“Ah, Alp…”

“Eh?!”

Zugspitze.

The edge of the Alps mountain range.

“This… I don’t know if we can even move around in this cold. Lucas, are you okay?”

Tsheringen said, turning to me.

He’s definitely looking out for me, being the team’s second-in-command…

Though there’s really no need.

“I’m fine. Worry about yourself first.”

“We need to finish quickly. Guys, can you run in this state?”

“Run? Our joints are freezing?”

“We have to run.”

Tsheringen answered firmly, but the team members’ faces were filled with tension.

‘Definitely disadvantageous.’

It’s an environment with many problems even for utilizing Unique Abilities.

Philip let out a groan, then yelled.

“No, where else do dispatches happen like this? Why would a person go into *Vitriol* at 3000 meters above ground! Is there even a way up here?”

There’s no lift, no tourist railway.

It’s a place where you have no choice but to climb up with your bare body.

Of course, people don’t normally go into *Vitriol* in places like this…

But it’s not entirely impossible. It’s a good experience to see how far the school will go to adjust the difficulty level.

Philip yelled again.

“And if someone went into *Vitriol* here, they’d wear proper gear when dispatched, not get warped defenselessly like us, you know?”

At those words, Philip’s friend interjected.

“Warped? We’re still in the same place.”

“Of course, that’s true! Because it’s virtual reality. But the professors copied that place exactly and pasted it here, so what’s the difference from actually warping?”

“Enough.”

Tsheringen raised his hand as if telling them to be quiet.

Everyone shut their mouths and looked at Tsheringen. Besides, they didn’t have the energy to talk more due to the cold.

“We need to find where the victim is now. In this situation, the absence of tourists is somewhat advantageous. Philip, it should be easier than the city center, right?”

“…Yeah.”

“Florian, have you ever used your ability in sub-zero temperatures?”

“Of course… not much. But it’s not impossible. Just a bit weaker.”

“Good. For now, mine isn’t completely impossible either, but it should be left as a last resort. A situation with cold air at the surface doesn’t quite match the situations I usually experience.”

In the first place, Tsheringen’s lightning strike ability is extremely destructive and not suitable for rescue activities like this, unless the goal is to create farmland; it doesn’t exactly benefit human life.

“Unique Abilities are also a problem, but the real issue is that our movement is restricted. So far, all the previous six teams had recommended processing times between 30 and 40 minutes. This field is probably the same. But who here can endure 30 minutes?”

“……”

“…Let’s finish quickly.”

The Class 1 Ainsidel muttered.

Tsheringen nodded.

“It would be best to finish within 20 minutes. To do that, we need to know what our priority should be. As we saw earlier, if civilians appear, civilian care must be prioritized. If ruins appear, we need to mind those too, and if swamps and forests appear like Team 3-4 got, we must strive to prevent Vitriol from seeping into the ground.”

“B-But here, there’s nothing…”

“Right. There are no civilians here, no ruins, and it’s not a structure where Vitriol seeps deep into the ground. Then what element did the school give us as the biggest problem? What do we need to consider?”

Nobody spoke.

They seemed to lack the energy to answer, and also seemed unsure what the school wanted if civilian care or preventing secondary damage wasn’t the top priority.

“Our lives.”

At my words, Tsheringen nodded.

“Right. The core of this field will be the rescuers’ lives.”

The core of the Team 1-2 field was maintaining order, and the core of the Team 7-8 field was minimizing environmental damage. Team 3-4 was the same.

And finally, prioritizing the rescuers’ safety.

It’s a perfectly suitable theme for the school’s final assignment.

This implies one thing.

The school won’t give heavy deductions for property damage.

‘No.’

Rather, the moment we focus on property damage or preserving the natural environment, our team gets negative points.

Damage or whatever, we must use anything available.

I swept the ground with the tip of my boot.

The snow I was stepping on hardened due to my body weight, and the tip of my foot slipped sharply.

‘Dropping us on a slope, of all places.’

To secure safety first, we need to get out of here.

