I Became the Genius of the Gigant Academy - Chapter 46:

Karl appeared again in front of them at the appointed time as they gathered before the Gigants to leave the base.

“Before you leave, let me explain the final objective of this practice.”

It was abrupt, but the cadets listened with a glint in their eyes.

“You have five days to survive.”

With that, Karl closed his mouth as if he had nothing more to say. Daniel looked at him and spoke up.

“Well…… What exactly does survival mean.?”

“It means not to be left behind. Any cadet who becomes incapacitated will be sent to the rear, and that’s the end.”

In other words, as he said earlier, they need to hold out until six days later. Karl smirked and spoke up again.

“It probably won’t be easy. Okay, that’s the end of the question. Good luck, everyone.”

Karl said and turned to leave. The cadets stared blankly at his back and got on the gigant one by one. Abel spoke for everyone to hear.

“First, as we’ve already agreed earlier, let’s move to the next base.”

“Okay.”

“Alright.”

There wasn’t necessarily a reason to head for the next base, but it wasn’t like they had any other destination either. Unlike the previous stage, which had given them some sort of goal. This time, they only had the vague objective to survive for six days. Therefore, they decided to move to the next base and look at the situation. Of course, that was the only reason he gave to the other cadets, but Abel had another idea.

‘The ruins should be further away from here anyway.’

Their current location is the beginning of the Telif Plains, which is the main stage. Abel didn’t know exactly where the navigation will take them next, but it will be deeper than their current location.

For that reason, he decided to head to the next base first and figure out how to get to the ruins. He already had several options in mind, so all he had to do was choose the appropriate one depending on the situation.

Kung, kung, kung-

Having decided on a destination, Abel began to lead the others. They moved for a while after leaving the intermediate base, and nothing happened. They hadn’t encountered a single small beast, let alone a fragment of a gigant which allowed them to travel at a fast pace.

But their luck was short-lived. After about two hours of traveling, the fragment of gigants suddenly attacked.

“Left! There are three on the left!”

“They’re coming from behind!”

Once again, it was the Ironwolves who attacked. Darin responded without panicking, thanks to his quick recognition, but there was no time to spare.

“Let’s finish this quickly!”

Another fragment might run at them if they extend the battle for too long.

“Last one!”

With the battle over, Abel quickly moved on, hoping to avoid another battle.

“Damn it, here they come again!”

However, his efforts were wasted, as he was attacked again less than ten minutes later. After defeating one, another attack comes again. After fighting a total of four battles, Abel and his group were able to rest finally.

“Phew.”

In the gigant, Abel sighed and wiped off his sweat. Individually, none of the battles had been that threatening, but the problem was that they fought continuously without rest.

Everyone’s stamina and concentration dwindled as the battle continued, and Abel had to push harder to make up for it. But something else bothered him more than his immediate fatigue and pain.

”It’s more threatening than I expected……… “

Infamous Scans

The practice is usually pretty intense, but four raids like this one were way out of scope. Abel didn’t know if the others thought it was normal, but it wasn’t for him. The practice was supposed to be under the Academy’s strict control. But there were those who slipped through the cracks.

“The United Kingdom……”

Abel murmured the name. The United Kingdom is the only power on this continent to rival the Empire. Looking at the external power, it appears to be inferior to the Empire’s. But in reality, that was not the case. This is because there is a considerable amount of power that is not visible from the outside.

At the moment, they were trying to avoid conflict with the Empire, but behind the scenes, they were plotting all sorts of things. The incident that happened at this practice was one of them.

‘Although technically, it was perpetrated by a group affiliated with the United Kingdom,’

And Abel knew the name of the group. The Pilgrims. One of the most powerful and unstoppable organizations in the United Kingdom. In the original game, it is best to prevent them from intervening in the training and causing major damage to the Academy.

‘To be exact, it’s close to minimizing damage.’

However, Abel, who delved deeply into the game, knew that there was more to it than meets the eye.

‘They have a different goal.’

It wasn’t the Cadets who participated in the practice that they were targeting. It was the artifacts lying in the ruins. The disruption of the practice was a smokescreen to hide the fact that they were looking for the artifact. That’s why Abel knew he had to get to the ruins as quickly as possible.

‘If I get the artifact first, I can set aside most of the events that will follow.’

Just thinking about that,

“Abel, time’s up!”

Daniel’s voice Immediately brought Abel back to reality. Abel immediately raised his upper body and placed both hands on his core.

Wooo-

After awakening the Gigant through a familiar process, Abel slowly rose to his feet. They weren’t entirely out of danger yet, so they took turns resting. Abel was the last of them, so it was time to move again.

“We’re going to move right away, right?”

“Yes.”

Abel wouldn’t say that he was well-rested, but it was risky to stay in one place for too long. A short break was also a risk.

“Let’s aim to get to the next base as soon as possible.”

