Chapter 33: Staying low

They moved incredibly fast as the platform started flying towards the distance as the ground below them slowly split up into tinier pieces, barely enough for a single person to stand on.

Steven was amazed by her power; Elizabeth seemed to have improved since they last fought, especially her precision, as the small floor only shattered more below him.

"Never mind, I hate her." As he stared around, standing on the smallest piece out of everyone close to him.

He could feel a giant magic pressure just ahead as a gigantic bubble-like sphere manifested in the air. It was the barrier of the forest to keep them inside until they quit.

Passing through it with ease, but it wouldn’t be that easy the other way around; he was sure of it. As the people around him slowly began to spread out, he could barely feel their manas radiating in the distance.

After just a few more minutes of floating, did he finally stop? Steven waited for the stone to lower itself to the floor, but nothing like that happened.

Instead, he could only feel it shattering even more. As it finally could hold him no more, crashing down towards the green forest.

It was at least a hundred meters of free fall, but Steven just took the landing hard, as his barrier let him bounce off the ground like a balloon as he finally came to a stop just next to a small lake.

Barely having time to stand up, a loud voice echoed through the forest. "The school event has begun; everyone be ready!" Ms. Trellen’s voice had a sadistic undertone behind it, which he couldn’t ignore.

Removing the dust from his clothes, his mind was already racing; he had to find Merency before the girls could. That would be the only way for him to lose, so he was sure they were trying their best to reach this outcome.

"Also, did I mention you weren’t alone in here? I might have lost some of my pets," Elizabeth added as he could hear her laughter just before it cut off.

She truly was changing everything about the rules of the game, and he didn’t like it one bit. Taking a deep breath, he took a great leap into the air, landing directly on top of an old tree, high enough to stare over a giant part of the forest.

As if out of nowhere, something no human screamed behind him loudly. Turning around, he sent out a wind slash towards the target, but it wasn’t some kind of monster like he had expected; instead, it was an alarm clock flying with bird-like wings.

’’What the fuck?’’ He cursed, nearly falling from the tree he shook, as he had lowered his body just below the tree line; it instantly stopped, but as he swung up, it started just again.

As he threw another wind slash, slicing it in two, just another flew beside him instead, replacing the old one.

"It’s probably a way to hinder people from just flying around all the time.’’ Nobody could stay hidden with those screaming around. Slowly climbing down a meter, this too stopped any movement, only solidifying his idea.

So there, his way of easily finding Merency disappeared, but it also meant nobody else would be able to do it either. Finally arriving back at the floor, he thought about sitting down and waiting for her to arrive, but he honestly didn’t want to know what kind of pets Elizabeth was talking about earlier.

When had she even prepared all of this? She wasn’t even in this school for a week, and she had already organized a multiple-day-long event.

Turning his head slightly, he could feel a slight faint of mana close to him, not enough to be from any living being but just enough to catch his attention.

Following the lead, he stepped through the beautiful green forest filled with flowers and many more things he didn’t care about; his target wasn’t far away.

It simply led him towards another giant tree not much different than any beside it except for a small symbol carved into its surface. Taking a step closer, he inspected it.

But it wasn’t something special, just a single long stripe in the wood, but Steven had seen it before already. After all, the masked men had been wearing it on their uniforms too.

The fingers truly have their eyes everywhere, and he wasn’t sure how many more there were in the whole forest.

His situation had turned only worse; not only was he forced to act weaker in front of students, but also he was even when he was alone because they could be spying on him any time.

And he couldn’t destroy their markings without them noticing it either, so he was trapped.

But as if fate had heard his desperate plea of help, Steven could hear a voice in the distance, drawing closer each second.

He also couldn’t recognize them, which meant it was either some really talkative pet of his professor or some student trying to find out where the loud sound came from earlier.

And he was sure they would try their best to beat him for his points; he could simply defeat them, but that would only increase the crowd.

And he wasn’t sure if he should be able to beat them all as just a student.

Instead, Steven decided to hide as he regulated his mana down until it completely disappeared for anyone not in the sapphire class.

Positioning himself on a branch of one of the trees, he also activated one of his invisibility spells.

He watched a group of four people walking below him.

’’It must’ve been around here somewhere; I am sure of it.’’

The person in the front spoke, scanning the surroundings deeply.

But there was no chance for them to ever catch him.

After about a minute, they continued on their way.

Steven finally wanted to relax as something started moving not too far away from him.

As the whole forest turned silent.