A Wild Roar

All of the students were excited, but none of them was more excited than Aeon who wanted to test out his new babies, Verdure and Zephyr. He was already itching for some action. He wondered how magical beasts would look like in real life.

"Group up according to your teams in the Grand Examination. Those groupings were already optimized, and when you encounter danger, you can rely on each to push through. You may start anytime. The quota for magical beast meat in kilos is written down on the scroll as well. Just a reminder, don't go too deep into the forest." Klaus said, ending the orientation.

"Suri, Korona! Let's go now! I really want to hunt!" Aeon said while jumping up and down. He looked stupid, and lots of people saw him act really childish, but no one berated him. Aeon was the physical manifestation of their current mood.

Money!

Being already familiar with their previous teammates, the students grouped up in no time. Some immediately set off, like Aeon's group, while the others rested for a while. Not everybody was in a rush, although they were all excited.

"Well, where do we go?" Korona said excitedly. She wanted to try a bunch of spells she could not use in the academy for being too destructive.

"Let's just wander around until we find some monsters or those strange things on the list," Aeon suggested with his hands behind his head. He was walking casually as if he was not in a forest with maybe thousands of magical beasts, and possibly some demonic beasts.

"But we don't know about directions," Korona commented.

"Suri's already taking care of that," Aeon said while pointing at Suri who was carefully engraving something on a nearby tree using his extra large broadsword.

After Suri was done, an arrow was formed. It was pointing towards the direction of the camp they just left. With this, their problem was solved. They only needed to remember to leave some marks from time to time and they would be just fine.

After a few minutes of walking, the group finally saw their first demonic beast. A large horse-looking beast with five tails. It might be capable of carrying the three of them without any problem. It was black all over and had tusks on its jaw. As the beast saw Aeon and the two, it did not even bother. It only continued eating the grass that it had previously been chewing on. It looked menacing, but it was probably a herbivore.

"So not all magical beasts are aggressive to humans?" Korona said as he petted the beast's head. The latter responded by rubbing its head on Korona's belly, making her chuckle.

Then the trees a couple of meters beside them start to shake. One by one, several more magical beasts of the same kind approached the three. All of them were friendly like the first one, and the three enjoyed their company. Even Suri started petting the smallest one of the bunch.

"They probably travel in herds. I hope these guys are not the ones being hunted by people," said Aeon.

"Mn," Suri and Korona replied simultaneously. The two's eyes met and they both gave each other a gentle smile.

Suddenly, the beasts lifted all their heads at the same time and stared at one direction. The three noticed their unusual behavior and also faced the same direction.

Aeon felt the ground shake beneath them in clear intervals. Something was coming.

After a few moments, the beasts ran away.

Aeon smiled. "Is this going to be our first fight against magical beasts?"

From his back, Suri grabbed his black broadsword. "Seems so."

Dum! Dum!

The sounds of the footsteps coming from the gigantic beast became louder and louder.

Dum! Dum! Dum!

The three split up. Aeon headed left and Suri headed right. The two hid behind a thick bush. Korona stepped backward and became the supporting role. Then…

Dum! Dum! Dum!

Silence.

Aeon looked upwards to try and see what the beast looked like, but the bush he was hiding behind was too thick. He could not see past them. When he tried to get a glance at its feet by poking a hole through the bush, he could not find it.

The air started blowing their way. Something was coming!

Aeon felt the danger and...

Swoosh!

He jumped away.

Bang! Shhhhhh!

A gigantic claw was now in Aeon's previous hiding spot. Its muscles were bulging and it looked like it could easily send a normal person flying. Obviously, its hearing did not escape the rustling that Aeon made as he tried to look past the bush.

When Aeon looked up, he was fascinated, rather than scared. The beast was at least 8.5 meters long from head to tail; 5 meters, standing up. It looked straight out of their nightmares, but nonetheless, a sight to behold!

The creature's head was that of an alligator, and it stood on two legs. On its back, was a giant turtle shell. It would have passed as a simple, oversized reptile, if not for its unusually long fangs. The fangs that protruded out of its mouth was so long, it might have had trouble closing its own mouth. For sure, it was not a herbivore.

Aeon did not back down, though. Immediately, he rushed towards the claw that was still on the ground and stepped on it. He used the magical beast's limb as a ticket to close in on its head.

As Aeon scaled the beast's unusually long arm, he grabbed his weapons, Verdure and Zephyr, from his back. After reaching its shoulder, Aeon swung his blades towards its neck.

