Traveling deeper into the forest, Omia saw that the thin layer of snow soon disappeared, but the chill in the air worsened. She was glad for her padded armor, as it would be a nightmare otherwise.

Once they were out of view of the treeline, the group traveled a bit further. Rory and Omia quickly cut down any of the Undead at the front, but it was still the smaller animals right now.

‘Luckily, first snow happened a bit before noon this year, so we may get some time to set up camp before the worst of the undead hit us.’

Still, she was already spotted by the forest, and its dance began shortly thereafter of Omia devouring its attempts at invading her mind.

When Francis finally led them to an area with less underbrush than the surrounding forest, Omia knew they’d arrived at the location of the previous cadet graduates.

Immediately, they jumped into action. The town guards stood off to the side, while all the first and second years took on the job of grunts, digging pits for fires and collecting kindling. There would be no logs for burning, because they took too long to dry, but small branches could be retrieved. Omia thought there were far too many branches in the area, but thought it was likely that some were purposefully placed there to make it possible for the new cadets to collect some wood. If the area was picked clean every year, it was unlikely for those of the next class to succeed whatsoever.

Everyone set up their own sleeping situation, but many chose to share spaces in order to help conserve heat.

Omia was on watch duty as she was the only one with a Glimpse in their class, and could spot undead far better than anyone else. She didn’t set much of anything up, but kept her head on a swivel. She knew that the graduated guards would not warn them if anything showed up, and they would get chastised if the real guards had to step in. Instead, they were sitting in the center of the camp while all the cadets turned the area livable.

Omia noticed several things about the guards over the cadets. There were three people with Glimpses sitting in the center. The first one was a tall man with green hair thicker armor than others, likely to accommodate his larger muscles. The second was a slightly shorter man with pure white iris’, and the third was Torei.

‘Someone else with an Undeath Glimpse? I might have to find them in the spring to ask what they have. Also, hey Torei,’ She thought, but vocally said nothing. It wasn’t just Torei either, her father and Jacob were here too, standing around or sitting criss-cross in the middle of the camp.

They’d likely asked to be on this year's guard so they could watch her, and Omia had no intention of disappointing.

“Yo, Omia,” Rory asked from behind her.

She kept her face forward, scanning the treeline for any sign of undeath mana or movement. It was well known that some animals, living animals, were in the forest too, and wouldn’t be as easily observed with her mana sight, so she had to keep watch for those too. “Ya?” she said in response.

“Me and Jamei are bunking together in one tent, wanna join?”

“Nah.”

“Gotcha. Want me to set up yours?”

By now, a few of the first years were looking at them, snickering. She could tell they thought Rory was flirting with her, but Omia knew Rory was too serious to flirt on the field. She was the most effective watch, and shouldn’t waste time with setting up a tent.

“Nah, I’m not using a tent. You can set up my hammock though, keep it around chest-height,” she said, then quickly took her backpack off and handed it to him without delay. The snickers lessened by this point, but when she saw the faces of the first years in her peripheral vision, it wasn’t because they assumed the best anymore. Instead, they thought she was being a layabout, letting others do the work for her and glaring at her.

True, she was not participating in the menial labor, but she was anything but lazy. The first years hadn’t even considered to keep watch or put someone on lookout, waiting for people to give them orders. Setting up camp was natural, setting up a perimeter was something their bosses told them to do.

She could’ve just ignored it, letting her skills do the talking, but morale was important, especially in the winter months. It was imperative that they keep cohesion together, and step one of that was ensuring there were no miscommunications.

Looking directly where most of the first years had clumped together she said in a loud voice. “I have a Glimpse. I’m keeping watch for undead, and can respond faster than anyone. I’m not being lazy, it’s just more efficient to have one person who can watch effectively than for there to be six people who can respond slower than me,” then went right back to scanning the treeline.

There were more than a few grumbles, but the snickering had stopped and the glares were far less frequent. A few simple words could avoid a hell of a lot of drama early on.

Her words were proven correct around eight minutes later, when she saw the white fog approaching one of the first years collecting sticks outside the camp, and quickly jumped into action.

He was halfway around the camp, so she needed to be fast. Moving almost like a ghost, despite her speed, she was near silent in how gently she stepped for how much force propelled her, the unnatural combination of strength and her body’s natural light weight allowing her to go further with each stride.

