Chapter 51: Aptitude Test (3)
Lucien kept glancing sideways at Corin as they walked through the underbrush.
The horned boy hummed a tune to himself, swinging his axe casually as though they weren’t surrounded by flesh-hungry fauna or possibly monitored by secret invigilators who thought this entire forest-themed trauma simulator was a perfectly reasonable admissions process.
“So…”
Lucien began slowly, stepping over a thick root, “I have to ask. And please- take this as the heartfelt inquiry of a fellow student.”
Corin blinked and looked over.
“Hm?”
Lucien cleared his throat.
“How in the name of the stars did you come to the wild conclusion that this was some sort of battle royale?!”
Corin scratched at the side of his head, looking mildly sheepish.
“Oh. That.”
“Yes, that,” Lucien muttered.
“Well…”
Corin began, swinging his axe into a lazy arc to chop through some low-hanging vines, “when I first got dropped in, I started walking north like they told us. Then- BAM- some guy with a spear jumps out from behind a bush and starts yelling stuff about ‘only the strong deserve to pass!’ or something. Real intense.”
Lucien paused mid-step, blinking.
“Wait… someone actually attacked you first?”
“Yup!” Corin said cheerfully.
“Tried to stab me, too. Got real loud about how ‘this is survival of the fittest’ and ‘the weak will be culled.’”
Lucien pressed his fingers against his temples.
‘Of course. Of course there was a try-hard philosopher with a superiority complex.’
Corin continued, oblivious to Lucien’s rising stress.
“He said that was the point of the test. So I figured, hey, maybe he’s right. I mean, I’m not super good with Common yet. Takes me a bit to, uh, process what people are saying. So I just assumed I missed something during the explanation.”
Lucien stopped in his tracks.
“You mean,” he said slowly, “your entire understanding of the Aptitude Test… is based on the deranged rantings of some random lunatic who stabbed first and talked later?”
Corin scratched his chin.
“I mean… when you say it like that, it sounds kinda dumb.”
“Kinda?”
Lucien choked.
‘That’s not kinda dumb. That’s- I don't know what that is!’
He threw his hands up and resumed walking.
“You’ve been attacking people for hours based on the propaganda of someone who probably eats bark chips for protein.”
Corin shrugged, unbothered.
“Didn’t attack everyone. Just the ones who looked tough. Figured they’d come after me first.”
Lucien gave him a flat stare.
Corin tilted his head.
“Hey, why’d you believe me so easily, anyway? I mean, I could’ve been lying to get you to let your guard down.” Lucien almost stumbled.
“That’s… actually a great question.”
He narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
“Why did you believe me then?”
Corin grinned.
“Oh, I didn’t.”
Lucien blinked.
“You… what?”
Corin’s smile widened slightly, almost predatorily.
“I mean, I’m not sure you’re lying either. You make a lot of hand movements, and you talk fast. Hard to follow. But I figure… if you try anything funny, I can just deal with you before you finish whatever trick you’re planning.”
Lucien stopped walking.
Very slowly, he turned to face Corin.
“You can what?”
Corin beamed.
“Snap your spine. Real quick. Heard it goes like pop!”
Lucien took three deliberate steps away, keeping his eyes fixed on Corin’s cheerful face.
A chill crawled down his back like an ice lizard had taken up residence in his spine.
“I’m starting to miss the bears,” Lucien muttered under his breath.
“The bears didn’t try to gaslight me and threaten spinal injury with the same amount of enthusiasm used to recommend a good soup.”
Corin, apparently hearing none of that, gestured ahead.
“Anyway, you said something earlier about needing water and a better route, right? Let’s find a stream or something. You look like you’re about three steps away from becoming jerky.”
Lucien let out a long, pained groan.
“Fine. Fine. But if you start swinging that axe again, I’m running. I’m not fighting you, I’m not reasoning with you, I’m just running.”
Corin nodded amicably.
“Fair.”
And so the two made their way deeper into the forest, one cheerful and dangerously misinformed, the other one clinging to what remained of his sanity like a cat dangling from a branch.
‘Twilight Crown Academy,’ Lucien thought bitterly, ‘better be worth this lunacy.’
***
The yellow brick road stretched endlessly ahead, its golden hue catching the light that filtered through the forest canopy in strange, shimmering patterns.
Balt walked in silence, every footstep echoing too loudly for comfort on the hard stone.
The world beyond the road had become quiet, too quiet.
The chirping birds, the rustling underbrush, even the distant cries of beasts and examinees had faded into a heavy, unnatural stillness.
And still he walked.
Each footstep echoed faintly on the polished stone beneath him, steady and cautious.
And despite the sunlight bleeding through the leaves above, he couldn’t shake the sense that he was being watched.
The road twisted around a gentle bend, and that’s when he saw them.
Statues.
Two of them, positioned at perfect opposite ends of the road, flanking the path like silent guards.
Each stood atop a marble pedestal, sculpted in the form of towering soldiers clad in full armor.
Their faces were obscured behind smooth, featureless helms.
In their hands, they held long spears vertically, the butts of which rested at their feet, the blades reaching high above their heads, gleaming despite the filtered sunlight.
Balt slowed his steps, shoulders tensing.
There was something off about them.
He couldn’t place it at first, was it their size?
No, they were tall, but not unnaturally so.
Their symmetry?
Maybe.
But more than that…
They didn’t feel like statues.
He approached slowly, keeping his barrier half-formed, just in case.
As he passed one of them, something caught his eye.
Peculiar carvings on the spears.
‘Wait are they..?’
Numbers.
Etched meticulously into the shaft of the spear, like measuring marks.
A vertical list, carved into the metal itself.
Twenty-eight.
Twenty-nine.
