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Chapter 312: Surplus Man (1)

-Ding!

[Leaving Underground Level 2 \'Familiar Ground\']

[Entering Underground Level 3 \'Familiar Ground (2)\']

It was still a dull notification sound.

The 69 survivors of the second floor had fallen into the third floor.

" What, this place?"

"It\'s the Imperial Capital."

"We\'re outside the Academy!"

For a moment, the students\' faces lit up as they realized they were outside the tower.

But their faces soon turned grim as they realized that the landscape of the Imperial Capital was similar to that of the Academy.

Cold, desolate ruins. Imperial Capital used to be more vibrant and bustling than any other city, but now everything was broken and cracked.

Broken windows and rusted doors, leaning roofs and half-broken pillars.

It was still daylight, so the sun was shining, but the dry, barren cold was still there.

Then.

"Hey, hey, what\'s that?"

"Ugh... It\'s huge."

"It looks creepy."

"Don\'t you think we shouldn\'t approach it?"

As the students cautiously walked through the city, they soon noticed something strange.

The central clock tower, symbolizing the center of the Imperial Capital. A structure that had once been destroyed by Miss Urobors and lost its form.

Yet here it stood, still standing.

Chipped and cracked in places, but still standing on a grand scale.

But that wasn\'t the most surprising thing.

"There\'s something wrapped around the clock tower."

"It\'s a plant vine, or maybe a root."

"What\'s that on top of the tower? It\'s huge."

"...It looks like a flower."

A plant wraps itself around the clock tower.

It was a huge flower blooming on the roof of the tower, with shriveled leaves, roots, and vines hanging down.

\'The withered flower\'.

The students could soon see that the huge flower was completely dead on top of the clock tower.

"Hey. This flower is subtly warm."

"I\'m not cold next to it. We can spend the night here."

"What is this, a leaf? No, the air sacs have dried up and shrunk."

"Is there something like a little air inside? It\'s soft so we can use it as a pillow."

The students split into two groups.

Those who would search the ruins for safety, and those who would stay near the flower\'s remains to avoid tonight\'s bitter cold.

Those who chose to stay around the flower covered themselves with dried roots and leaves and began to rest.

Those who went to the ruins sought shelter among the collapsed rubble, in sewers, basements, iron trash cans, and on roofs.

In most cases it fell into the latter category.

The memory of hiding from hellhounds in the previous stage was still fresh in their minds.

But for Vikir, it was the former.

The dried leaves were warm because they contained the warmth of the sun.

To the touch, it felt tough and dry, with a hint of air inside.

Vikir covered it and lay down half covered. This is because he want to regain his stamina.

... Time passed, and as the day wore on, it turned out that Vikir was right.

"You\'re too cold."

"Why are you so cold?"

"I don\'t have anything to keep the cold out...."

"You\'re going to freeze to death."

Cold concrete, glass, and rail could not block the cold.

Students who had been hiding in various parts of the ruins crawled out, shivering, and gathered at the \'withered flower\' of the central clock tower.

"Ah, it looks like we\'re finally going to live."

"Strange. It\'s warm around this flower."

"It must have had a lot of energy when it was alive."

"It must have had a lot of energy when it was alive to be able to retain this much heat even after death."

"But why is a creature of this size lying dead in a place like this?"

"I don\'t know. What the hell am I supposed to do here?"

"No fairy, no mission."

With a bit of a breather, the students began to complain about their current situation.

Then. The second crisis hit.

Growling-

Now that the cold is gone, hunger is a problem.

The students left their seats again and searched throughout the ruins, but as expected, they found almost nothing that could be used as food.

A chocolate bar with an unreadable expiration date, some bloated canned foods, some rotten-smelling meat, and a few withered bunches of weeds were all that was available.

Even then, the amount of food was ridiculously small for everyone to eat.

Everyone is frustrated by the food shortage.

... But there was one person who was cooking alone, out of sight, out of mind.

It was Vikir.

Bubbly, bubbling...

Vikir lit a barrel of used oil and placed a dented pot over it.

He caught rainwater from the tents and boiled it.

"Hey. Why are you boiling water?"

Grenouille, who was watching from the side, asked.

Vikir answered quietly.

"I need to eat."

"Really? Is there food?"

Grenouille asks, swallowing hard, and Vikir nods.

With that, Vikir stretched out Beelzebub\'s sword and held it to the withered stem of the flower.

...Poof!

He stabbed with his aura, and the plant\'s stem began to chip away, bit by bit.

The stem of the plant was extremely tough, and even with Vikir\'s aura, it wasn\'t easy to cut through it.

The other students probably couldn\'t even dream of it.

Soon, Vikir held two broken pieces the size of his little fingernails on his fingertips.

Grenouille shook his head.

"You\'re going to eat that, and it\'s going to be so little?"

But what happened next made Grenouille\'s jaw drop.

...pongdang!

A piece of the plant\'s stem was placed in boiling water and an amazing transformation occurred.

Bubbly, bubbling...

The stem piece, which was the size of a little fingernail, soon swelled to an enormous size.

It was as thick and long as an adult man\'s forearm.

"It looks small because it\'s dried out. If you eat it, it will expand to a huge size in your stomach."

Hearing Vikir\'s words, Grenouille swallowed hard.

The stem was too hard and tough to cut through, but even if he could, his stomach wouldn\'t be able to handle it if he ate it just because he was hungry.

"De-definitely. If I ate that much, my stomach would burst and I would die."

Grenouille watched, then dipped a minute stalk into the water.

Vikir didn\'t say anything.

