Sora ran as his life depended on it, panting heavily while some formed sweatdrops would hit the seemingly bottomless colded floor.

“It is quite ironic that even the treadmill has shown more warmth in form of mercy for me,” Sora grinned as he continuously panted heavily.

At every turn there would be a female student stationed awaiting him, and they would approach Sora in the most unconventional way of pretending to walk “his way” and attain a five metres radius. In which would be enough for them to not being to close as well as Sora feeling threatened enough of wanting to reposition himself elsewhere.

“I need to re-gather my troops,” Sora hushed to himself and started to type away on his phone while peeking through every corner has he tried to make it back to the male dormitory.

Emergency message was sent to every male adventurer, “Party leader, Sora, in danger, requesting backup and a new route to a safe location, gather all males at whatever room you find available for the thirty of us!”.

Sora headed down the left stairways, as the middle and right one had been successfully closed of through being fully occupied with scattered females around them. A glimpse of the exit lobby to male dormitory was short-lived, as when Sora got around the corner a group of female scattered and half of them were coming his way.

“Damn it,” Sora cursed quietly. “Airi must have re-informed them to barricade me off the second floor, luckily I am down on the first floor,” Sora whispered his new gathered information to himself to reassess the situation.

New message, “Party leader, Sora has reached first floor, exit lobby has been sealed off, I repeat, exit lobby has been sealed off, there is no available route left for the male dormitory we have been sealed in, and why has no one replied back?”. Sora attempted the sent button and an error message came through, “This message has been unsuccessfully sent, please try again”, and Sora started laughing to himself with one hand covering the left side of his face.

“I am in a pickle now, I need to find them on my own, they have Counter-UAV or something for our new specialized school phone. It seems like the principal favours the female students over us adventurers in order to make the quests harder for us,” Sora grinned while exploring all the possible routes on the first floor.

As Sora skimmed through the routes and where they had stationed the female outlooks, a thought popped up in his head to navigate a possible way to find his lost and scared comrades of this female invasion, “If I was a scared and socially awkward gaming NEET male and had to hide, where would I be?”.

“Janitor’s closet!” Sora smiled. “Just hope it is spacious, else there is no way I would find the all thirty of them inside there,” Sora added sarcastically.

On his way to the janitor’s closet, Sora laid low profile and used both a high evasive and low threat technique learned through playing games. Fading in with the background and patiently waiting until female groups rotated their watches led to small gaps until Sora could successfully manage his way through the corridors bit by bit, and it had finally led him to the janitor’s closet.

“Please let someone be in here,” Sora gulped as he turned over the doorknob.

Swiftly as he pulled open the door, Sora was immediately dragged in by a massive force and the door behind him shut. An aura arising from the dark with an awkward and scared feeling emanating from it was felt through the front of Sora.

“Never mind guys! It is just Sora! You finally made it!” Kazuya addressed the rest of the guys cowering behind him with relief.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“You finally made it!” Negi added.

“What took you so long? We sent the message two hours ago!” Kazuya anxiously stated and inquired.

“They shut all cell phone reception off, counter-uav similarity, none of our messages got through to one and another!” Sora explained his previous circumstance and their situation.

A light emerged from behind and Sora took notice that the janitor closet was more of a room with a spacious wide roomed floor to use and every male adventurer had successfully made it here so far.

“So we will now commence plan, secret and evasive studying!” Sora declared and everyone lined up and began sitting on the floor side by side in order from up- and down row, spreading like a real classroom. “They will not think twice of looking in here, even they would not assume we are that stupid or scared to hide all of us in a supposedly cramped space, would they?” Sora grinned, and he was back to his usual self as he began the lecture.

Sora began writing and drawing on the wall with some charcoal he found in the janitor’s supplies inside the olden style cabinet drawers.

“Listen up fellow adventurer’s there is two things you need for an exam, high APM, and knowledge. The high APM is required for you to swiftly write and beat the timer of the exam. While on the other hand the knowledge is equivalent to a dungeon’s guide or learning the lore for it, hence the more you know, the easier the dungeon becomes to clear. Understood? This is merely a dungeon we have to clear, and we have the right tools of practice before we venture on into even attempt the so-called dungeon, “exam”!” Sora heroically spoke and explained in both a stoic tone and manner.

Briefly after the speech, Sora explained the best way he could how to memorize every subject and material for the upcoming exam test. Sora used every game terminology, dungeon references and skill sets, attributes and whatever else he could think of or find applicable to compare with. Therefore Sora would attempt and bring out the inner gamer in them to merge and blend in with their real life intellectual part, in terms of being a so-called mundane student which undertakes school system based exams.

After the session was done, it appeared already to be late into the night and all female students had dispersed and completely vanished from the first floor, thus enabling the male students of the lobby exit. However the male students still proceeded with caution one by one, and exited slowly, leaving Sora the last one to be, since he was the most wanted one which was a common agreed notion amongst all of them. On Sora’s way out, a dark silhouette had successfully emerged from the shadows, previously hidden behind the right pillar of the lobby exit. The silhouette grew clearer and clearer as it slowly approached Sora, and perfectly stopped and revealed itself at the center from a beam of moonlight glimpsing in diagonally and being reflected from the entrance lobby’s windows, and revealed itself to be Airi.

“You need to stop appearing as a silhouette in front of me,” Sora grinned.

“Funny,” Airi commented.

“So, to what do I owe this unexpected honor at this late hour? Visitation hours have long expired after your underhanded methods of attempting to stopping us males from beating you tomorrow, well that and considering how late it is,” Sora smiled and attempted to flatter Airi with some sarcastic remarks.

“Beating? Let us call it insurance, and I was not the only one who agreed upon it, nor was I the one who suggested it,” Airi sighed in response to Sora’s attempt to ridicule sarcastically.

“Well if it just an insurance, and it was not your plot, I guess you seeing me is like a date then?” Sora persistently smiled on through.

“If that is the best possible response esteeming from your lack of imagination that you can muster, I ought to best wish my good luck now in regard for tomorrow morning then,” Airi replied while walking away from Sora. “We will win no matter what, hope you guys bring your A game,” Airi added her final word with her back facing Sora.

“Like I previously mentioned to our previous challenge, it is a date then!” Sora grinned carefree at Airi’s back as she briefly turned around to look back at Sora.

Sora spotted a small glimpse of a smile at the corner of Airi's mouth right before the last beam of moonlight ran out, covering her as she turned her head back ahead. Airi thereafter had fully blended with the night, walking away, and once more appearing like a dark silhouette which appeared to be the unique way of bonding them closely together, although this time around the silhouette was distancing itself rather than approaching Sora, bit by bit.