Thirty. Thirty-one...
Each number had a faint groove beside it, like a notch on a tally.
His gaze climbed the spear.
The numbers continued higher, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven, stopping near the blade.
None of them were random.
All sequential.
In his brain the gears started their grind.
He instinctively looked at the golden band around his wrist.
38.
His number was not on either spear.
That should have brought comfort.
It didn’t.
Something about this didn’t make sense.
If they were just decorative, why the numbers?
Why real weapons?
Why position them like gatekeepers?
And more than anything, why were they here, in the middle of a test that had so far felt more like a death gauntlet than an entrance exam?
He stepped past them, carefully, resisting the urge to break into a jog.
That was when he heard it.
Stone scraping against stone.
He froze.
Then turned.
The statue to his right, the one he’d just passed, had moved.
It was no longer on its pedestal.
It now stood on the yellow bricks.
Facing him.
The spear was lowered slightly, no longer in a ceremonial grip but angled as if ready to thrust.
A low hum shivered through Balt’s barrier.
He took a single step back.
And a second statue stepped down from its pedestal behind him.
Balt’s heart jumped.
He spun around, eyes wide.
The road was no longer open.
The statues had moved with coordinated precision, one ahead, one behind.
He was boxed in.
His breath quickened.
He raised his hands instinctively, mana gathering around his fingers.
The forest behind him was too far to sprint into, not without giving his back to both.
The yellow road was a trap.
A corridor.
And he had just walked into its jaws.
The first statue shifted its footing.
The spear in its hand gleamed as it pulled back in a practiced motion, not stiff, not mechanical, but fluid.
Deliberate.
Alive.
Balt took a long, steadying breath.
The dome-shaped shield shimmered into full form around him.
“Figures,” he muttered bitterly.
The statue lunged.
Balt dropped into a low stance, his palm pressing into the shield as he reinforced it with a surge of mana.
Clang.
The spearhead rang against the barrier with the force of a battering ram.
The impact reverberated through his body.
Another movement, behind him.
The second statue was advancing.
Balt twisted, preparing a directional burst of mana to shove it back, his mind racing.
They weren’t tests.
They weren’t guardians.
They were executioners.
And if he wanted to get out.
He’d have to fight.
***
Lucien had made a lot of questionable decisions in life.
Letting his little sister convince him to try cold ramen.
Drinking alcohol with an empty stomach.
Trying to practice magic with a spoon.
But walking beside Corin might top all of them.
The boy was whistling now.
Cheerfully.
While casually swinging a battleaxe the size of a dinner table.
Lucien squinted at him from the corner of his eye.
‘Did he plan on axing me and was just... playing with his food?’
Corin had the kind of grin that made it impossible to tell if he was harmlessly naive or criminally insane.
Maybe both.
And the way he had so confidently charged him with a weapon, only to back off after one casual chat.
That wasn’t exactly... reassuring.
Still, Lucien reasoned grimly, he needed numbers.
In his current state, sore legs, zero gear, and negative water…
‘Beggars couldn’t be choosers.’
Even if the company was a horned maniac who didn’t understand the language fully and seemed to think this test was some kind of fantasy-themed deathmatch.
Lucien sighed as he stumbled over a root.
The forest floor was uneven, twisted with undergrowth, and the further they walked, the more he noticed how thick the canopy was becoming overhead.
Darker.
Hotter.
And still no sign of water.
His throat was so dry, he half-considered licking the dew off Corin’s horns.
‘No. That’s madness.’
Still... the horns were bothering him.
Two long, spiraling protrusions jutted from Corin’s temple and curled slightly back, like something out of a bestiary.
Lucien had never seen anyone like him.
‘Was he even human?’
"Don’t be rude," Lucien muttered to himself. "Don’t ask that. That’s like asking someone if they’re cursed or just ugly."
He glanced at Corin again.
‘The guy seemed pleasant enough, for someone whose first instinct was to swing a battleaxe at strangers.’
Lucien chewed his lip.
If he asked, and Corin took offense, he’d probably get cleaved in half before he could explain it was a curiosity thing and not racism.
He decided, quite wisely, to keep his mouth shut.
They walked in silence for a while, save for the occasional rustle or distant growl in the woods.
Lucien’s shirt stuck to his back, sweat soaking through.
His legs were killing him.
His stomach grumbled.
‘How far have we even come?’
‘Was everyone else pairing up too?’
‘Was it allowed? Would it even help? What if this whole test was designed to punish cooperation? Or worse, what if Corin was right and it was a Battle Royale and he’d just delayed his execution by playing therapist?’
Lucien’s mind was spiraling.
And then.
“There.”
Corin stopped and pointed.
A wide, rocky outcrop jutted from the base of a hillside, half-swallowed by ivy and moss.
A yawning black opening led into it, a cave.
Before Lucien could say anything, Corin broke into a jog, axe bouncing on his shoulder.
“Wait- hold up- Cave?!”
Lucien blinked, stunned.
“You’re running into a dark, ominous hole in the earth without checking if it’s got water, wolves, or an angry hibernating bear god inside?”
“How am I going to check that if I don’t go in?”
Corin replied as he vanished into the dark.
He groaned aloud, dragging a hand down his face.
“Fantastic.”
It felt like a terrible idea.
The kind of decision characters made in horror stories right before they got murdered in creatively ironic ways.
But what choice did he have?
Stay out here alone, risk dehydration, and eventually get picked off by another tree-leaping carnivore?
Or follow the walking hazard sign with horns into a damp mystery dungeon?
Lucien muttered something unprintable under his breath and followed after Corin, tightening his bracelet and clutching a small mana burst between his fingers, just in case.
‘I am going to regret this. I just know it.’
