Keeping my head down, I took a sneak glance upwards.

In my line of sight were a group of Dire Bats amounting to eight of them in total.

All of them were in a dormant state but as soon as they hear slight movement in their vicinity, they will immediately attack.

I then looked towards the various square protusions on the ground from a distance away.

'[Penetrating Gaze]'

Seeing through those obstacles, I confirmed three kobold archers lying in wait.

'This is quite bad...'

The area was filled with mobs, the situation was already looking difficult not mentioning that they were all far away from our hiding spot as well.

Turning my head, I looked at my party and specially at Alice as I explained the enemies' position.

Knowing what to do next, Alice gave an affirming nod.

"..Jun and Lily will handle those archers, while Alice and Ray, you take care of those Dire Bats"

Emily ordered, adding a final reassurance that she was going to be providing support.

With the plan made concrete, we awaited Alice to unleash her class skill.

Red mana particles kept gathering to her white rifle and as two minutes had gone by, she finally clutched the trigger.

"[Howitzer]!"

An huge explosion impacted the ceiling where the Dire Bats were lying dormant, the exlposion rattled the whole area including the two kobold archers.

As blood splattered from the ceiling, our two vanguards charged ahead.

The two had really different approach, Jun was straightforward as he leaped over the enemies hiding spot to engage two at the same time.

While Lily elegantly preemptively attacked with a glacial attack from the ground which caught the other archer to lose ground.

Striking first, Jun cleaved the chest of the kobold in two. In that space, the other one knocked an arrow in his direction.

"[Blitz]"

Dissapearing from sight, Jun quickly approached from behind as he backstabbed his final target.

In that time, Lily was able to finish off her target as well without any resistance at all because he was frozen in place.

In that short amount of time, they were able to efficiently dispatch their targets. It just goes to show how much they have an understanding between each other when it come to their skills and habits.

There were only a handful of times that Jun was needed to join the fight. With party members like this, it would be overkill to let Jun fight.

Although circumstances have led to us needing Jun to play his part as a Fighter in this layer.

In my case, Alice already did most of the work. I only had to do the clean up.

Catching in my vision, three surviving Dire Bats, I quickly took aim.

The three unleashed rock spikes right at me. I could have evaded them but I opted to just finish the job.

Five streaks of light peirced my targets as they fell dead towards the cold floor.

Without moving away from my position, the rock spikes flew straight to me but was deflected by a transparent mana barrier.

Pointing her staff in my direction, Emily was right on time in providing support.

Gathering ourselves after the fight, Emily looked at each of us as she confirmed that none of us had any wounds.

Except for Alice who needs some time to regain her mana as she panted heavily while leaning on the wall.

"...This fourth layer, it's really annoying" Alice complained.

"Well, at least we're still in the test. Others have already been transported out by professor Ulden" Jun added.

It was a bizarre sight to see a wounded student in front of our eyes and in the next moment, said student to be swallowed up by a red magic circle. 

It was during our exploration when we encountered a party that was heavily wounded by arrows.

When we tried to help them a bit, they were transported out in a matter of seconds.

This meant that they were in a life threathening state which was indicated through the professors vrace where each student's current state was tracked.

"I don't think we need to wait for long, by the amount of time we have spent here, I'm quite sure that we're nearing the end of this layer"

Lily explained our state of progress judging from the amount of encounters and amount of ground that we have traversed so far.

With me being rested enough, I was again in charge of navigation. Luckily I didn't need to use my eyes so much because there were a few separating paths in this layer.

Most of the things here were high grounds, square covers, high ceilings and occasionally some transportation traps.

Although I wasn't well versed in mana reading,  I can see that the ground has unusual layers in it by using my innate skill. 

And with the help of Emily, she can check twice whether it is a trap or not. Taking those into account, our party was relatively able to advance in a fast pace.

"...True..there weren't much students left here except for the ones that we saw got transported out earlier....and this pathway.." Emily affirmed as she looked at the three pathways converging into one tunnel

After few minutes of rest, I once again used my glowing pink eyes to navigate the way even if it's just to scout ahead.

I looked to the front, to the left and to the right. My brows furrowed as I realized our exact point in this layer.

I quickly turned my head towards my party and just before I could say what I discovered-

"Shivan...are you sure we're going the right way?"

"Donovan shut up and just let him do his job"

"I-I'm sure it's this way-"

The group from the left suddenly stopped after coming out from their tunnel.

"I'm sorry princess for slowing us down!"

"...I'm not mad so stop apologizing.."

"Eliya, don't blame yourself. There were just too many of them afterall"

"If you people just stuck with plan, she wouldn't have gotten wounded-"

A group of women also stopped in place as they stared right at the people in front of them.

"....The other teams...are here..." I mumbled, failing to announce their arrival in time.

In that moment, not a soul uttered a word and only the time passed.

There was only 4 hours left in the test.

----

"Damn it!, how long do we have to wait here!?"

A man with two horns on his head shouted as his red fiery long hair swayed from his erratic behavior.

"Couldn't we just kill them in the 4th or hell, even in the third layer?"

"Are you retarded? How the hell did you even get invited to this mission?"

A young woman spat back, her brown bunny ears standing on end from annoyance.

"Remember the bishop's skill, it can only poke a hole from this close to the first layer. Do you not remember that we were originally in HQ you fool, we only got transported here by him"

"We already calculated the most efficient layer to enact the ambush but I guess you wouldn't understand any of that?" she further mocked the man, her braided hair swaying while she snickered.

"...Watch what you're saying if you don't want to be burned to cinders"

"Oh yeah? Well why don't you try then?"

A heavy pressure bore down in the area, if any normal person were to walk in between those two individuals they wouldn't be able to breathe.

Fortunately, the girl that came in between them was not normal in any sense at all.

"...You two, stop it right now. It's already hard enough to cut off this layer from that Professor's reach and now I have to deal with you two.."

Her indifferent and cold voice matched her face that didn't show any emotion at all. She just stood there as she maintained a magic circle coming from an orb beneath her two little feet.

Even with her stature was that of a small girl, neither of the two people in the room dared to incure her wrath.

With her warning said, the two just stopped talking to each other as both of them just readied themselves.

In that silence, a giggle could be heard from someone after the brief show that they had witnessed.

"...Give them some slack. I know you're already frustrated that you got forced into this mission because of Soren"

"I could never get what's going on that kid's head. I feel sorry for his handler and master. Why the hell did Soren even drag one of our sealer in one of his tantrums again just because he couldn't get a material"

"....It's nothing, also he wasn't just a sealer, he was also a pathfinder. I already understand that they needed another sealer. All I need to do is finish this and kill them all" the little girl said as if she had no qualms in taking another person's life.

"After this, I can take a nap with you in that forest. Without any disturbance" 

The little girl then rubbed the nose of her companion, a low growl escaping her wide jaws.

"Don't worry Silvy. This won't take too long anymore" the girl said.

She said as she sensed the presence of their targets simulatenously coming from the gate.

Her two other companions also went into the shadows hiding, sensing the impatient steps of their targets getting closer.

In response to that, the magic circle beneath the orb expanded throughout the 5th layer.

"We will make this quick"

Said by the voice inside her head which came from the giant silver furred wolf by her side, it's eyes so serene but it hid the bloodthirst and ferality of a beast.