Chapter 140: Final Evaluation (5)

To track a target using the ‘Tracker’s Seal’, you needed an object that the target possessed.

A possession containing the target’s scent or personal information.

Among them, the most certain was, of course, a part of the target’s body.

Things like hair, eyebrows, or fingernails.

Or even bloodstains or saliva.

Once the target was identified, the ‘Tracker’s Seal’ would leave a ‘mark’ on the target, and that mark would inform the owner of the seal of the target’s location.

From here, the special ability [Despiser] was activated.

When chasing someone with the mark, all stats increased by 10 percent.

That’s why Ivan was able to hunt Ferdons easily.

No matter how timid and cautious a Ferdon was, there was nothing it could do about its shedding fur.

The habitat was littered with traces, including the spiky fur of the Ferdon, on tree branches and in bushes.

With the activation of the [Despiser] trait on top of that, Ivan was able to collect Ferdon feathers more easily than others.

But it didn’t end there.

After checking the 1st mid-term tally.

Ivan, who saw that Gerard was in 1st place, immediately executed his next planned move.

That was to steal the feathers the cadets had collected over two hours.

Before coming here, Ivan had put the personal information of three people into the ‘Tracker’s Seal’.

The first was Gerard.

Ivan, who knew that Gerard went for a run every morning, ran with him.

And he put the sweat droplets Gerard had shed into the seal.

The second was Guillaume.

Guillaume was a classmate he had recently become close with, a friend he had been sparring with every day for about a month.

Thanks to that, Guillaume’s skills had improved by leaps and bounds in a month.

But in any case, since they hung out a lot, it was easy to put his information into the seal.

Ivan turned the ‘Tracker’s Seal’ on his finger.

When the shape of the seal changed to a ‘9’, he infused mana into it, and a light shot out from the seal, pointing in a certain direction.

It was where Guillaume was.

“Guillaume.”

Guillaume was not far away.

Guillaume, who was just putting a Ferdon feather into his container, widened his eyes upon seeing Ivan appear behind him.

“……Ivan? How are you here.”

“Artifact.”

“Ah!”

Guillaume nodded his head with a cry of realization.

Guillaume was the first among the classmates to know that Ivan was receiving Department Head Pirion’s attention.

He also naturally knew that Ivan had received an artifact from Department Head Pirion because Ivan had told him.

‘In that case…….’

Guillaume finished what he was doing and got up.

And he looked straight at Ivan.

“You’re after my feathers.”

Ivan did not deny it.

“Don’t take it the wrong way.”

“Not at all. Why would that be wrong? It’s one of the victory conditions that Professor Chaser mentioned.”

Guillaume shrugged with a nonchalant expression.

“You’re fully qualified for that, Ivan.”

Because you’re strong.

Guillaume swallowed his next words.

“Thank you for understanding.”

“Don’t thank me. I’m the one who knows better than anyone that you want to beat Gerard-senior.”

Guillaume clenched his fist, which was wearing a knuckle duster.

Then he charged first.

Thwack!

Guillaume and Ivan collided.

And the fight between the two was decided in less than 5 minutes.

“Keuk.”

Guillaume let out a groan and knelt on one knee.

He was bleeding from his shoulder, knee, and thigh.

It wasn’t a big wound, but it was enough to hinder his movements, so the result was obvious if they fought any longer.

Guillaume cleanly admitted defeat.

“I lost.”

It was nothing strange.

It had always been like that.

Guillaume had never once beaten Ivan.

“Here.”

Guillaume opened the container he had.

Inside were six feathers.

Ivan took it and put it in his own container, then turned his body without a word.

It was then.

“Ivan.”

“Yeah?”

“Who’s next? Is it Yuria?”

Ivan stared at Guillaume.

“Why do you think so?”

“Because the person from whom you can most easily get information, after me, is Yuria.”

He was right.

Ivan mainly hung out with Guillaume, but he also hung out with Yuria a lot.

Of course, because of Gerard, the frequency was significantly different compared to Guillaume.

But it was also true that she was the easiest to get information from after Guillaume.

“And Yuria. She seems to have a lot of feathers too.”

Ivan smiled.

“It’s not Yuria.”

“Really? Then who is it?”

“Karina.”

Ivan turned his body and headed for Karina.

“Karina……? Karina Zain?”

Guillaume, who was left alone, just tilted his head at the appearance of the unexpected name.

In fact, it wasn’t difficult to obtain Karina’s personal information.

It was because of her habitual brushing.

Where Karina had brushed her hair, her hair remained and Ivan had engraved one of them on the seal.

Karina, found that way, was quite far away.

So the two of them met right after the 2nd mid-term tally.

“Huh? Ivan……!”

Seeing Ivan, who charged at her with his sword as soon as he saw her, Karina swung the staff she was holding.

Whoosh, a huge flame soared in front of her.

Ivan swung his sword at the flame.

The sword, filled with an Aura Sword, easily tore through the flame and continued to slash at Karina.

However, Karina was not where the flame had disappeared.

“You underestimated me too much!”

The voice came from the side.

Karina, who had already distanced herself.

And around her, a whopping six fireballs were flicking their scarlet tongues at Ivan.

“Burn him.”

Karina poured all the Splitting Explosion Spheres at Ivan.

