Chapter 13: The Sight of Death

We had run for about two miles by now. Looking forward I made quick calculations inside my head of everyone before us. There appeared to be 20 other applicants in front of us, a few in groups and some alone. However, a group of 5 had gathered in front of us, each one taking a stance to prepare for combat.

‘But they can’t attack, what are they gonna do?’

In front of all the applicants are saw a familiar face, Tarkif, the guy who had helped Roland and I prevent the the massive door from closing a few days prior.

“IT’S NOTHING PERSONAL, SORRY!” He yelled at us.

‘You son of a bitch.’

I saw one of the applicants next to him slam their hands into the ground and the ground began to shake. I saw the ground split in a square around us and 4 walls on all sides popped up. Up above us, another applicant covered the open top in a wave of flames, sealing any escape.

‘I see. I suppose this isn’t a direct attack.’

I then heard a muffled voice just barely sounding out above the noise of roaring flames above us.

“The most efficient way to keep villains from fighting is entrapment, not combat. 10 points to Tarkif, Laxin, Margot…”

‘They’re judging us even now?’

I looked around at my roommates. We had to admit, that we didn’t expect to be targeted so soon into the section, especially after the first obstacle had restricted the movements of so many other applicants.

“Is everyone ok?” I asked.

Roland, Violet, and Vivian all nodded, they were indeed all unhurt. I sighed in relief and began to look at the box that had trapped us.

I began to run my hands along the wall as I observed its features. The other three did the same. I estimated that each wall was about 30 feet tall and as solid as a rock. I pushed some psychic power through it to try and measure the thickness. However, I felt a pushback from the wall and was unable to find any information. It was being reinforced with psychic energy.

I placed my palm on the ground and attempted to push psychic power through again, only to receive the same result.

Looking upwards I saw the wildfire raging above us. There were no openings available for us to leave through in it. I wiped some beads of sweat off my forehead, it was starting to become unbearably hot inside. We could only last maybe 10 minutes in here before we would need to use psychic powers to keep ourselves functional under the heat.

We could break through the wall, however the group outside had almost certainly prepared for that. They wouldn’t stay for very long, but they didn’t need to. When the other applicants finally escaped through the door the entire path in this area would be flooded. They would slow us down and many would likely attempt to target us to reduce our positions.

“Do you guys have any ideas?” Roland asked us.

I shook my head, without knowledge of their plans we wouldn’t be able to take effective actions. It would be exhaustive, long work to try and escape, leaving us drained for the rest of the course. It would be better just to wait until the group outside left.

Vivian also shook her head.

“At best we could try and dig out from under but there’s no way they wouldn’t have thought of that.”

Roland nodded, taking in the information. His face seemed to be contorted strangely, oddly enough giving off the effect of someone thinking.

We all turned towards Violet hopefully, none of us had any ideas but hopefully she would.

Violet looked at the ground to avoid our gazes slightly, focusing on our feet.

“I can try and use Soul Seer to look outside the walls maybe.”

We all nodded, at the very least it could provide some very useful information.

“I think it’s worth a shot,” I said

“Sounds good,” Vivian said, bobbing her head up and down in support.

Roland agreed with us, “Alright then Violet, do what you can.”

At Roland’s words, Violet grew a small smile and quickly moved towards one wall. She closed her eyes for an extended moment and I began to sense a slight shift in aura around her. When she opened her eyes again they were now a hypnotic violet color and she began to stare at specific points in the wall. First the left wall, the right wall, the front, the back, and the ceiling.

I began to twitch uncomfortably. About 3 minutes had already passed and the rest of the applicants would start to flood out of the building. The blown-up hole in the wall was small, only about 3 applicants could fit through. But, more and more applicants would begin to calm down as time went on and use the ceiling to try and escape.

“There’s 5 of them total. 4 for each wall and one for the fire ceiling.”

Roland’s face brightened up. This meant that nobody was solely focused on preventing underground movement. While they had reinforced it, there was no way they could focus on both the wall and the ground with enough strength to stop Roland, a Mid B-Rank specialized in elemental manipulation.

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In their defense though, elemental reinforcement requires significantly less psychic energy than manipulation or destruction. And, unlike the rest of the elements, Earth, once in place, did not need constant psychic energy to maintain its shape and position.

