Kana wasn’t certain, but there had to be someone—somewhere—who could get to them fast. A professor with a [Teleport] skill, maybe. She pulled a quill and parchment from her [Inventory], the motion fast enough to look like she’d just fished them from a pocket.

  One shadow man, they could handle.

  A dozen equivalent to shadow man’s skill? That was suicide.

  Defense, then. Hold the ground. Survive until help arrives.

  “We need to notify Wor-en. And the academy,” she said, already scribbling. Her handwriting was quick, clipped, more about speed than elegance. She tore the parchment cleanly in two and handed it to Suri.

  Suri’s mana flared soft and blue as she pressed her hands to the paper. Two small birds shimmered into being—hollow illusions wrapped around solid mana—and with a flick, they darted into the sky.

  A few copper class students were impressed at the flying illusion but there was no time to be impressed. They could assess how dangerous the situation that they’d thought to be.

  Kana scanned the group. “We’re going to survive this. Follow my plan.”

  Her [High Awareness] pulsed at the edge of her thoughts, feeding her the shape of the trap wall—their tension like taut strings ready to snap. Boris was steady, Suri calm, Adam… unexpectedly composed. The rest? Fear in every posture.

  If it came to it, she still had the [Teleportation] scroll. But would it pull everyone… or just party members? She didn’t know, and she wasn’t willing to gamble on the wrong answer.

  ….

  Yuri held her staff as if it were an anchor, the polished wood warm against her trembling palms, hidden beneath the folds of her robe. The gift from her mother—the day she awakened—should have made her relax. Instead, her mind raced. What went wrong?

  It wasn’t just bad luck. Any mana user could see it. Someone had laced this place with traps—layer upon layer, a weave of skill meant to trap even the cautious. She recognized the craft. She’d set simpler ones herself, though her magic had never been suited for such vicious work.

  She was meant to lead. Her class was designed for it. Yet here she stood, watching everyone’s focus bend toward someone else. Kana.

  Even Boris, of all people. She’d heard the stories—three arrogant noble boys from her Gold Class making fun of Roy’s skill, only to find themselves flattened, one after another, in a friendly match. Boris had never bowed to anyone, no matter how high their title or deep their coin purse. But now… he obeyed Kana as if it was second nature to him.

  Leo too—the top of their class, president of the Gold Class, a leader in his own right—stood ready at her word.

  What is it about her?

  Yuri’s thoughts scattered when Kana stepped up to her. That gaze—sharp, assessing—made her feel as though she were being measured—no, as if she was looking down at her.

  “Use your [Enhance Speed] if you sense we’ll need it,” Kana said, voice cold. “Your other skill—don’t touch it until I tell you. That’s our trump card.”

  Questions pressed against Yuri’s lips—What plan? Why wait? What about our weaknesses?—but when she spoke, the words came out without thought.

  “Yes.”

  It was a standard defensive position—solid, familiar—but Yuri saw the flaw immediately. Why were they so certain the enemy would come from that direction? What if they struck from all sides?

  She didn’t voice it. Better to wait until the leader’s plan failed. Then they would see who could really lead.

  The thought died when the ground shuddered and the muddy wall at their front shrank, opening a gap. It was a good move they expected where it should be—every enemy in sight began funneling toward it.

  They halted, eyeing the formation. Then a [Mage], fire-variant by the look of it, conjured a mass of flame and hurled it toward them.

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  They needed to run. Now! Yuri’s heartbeat quickened. She panicked, casting [Enhance Speed] on instinct.

  Before she could shout the order, the fire vanished—burned away in midair. Suri stood just behind where it had been, mana rippling around her hands. Not a skill—pure mana manipulation. Impractical. Dangerous. That should have drained her dry.

  But Suri didn’t waver. Instead, she layered an illusion over the barrier—a massive Horn Direwolf looming in the enemy’s path. She has that much mana? At her age? There is no sign of mana burnout.

  The enemy faltered… then Yuri spotted it. Her support-trained eyes tracked movement others missed—a [Bowman], enemies were shifting from magic to a clean physical shot where mana barrier was useless. A lethal threat on the battlefield. The [Bowman] drew, a smile curling his lips—

  A whistle split the air.

  Kana’s bow was already down, the string still trembling from release. The arrow blurred forward, passing through the [Bowman] skull and out the other side, leaving a neat hole where his thoughts had been.

  Suri shaded her eyes with one hand, from the sunlight slipping through the gaps. “Nice shot!”

  Kana gaze was scanning as if she was waiting, expecting something to come out. Yuri could only stare, mouth dry, heartbeat loud in her ears.

  They were right. These three… should be in the gold class.

  …..

  “Now!” Balt barked.

  One of the [Mages] stepped forward, pressing a palm to the wall. The stone at the center shrank inward like dough under a rolling pin, opening just enough for them to slip through.

  Balt stepped in—then blinked.

  Ten students stood ready. Weapons up. Positions were solid and he could tell they practiced them many times before.

  “Orn. Break them.”

  The fire-variant [Mage] grinned, gathering heat above his head until it coalesced into a blazing sphere as wide as a cartwheel. With a shout, he hurled it down at the students.

  It vanished midair. No smoke, no fizzle—just gone.

  Balt scratched the back of his head. “I don’t think they’ve got a barrier specialist. Did we miss something?”

  The barrier-specialist [Mage] narrowed his eyes. “That wasn’t a skill. Someone blocked it with pure mana.”

  Another mage nodded in agreement. The first chuckled. “Impractical. That much raw mana… they’ll burn out fast.”

  Balt’s grin tightened. He couldn’t sense mana himself, but he knew what that meant—their casters wouldn’t be much use here. Of course, he was sure they would win a battle of attrition but time was not their friend this time around.

  Time to move.

  Paint marked his face: White face, large round red nose and bright smiling painted red thick lips across his face. He hadn’t put it there—it had simply appeared the day he’d gained his [Clown] class. A strange hybrid, part [Rogue], part [Thief], but more on trickery.

  A laugh clawed its way out of Balt’s throat—high, jarring, and wrong. He hadn’t chosen to laugh; his [Clown] class dragged the sound out of him, twisting it into something sharp and mocking. Even he could feel how it scraped against the heavy silence.

  The plan was simple. Their long-range damage dealers would keep up the barrage while a few—quiet as rats in the dark—slipped inside. His specialty. Mana barriers could block magic skills, not steel, not something physical. Arrows would surely find their mark. Their [Bowman] would turn the students into screaming wrecks.

  Then the air whistled.

  Not from them. From the students.

  Balt knew that sound. He had heard it in battlefields—fast and lethal. But this… this was sharper. Meaner. It carried a weight, a certainty, as if the arrow already knew where it belonged.

  Time slowed down.

  He turned his head slowly, not because he wanted to, but because his body refused to move faster—as if some part of him already understood what he’d see.

  The arrow crossed the distance in a heartbeat stretched thin. He could see the twist of its fletching, the shimmer of heat where it cut the air. He thought of their [Bowman], smug and steady.

  Then comes the impact.

  The arrowhead punched through like it was nothing—bone, flesh, thought—gone in a neat hole that left red watery smoke drifting into the sunlight. The man’s eyes hadn’t even finished widening before his knees buckled. And for the first time, he realized just how fragile a skull really was.

  Balt’s painted grin stayed. His class was designed for that. But underneath, something cold slithered in.

  He was not joking this time around.

  This was not how he pictured their surprise clash.

  Most of them are copper class students right? A Horn Direwolf? Why is there a summoner too?

  Balt could only curse under his breath.