Kwa-wa-aaang──!

With an explosion that shook the earth, hot air and smoke filled the open lot.

She knew Ivan’s skills well, so she already knew that he wouldn’t die from something like this.

‘But even you won’t be unharmed.’

You’ll have to rest for about half a day and get treated by Professor Ilai.

“If you want to take tomorrow’s exam, that is. Why did you have to pick a fight with me? You’re so arrogant.”

With a faint smile, Karina approached the slowly disappearing dust cloud.

“Well, I’ll gratefully use the feathers you have……”

But Karina’s expression gradually hardened as she saw the silhouette revealed through the dust cloud.

“……I was going to, but.”

Ivan was unharmed.

On the contrary, he was so clean that it even made her wonder, ‘Did I shoot the explosion spheres somewhere else and not at Ivan?’

A translucent hemisphere was formed around Ivan’s body.

Karina, who realized its identity, widened her eyes.

“……A-Aura Shield?”

A vision that can only be used upon reaching the intermediate level of Aura Expert, and the exclusive property of a skilled knight.

To break that and wound a knight’s body, you had to use at least 5th Circle magic.

‘But the time…….’

There was no way Ivan would wait for her to draw the formula.

Ivan charged at Karina and swung his sword.

Kkaang!

She somehow managed to block it with her staff, but she couldn’t block the powerful force contained within it.

Karina, unable to overcome the force, fell backward.

“Kyaak!”

Ivan roughly snatched the staff and threw it far away.

And he said coldly.

“Hand over the feathers.”

“D-don’t be ridiculous!”

Karina shouted desperately.

Ivan frowned.

“Then I have no choice.”

Ivan raised his sword.

“What are you trying to do?”

“Torture.”

“What? A-are you crazy!?”

“I don’t want to do it either. I’ve never done it before. But if you don’t give them to me, I have no choice.”

Karina stared at Ivan’s sword with trembling eyes.

The tip of Ivan’s sword was aimed at her smooth calf.

It wouldn’t be life-threatening, but the pain of her skin being cut would be considerable.

Especially since Karina was not used to pain.

In fact, it couldn’t even be called torture.

A torture expert would laugh at how cute it was.

But this method of torture unexpectedly worked well on Karina, as she had considerable confidence in her snow-white skin and beautiful legs.

She had grown up being praised as a work of art, and now a scratch on her sculpture-like legs?

‘I-I absolutely hate that……!’

It was when Karina was conflicted.

Ttaang!

An object that flew from somewhere strongly hit Ivan’s sword.

“……!”

The object was surprisingly a tree branch.

Ivan lifted his head.

Before he knew it, a female cadet was standing in front of Karina.

Her, with her bright blonde hair and a charming mole by her lips.

“Kya-hat. What are you guys doing? I want to join too.”

It was Rachel.

A faint annoyance appeared in Ivan’s eyes.

“What are you doing, Rachel? Get out of the way.”

“Whyy? Let’s play together.”

Saying so, Rachel, who had brought it at some point, returned Karina’s staff, which Ivan had thrown, back to Karina.

“What’s with this idiot?”

“Hehe. In times like these, you’re just supposed to say thank you, Karina.”

“Are you crazy? Ask for something you can get. You idiot.”

“……”

Looking at the bickering two women, Ivan closed his eyes.

He quickly calculates in his head.

Looking at the situation at hand, it was a gain.

Rachel, whom he had seen in the 2nd mid-term tally, was 9th with 11 feathers.

By now, she would have more.

If he added Karina’s to that, it was a sure thing that he would be 1st place.

But.

“Hmm? Gerard. Don’t tell me you think you can beat the two of us─?”

The problem was that.

Ivan was not confident.

Of course, he was confident he could win against the two of them, but he couldn’t just go easy on them.

‘One of them could get seriously injured.’

If that happened, he would be disqualified.

Greed would bring disaster.

And another thing was time.

The exam time, which was now less than an hour.

If he couldn’t subdue the two of them within this time, Gerard, who had collected Ferdon feathers in the meantime, could rise to 1st place.

‘What should I do?’

Should he be greedy and take the risk to secure 1st place for sure?

Or would it be better to diligently hunt Ferdons now?

What solved this dilemma was, surprisingly, Rachel.

“But, Ivan. Do you have time for this?”

“Hmm?”

“No. I met Gerard-senior before I came here.”

At the words that followed, Ivan turned his body without a second thought.

“Gerard-senior. He was catching the red Ferdon.”

The red Ferdon’s feather.

If that fell into Gerard’s hands, it was certain that 1st place would be Gerard’s.

……That had to be stopped.

***

Kiyaoo!

I could see a silhouette fleeing through the bushes.

Fleeing with such incredible speed that it left only a whitish afterimage, it had an appearance similar to a small cat.

The red Ferdon.

On its forehead was a sparkling feather, and every time the feather emitted light, a mana bolt flew out and attacked me.

Thump!

But right now, I was in a state where all my stats were increased by 20 percent by using [Starlight].

It had the drawback of only lasting for 1 minute, but that was enough.

I dodge the pouring mana bolts and catch up to the red Ferdon.

And at last.

‘Caught you……!’

It was when my hand grabbed the creature’s leg.

Swish!

A sword falling on my wrist came into view.

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