In the depths of the forest where blood and darkness intertwined, a fierce battle had come to an end.
The massive demonic creature crashed to the ground.
The black-haired girl casually wiped the bloodstains off her cheek, cleanly cut open the corpse with her longsword, and picked out a magic core containing power from inside.
“That’s the third one.” Sevitis tossed the Third Rank magic core, still streaked with blood, into her Storage Space.
As she ventured deeper, Sevitis noticed that the number of Third Rank demonic creatures around her was clearly increasing.
That was a bit different from her initial guess. Unless she was incredibly lucky, it could only mean that high-level demonic creatures in this area were not as rare as she had imagined.
If that were the case, the Team Assessment wasn’t without its advantages.
A dozen people moving together wouldn’t get enough to split, but if they split into multiple small teams and hunted from different directions, the total score they scraped together would be considerable.
However, that depended on the candidates’ ability to adapt.
As for Sevitis herself, being a pure brute who couldn’t use any magic at all, she did find it a bit tough against some thick-skinned high-level demonic creatures.
But since things had come to this, even if she wanted to team up, it was too late. She had to grit her teeth and continue.
Fortunately, the knowledge of demonic creatures she had crammed in the Duke’s Mansion over the years had not been in vain.
Coupled with the assistance of the [Seven Sins Eye], she had managed to gather quite a lot of magic cores in her Space Pouch.
After a brief rest, Sevitis picked up her sword and intended to push deeper into the forest.
Rustle, rustle—
A faint noise suddenly came from the nearby bushes. Sevitis became alert instantly, realizing something was hiding nearby.
But she didn’t stop walking, pretending she hadn’t heard anything, and continued forward without any guard.
When she judged she had walked far enough, she stopped, lowered her body, and stealthily circled back to the spot where the sound had come from.
If she had stopped directly, she would easily have scared the prey away.
Through several hours of hunting, she had discovered that the demonic creatures in this forest were much more alert than those outside.
Maybe it was because the living environment here was too harsh, forcing low-level demonic creatures to be cautious to survive.
Or maybe it was because the Academy’s exam setup had made so much noise that the demonic creatures’ vigilance had greatly increased.
Earlier, several low-level demonic creatures had spotted her from far away and bolted, otherwise she would have collected even more magic cores.
But now, she had practiced concealing her aura, so she wouldn’t let her prey escape again.
Crunch, crunch.
As Sevitis approached the thicket, the strange noise became clearer.
Feeling she was close enough, she held her breath, poked half her head out, and looked over the bushes.
What met her eyes were two sharp horns.
The owner of these horns was completely hidden in the bushes, occasionally shifting its body, making the surrounding leaves rustle.
Sevitis narrowed her eyes and examined carefully. The shape of the horns looked familiar. Where had she seen them?
She quickly recalled, immediately thinking of the fierce Demon Bull from the previous Practical Examination.
That’s right, it was the same shape, only these horns were noticeably smaller.
Though she couldn’t understand why a bull-type demonic creature would appear in the Blood Burial Forest, it was definitely right.
So, before it noticed, she would finish it off quickly!
Sevitis suddenly burst into action, gripping her longsword with both hands and swinging it without hesitation toward the cow head hidden in the leaves!
However, just as her blade was about to fall, the “cow head” actually spoke:
“W-wait! Spare this cow!”
The voice was a bit muffled, but the terror in it revealed a genuine desire to live.
Sevitis froze. Demonic bulls couldn’t speak human language, could they?
She had studied for five years and never heard of any demonic creature being able to talk.
‘Ah, I see.’ Sevitis’s eyes lit up. ‘Could it be a rare mutated bull-headed monster? I can’t just kill it then.’
‘Better beat it half to death to disable it, then hand it over to the Academy. A talking demonic creature has great research value. Maybe I can even exchange it for more points!’
Thinking that, Sevitis didn’t retract her sword but adjusted its angle, preparing to strike again.
“Wait one more time! I’m really not a demonic creature!”
The owner of the voice scrambled out of the bushes in fright. Sevitis then saw that it was a girl with hair of mixed black and white.
Around her neck hung a large copper bell, which now clinked with the violent rise and fall of her “billowing waves” of a chest.
Facing Sevitis’s gleaming longsword, the girl had tears at the corners of her eyes, looking so wronged she might cry.
Yet even so, she still had a broken branch with leaves in her mouth, chewing on the green leaves even though she had nearly lost her head.