On top of that, elemental specialists were the second-rarest group of specialists. Along with the chances of a Mid B-Rank being only 25%, their plan was statistically very likely to work.

Roland walked to the center of the trap and placed his hands on the ground. For a moment the ground shook as two opposing sides, reinforcement and manipulation, began combat. However, Roland was victorious and soon the earth melted away like liquid, forming a small tunnel leading several feet down.

“Everybody in,” Roland said, leaping into the hole first to expand the tunnel.

The rest of us followed, with Violet taking the back and Vivian and I in the middle. Roland placed his hand on the side of the tunnel and, after another brief tug of war, the wall melted away, a new tunnel carved into it.

We walked for a few seconds before Roland stopped and stabbed the earth above him, a tunnel to the surface appearing.

“Wait! Won’t they see us as they go up?” Vivian asked. She had a good concern. Even if we got out, it would be relatively easy to entrap us again the moment a single one of us appeared. The rest of us would merely be trapped in a hole once more, and this time they would focus on reinforcement even more than previously.

Roland smiled. “You don’t need to worry about that.”

With that he began to climb upwards, followed quickly by us. When we reached the top we saw the applicants that had trapped us, Tarkifs group, still focusing on the trap. Behind it, the applicants had quickly begun flooding out, at least half were now outside and rapidly approaching our location.

As I climbed out of the hole I saw one of Tarkifs group members turn around and stare right at us. I froze for a moment and was about to form a barrier when Roland grabbed my shoulder.

“Wait. Don’t worry, he can’t see us.”

What? Looking back at Tarkifs group members I did notice something odd. It felt like he wasn’t looking at us but beyond us. He soon turned back towards the trap he thought we were in.

Confused, I looked down at my body and noticed it appeared hazy, almost like I was looking at it through a dirty lens.

“It’s my unique power. Light manipulation. I’ve been able to do it since birth.”

Roland smiled in pride. While light manipulation was possible without a unique power by mixing multiple different aspects of other elements, it was extremely difficult to use and even S-Ranks could only do some minor tricks with it. Meanwhile, Roland was able to make us completely invisible. Such natural proficiency was truly strong enough to be a unique power.

‘That explains why you’re so skilled at elemental manipulation. What abilities could something like this provide?’ I wondered to myself.

With us now out of the trap we immediately ran off, covered by Roland’s unique power. We were still about a quarter mile ahead of most of the other applicants, although there were now quite a few more applicants ahead of us than previously.

I looked behind us and saw Tarkifs group realize we had escaped as Roland undid the invisibility. Unique powers were always draining to the user, keeping it active for too long would exhaust Roland.

“Sometimes you need unconventional methods to escape from danger. Mark, Roland, Vivian, Violet, you each receive 10 points.”

I smiled at the principal's words. If this kept up then I would be able to maintain my first place position and my roommates could rise in rank.

I began to pour more psychic energy into my legs to allow to to run faster and faster. 20 miles an hour, 25, 30, 33. I felt myself speeding through the fake city environment. Miniature buildings passed us constantly in a blur.

I looked around to check if everyone was keeping up, only to find them starting to pull ahead of me.

‘Heh, shit. I forgot I’m the only Low B-Rank.’

I utilized a tad bit more power to keep propelling myself off the ground, now I could feel it begin to flex ever so slightly when pushing off of it. I had to be careful, too much power, and I’d break right through the ground without being able to push off, too little and I’d trip from the sudden speed change.

…

About 15 minutes later we passed the 10-mile mark. We had caught up to some of the applicants that had passed us, it appeared I was now in about 50th place. By this point, Tarkif's group had long given up trying to trap us. It was simply no longer worth the effort.

Suddenly I heard a loud explosion and felt the earth shake. I lost my footing and was sent flying at 35+ miles per hour down the path. I activated a barrier to shield myself from the ground as I was rolling, barely preventing my head from colliding with the pavement.

I stabilized my position and dug my heels and hands into the ground, tearing through the asphalt for a few feet before stopping. I looked towards the source of the explosion, located in front of us. The path expanded significantly, almost doubling in size. In the middle of the path, there was a large crater with smoke billowing out from the ground.