“Mmm.”

“Alright.”

Abel picked up his weapon and resumed his walk. The situation wasn’t looking so good, but they would be much better once they reached the next base.

It wasn’t just that they’d be able to rest, though. The base they’d be heading to after the first one would be much larger. And there would be several groups gathering there. It would also be an excellent opportunity to replenish their energy.

»————- ★ ————-«

The fragments of gigants continued to attack, and Abel had to fight three more battles. Fortunately, there was no major crisis, but everyone could feel their fatigue reaching its peak. And just like that, everyone was exhausted.

“It’s the base!”

Finally, they reached the next base. At Darin’s shout, Abel turned his head to look in the direction of the base. There was an artificial structure erected there that could be seen at a glance.

“Lets go!”

Abel led the others in that direction, and it wasn’t long before they realized they were in the right place. Even from a distance, the base was at least three or four times larger than their previous one.

“Wow, it’s huge,” Daniel exclaimed in admiration.

Kalian, who has been quiet, chimed in, “A base of this size must be different from the previous base in terms of facilities and other stuff.”

He was right. Certainly, the base ahead differed in many ways from the one they’d stopped at before. Abel knew it, but instead of explaining, he walked faster. A few minutes later, they arrived in front of the base.

“This is the way to go!”

This time, it wasn’t Karl who welcomed Abel and the cadets, but an Academy man on Tito. He walked ahead and led them to a spot to store their gigant.

‘There are a lot of Titos.’

There were a lot of Tito riders guarding the base. The reason for using the Tito class was efficiency. The power to operate a single Miles-class could move five Titos, and a Tito-class was more than enough to deal with most enemies even at the Tito level.

‘If there’s an opponent we can’t handle, we’ll stall with the Tito in the meantime, and bring in a higher-class craft.’

As he considered how to defend the base, Darin dismounted from the Gigant and walked over to them. When he saw they were all assembled, Abel spoke up.

“Let’s get some rest first.”

“Okay. Are we going to rest here for a few hours, too? Or are we going to keep…….”

“Excuse me.”

While Daniel questioned Abel, the man who had initially guided them returned. The man who disembarked from the Tito was a young man with a sad expression, and his uniform suggested he was a soldier from the Academy.

“Since you used up four of your six hours at the last base, you can only stay for two hours at this one.”

“What?”

The cadets were stunned to hear this, and Kalian shot back in a sharp tone.

“I’ve never heard anything like that. There must be a mistake.”

“It’s a directive from the top. Arguing with me won’t change anything,”

The soldier said firmly as if he wasn’t going to be opposed.

“Well, then, what would you do? Would you like me to take you to a place where you can rest right away?”

“Yes. We’ll eat there as well.” Abel answered, wasting no time, already aware of the time limit.

“Then follow me this way, then.”

The other cadets looked dissatisfied but followed without any comment. Not long after, they arrived at a fairly large temporary quarters, and as the soldier left, they all spoke up.

“Did Instructor Karl leave this out on purpose to give us a hard time?” Kalian asked.

And Abel answered him calmly, “That might be possible, or maybe he left it out on purpose.”

“On purpose? Come to think of it, earlier you said something was bothering you earlier, right?”

“Yes. I mean, this whole practice is very different from the tests we took at the Academy.”

Abel continued.

“There are no clear goals, rules, just a bunch of cadets on a plain.”

“Why is that?”

“That’s why I said it bothered me.”

“The goal of this exercise is to present various situations, and then learn how to respond to them. We need to be very cautious.”

Once Abel finished talking, Daniel, who had been quietly listening, spoke up.

“I know what you mean. If we had gotten a full break at the last base, we would have gotten kicked out of here without even getting a chance to rest…”

“In that situation, I could have gotten a pretty intense reaction. Hmph.”

Kalian snorted in displeasure as he finished off Daniel’s sentence. It seemed like he wasn’t really in a good mood. The reason was that he could only rest for 2 hours even if he was very tired.

“Well, since we only have two hours, don’t you think we should get some rest?”

Darin said in a timid voice, and the slightly heated atmosphere quickly subsided after those words. This was because everyone realized that even as they were just talking, the clock was ticking.

“Yeah… talking about it isn’t going to change anything.”

“But this time, I’m going to ask a few questions before we leave because I don’t want to get into any kind of trouble.”

“Okay, let’s get some rest and then we’ll get up and organize our questions.”

Abel ended the conversation neatly and walked to the bed. However, he had no intention of falling asleep right away. He still had work to do and that was to make contact with the other group.

There didn’t seem to be any other groups in the base yet, but Abel was sure he’d run into at least one before he left. So he sat up in bed, closed his eyes, and waited. How long has it been since he has last waited? He wondered.

Kung, Kung-

In the distance, Abel heard the sound he had been waiting for.

[To be continued.]