“I’m a Spirit Race—you must have heard of them, right? I’m really just a harmless, ordinary ox demon!” the girl defended, her speech garbled.
In Sevitis’s mind, a bit of common knowledge about the “Spirit Race” quickly flashed.
They were a massive race that occupied the northwest of the continent, second in number only to the Human Race.
Unlike the Human Race’s many kingdoms, the Spirit Race practiced a tribal confederation led by a single “Yao Emperor.”
Though their original forms were birds and beasts, they were fundamentally different from ordinary animals—
Once their strength broke through to Third Rank, Spirit Race members could not only awaken their own Soul Vein but also shed their beast bodies and transform into a human form with partial features of their original form.
Logic told Sevitis that this girl wasn’t lying.
But she glanced down at the girl’s outrageously exaggerated size, then at her own flat chest…
‘No, this cow is definitely a demonic creature!’
‘How dare this despicable bull-headed monster disguise itself as a simple Spirit Race!’
Seeing that Sevitis’s eyes had turned even more murderous and her sword had risen higher, the girl was so scared that she directly assumed a defensive crouch:
“Waaah! Why?! I’ve explained, so why are you still trying to attack me?!”
In the end, Sevitis didn’t strike. It wasn’t that she had mercifully believed the girl’s story, but the information panel that popped up from the other person in her field of vision forced her to stop.
[Name: Su Ling.]
[Race: Ox Demon Tribe.]
[Rank: Third Rank late stage.]
[Introduction: A girl who traveled from the Spirit Race territory to take the exam after learning that Kantaier Academy did not charge tuition and provided free room and board during enrollment. Because she woke up late and missed the cafeteria meal time, she got hungry not long after the third exam began, so she had to hide and chew leaves to stave off hunger.]
[Weakness: Big chest but no brains, a gluttonous and gullible big cow.]
[Soul Vein: Thunderclap Rhythm…]
“…”
Sevitis held her longsword, looked at the panel, then at the half-chewed leaves in Su Ling’s mouth.
Good grief, so you were really just eating?
“One more time! I can really prove my identity!”
As if she had finally remembered something, the girl named Su Ling hurriedly fumbled a card out of her pocket, then extremely submissively bent over and presented it with both hands above her head.
Sevitis glanced down. It was the admission ticket for Kantaier Academy, identical to the one she carried.
The personal information recorded on it matched the panel exactly.
“Candidate No. 227 Su Ling? Ox Demon Tribe?” Sevitis raised an eyebrow.
Hearing that the murderous black-haired loli was finally willing to communicate, Su Ling immediately nodded her head like a pecking chicken, afraid that if she was even half a second slower, the cold sword in the other’s hand would land on her neck.
After repeatedly confirming that the busty girl with cow horns was indeed not a demonic creature that could be exchanged for points, Sevitis finally put away her longsword with little interest.
“Since you have the admission ticket, why didn’t you take it out earlier when you were hiding? Made me get excited for nothing.” Sevitis pouted in dissatisfaction.
What a shame—since the other had pulled out the Academy’s admission ticket, she couldn’t find an excuse to strike.
“I was in such a panic just now, I accidentally forgot…” Su Ling scratched her cheek awkwardly, grinning foolishly.
Just after she spoke, Su Ling felt something was off and muttered quietly:
“Wait, even if I didn’t pull out the ticket right away, you should have been able to tell I’m not a demonic creature, right? What demonic creature in this world can talk and look as cute as me?”
Sevitis coughed dryly in guilt, then put on a stern face and said:
“Get this straight, this is the Blood Burial Forest, teeming with demonic creatures. Any strange demonic creature could appear! Besides, it was you sneaking around in the bushes doing who knows what, making noise and startling me.”
“I struck first to defend myself. In the end, the root of the problem is you, isn’t it?”
Listening to Sevitis’s righteous argument, Su Ling chewed the remaining leaves in her mouth blankly, feeling a bit confused.
What she said seemed to make sense? It really was her fault first… but somehow something felt off?
“Am I wrong? Or do you just want to shift the blame?” Sevitis lifted her chin slightly, her manner imposing.
“Uh… it really seems like my fault. Sorry for scaring you.”
Confused by this twist, Su Ling decisively gave up thinking and smiled sheepishly while rubbing the back of her head.
Sevitis breathed a silent sigh of relief.
If they got down to it, the problem was that she had attacked without provocation, but this stupid cow was far too gullible.
With just a bit of spin, she actually stupidly admitted fault.
