The cave ceiling rained dirt as candidates pounded the surface above. They'd finally connected the dots—Vael wasn't in a tree or a ditch. He was buried.
And now they meant to dig him out like a truffle.
Vael should have been running. Instead, he faced a different problem—one wielding an icicle lance in one hand and a round shield in the other.
One Hour Earlier
Four hours of rest had dulled the pain from agony to a constant throb. Still, Vael forced himself up. Best to scout the cave before its owner noticed him.
Smart move.
In the deepest shadows, something shifted. An armored carapace glistened—a cockroach the size of a hunting dog, roused from its energy-saving stupor by his footsteps.
First-stage. Weak. But without mana, even this was a fight.
Pathetic, Vael thought as he raised his rapier. Reduced to brawling with bugs.
The cockroach charged. Vael sidestepped, letting its momentum slam into the wall. Before it recovered, his blade flicked out—not to kill, but to cripple. A shallow cut to the rear leg joints.
The beast staggered. No shriek. No sound at all. Just eerie silence as dark fluid oozed from the wound.
Vael fought like a surgeon: bait, dodge, nick. His next target—the twitching antennae. Without them, the roach would be blind in the darkness.
The left antenna came off clean. Then the right.
Still no scream. Just the scrape of chitin on stone as it flailed.
"Strange," Vael muttered.
The cockroach was a ruin of oozing wounds and twitching limbs—blinded, crippled, desperate. It thrashed wildly, chitin scraping against stone as Vael circled just beyond its reach, rapier poised for the killing lunge.
The moment came when it reared up on its hind legs, exposing the soft underbelly. Vael lunged—
CRACK.
A glacial spike the size of a warhorse impaled the beast from above, splitting it clean in half vertically. The force sent shockwaves through the cave, nearly knocking Vael off his feet.
What—?
He backpedaled as the icicle shattered, spilling the cockroach's innards across the floor. That's when he saw it:
The brain—frostbitten.
The heart—encased in ice.
The vocal cords—packed with frozen slush.
This thing had been silenced long before Vael entered the cave.
His boots slipped on frozen insect guts as he spun wildly, squinting into the gloom.
Fuck. Half-blind in a cave with someone who turns grade ones into popsicles.
But the icepick-of-doom hadn't split him in half yet. That was… promising?
"Uhh. Thanks?" Vael called out, facing the wall like a misbehaving cadet. "If you're here for the reward points, can we skip the monologue? Just stab me in the back like a normal person."
His voice didn't shake. Good. Maybe they'd buy the bluff.
Water dripped in the darkness. Then—
"Greetings, Serpes."
The voice rolled through the cave like winter wind—smooth, effortless. A woman's voice. "Enjoying the exam so far?"
Vael whirled toward the sound.
There she was. The blonde girl who had faded into shadows during the courtyard assembly. Now she stood center stage, frost creeping across the walls where she stepped.
"I should introduce myself." Her fingers flexed. Ice crystallized in her palm, elongating into a jagged spear. A shield of frozen mist formed in her other hand. "Alina."
Recognition hit like a gut punch. Her. The one he'd marked as dangerous from the start.
Alina tilted her head, the cave's chill deepening with her smile.
"Do you know what I want?" The spear's tip kissed the ground, freezing the cockroach's blood in fractal patterns. "The one thing I'd kill innocent people for?"
Her eyes locked onto Vael's.
"I want to overthrow the monarchy."
Vael's brain flatlined.
Overthrow the—?
Why drop a treason bomb in a cave? Why tell him?
"Bold opener," he managed, edging back. "You planning to recruit me, or kill me?"
Alina's smirk widened like a crack in ice. "Some mutual friends suggested we'd get along."
Mutual friends? Vael's mind raced—
CRACK.
The ceiling gave way.
Back to present problems.
"So, can I count on you in the future?" she asked, the edge of her spear resting on his neck, a silent warning.
Vael didn't give it much thought.
"All right. But, you know, threatening me is pointless. This is a simulation, after all."
"We have a deal."
Alina's form shimmered like melting glacier ice, her smirk the last thing to fade from existence. "Do try not to die before our next chat."
Then—nothing. Not even a wisp of cold air remained.
The first boulder hit like a cannon shot, spraying razor-sharp stone shards. Vael's body moved before his mind caught up—years of battle-honed instincts propelling him forward even as his muscles screamed in protest.
One. Fucking. Hour.
The cave convulsed around him, ceiling fracturing like rotten ice. A car-sized chunk smashed down where he'd stood moments ago, the shockwave punching him forward. His ankle twisted on uneven stone—
Snap.
Not the bone. Not yet. Close.
Early sunlight. Thirty paces ahead. The entrance yawned like a guillotine's blade, its edges crumbling with each heartbeat.
Vael tasted blood—he'd bitten through his cheek. Didn't matter.
Behind him, the world collapsed in slow motion:
A stalactite speared the ground where his heart had been two breaths ago. The cockroach's frozen corpse vanished under a tomb of rubble. The very air thickened with choking dust.
He dove—
—and the mountain swallowed itself in a roar of grinding stone.
Gasping on hands and knees, Vael turned.
Where the cave mouth had been, only a landslide remained.
And standing atop it, silhouetted by the new sun—
Five candidates.
All staring straight at him.
Oh boy.
The chase resumed. Hunters, seething. Hunted?
Determined.