NOVEL NEXT chapter 22
Chapter 22. Strategy
– Clang!
A massive iron wall descended, revealing the landscape of the trial ground.
“Hmm…”
The trial ground was a neighborhood, with dozens of low buildings huddled together.
“It really looks like a place where people live.”
Of course, it was not an actual residential area.
It was merely a model crafted to resemble reality for training purposes.
‘Truly, it is worthy of being the world’s premier awakening institution.’
Kim Do-jin marveled anew at the scale of ‘Ark’ as he cautiously entered the trial ground.
“About 11 o’clock, perhaps?”
With a hundred participants scattered evenly throughout the vast trial ground, he could not yet see any other students.
Kim Do-jin wandered through the alleys, exploring the terrain.
And after some time had passed.
“Ugh!”
At last, he encountered a student at the corner of the street.
“You, you….”
The student, eyes wide and flustered, was none other than Louis Ferrand.
The French exchange student who had dismissed Kim Do-jin’s team proposal during the last exam.
“Wait a moment!”
Louis Ferrand, glancing at Kim Do-jin’s expression, hurriedly continued.
“There’s no reason to fight here, right? This chance meeting feels like fate; how about we form a team this time?”
With a swift motion, he extended his hand for a handshake, his proposal for an alliance reasonable enough.
In this exam, the longer one survived, the higher the score, so it was far more advantageous to grow their strength through an alliance than to engage in pointless conflict.
But.
“I don’t want to.”
The identity of the proposer mattered greatly.
– Wham!
Instead of accepting the handshake, Kim Do-jin stretched out his arm, aiming for the flag draped over Louis Ferrand’s back.
“What the—!”
Louis Ferrand, not entirely unprepared, quickly turned to evade.
However.
– Snap!
Kim Do-jin anticipated that movement, striking out his hand, and effortlessly yanked the flag away from Louis Ferrand.
“….”
Stunned by the unexpected outcome, Louis Ferrand froze, his expression one of disbelief.
“…Why?”
As he stared blankly at the flag now held in Kim Do-jin’s hand, a slow simmer of anger began to cloud his features.
“Isn’t forming an alliance the obvious choice here?”
He glared sharply, trying to reason, but Kim Do-jin replied with his characteristic laid-back demeanor.
“If you’re out, then shut your mouth and leave according to the rules. You’re just a nuisance.”
At the mention of rules, Louis Ferrand had no choice but to clamp his mouth shut.
Yet he did not retreat quietly; his eyes burned with animosity directed at Kim Do-jin.
“…….”
Kim Do-jin met Louis Ferrand’s gaze with a look that seemed to say, “Look at this guy,” momentarily unfazed.
– Tchirrik!
In an instant, the numbers displayed on the smartwatch updated with a mechanical chime.
[Current number of survivors – 99 / 100]
Raising his wrist to check, Kim Do-jin ignored Louis Ferrand and trudged onward, his steps heavy.
– Crack.
Louis Ferrand, watching the back of Kim Do-jin’s head, clenched his teeth and muttered something under his breath, but to Kim Do-jin, it was nothing more than a source of amusement.
And so, time passed once more.
“Ah?”
This time, he encountered three students around the corner.
“Kim Do-jin!”
The trio consisted of Ryu Jin, the rubbery human who had been on the same team during the last exam, along with Kalidou Babacar and Li Ming.
Kalidou Babacar was a Senegalese exchange student with the ability to summon winds, while Li Ming, a Chinese student, possessed a peculiar power that allowed him to stretch his tongue like a frog, manipulating it with ease.
From the way they moved together, it seemed the three had already formed an alliance.
“Do you want to join us?”
Perhaps because they had been on the same team before, Ryu Jin readily proposed an alliance, even in the face of a 3-to-1 advantage.
“Sure.”
This time, there was no reason to refuse.
If he had turned them down, he might have faced a 3-to-1 assault and found himself out of the game by now.
“Great! Then let’s keep gathering strength!”
As Ryu Jin said, the key was to quickly bolster their numbers.
Before long, individuals would vanish, and a battle of alliances would erupt; it was only natural that the larger group would hold the advantage.
Thus, the four of them roamed together, expanding their alliance.
“I’ll head that way.”
Suddenly, Kim Do-jin suggested he would move alone to rescue some people.
“Huh? Hmm… alright then.”
While it was nice to stick together for safety, it was also a sound strategy to scatter and gather more allies.
So, he ended up acting solo, but in truth, Kim Do-jin had another purpose.
‘I should look for some chips.’
In this ‘Free-for-all’ exam, there were two additional ways to earn points beyond merely surviving longer.
The points awarded for eliminating other participants were one method, and the other was, quite simply, finding treasures.
Of course, it was not a true treasure, but rather a small chip-like object, scattered throughout this vast testing ground.
Moreover, the treasure was cunningly hidden, requiring both time and a stroke of luck to obtain, but for Kim Do-jin, the story was different.
‘…It feels like it’s over there somewhere, doesn’t it?’
With the keen mana-sensing ability unique to the ‘Devourer’ psychic, Kim Do-jin could detect the distinct mana waves of the treasure.
‘Alright. I need to grab it quickly.’
Having completed his search, Kim Do-jin moved without delay toward the location of the treasure.
However, on his way there.
“Ah!”
He unexpectedly ran into another alliance.
Despite his efforts to move as swiftly and stealthily as possible, it was an unavoidable encounter.
“Are you alone?”
Before long, five female students began to encircle Kim Do-jin, and among them was, coincidentally, Yoon Yu-na.
