Chapter 36: A Thousand Bees

When Gravin said he wanted them to catch the beast, he wasn't kidding in the slightest. Killing a beast like that and extracting its core was the best option as catching it would be quite difficult but he still wanted them to catch it and the worst part was that he wasn't even going to stick around to help them.

According to his observation from the footage he was able to capture, the beast went through that area from around 11:00 AM to noon and it either took the right or left path

There was no particular pattern, it was just random and this was the reason why he divided them into pairs and assigned each team a hill.

On the left hill was Kyle and Jessica and on the right hill was Arsha and Claudia.

Jessica was the only one who seemed to be blatantly unhappy about how the pairings but Gravin made sure to clarify her on why things turned out this way.

"At the moment, Kyle has done things to upset both Arsha and Claudia who are both top three students in your class and I'm quite sure he's going to do more, those two can kill him with just one hit so pairing either of them with him would be careless." He explained.

"What about me? That guy has been pissing me off since we came here." Jessica argued.

"Yeah, but can you kill him with one hit?"

"Will you stop talking about me getting killed so casually?" Kyle huffed.

"Just like I said, this is the best pairing option I could come up with."

"No, it's not." She retorted before folding her left hand into a fist while scrunching her face. "Have you forgotten that he threatened to melt off her hand?" She said, pointing at Arsha who was still being supported by Claudia's shoulders.

"True," Gravin said before turning his gaze to the two. "But I think they'll be a more peaceful team than you two."

After saying that, he assigned them their hills and disappeared.

Now they were on their sides with Kyle kicking the pebbles he created constantly in frustration and Jessica sitting on the floor looking at him with detest.

On the other side were Arsha and Claudia and just like the other two, they were minding their business but the atmosphere was clearly better.

Arsha was sitting on the edge of the hill with his legs hanging out as he observed everything below and while he was doing that, Claudia was practicing her sword technique.

At first, she was just slashing it vertically like any normal person but then a quick spark of lightning ran through her body to the sword, and with the slash after that, she sent the spark of lightning flying forward.

"No." She gasped.

It was going straight toward Arsha and for a moment there it looked like it was going to hit him but then it just ran past him from the side.

It was quite close to hitting him though.

"I'm sorry." She apologized immediately before making her way to him. "That was a mistake."

"If I didn't know, I would say you were trying to take me out from behind." He responded with his gaze fixated below.

"I don't know why I would want to do that." She remarked with a confused expression on her face. "Well, I'm glad it didn't hit you."

There was no response from him as they suddenly fell into a state of awkward silence.

"So…um….how are you doing, have you recovered your depleted mana?" She inquired.

"Yeah, I'm doing okay now." He replied still refusing to look at her.

"Okay, that's good then, having you at full strength increases our chances." She said before slowly sitting down beside him. "You know, it's sort of unfair."

"What is?"

"You're ranked second and I'm ranked third which means we're the strongest two so ordinarily, we shouldn't be in the same team and leave rank eight and twenty-one to be on the other team."

"You'll have to take that complaint to Gravin."

"Hey, I wasn't complaining, just saying and besides, he already made his reasons for doing things like this clear. But still, I don't think those two can stop a Master Tier beast let alone a dual elemental one." She uttered before slowly bringing her gaze down.

It was obvious that she was worried from the way she said that.

"I don't recall him saying we had to be sure to catch it, there was an option to call for his help." Arsha reminded her.

"I know, he said we'll get half the reward he promised if we can hold it down till he arrives but if we succeed in catching it ourselves then we get the full reward." She expressed. "I just hope it comes our way, that way Jessica won't be in danger and we can put it down ourselves."

"You're quite confident we'll be able to stop it."

"Of course, it's a master Tier beast after all."

"And just how many master Tier beasts have you fought before?"

That question hit her with a heavy dose of reality and she was struggling to respond now.

"Well, I've never really gotten the chance to fight one but…."

"But what?"

He had been looking down the whole time but now he was staring directly at her.

They were in a state of locked eye contact and she felt like he was staring into her soul.

'This guy has a very intimidating aura.'

"Nothing." She sighed in defeat. "But it's not like I'm going to be doing it alone. Besides the strength of a standard level four is in between a Unique and Master Tier beast with certain level fours being equivalent to the strength of master Tier beasts. Level fives on the other hand are in between a Master and Lord Tier beast with most of them being equal to Lord tier beasts." She illustrated.

"Yes, those are facts." He responded with a nod.

"The question now is, where do I stand and where do you stand?" She asked.

"Hmm, I've seen enough of you in action to fairly assess your strength, I'd say you're almost comparable to a Master Tier beast." He articulated.

"Do you knock Master Tier beasts out with a single blast?" She inquired. There was a hint of annoyance in her face and voice.

"No, not really, it takes more than that, for the stronger ones at least." He replied oblivious to why she asked the question.

"Oh, I see." She huffed. "What about you, where do you think you are on the level five scale?"

"Well, given the fact that I was barely able to beat that Lord tier beast, I'll say almost Lord tier level." He disclosed.

"Wait, you've fought a Lord tier beast before?" She inquired with a shocked expression on her face.

"Yeah, it was a flame mantis."

"Flame mantis? I heard those were one of the strongest beasts, they're deadly even at lower tiers."

The more he spoke, the more bewildered she got.

'Is this guy for real?'

"True, but at the end of the day it was a fire beast, it was a close fight but I was able to edge it out by going after its eyes, that's the most vulnerable part of most beasts." He narrated.

"Wow, that's pretty impressive." She was captivated. "And I'm sure it drained all your mana."

"Yeah, but luckily my sister found me just in time."

"I see." She smiled.

It wasn't just one of her made-up smiles, it was a genuine warm smile and even Arsha could tell that.

"Is something wrong?" He inquired.

He found the smile to be a bit strange.

"Nothing, it's just that you're talking like a normal person again, you know like the way you spoke to me yesterday. You know you look pretty good when you're not being cold." She responded.

'I never expected to hear that from someone whose arm I threatened to melt off about an hour ago, and that's not the only thing.'

"Hmmm, is that so?"

"Yeah, all you need to do now is lighten up that..."

That was the point Arsha stopped listening to her as his ears caught something closing up toward them from a distance.

"Hey, get down."

"Huh?"

Claudia being unaware of what was going on, he grabbed her by her arm and pulled her down.

Just a split second after that, something flew straight toward them making the sound of a thousand bees and once it made contact with the hill, there was a huge explosion as everyone immediately got covered in dust.