Conflict

"Why are they walking behind us?"

"Just ignore them, Kent."

"But dude, they are literally behind us."

As they paved their way through the forest, Kent talked about Alberto and the four members of his unit following them.

Nero asked him to ignore them so all of them kept walking.

"There!" suddenly stopping in her tracks, Anastasia shouted before pointing to the sky. "Up ahead."

Following her index finger, they saw the Steel Winged Eagle they were looking for resting on top of a tree branch quite a distance away.

Rustle–!

However, before any one of them could make a move, they heard a rustling sound of leaves from behind them.

"Well, what do you know? People are already here."

 All of them looked back only to find it was Grace Goodwill.

Walking behind her were William Sinoath, Elijah Steelforged, Ella Bright, and the most mysterious guy in their class, Hugh Jass.

When Nero and Williams' gazes met each other, they greeted each other with a nod.

These two had already started to get along ever since the incident with the class 1-C-8.

"Yes, we came here first," Amelia snorted. "So obviously that hunt is ours."

"Are you stupid?" chortled Grace. "By that logic, we saw it first so it's ours."

As opposed to relation between Nero and William the two girls are not getting along at all.

They both had a mutual disdain for each other because Grace viewed Amelia and Anastasia as obstacles in her pursuit of power.

Amelia reciprocated these feelings, and their enmity grew over time, while Anastasia chose to ignore her.

Even right now, these two girls were barely holding themselves back from creating a big fuss.

"Actually, you both are stupid," while Grace and Amelia were busy locking gaze, Alberto chimed in. "The right to hunt should go to the strongest."

"So, Nero?" Anastasia responded.

"What?" Alberto raised an eyebrow.

"You said the right to hunt should go to the strongest," Anastasia repeated Alberto's words. "That ought to be Nero. Remember the cafeteria incident?"

"You bitch–" before Alberto could show any hostility, Nero stepped in front of him with a big friendly smile on his face.

"Now, now, friend. Do you really want to do this here?" asked Nero with a calm voice.

"Do you think I'm scared of you…"

"Why are you guys making so much noise?"

Out of nowhere, all of them heard an irritating noise causing them to look upwards. There they say a silver-haired boy resting on a tree and looking down at them with an indifferent gaze.

Gulp-!

Everyone stood still as if they were statues and an eerie silence fell upon them. All of them instinctively felt a shiver run down their spine as they gazed at Lucas.

Lucas had the same indifferent look he always had and there was nothing different about him.

But everyone could tell that something was off about him. To them, Lucas looked like he was out for blood.

And they weren't wrong about that, only a few minutes had passed since Lucas had killed the monsters, and now he reeked of blood. Due to this, even though he wasn't emitting any killing intent they all felt that Lucas was scary.

But that lasted only for a moment as all of them immediately regained their composure. 

"What are you doing there Lucas? No more importantly, Why the hell did you go off on your own?!"

Amelia was the first person to speak as she glared at him. Right now, she looked like she would beat the crap out of Lucas if given the chance.

Lucas avoided looking directly at Amelia and scratched his head as proceeded to answer her question.

"Well, I have my reasons."

That's all he could say since it would take a lot of time to explain his constitution regarding monsters and there were too many ears.

Realizing that it was pointless to continue napping, Lucas jumped off the tree branch and landed on the ground.

He walked to where his unit was and stood in front of them.

Amelia stood there with her arms folded as she looked at him menacingly. For a split second, Lucas felt the urge to apologize but reigned himself.

He didn't know why but the way Amelia looked at him felt like a wife catching her husband cheating on her even though the current situation was far from it.

"What are those reasons exactly?" asked Amelia in a cold tone.

Her anger towards Lucas had already subsided long ago but the argument she had with Grace a few moments ago reignited the anger within her and Lucas just so happened to face the brunt of it.

"I am sorry Amelia but can't you just let it go? I promise that I explain myself when the time is right." Lucas sincerely pleaded. This might even be the first time Lucas was this sincere after regaining his memories.

Perhaps noticing the sincerity in his words, Amelia decided to let the issue be and concentrate on the task at hand.

"Phew..."

Lucas heaved out a sigh after noticing the look in Amelia's eyes. The conversation(argument?) between Grace and Amelia which was halted due to Lucas has started once again.

Lucas found himself a good stop away from the two and leaned against a tree as gazed at the two units that were having a discussion regarding who gets to hunt first. 

But when things began to blow out of proportion Nero intervened.

"Fine, here's the deal," Nero offered a proposal. "We'll all play by the rules and work with our Units to independently hunt it down."

"That sounds so much fairer than what your teammate suggested," Grace said before continuing in a coquettish tone. "Then again, we can also work together."

"This girl is literally stupid," Amelia facepalmed. "Why would he work with you when he's not even in your Unit?"

"If you had a brain, you would've understood I was merely joking!"

"No, I have a brain and I understand what you're doing here. Do you want me to show you to the streets?"

"How dare you, commoner! Watch your tongue or I'll have it cut!"

"That registers as a threat, you know?"

"You!!"

"Hmph."

"You fuckers do whatever you want," while the two girls were busy fighting like cats, Alberto spoke up in a cocky tone. "My Unit has already hunted down one of the assigned mana beasts already."

Of course, his unit has already hunted Winged Jaguar and claimed one of the spots in the top 5 Units of this test.

The only reason he was following Lucas's unit was because he was instructed to keep a close on Nero and observe his every movement. Grace was also given the same instruction by Kai.

"Whatever," Nero rolled his eyes and started silently walking toward the tree where the target bird was resting.

He signaled his unit to follow him and of course, all of them obliged by starting walking behind him with silent steps. But Lucas was just pretending and was ready to leave the place when the opportunity presented itself.

If he were to go anywhere near the bird then it would undoubtedly fly away robbing both the units of a chance to get closer.

In response to Nero, Grace too started moving and asked her Unit to follow her.

"Aeik!"

"Aaah!"

When Grace walked past Lucas, her foot slipped and she tripped forward. But before she could fall face-first on the ground, Lucas instinctively caught her by her waist.

"Get your hands off me," instead of thanking him, however, she scowled.

"Fine," shrugging Lucas took his hand back.

"Aweik!"

And as expected, she tripped and fell to her knees since Lucas let her go before she could regain her footing,

"Did you just push me?!" she bared her teeth at him and asked in an angry tone.

But Lucas just ignored her and began to move towards the forest away from his unit while pretending to follow them.

But what he failed to notice back then was that the frustrated look on Grace's face turned into a vicious smirk.

Right after he was out of sight from everyone, Lucas sprinted towards the inner region of the forest. His aim was to be as far as possible from his unit so that they could hunt the monsters smoothly.

However, little did he know that he would soon come to regret his decision.