Chapter 16
The forest at night had a completely different face from the daytime.
Beneath the thick canopy where even moonlight could not reach, Theron silently glided through the darkness.
Section Three's first search team will move along the eastern stream.
Isaac's voice was still clear in his ears.
We'll sweep everyone away from the first day. Three search teams. The eastern stream, southern ridge, and rocky area.
They had kindly announced their own hunting route right in front of their prey.
A faint smile appeared on Theron's lips.
Then I'll take them one by one.
Theron continued forward before suddenly stopping.
A stream was flowing ahead of him.
It was slightly different from the stream he remembered.
...The water has shifted to the right.
In his previous life, he had run through this test area so many times that even the soles of his feet remembered the terrain.
Back then, the stream had flowed beside the rocky area on the left.
Well... that was two or three years later.
One major flood was enough to change the course of a stream.
He could use his memories as a reference, but he had to trust what he saw with his own eyes.
Theron corrected the map inside his head and disappeared into the darkness once again.
Not long afterward...
Step. Step.
Footsteps came from beyond the darkness.
Four people?
Just from their weight and spacing, Theron could estimate their number and builds.
The one in front puts more weight on his right foot... and the last one is frightened.
The last trainee kept getting too close to the person ahead of him.
It was an instinctive reaction caused by fear.
Theron silently climbed a tree and looked down at the path they would take.
A search team from Section Three.
Wooden swords in hand.
Eyes constantly scanning their surroundings.
For a search team... they're clumsy.
But that was natural.
The trainees here had never actually been taught how to search for people.
Theron, on the other hand, had led the Shadow Knights in his previous life.
He had hunted and searched hundreds of times.
The moment the search team passed beneath his tree...
Tap.
Theron dropped without making a sound.
THUD!
The edge of his hand struck the back of the frightened trainee's neck.
He caught the collapsing body with one hand and gently lowered it without making a sound.
Whoosh!
Before the next trainee could even turn around, Theron was already inside his guard.
THUD! BAM!
Solar plexus.
Chin.
Two precise strikes.
Two trainees dropped to their knees without even managing to scream.
"W-What the...?!"
Only the leader remained.
He hurriedly raised his wooden sword.
The tension in his shoulders and the angle of the blade made his attack obvious.
He has a habit of striking downward with brute force.
Most trainees at this age fought like this.
Theron watched the incoming sword and moved half a step sideways.
Whoosh!
It was only half a step.
Yet the wooden sword passed through empty air without even brushing Theron's shoulder.
Then...
BAM!
Theron's elbow struck directly upward into the boy's chin.
Thud.
Four.
All four had fallen in an instant.
Theron searched their clothes and collected their tokens.
Four to start.
He dragged them deeper into the bushes and scattered leaves over their tracks.
They were not dead.
They simply would not return.
Theron knew very well what happened inside a commander's head when a search team suddenly "disappeared."
Anxiety makes people impatient.
The road toward the southern ridge.
Theron's pace had become faster than before.
The moment the first search team failed to return on time, time would stop being on Theron's side.
I can't handle the second team the same way.
The ridge was different from the stream.
There were fewer trees and far more open sightlines.
Attacking from above would not work.
But that did not matter.
If the terrain changed, he simply needed to change the method of hunting.
Once he reached the beginning of the ridge, Theron casually dropped something in the middle of the path.
One of the Section Three tokens he had just taken.
Then he slipped into a shallow depression beside the ridge and completely erased his presence.
Some time later...
"...Huh? Hey, look."
"That's a token. Why is it lying there...?"
Three trainees from the southern search team stopped.
A fallen token.
There were only two likely explanations.
Someone had dropped it.
Or it was a trap.
"Isn't it a trap?"
"Where could anyone hide around here? It's completely open."
Their eyes swept across the area.
No trees.
No rocks.
It looked impossible for anyone to hide.
But they did not know something important.
Hiding did not always mean placing something between yourself and another person's eyes.
Sometimes, it meant taking advantage of where people naturally looked.
People scanned at eye level.
They rarely suspected the shadow directly beneath their feet.
The moment one trainee bent down toward the token...
Whoosh!
The shadow beneath him suddenly rose.
BAM! THUD!
There were no screams.
The first blow landed behind the bent trainee's neck.
The second struck the solar plexus of the one who turned around in surprise.
The last remaining trainee immediately reached for the whistle at his mouth.
That would be troublesome.
Whizz!
A pebble thrown by Theron struck the whistle away.
Before the boy's open mouth could close, Theron's hand chopped down against the side of his neck.
Thud.
Seven.
Theron recovered the token he had used as bait and quietly caught his breath.
The first group had been an ambush.
The second had been lured in.
He kept changing his methods so they would not even realize they were being hunted by the same person.
That was how you planted the fear of something "unknown" inside your enemy's head.
At the same time.
Section Three's main camp.
Isaac suddenly opened his eyes from where he sat atop a high rock.
"..."
"What's wrong, Isaac?"
The trainee beside him carefully asked.
Isaac did not answer.