There’s a plateau below the summit.

Since this place also has subjects like Earth Science in Korea, I had a basic understanding of the terrain here.

To see if there was anything I didn’t know, I asked the students.

“Guys, anyone know anything about the environment here? Philip, you didn’t seem to sleep during science class, tell us everything you know.”

“Here? Glaciers, avalanches, limestone, lead, zinc, karst. And Ice Age, Mesozoic Era. That’s all I know.”

“Haha…. Weren’t you the one sleeping during science class?”

Tsheringen teased with a laugh.

Considering he’s an Imperial Second Academy student, he really doesn’t seem to know much.

If anything, he knows less than me…

Anyway, I understand he doesn’t have the mental capacity to form sentences right now.

“Over a minute has passed already. Let’s begin.”

Tsheringen clapped once and spoke with a weighty tone.

Philip lowered his body and began focusing his senses.

“…Upwards.”

“Up?”

“Something seems to be rolling around near the summit? It’s extremely far away.”

“……”

Tsheringen nodded, then gestured towards us with his head.

He said ‘rolling around.’

In the other teams’ exams too, the sphere wasn’t floating in the air. It seemed to consider that actual victims have limbs and run with their legs.

Anyway….

Philip’s friend, understanding the meaning, grabbed his head.

“Do we have to climb the Alps in this weather?!”

“Yeah. We have to climb up to the plateau 300m below the summit. Anyone know the warp coordinates for the plateau?”

“……”

“Of course not.”

“H-Here, if we adjust the coordinates one square at a time…”

“No.”

I shook my head at Melvin’s words.

We don’t know where we’d fall.

“Then, Philip. There are tons of peaks surrounding this plateau, which one among them is the victim located at?”

“Hmm, it’s too far, so I don’t know that much.”

“……”

“Sorry. But honestly, it’s ridiculously far.”

Philip apologized, looking hesitant.

It wasn’t exactly something to apologize for.

The problem is, if we don’t even know which direction it’s in, there’s no time for an immediate strategy meeting.

Eyes met all around.

Tsheringen smiled and shouted.

“Run, guys.”

***

“Zugspitze? Wow…”

Dry laughter erupted from the students watching the broadcast in the gymnasium.

“Can they even run around in that frost? It must be around minus 15 degrees Celsius there right now.”

“Hey, among Team 5, there’s a kid with fire as a Unique Ability.”

“Really?! That’s too disadvantageous for Team 6, isn’t it?”

“They have Yulia and Askanian too. What does it matter if it’s a bit disadvantageous?”

“No, if they slip and roll down, what about the impact? Even if they don’t actually die, it would show up in dreams.”

“For them, survival comes first, I guess.”

A student chuckled.

Leo listened to their conversation, his gaze fixed on the broadcast screen.

That student threw it out half-jokingly, but that’s likely the real intention of the assignment.

‘Easy in one way, difficult in another.’

Excessively easy for Team 5, which has a fire user, and excessively difficult for Team 6.

But if Yulia uses lightning to set fire to a tree, and everyone carries a torch, things might change.

Of course, that’s worlds apart from a fire user. A fire user can use their whole body as a furnace, so just walking around next to them makes things considerably better. In contrast, carrying a torch is just a hindrance.

Just then, Elias subtly shifted his position and squeezed into the Team 1 waiting area.

“Hey~ Let’s see how Luca does?”

At those words, the student sitting next to Leo asked with a smile.

“Luca? You look for Askanian quite often.”

“He’s fun~ Besides, the Alps. Leo, you should have gone there. Right?”

“Ah, right! It’s Bavaria.”

At the students’ words, Leo shook his head.

“Who knows. Anyway, if it’s a natural elements field, it’s good for utilizing my Unique Ability.”

The school authorities are trying to prevent the use of Unique Abilities.

Of course, Leo himself can use his ability anywhere with just a handful of dirt, but even so, a train station is more disadvantageous for displaying his Unique Ability than a natural field.

To be precise, even if he displayed his Unique Ability, a field was given where its value couldn’t be fully utilized and revealed.

