KOREAN NATIONAL ACADEMY MIDTERM EXAM (SPRING)
DAY 9 OF 10
Suho traveled light. Without cooking utensils and pots anymore, it was easy. He snacked on leftover jerky and foraged what he could from the forest, exploring places he’d never been before, tearing through all the monsters he met on the way.
Many had already been hunted down by the time he got active. The midterm never restocked them, so the students only had what was given to them at the very beginning. Still, there were some remaining, and Suho had a knack for finding where they were.
Tracking was easy. It was something he’d done all the time in the countryside. Monsters were like bulldozers through the underbrush and foliage. Yet, with only a little over a day left in the exam, it might not be enough.
image [https://i.imgur.com/tTD3Um1.png]
Yuna and Sunghyun were far ahead. Sunghyun had over 1,000 points more than he did. Without finding a high-ranked monster that gave a lot of points at once, he wouldn't be able to get close. But that’s what everybody was hoping for: an easy, valuable target. It wouldn't just walk in front of him and throw itself at his feet. Especially this late in the game, when there weren’t many monsters left.
If Suho wanted to have a shot at even the top 3, then he couldn't leave it up to chance.
He opened his Animal Instinct skill page and stared at it for a moment. It was listed as a passive skill. What that meant was that it cost 0 magic power to use, so it was automatically active all the time. But there were ways to shut it off, like with a stop pill, and there were also ways to turn it up a notch.
Animal Instinct was a skill that had proven to be able to sense danger when it was nearby. So if Suho put more than the usual 0 magic power into activating it…
Then could it sense monsters that were much further away?
Only one way to find out.
Suho focused and tried to feel it out. His magic power stat was only 24—the lowest by far compared to his other stats. But it still was within the D-rank range, so if he used it, there should be a visible difference in effect.
He’d never really used magic before. But he referenced something Sunghyun had showed him, during one of their training sessions. His magic power stat was slightly higher, at 29. And he could use basic fire magic, though mostly just as a light source.
“Rather than trying to think directly about fire,” Sunghyun had said, “it’s more effective to imagine the things required to make fire. Like oxygen, and a spark.”
That was how he lit his magic. Suho had tried, but he had no talent for elemental magic. The situation now was different.
Animal Instinct was, as a passive skill, constantly a part of him. If it required activating magic power somewhere within his own body, he was confident in finding a way to do that.
Suho felt his aura starting to flare up, a dark blue glow rising from his skin. Aura wasn't linked to the magic power stat, but it felt similar. A strength that was foreign to regular humans. It flickered and flowed. He tried to focus and find its equivalent, its parallel stat that powered magic—
Like a wire had finally connected somewhere, Suho located it. The magic power in his body flowed through his veins, a part of everything, but at the same time separate.
His heart beat faster as he made the dormant strength wake up. It wasn't the most cooperative—he understood now why he wasn't fit to be a mage like Yuna was—but it started to move.
Suho could only think of one place in his body where the Animal Instinct skill could be based.
The skill said “gut”, but he forced all the magic power he could muster up to his head.
It was like an electric surge had gone straight to his brain. Suho’s eyes flew open, and the world at sunset was suddenly pure white.
Things were frozen to him. He could see the outlines of the trees, of the ground, and of monsters in the distance—everything overlapping like it had collapsed into a single, 2D picture. And as his eyes scanned the silhouettes…
He saw something he knew he had to find. Because the skill was telling him: that one’s the most dangerous.
Suho snapped out of it and fell backwards, thrown off balance by the sudden change in scenery and out of energy after using up his magic power on that. He rubbed his eyes. Everything was back to normal. It seemed like less than a second had passed.
He picked up his spear and stood.
Now, he had a target to track down.
⊕
Suho found himself picking his way through some of the thickest brush he’d ever encountered. Feral dungeon vines and bushes grew so dense that he was cutting a path for himself, thorns tearing through his uniform as he went.
It really hurt to see his clothes getting damaged. He was used to making his closet last for years. The good news was, it was clear that nobody had gotten to this place before he had. Deep within the forest, behind the bramble and undergrowth, was a split in the ground. It seemed unassuming, but as Suho looked down into it…
It stretched into pitch darkness without end. A cave. And he was close enough now that Animal Instinct was warning him without needing to be activated on purpose:
There’s something alive down there.
Suho put down his backpack and dug through it. He’d brought the tin of stop pills he’d used during his spar with Jaejin. He pocketed them just in case. He also grabbed a flashlight he’d bought from the store on day 5 and strapped it around his wrist.
He left everything else at ground level. If the cave was a confined space, then it would only burden him to bring too much.
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Suho lowered his legs into the hole and squeezed through. It was, as expected, pitch black inside. He clicked the flashlight on and scanned his surroundings. The cave was cramped, but not to the point of being claustrophobic. He could stand and make his way through the passage without too much trouble, though it required some ducking and weaving.
Suho continued forward. As he shined the light across the walls, he saw signs of something being there.
Claw marks. They weren't huge by monster standards, but they certainly didn't come from normal animals like mice or lizards. They were high up on the wall, like something about the size of a cat had been crawling across the damp, slippery roof.
Suho followed the traces deeper. The passage began to open up, the sound of water dripping echoing around the walls. He finally found himself in a larger room, close to about the same size as his dorm.
He didn't need Animal Instinct to know that something was here. He could smell it—the miasma in the air, but also the basic odor that came with wild animals. The must was everywhere.