Slash.

Spurt!

Blood gushed from the two thick sword wounds as the beast wailed.

Aeon was not fond of bathing in blood, so he immediately followed up with a kick, making the creature stagger a bit. He landed on the ground safely. Aeon found that the beast, although it was big, it was really slow. It did not even react fast enough to shake off Aeon from its body.

Unexpectedly, the beast did not fall yet even after receiving a fatal wound on the neck. It attacked Aeon with its other arm, but the latter easily dodged. The beast was really too slow for him. The turtle shell on its back was probably weighing it down.

Coming from behind, Suri jumped and slashed at the beast's shell with his broadsword enchanted by his magic, Explosion. Aeon who saw this was already wincing from the pain that the beast was about to experience. Suri's attack came crashing down.

BOOM!

Despite the large frame of the beast and its shell, it was still pressed back from the impact and fell on the ground. After the explosion settled, it revealed a large scorched part on the beast's shell.

While lying on the ground, the beast still squirmed and tried to get up. But, not even a second later, two large ice shards shot forward, impaling its head. The beast fell flat on the floor. It wriggled a bit before it stopped moving altogether.

Aeon approached the beast's head. Would they be able to fulfill the quota of the day with this? As Suri also came closer, Aeon yelled at him, "Show off!"

Suri gave Aeon a what-do-you mean look and asked, "How come?!"

"You could've gone for its head!" Aeon yelled although he was clearly just messing with Suri.

Suri snapped, "If I took the time to go around it, it would've been dead already!"

The two marveled at their prey. Seeing it up close only made it look more tyrannical. If it were a little faster and more agile or moved in packs, it probably would have been a pain to deal with. The beast staying in the outskirts of the forest probably meant that it was one of those lower-leveled beasts.

"If we can take this back to camp, this would surely clear our quota for the day," Korona said as she walked closer to the two.

"Mn. But we came here to train too, didn't we?" Aeon said confidently.

Without a moment's thought, the other two nodded resolutely.

The three moved forward, searching for more prey.

….

"Are they really going to be alright?" Dan whispered to Klaus.

"It might not look like it, but their batch is probably one of the best. They're all strong, especially a notable few. I'm sure they will be able to take care of themselves." Klaus replied as he arranged the reports he finished for the day.

"What if all of them encountered grave danger at the same time? We surely won't be able to help all of them." Dan questioned Klaus.

Hearing this, Klaus took a moment to consider before answering. In the end, he shook his head. "As long as they don't go deeper into the forest, everything will be fine."

Dan clearly had more questions for Klaus. In the end, he did not voice them out. He nodded then went back to his tent to rest.

Klaus looked at the list of students. Klaus did not tell anyone, but the truth is, he paid lots of attention to the current batch. All of them were really excellent and had their own way of fighting. He believed that if the students were given tons of experience as soon as possible, they would be able to create magic techniques of their own, much like the famous General Samo.

One of those he noted was Mark. His fighting style was a lot different than most Fire Serans, even among his peers in the school. Rather than using the destructive and explosive properties of fire, he used it in a sneaky manner. He would break fire up into dozens of thin strips and attack his enemies in a barrage. When he sees an opening from his opponent, he would shoot out a needle made of fire from his finger, burning the enemies at a crucial time during combat.

Since Klaus was given the task to collect alchemy materials on Grey Forest, he took the opportunity to bring the students with him with the intention of training them. But was that all? Certainly not. Otherwise, he wouldn't have shown the students the list of items they were looking for. He was thinking of using the academy students to assist them in their task. Exploiting children? That didn't matter in Klaus' book. If they could speed up the process by 10%... no, even just by 5%... he would gladly take it. Every single day was crucial for their understaffed academy.

The principal immediately approved of his request, thinking that it was an excellent idea since the students would experience a bottleneck if they were not exposed to other forms of combat. Klaus was overjoyed and did not delay.

As Klaus thought about his quick wit and decision, he was pleased with himself. He wanted to be someone who would usher Fria into a new era.

Klaus was also about to enter his tent to rest when suddenly…

ROOOOOAAAAAAR!

Every person in the camp immediately covered their ears as the roar was extremely deafening. Some of the students even found themselves dizzy.

After a few moments, the roaring stopped. Dan and the other staff, Merell, quickly got out of their tents and stared at Klaus in shock. Of course, they recognized which beast made that loud roar, but…

Why was it so close?

….