‘So we meet like this.’
Indeed, her striking beauty was enough to captivate even a reckless soul like Kim Do-jin, but this was not the time for such thoughts.
“What should we do? Should we take him out?”
While they could pull him into their alliance, the tide was leaning toward eliminating Kim Do-jin instead.
“Charge!”
At that shout, the five female students, including Yoon Yu-na, lunged at Kim Do-jin simultaneously.
And Kim Do-jin—
– Pah!
He detonated the flash he had prepared above his head at the perfect moment.
“Ugh!”
The five female students, rushing from all directions, flinched and shut their eyes at the critical moment, and in that brief opening, Kim Do-jin swiftly snatched their flags one by one.
– Tatatat!
Though the time spent with their eyes closed felt a bit long, it all happened in the blink of an eye.
“…What? Did we all fall?”
Now regaining their sight, the female students were bewildered, struggling to accept the reality before them.
‘Why did we even pick a fight?’
Yet among them, one, Yoon Yu-na, was an exception.
“…Why didn’t you take my flag?”
Yun Yuna narrowed her eyes and asked for the reason, while Kim Dojin calmly provided an answer that felt less like a reason and more like an excuse.
“I just don’t want to.”
“…….”
It wasn’t a lie.
To Kim Dojin, Yun Yuna was the daughter of a benefactor, so he couldn’t eliminate her right away.
Thus, he had plucked out all the other flags, leaving Yun Yuna untouched, but she had no way of knowing such circumstances.
In fact, given that he had once confessed his feelings for her, it was entirely reasonable for her to think he was trying to win her favor.
“Are you insulting me right now?”
Yun Yuna shot back, her face flushed with indignation, and Kim Dojin found himself at a loss for words, opting instead to simply apologize.
“That wasn’t my intention. If it upset you, I’m sorry.”
Yun Yuna opened her mouth again, ready to retort, but Kim Dojin didn’t wait to hear her words. He turned on his heel and hurriedly left the scene.
“What the hell!”
Time passed, and soon—
‘It feels like they’re inside there.’
At last, the mansion, their destination, loomed before them.
‘…Damn it.’
Once more, they encountered a coalition at the corner of the street, and this time it was a group of ten students.
‘This isn’t a number I can handle with a surprise attack…’
Kim Dojin concealed his unease and scanned the surroundings. The moment the ten students realized their opponent was alone, their tension eased, and they began to debate.
“What should we do? It’s best to eliminate the threat, right?”
Perhaps due to his poor reputation, the consensus leaned more towards removing Kim Dojin rather than accepting him into their ranks.
However, one student stepped forward to shift the atmosphere.
“Um… wouldn’t it be better to accept him into our team? We can’t be sure our strength is superior to theirs right now…”
That student was Misaki Ai.
Perhaps out of loyalty from having been on the same team during the last exam, she earnestly tried to persuade the other nine, but the tide was not easily turned.
“That’s true. But how can we trust him? He looks like he’d betray us at any moment.”
“Unless you can charm him, I don’t trust him.”
“Me neither. It’s better to have no strength than to have him.”
In the end, after much back-and-forth, the decision was made to eliminate Kim Dojin.
But, fortunately, Misaki Ai’s efforts were not in vain for Kim Do-jin.
“Huh? There they are?”
Thanks to the delay, Kim Do-jin’s alliance, led by Ryu Jin, emerged from the shadows behind.
“What are you planning to do?”
As Kim Do-jin grinned and spoke, realization dawned, and panic set in.
“Ah!”
Ryu Jin’s group numbered ten, just like Misaki Ai’s.
With Kim Do-jin included, the odds tilted to eleven against ten, favoring the opposing side.
“Damn it!”
Misaki Ai’s group hastily assumed a battle stance, on high alert, and Ryu Jin’s group mirrored their readiness.
“Are we going to fight?”
Yet, that tension dissipated easily.
“No.”
With a total of one hundred participants in this trial, there was no reason to engage in a skirmish between alliances just yet.
In fact, it was far more advantageous to form a coalition, creating a new alliance of twenty-one.
“Alliance call?”
“Call.”
Thus, a new alliance was forged, and Kim Do-jin resumed his path.
A two-story red-brick mansion stood at the ten o’clock position of the testing grounds.
Within, treasures were surely hidden.
– Click!
Finally, as Kim Do-jin opened the front door of the mansion, he cautiously began to explore the interior.
In this trial, moving to belong to a larger alliance was a sound strategy, but lurking in the shadows, waiting for other students to self-destruct, was equally viable.
In other words, someone might be hiding within these walls.
“……”
Kim Do-jin minimized his presence, sharpening his senses to detect any signs of others as he walked.
And after some time had passed.
– Creak…
He finally arrived at the study on the second floor.
‘The waves of mana are emanating from this direction…’
Kim Do-jin focused his mind, tracing back the currents of mana, and at last, he rummaged through the pages to uncover a treasure.
“Good.”
A small chip nestled between two thick tomes, like a bookmark.
Kim Do-jin smiled with satisfaction, tucking the chip securely into his cloak.
Just as he was about to step out in search of other treasures, a moment of hesitation struck him.
“Hm?”
Something white peeked out from the drawer of the desk beside him, catching his eye.
“What is that?”
Driven by curiosity, Kim Do-jin pulled the drawer open with a creak.
And in that instant.
“…!”
He couldn’t help but freeze in surprise.
The white fabric that had been sticking out from the drawer.
Its true identity was none other than the combat uniform of an ‘Arc’ student.