Suho stayed where he was and quietly tapped his watch. It scanned the area around him for monsters.
image [https://i.imgur.com/CugwtHL.png]
Bingo. He’d come looking for a high-ranked monster, and he’d found one. Normally students would be stupid to take on a B-rank monster alone, but…
Suho gripped his spear tighter and closed the monster ID window. He’d reviewed the midterm’s monster catalog several times. “Mother bat” was listed on it. It was a monster with low defense but high attack power, which is probably why it had hidden itself away all this time.
It was too bad that Suho had been the one to find it. He was confident in taking a hit.
Suho turned the flashlight up towards the ceiling of the room. Among the dripping stalactites was a sleek, black figure, wrapped inside its own wings.
The mother bat’s head snapped towards him, red eyes glaring.
It shrieked and flew at him.
Suho dropped the flashlight to the ground, letting it dimly illuminate the room from there, light bouncing off the walls. He gripped his spear and swung.
The bat dodged midair, beelining straight for him. It wove through all of his movements without a problem, whizzing by Suho’s ear as he dodged its fangs. It nicked his shirt collar.
Suho turned just as the bat, which had landed on the wall, opened its jaws.
KYEEEEEEEK!!!
He winced as it screamed. The sound echoed around the room, amplifying it even more, making his ears pound with pain. The bat wouldn't stop. The shriek continued, almost like a physical barrier that was pushing him back. It was so loud that the flashlight on the ground blew out, sending the room into darkness.
And then the bat went on the attack. Suho put his spear up just in time to block it from latching straight onto his face. He had some experience fighting in the dark, at night in the mountains. But this was a different level of darkness. Down here, there wasn’t even moonlight to help. And the sounds that he was using to determine the monster’s location kept bouncing off the walls and muddling his senses.
The bat flew away, but it kept coming back in, sometimes getting blocked, sometimes managing to sink its teeth into Suho’s skin. He’d throw it off quickly, and the damage was mostly superficial, but this couldn't go on forever.
Suho took a stance at the center of the room, purposefully leaving his back open. He counted in his head. Every time the mother bat attacked, it was at roughly the same interval of about three seconds.
…3.
Suho swung his spear around, catching the bat perfectly in the side of the head, judging by the grotesque CRACK that resulted from the contact.
It crashed into the cave wall and tumbled down to the floor. But it was still alive. Suho hadn't gotten a point acquisition notification, and it was making noise. Little chirps, indignant—rising in volume until its voice was clearly filled with rage.
Then it started talking.
Wait—
Suho’s brow wrinkled.
It wasn't speaking any real words. But it sounded like a voice now, screaming, yelling, shouting, a vague mimicry of what human anger probably seemed like to the bat. The gnashing of teeth and beating of its wings against the wall were added like percussion. And suddenly—
All of that sound shot right at Suho. It hit him like a tidal wave, then surrounded him. He couldn't tell if it was magic or if it was just the bat’s innate power, but both his high resistance stats were barely enough to keep it from knocking him over. It pressed in on all sides, becoming more claustrophobic than the cave itself. Covering his ears did nothing, and he couldn't waste his hands on that anyway.
He kept his eyes trained to the source of the sound, to make sure the bat didn't attack him while he was disoriented.
It didn't need to.
I told you not to do that!
The voices had morphed into something he could recognize. Suho’s eyes went wide. He clenched his teeth, taking a step back. His head was putting things together that weren't really there.
Why are you like this again?
His blood ran cold. He knew what was coming. Even in a place where it couldn't possibly get any darker, he could feel his vision starting to go black.
Suho charged at the bat, trying to power through the wall of sound that was pushing against him—the skill getting stronger as he approached. He couldn't let himself black out again. Especially not here.
He swung at the mother bat. It leapt at him, passing by the blade of his spear and going for his face. He caught it with his hand before it could latch onto his neck. Suho threw it as far as he could, which wasn't much in this small space.
His heart was pounding. There wasn't much time until he fainted, at this rate. It was far too late to try and take a stop pill. Trying desperately to cling on mentally wasn't having any effect. So instead—
Suho bashed his forehead against the shaft of his own spear, as hard as he could.
Last time, he’d woken up because Dongil had thrown a phone at his head, after all.
That finally cleared up the fog that had been taking over his mind. And just in time. The mother bat was coming back at him, fangs bared.
Suho had wanted to do this like a proper hunter—to fight using the skills he had picked up during the semester, and to use a real weapon while doing it. But he no longer had that luxury.
Suho dropped his spear. He blocked the bat with his hand, its teeth sinking deep into his palm, and grabbed it by the back of the neck.
He wrapped his other hand around its head and squeezed.
Pop. Crack. Crush.
The bat shrieked, but its mouth was full of his flesh. The sound didn't come out right. It wriggled, clawed at his arms, tried to activate all sorts of skills…
Suho kept squeezing. He gritted his teeth, not wanting to imagine what this must've looked like with the lights on. Until finally…
Silence.
The bat was limp in his hands.
Suho caught his breath, waiting for one more thing to happen.
Ding.
Congratulations!
You’ve defeated a B-rank mother bat.
Contributors:
1 - Lim Suho (+250 points)
Suho let out a huge sigh of relief and loosened his hands. The bat fell from his grasp. His palms were slick with blood. He couldn't operate the touch screen of his watch like this, so he felt around the cave walls and followed the passage back the way he came.
The moonlight that greeted him was more than welcome. Suho collapsed on the ground, chest heaving. He’d barely avoided catastrophe. After letting himself relax for a moment, he wiped his hands off on the grass and lifted his wrist to check the rankings.
image [https://i.imgur.com/DHEHLUK.png]
He’d finally made it to third place. Yuna and Sunghyun were still far ahead, but…
Suho smiled to himself. He’d told people he wasn't interested in competition or ranks, and he still kind of believed that. They weren’t that important to him.
But this was kind of nice.