Grenouille seemed to have noticed this as well, so he began to nibble on the stem of the plant while observing Vikir\'s perception.

"You, by the way."

"Hmm?"

"Why are you being so nice to me?"

Vikir had saved Grenouille\'s life from a pack of hellhounds in the previous stage.

Now he\'s feeding him.

Vikir gazed at Grenouille in wonder.

To be precise, he was looking at the necklace hanging on Grenouille\'s chest.

"...Well, we\'re friends."

Vikir said nonchalantly and looked away.

In essence, the word friend cannot be used to refer to people of similar age and in the same class.

Vikir knew this, but he said nothing.

But for some reason, the corners of Grenouille\'s eyes became moist.

\'... friend.\'

Grenouille hadn\'t made a single friend since entering the Colosseo Academy.

Everyone in his class followed him around, watching for anything to drop.

The seniors are the ones to approach for connections.

Moreover, he was always craving attention and recognition from his father, the patriarch of the family, and his older brothers.

However, being the youngest, he was treated like a child, and no matter how great his achievements were, he could never achieve anything new because his older brothers had already gone through it all before, leaving him lonely and dull.

That hadn\'t changed since he\'d entered the Academy.

But now. Grenouille was feeling complex emotions that he couldn\'t quite put his finger on.

\'I want to be friends... with this guy.\'

Grenouille had felt this way in the University League, but this kid in front of him was like a big brother, even though he was younger.

And when Vikir told him he was a friend, he felt recognized.

When Grenouille was blushing with a pride he didn\'t recognize.

"Hey. Isn\'t that you, Grenouille?"

A voice called out from behind him.

Grenouille turned to see a group of third-year Aristocrat Faction seniors standing there.

"I thought you were killed by hellhounds earlier, but you weren\'t."

"Thank goodness you\'re alive. A Leviathan, after all! Strong and reliable."

"Hurry over here. Ah, it\'s good to have the youngest again."

"I\'m sorry I couldn\'t save you earlier. I\'ll take you out of the tower and give you a big drink instead. Haha-"

They were gesturing toward Grenouille as if what had happened in the previous stage was no big deal.

Grenouille hesitated. These were the same people he\'d gotten along with before entering the tower.

\'What do I do?\'

Vikir had his own group outside the tower.

Grenouille was torn for a moment, not sure which way to go.

"That... I...."

After a brief deliberation, Grenouille opens his mouth to say what choice he just made.

[hot hot hot hot hot ? ]

A bizarre laugh suddenly came from nowhere.

At that moment, all the students turned their heads with wide eyes.

A bizarre ball of flesh could be seen floating in the air.

It was a fairy.

[Hell o to all 69 peo ple surviv ors ? Is th is the appear ance of yo ur cu te fai ry ? ]

The fairy gave a mission when it appeared.

<Mission> – Survive 1~69 days in the ruins!

※ ??? Avoid!

[Is the miss ion you wi ll perf orm sim ple th is ti me too ? Can you ju st sur vive ? ]

There was a stir among the students.

"Really? Are we really just supposed to stay alive?"

"But what\'s 1 to 69? Does it mean we just have to survive one day or 69 days?"

"Yeah. The time frame is unclear."

"Common sense says you can\'t survive 69 days in this cold, hungry place. But then again, it would be too easy to just survive one day...."

Just then.

A student who seemed to be a leader stood up.

Usually a sharp analytical and critical thinker in class, he had once again found a flaw in the fairy\'s explanation.

"Wait a minute. Something doesn\'t add up. What\'s the small print under the mission?"

Sure enough, all eyes turned to the direction his fingertips were pointing.

※ ??? Avoid!

A puzzling message. What could it be?

Then the fairy who was about to disappear came back in a hurry, as if forgetting something.

[Ah cha cha cha? Did I for get to un lock it ? ]

Forgot? What do you mean forgot?

The student who had pointed out the fairy snorted pathetically.

"If you\'re going to bring all these people to play pranks, do it right, you demon, do you have to be so sloppy?"

[ sor ry ? Did I alm ost ma ke a big mis take ? ]

The fairy apologized to all the students, including the model student, in a sheepish manner.

And then.

...snap!

The fairy lifted up a finger and let a drop of black blood fall into the air.

"?"

A single drop of blood dripped down, sticky as tar, in front of all the students\' puzzled faces.

It fell onto the dried roots of the plant on the ground and quickly soaked in.

And immediately, a terrible accident occurred.

Kkuddeuk-deuk-deuk-deuk!

A bizarre noise began to echo throughout the giant clock tower building.

The vines that had been dry and dead just moments before were slowly moving.

At the same time.

Ttugak-

The model student back who had who had given a warning to the fairy, suddenly broke.

A long, tough vine that had been hanging from the wall of the clock tower had suddenly wrapped itself around his waist and grabbed him.

"...?"

He barely felt the pain from his broken back.

He was overwhelmed by the sight of a huge flower on the roof of the tower, opening its gaping mouth.

The mouth, which was wide open as if smiling, was filled with teeth that were terrifying to look at, sticking out all the way up, down, left and right.

...Pujig!

It took less than a second for a human to be transformed into an insignificant piece of meat in the flower\'s gaping mouth.

Blood flowed out of the gaping mouth.

At the same time, the mission window changed.

<Mission> – Survive in the ruins for 1-68 days!

※ Avoid \'Daylily of Blood Tree\'!

The fairy chuckled.

[Now you on ly ne ed to sur vive for a maxi mum of 68 da ys, rig ht?]