Chapter 388: The Beginning of Chaos

Auric and the others took off their blindfolds, standing in the middle of the wilderness with no one in sight.

Vera looked at her watch while saying, "They’re saying that they want at least one of us alive. Why don’t we have Auric hiding somewhere so that even if they surround us, they won’t get any points from us?"

"They don’t want one of us to survive because they want the three of us dead. Rather, one needs to survive so that they can tell the tale. Isn’t that the normal procedure when working in the wilderness?

"If there is an ambush or something, try to survive even if you are left alone, so that you can report what happens to your group." Katarina shook her head helplessly, translating everything for her.

"I know that. I’m just joking because this is taking too long. We still need to wait for another seven minutes before the competition even starts." Vera let out a long sigh. "By the way, what is our plan this time? Should we hunt other groups? Should we grab some flags? Should we go to the center? The team leader is not me, so I wonder what you plan to do, Auric." Vera smiled.

Auric wouldn’t make a careless mistake, so she wondered what the most reasonable approach was in Auric’s mind.

Auric raised one finger, asking Vera to wait for a moment as he answered a call. "Auric Elfe."

"Yo, Auric! We’re already in position. Shall we do it now?"

"Not yet. If we reveal the fact that the two countries have created an alliance so soon, it will provoke the other teams. It’s better to wait a bit longer.

"Try to gather as many groups as possible before telling them about the alliance. In the meantime, we will act as if there is no alliance between us," explained Auric.

"Why is that? I mean, I understand your point, but it doesn’t really make any sense."

"I’m worried right now. There are two possibilities for when those guys will attack. The first is that they will attack as soon as we begin. Right now, the instructors are still constructing the HQ for this competition. They should have set up tents, but not all instructors will be available to monitor the competition. That’s why they won’t have anyone to even make sure the beasts haven’t done anything along the frontline.

"The second possibility is that they will attack us on the last day. We will be exhausted and battered after fighting so long. It’s easier to defeat us. However, that only applies to us, not the instructors or even the students who should have gotten plenty of rest at the camp."

Timothy looked down, contemplating. "You are right. I might have been too hasty about that. So, that means they might attack us today?"

"Most likely." Auric nodded. "We should conserve our energy as much as possible. I don’t know if they’re going to attack us right now or if they will wait a bit."

"Got it. In that case, my first priority is to gather all the groups I can find." Timothy agreed with Auric.

The first scenario had a higher chance of happening, so it would be best to gather as many people as possible to prepare for this scenario. If they had announced their alliance right away, people would try to exhaust them, which wasn’t a good thing.

On the other hand, if they proceeded with this scenario, they could gather people without using too much energy.

Timothy hung up the call and looked at Clarice and his two other teammates. "There you have it. We will be looking for any groups from our country. If there is a group from Esfrata, we will try to fight them for a bit, but we will ultimately leave them alone. I’ll try to pass on the message so that they will head to Auric’s place. Auric will probably do the same thing."

"What is actually going on? You’ve told me about the situation, but..." His teammate asked.

Clarice sighed. "Is this why I end up joining this team?"

"Yeah. It’ll be good to have two separate teams doing this, but as expected, we need to concentrate our firepower. So, I will need you here, Clarice." Timothy nodded. "In any case, it’s time to tell you guys that there might be a terrorist attack in this place very soon.

"Lady Merlin has approved the change in plan. The prime minister has also agreed, so it’s better to handle it according to the plan. Just don’t say anything to others yet."

His teammates looked at each other. They never thought there was such a thing happening in the shadows.

Clarice said, "I won’t be acting up, so you don’t have to worry."

Timothy smiled. "For now, let’s send a message to see if we can find them. Fortunately, we can use our phones. This makes it even more convenient. We will start with that."

While Timothy was preparing for the attack on his side, Auric answered Vera’s question. "We will have to conserve our strength as much as possible, so the plan is just to stay here and look around. Katarina, try to ping our location and ask for other locations so that we can find them. They still don’t know anything about this, but it’s good since the enemy doesn’t know that we are prepared for them as well."

Katarina nodded with a serious expression. "In that case, we should head north first. Well, people will also talk about us later if we act as though we already know something about the attack."

"Well, we can just say that we’ve been expecting something like this ever since the poison incident, but we don’t know anything about it. Besides, who among us is afraid of that?" Auric asked, looking at the three of them.

Katarina chuckled. "I don’t even care if they’re sending me death threats."

"People hate me because I’m rich, so I don’t have much thought anymore."

"..." Vera pointed at herself. "I’m not scared."

"See?" Auric chuckled. He didn’t say anything, but he wasn’t scared of those rumors for a different reason. There were simply too many people supporting him on the internet, so whenever someone insulted him, many would come to his defense.

Then again, as long as his conscience was clear, he didn’t have anything to worry about.

"The competition is starting now..." Auric looked at the clock as it finally turned to 9 a.m.

...

In another location near the city, the Director looked at the thirty people he had brought.

"We are now at an important point. If we can succeed, we will be able to show ourselves to the world and make them remember us. How is the preparation so far?" The Director asked.

One of them replied, "Everything is going smoothly. Although we failed to poison the students before, we will be able to do it now. Those people won’t know what actually hit them.

"There will be a lot of instructors to deal with, but everything has been prepared. As soon as you give us the order, we will immediately pull in the beasts.

"The situation will definitely become so chaotic that the instructors won’t be able to handle everything by themselves.

"We can’t get a hold of Ultias. According to Instructor Ryan, he is secluding himself for no reason and has no desire to come out. It impacts our plan somewhat, but since he won’t come out, we only need to watch out for Joker.

"Instructor Ryan will also delay the response of Dermania’s soldiers. This way, we will be able to hit them hard enough to execute everything pretty smoothly."

The Director nodded with a serious expression. "This is the biggest operation we have so far, so I will be monitoring it in the field. I’m not a fighter, so I will stay here and direct you whenever there’s an adjustment to our plan. If necessary, I will use whatever means necessary to aid you."

"Hahaha. You’re worried too much, Director. Just look at us. We have two Rank 6 humans and so many Rank 5 humans here. In the past, we have been holding back by only sending Rank 2 to Rank 4 humans, but it will be different this time." One of them laughed.

"I hope so." The Director shook his head helplessly. "I’m not so bold as to feel confident enough that we will be able to carry out everything smoothly. I don’t like to get complacent and end up failing, so keep that in mind.

"I won’t hesitate to kill myself or order you to sacrifice yourself as long as we can make this mission a success. Understood?"

All of them turned solemn. It was true that the Director wasn’t a powerful human. His strength was meager, but his influence was tremendous.

He was invited by the people who created the organization, but he actually did so well that his influence became one of the greatest in this organization.

Even the two Rank 6 humans he had brought understood the Director’s position and respected his order.

Of course, these two Rank 6 humans came from those people so that the Director could ensure his success this time. It was a rare chance for them to be able to affect all five countries at once, and they would never waste it.

The Director stated, "All I want is Auric Elfe. I don’t care about anything else. The moment you cross the line and he dies, you’d better prepare for the consequences."

"..." They didn’t like the threat, but they knew the threat was real. They nodded, reassuring him that they understood their roles.

"Also, don’t kill too many students. Don’t you want to let them see how helpless they will become as they watch their generations getting destroyed and those beasts completely owning them?"

They suddenly smirked. They definitely wanted to see such a thing.

Seeing that they had gotten excited, the Director smiled. "Are you ready? Go to your respective positions. We will now execute our plan.

"Things have gone so well for this world that they almost forgot about the pain. I suffered because I forgot about that pain, so now the world shall remember that pain."