I turned to look at my teammates, who were unharmed, it appeared I was the only one to have lost my footing.

‘Why am I the only Low B-Rank…’

“Well, I think we found where the second obstacle is,” Vivian stated.

I nodded and recalled what I had seen while traveling here on the bus. On the path, there were groups of people digging out holes. Is this what they were preparing for?

“AAAAAH!!!”

I terrifying scream broke through the air. I turned towards the source of it, wondering what had happened. I saw the smoke from the crater begin the clear and saw something crawling out of it.

I nearly vomited on the spot. A person crawled out of the hole, their body completely mangled. Their legs had been torn apart and strewns of muscle, flesh, and skin covered the entire crater. Even their bones had been shattered by the explosion.

Their arms had been eviscerated, their hands dangling by threads off of their arms, and their bones showing in numerous places. Horrific burn marks covered their arms, undoubtedly causing what I could only imagine to be indescribable pain. Their clothes were still on fire, and actively burning the applicant's chest, who immediately tore it off to reveal the bleeding chest and disfigured body underneath. Their body was twisted and full of puncture wounds from shrapnel that had been launched from the explosion.

But the most horrifying view was their face. There must have been a fire on it as it was now completely burnt, with holes across its now purplish black flesh and its entire jaw visible. The remaining skin had begun to melt down their face, falling towards their mouth. I saw the applicant's nose suddenly tumble down into his mouth and they vomited it out. One of their eyes had become squished, and was no more than a goopy unusable mess now, while the other was bloodshot red.

I heard Vivian behind me suddenly fall to the floor and vomit from what she had seen. I nearly joined her as I forced the reflex back down into my stomach.

‘This is insane. This is supposed to just be an application.’

I saw a man run to the applicant. He wore a gray suit and had bright orange hair along with a blue tie. He immediately kneeled and began the healing process. The applicant's body quickly began to regrow, his bones reformed, his skin reappeared and his burn marks faded.

‘Such healing… that guy… he must be an S-Rank.’

A-Ranks were more than capable of healing severe injuries, broken bones, severe bleeding, and even dismemberment of fingers or toes. However, to heal someone from the brink of death, recreate their limbs, heal permanent burns, and restructure someone's chest. It was something that could truly only be done by an S-Rank or higher.

I watched as the S-Rank completely healed the applicants back to prime form, before grabbing them and leaving the path.

I looked at the crater nervously, that was what could be awaiting us up ahead. Our bodies, are in complete and utter shambles, suffering from horrific pain. I shuddered at the thought, and I wasn’t the only one. Multiple applicants began to voice their disapproval of such a violent and extreme section.

“This is insane!”

“We could die here!”

“Give us something else!”

The speakers turned on once again in response to the applicant's protest, and I heard the principal fumbling with the microphone before responding.

“Ahem, well aren’t you all a rowdy bunch. First of all, you are not going to die here, we assigned an S-Rank to watch this portion to be sure of that.”

‘So he is an S-Rank then.’ Looks like I suspected correctly.

“Second of all, we can’t give you something else, because all previous AGH-accepted students passed a section like this.”

That shut the protestors up immediately. With that knowledge, complaining about the obstacle was admitting to being unworthy of AGH completely.

“Villains commonly lay traps for heroes when they’re rescuing civilians. In this case, we’ve used land mines. You should always keep a shield up to minimize the damage. For B-Ranks like you all, you should be able to make it through these land mines. Now good luck future stars.”

The principal sounded off once more and the applicants began to murmur amongst themselves.

I turned to Vivian, who was now standing up again shakily, supported on both sides by Roland and Violet. A puddle of… previous meals was in front of her. In Vivian's eyes, a deep seeded fear was now growing, one that begged her to run, to quit, to hide for survival.

I shook my head subconsciously. She didn’t deserve to see something like that. Nobody did. It was the sight of a man, on the brink of death, clawing for the light of life, yet doomed to fail. He was lucky to have been saved.

The crater in front of me had stopped smoking, I looked at the bloodstains that had covered it, the sign of death. Bloodstains, craters, and death.

…

‘...’

‘No.’

‘...’

‘I’ll be fine, especially without you. Now leave!’

‘...’

‘... how could I forget that night.’

…

End of Chapter 13