A few spotted the movement, but most were too focused on looking down: either for wood, digging, or setting up tents. Those first-years that saw her watched for a moment to see what she was doing, clear surprise at her speed.

Barely two seconds later she was inside the white fog, and spotted what creature it was: a Saw Lizard.

They were tiny creatures, around the size of her palm, but there was a danger in miniature undead. They were near-impossible to spot and the bite of an undead was guaranteed to become infected unless treated, which would cost precious resources. Not much, perhaps some fuel of a torch to burn out the rot, then some healing potion to cover it up, but they weren’t even past day one. If everyone took a few drops of healing potion every day, they’d run dry by the third week.

The last step took her next to the oblivious trainee who was bending down to grab a branch; he'd hardly heard her approach when she snatched the lizard out of the air mid-jump.

It was going for his face, an unprotected part of him as that was all it could reach from its position latched to the edge of the tree. When he bent down, it’d gotten the small lizard close enough for it to feel confident in its attack. She wasted no time, throwing it to the ground and squishing it underboot.

He looked at her curiously, and she lifted her foot to reveal the corpse, getting a look of surprise back.

“Thanks?” he said.

“No problem” she told him back simply, then continued to move around and patrol.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

She could already see a the few first years that’d spotted what happened talking about it quietly with others, and knew that at least the miscommunication issue should be gone now. It was a little hard to deny her scouting abilities when she’d spotted a lizard from across camp, and harder to deny her strength when she went from completely still to a blur in moments.

She didn’t doubt the grumbling would continue about her getting to avoid set-up, but at the very least their looks softened and the words lessened.

* * *

‘Somethings wrong’ she thought quietly, not voicing her words.

Around mid-day, there was a violent uptick in undead. While it was true that the forest tended to awaken around that time, this was too sudden. The second years had been on multiple outings by this point, some lasting throughout the day, and she could see in the eyes of her classmates that a few thought the same.

Normally it would be one every five to ten minutes in the morning, slowly becoming one every three to five minutes around noon, then a sharp uptick at night.

Now though, it felt like the moment the sun hit the center of the sky, there was one every minute, to the point where she had to ask for help killing some.

‘Is it my Glimpse reacting badly? No, it can’t be that, I’ve been here at noon before. I don’t feel any visions coming on naturally either, and no Undeath mana has gotten past my armor, what is it?’

She tried to reason out anything, but found her answers lacking, so she broke it down.

What was the difference now compared to before?

For one, they had a larger group. Two, she now carried a massive cloud of personal undeath mana with her attached to her arm. Three, there were more Glimpse users in the forest in general. Was Wiltwood reacting not only to her, but the level of mana concentrated in the area in general?

She needed more time to be sure, she could only keep her eyes open.

* * *

It was approaching night, and the rate of Undead slowly became worse. Slowly, but faster than it should be. She kept her eyes peeled outward for anything she could spot, any whiff of mana, but still saw nothing. If it kept up as it was, none of them would be getting sleep as it was a constant stream of undead already. She didn’t want to imagine what night would be like.

Only, right before the sun set, she heard an unfamiliar voice call out from the center of the camp saying “Aaaghh!” in blatant mock-pain, as if he were putting on a show.

That drew eyes from everyone, and she saw Rory holding his sword to the neck of one of the veteran guards, the one with green hair.

The guard was smiling, and Rory was beet red as the veteran laughed, so he dropped the sword.

‘What the hell is happening?’

“Alright!” the green-haired man said “This was supposed to be a lesson learned way later, but this seems to be record-time that it’s been figured out! For those of you that haven’t figured it out yet, the undead were coming at us faster than usual. They were doing that because I was attracting them! Each time I found one and pulled it towards us, I’d make a hand gesture. Be sure to watch your backs just as much as your fronts! When you’re in a big group, you don’t know who has your best interest in mind! Don’t assume it will work out, because it won’t! Good on cadet Rory for getting it” the man finished, pulling Rory to his side and ruffling his hair.

The official guards didn’t seem surprised, so it was absolutely meant to be a lesson in vigilance, though she could tell by a few sour faces it was a bit of a game too, to see how long they would have to put up with heightened undead before one of them, if any, figured out the lure.