“According to my research, only Philip is someone whose ability can be usefully employed in any field.”

“That brat uses his perception ability well for what he is.”

“And Yulia’s ability is difficult to utilize in any way. The nature of the ability itself is extremely destructive and aggressive, so it’s not suitable for rescue activities.”

“Right. Maybe on a battlefield, but…”

It’s definitely entirely disadvantageous for Lucas’s team, Team 6.

Just then, surprised voices came from other students.

“Huh?”

“What?! Is this allowed?”

What is it.

Leo looked at both screens.

Since Team 6 hadn’t even reached the plateau yet, their screen remained the same, but Team 5’s didn’t. Team 5, having run quickly and reached the plateau, and their view were shown. Of course, that much wasn’t strange. It was natural for the team with the fire user, having a significant advantage, to progress faster.

But this current scene wasn’t the participants’ problem.

It was a problem with the assignment design.

“…!”

Leo, confirming the screen, unknowingly held his breath.

***

Philip’s reports kept cutting out.

Tsheringen, running at the very front, shouted.

“Philip, keep checking!”

“Huk…. The wind… Over there, there. This time, left!”

The kid is frozen, can’t even speak properly.

He’s currently guessing the location of the plateau by following the wind flow.

‘I wonder what Team 5 is doing right now.’

My teammates are already completely frozen. Though I wrapped barriers around all the students, it wasn’t enough. Everyone’s lips are turning purple.

Philip needs to feel the grain of the wind, so I couldn’t even cover him with a barrier.

It reached the point where I wondered if they’d die of hypothermia.

‘Insane difficulty…’

Who gets dispatched to Zugspitze without gear?

Of course, thanks to being dropped like this, I could intuitively grasp what the school wanted. As I thought earlier, the school is asking how we would survive when pushed to the extreme limit.

At least everyone has good reflexes, so they haven’t slipped yet.

“Uaack!”

‘Just thought that, and someone slips.’

Philip’s friend almost slipped, but perhaps unconsciously used his Unique Ability, as some dying grass rushed from somewhere and grabbed his leg.

Using a Unique Ability so passively like this just makes me laugh dryly.

If they had gotten a forest, they’d be suppressing the victim with this by now; the school authorities’ determination to prevent the proper utilization of Unique Abilities at all costs is truly respectable.

‘Come to think of it, Team 5 has a fire user.’

That bothers me a bit.

In all previous fields, the school assigned disadvantageous fields to each ability user to prevent the utilization of Unique Abilities.

What would this imply?

Team 5 needs to think carefully.

Having fire ability in the Alps isn’t their luck.

It means there’s a problem significant enough to offset the advantage of fire ability.

‘Thinking this far…’

They couldn’t have failed to, right?

The only problem is, no matter how much one knows intellectually, the side thinking they have the upper hand is prone to arrogance.

They are more likely to move by inertia rather than thinking deeply.

‘Perhaps it’s lucky that fire user isn’t on our team.’

While thinking that, Tsheringen asked Philip.

“How much further?”

“Almost there. But, guys.”

Philip’s face turned white.

“The sound is overlapping.”

“What? Isn’t it an animal sound?”

“No, this… That feeling hitting the air is exactly the feeling of Vitriol. You know what I mean, right? The reflected waves are different.”

At those words, Philip’s friend approached, looking frustrated.

“No, speak clearly. So what you’re saying now is…”

Just then, Tsheringen, who had practically launched himself up using magic in his legs, called us with a dry laugh.

[Guys. You need to come quickly.]

“Why?”

[There are two victims.]

***

[Hey, what? There are two victims?]

The team leader’s voice flowed from the Team 5 broadcast screen.

Now, the students in the gymnasium silently watched the movements of Team 5 and Team 6 only.

This was the first field set up with two victims.

‘One to the east, and one to the northeast. Of all places, on different peaks.’

Isn’t the school demanding too extreme a difficulty level?

Leo unknowingly held his breath and watched the screen.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep