm holding the knife to her side, suggesting she was going for a horizontal slash. As she closed in, I sped at her at the last minute, causing her to mistime her swing. I grabbed her arm holding the knife before she could swing it all the way and swept my leg under her, allowing me to knock her over and pin her to the ground.

The two of us struggled with me on top, trying to twist her wrist and force her to lose her grip on the knife. Meanwhile she was doing all she could to throw me off her.

Finally, she succeeded as she shoved her knee into my gut and tossed me over her. I tumbled along the ground. But even though she had thrown me off, I had also succeeded on my end as well. The knife was out of her hand lying right beside her.

Not allowing her a chance to pick up her weapon again, I lunged forward and tackled her. In my rush, my technique had been sloppy however and we were now rolling around in our struggle rather than me pinning her.

The girl glared at me and kicked me in the gut once again. "Dègages!"

The blow knocked me back as my back hit the ground hard. However, as I tried to get up, I noticed the knife near me. In her struggle to throw me off, she hadn't realized which direction she had kicked me.

"Meurt!" the girl shouted as she ran at me.

Adrenaline was driving this girl at this point. She had lost her composure and failed to take notice of her surroundings. And now she was going to pay dearly for it. Waiting for her to come closer, I grabbed the knife behind me. Once she was close enough, I lunged forward and dashed past her, slashing at her abdomen in the process.

A pained cry escaped the girl as she fell to her knees, covering the wound with her hands to desperately stop the bleeding. I turned back to her and walked closer to finish her off.

The girl turned towards me. Tears were forming in her eyes as fear became etched over her face. "Je t'en prie non! Ne me tue pas!"

"Whatever you're saying, I can't understand you anyway." I told her. "You initiated the attack. The result is on you."

With that, I quickly moved in and dealt the killing blow. The life faded from her eyes as her body went limp. I pulled the confiscated knife out and wiped the blood off it with my shirt. Afterwards, I swiped the sheath for the knife on the girl's hip and slid the blade into it before kicking her body off the edge and watching it fall down towards the river below. If she wasn’t dead yet, she definitely was now.

Sticking around here wasn’t going to do me any good, and if my skirmish just now attracted any more people looking for a fight I needed to leave before I wasted even more time and energy. Avoiding a fight was best for now until I had at least recovered my breath from this one. So I hurried onward, hoping the goal wasn’t much further.

Obtaining a knife had been a lucky break for me. Of the weapons I had trained with during my time in the program, I was the most comfortable with knives and daggers. They were sharp, lightweight, and easy to conceal. I wasn’t sure if any of the chests in the exam had guns, but regardless I was only a half decent shot to begin with.

I had made it through the maze, secured both a weapon and a grappling hook, and was making progress towards the goal. Perhaps along the way, I would even be lucky and run into one of my companions.