‘I wonder if there are bets… for that matter, they can’t do this every year, can they? Otherwise, the second years would just get it every time by remembering from last year. Every other year maybe? That sounds reasonable. Though I don’t want to imagine what would’ve happened if we hadn’t gotten it by nightfall…’

Either way, she was grateful for Rory, though she could tell by his expression he really did think he’d caught someone trying to hurt the group as a whole, and threatened him to get answers, hence his embarrassed expression when the guard didn’t take it seriously.

‘Poor Rory, throwing himself into the issue the moment he sees it.’

* * *

The night was just as bad as she’d always thought it would be, thankfully without the extra undead being lured. Many of the creatures attacking them now were on the smaller side, cats, rabbits, and medium-sized lizards. By this point, after the last of the sun's rays were gone, everyone was on fighting duty, with the second years spread out among the first years to get as many experienced fighters on all sides as possible.

Nobody slept, as it would be a fool's errand to try this late at night. They would skip one night of sleep, then take watch and rest in the morning before noon.

The droves of undead she had to cut down had only six or seven feet in between each, meaning she had to be efficient in both her movements. Still, she found time to experiment with her Undeath mana.

Throughout the day, she’d been pulling the mana from the undead, devouring it and strengthening her Glimpse. It felt different than the Life mana, much colder and with something of a… bite that made her think of chewing on a sour berry, except all over her body. She didn’t think it made her physically stronger, but only time would tell. It was certainly doing something to her Glimpse.

In order to pull that mana from the undead, she couldn’t just reach into their bodies and grab it though. She needed to eat the white aura they gave off by plunging her mana into the fog, then pulling away chunks of it. Each time she did, it would grow smaller and the undead would grow weaker. Still, it felt like a mental battle to strain against the creature that very clearly wanted to keep that mana.

She had practice though. For months or even years she’d fought this same mental battle in the form of her tug of war against Jain. A few measly undead were nothing compared to how much she’d pushed herself before, and she couldn’t help but feel pride in how easily she disassembled their aura and made their body’s collapse.

That was for daytime though. That was for practice. The process of draining every single undead would have tired her out, so she instead used it conservatively on only those she thought might be too much for her alone, weakening them so they were easier to slay.

One of the rabbits jumped up and she slashed, both cutting off an outer layer of its skin and pushing it away from her.

She watched as it did not die though. Where she’d grazed it, the hole she’d opened in its side, the fog of undeath thickened, holding its organs and blood inside even as it drastically reduced the creature's aura.

She’d started figuring out exactly what stopped them from dying on clearly lethal blows. When one took damage, the fog of undeath would patch the wound and close it. More than that though… it formed a connection between the two parts.

She saw the rabbits disconnected legs, still kicking and trying to join with the rest. Through sheer luck, the rabbit rolled over onto its severed piece, and it automatically snapped back into place, whole as though she’d never injured it, though with its aura greatly diminished.

If they still had Undeath swirling around them, they could put themselves back together.

Another strike was enough to finish it off and its much-diminished strength was nothing to be scared of.

What did raise her guard though was the large figure gracefully walking out from behind a tree, and the dense white fog swirling around it.

It was hard to quantify Undeath mana as “Dense” so to speak, because she’d learned to differentiate it from her regular sight. Before, it was like mana existed on the same plane as everything else, and if she hadn’t gotten practice, she would have been blinded from the actual wolf, unable to see through its mana. Now though, she could see both the physical world itself, devoid of mana just as everyone else saw, and her own specialized sight.

The wolf slowly walked towards them, and she wasted no time even as she saw the two first-years next to her begin to sweat. The wolf was up to her chest, and she didn’t want to test how much it would take to kill at full strength,

Sending out a tendril of Undeath mana, she grabbed the largest chunk she could safely handle, which ended up being most of it, and pulled with all her mental might,

The Carcass Wolf seemed to understand something was wrong for only a moment, gaining a burst of speed towards her, before dropping to the ground and sliding to hit the rest of the building wall of bodies in front of her.

After she pulled most of its aura away, it seemed like the rest was woefully unable to sustain the stronger beast, and it collapsed.

Paying no more heed to it, she quickly broke down the things mana into her glimpse and continued fighting.