historical

Elly, Crystal, and Trisha had arrived in the forest. We went through what we had planned for our two hours worth of walk. The four of us had come on the outskirts of the woods.

The forest was pretty noticeable. We could see it even when we were far away. The trees were bright purple. It was honestly pretty cool. We were surrounded by many trees that could cover half the size of a skyscraper.

While we were walking toward the forest, I was surprised that many of the students didn't go to the forest immediately.

,m "Do you want to mentally prepare yourself first?" I could see Elly shaking. I thought elves loved the forest. She was too nervous. It was better to wait until she relaxed a little bit more. Trista, who saw this, used it as an opportunity to take advantage of her while cheering her up.

I don't think it could get any worse than this. We had waited for ten minutes for Elly to cool down. Finally, she calmed down to the point that we were ready to enter the forest.

"I'm good. We can start now." Elly was still scared, but at least she wasn't freaking out.

We would have to live in this place for a week. I hope that she will get used to it, wandering around the forest and searching for our prey. Then, we could see our first monster. It was a rank one monster that was based on a rabbit. Unlike a regular rabbit, this one was triple the size of an adult rabbit. It had brown fur and giant black eyes.

The rabbit charged at us. Elly panicked and instinctually restrained the rabbit. Crystal shot some sharp-looking ice at the rabbit, instantly impaling it.

Monsters of these ranks wouldn't do much harm to us, storing the rabbit's body, so we continued to explore the forest.

As we moved, more monsters appeared further we explored. The monster at this level was pretty easy to handle. We could take multiple of them at once since we could quickly kill them in a move or two.

Trisha, who was using her charm magic to attract and slow down the monster, like Elly, their magic allows them to restrain others. Maybe the reason why she has that personality is due to her magic. It was much more helpful to charm women with magic in this world.

"Should we go in deeper?" The monsters here were relatively easy. I don't think there is any harm in going deeper.

Trisha and Crystal didn't mind us going deeper; however, Elly was unsure about it. "If it is too hard for us to handle, we can come back here," I reassured her.

"Elly~ sweetie, as Charlie says, if you're scared, we could come back." Trista joined in to convince Elly to follow us. Crystal, on the other hand, looked at Elly strangely.

Seeing that we wanted to go up further, Elly gave in due to peer pressure. Monsters had appeared more frequently, and the headmaster wasn't exaggerating when there was a monster infestation. There were many monsters that we found along the way.

From animals to bug-type monsters, my group mates were starting to get tired. We've killed about fifteen monsters. While I wasn't tired, my group mates were. I couldn't let them fight in this condition.

"Let's find a place to take a break." Crystal, who heard that looked like she wanted to reject, but when she saw our other members, she couldn't say anything. It took us thirty minutes for us to leave the forest. We encountered some monsters on our way out. It was good that nothing terrible had happened.

Elly and Trisha were both on the ground, sitting, tired from the constant use of their magic. Both of them were still ranked one magician, so it was understandable that they were exhausted. On the other hand, Trisha was pretty close to ranking up; if she focused on doing so in the next few days, she would be second.

"Should we get ready for lunch? It should be time we eat lunch during school time." Finally, everyone was starting to get hungry. So we took out our rations and started eating.

The high-quality rations weren't that bad, it wasn't great, but I wasn't complaining. Crystal, like me, also bought high-quality rations, but both Trisha and Elly bought low-quality rations and did not enjoy them.

Do I bring out monster meat and cook it for them? Of course, we would lose some credit, but I also don't want them to fight to eat that.

Being the "group leader" I am, I brought out a giant rabbit we killed earlier. "Let's eat the rabbit." Rank one monster meat wouldn't give much credit anyways.

Elly and Trisha both looked at me like I was a saint. I could see Crystal a bit agitated when I did this, but it is not like we could do anything else about it.

Elly and Trisha skinned the rabbit. Then, having to do so, I washed a tree branch and dried it up with my magic. Then, burning the wood we had cut, we made a campfire.

With the rabbit finished heating up, I brought seasonings just in case things like these happened. I couldn't let the three of us eat it, I asked Crystal, who did nothing to join in. I wanted her to be less satisfied with this choice.

I didn't think I had a knack for roasting. But, with some salt and pepper, the roasted rabbit that I made tasted great. It was better than my rations.

The three of them were eating the rabbit-like there was no tomorrow. It was an enjoyable sight to be seen. We talked as we continued to eat, our relationship was less strained, and Crystal seemed less mad about my choice.

I was overall happy about the choices that I made. I just hope nothing goes wrong in this exam at this pace.