Chapter 198: The Sudden Rampage of Private Qingteng High School (Patreon)

"What?"

The smile froze on Mark's face. He was completely lost.

How many points is a pound of conscience worth?

What the hell kind of question was that? What did it have to do with anything in the textbook? It wasn't even something that could be answered!

His mouth hung open and his mind went blank. He couldn't squeeze out a single word. He looked around for help, but everyone avoided his eyes and left him to fend for himself.

"You can't answer?"

The teacher's voice suddenly turned shrill.

"Those who can't answer… are bad students…"

"Bad students… deserve… to die!"

The instant the last word, "die," fell, the teacher's body twisted into something monstrous!

The fissure across his neck burst open and sprayed a torrent of foul black blood that splattered across Mark's face. Then his long, gaunt body swelled like an inflating balloon!

Countless barbed tentacles shot out from inside him like a school of piranhas that had caught the scent of blood, and in a heartbeat they filled the entire classroom!

"Ahhh!"

Mark screamed and scrambled backward in a frenzy, trying to dodge. But it was too late. The nearest tentacle lashed straight at his head!

At the brink of death, Mark showed the mettle of a five-dungeon Veteran. With a roar, he pulled a ring from inside his coat. It was a life-saving ghost item he had obtained at enormous cost, one that could block a single fatal attack!

Just before the tentacle struck, the ring erupted in a blinding white light.

Bang!

With a deafening crack the ring shattered, and Mark was flung across the room. He kept his life, but his left arm wasn't so lucky. The barbs grazed it, and the whole limb was torn clean off!

"My hand! My hand!"

Mark crashed to the floor, clutching the gushing stump and howling in agony.

Having absorbed one attack, the teacher fell into an indiscriminate rampage. The countless tentacles thrashed through the classroom, and desks and chairs, brittle as papier-mâché, were beaten to splinters in an instant.

"Get out of the way!"

Lin roared and threw himself to the ground in a graceless dive. A tentacle swept past his scalp and smashed a hole in the wall behind him. The giant named Ivan bellowed and slammed his body through a row of desks, carving out a little room to dodge. The others scattered in disarray, scrambling to evade. Everyone was fighting desperately just to survive the onslaught.

Yet amid this apocalyptic chaos, one person remained strangely calm.

There wasn't a trace of panic in Shido Makoto's eyes. The moment the teacher transformed, his memory palace had already kicked in. Combined with his inhumanly enhanced physique, not one tentacle could touch him.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a figure.

Yukino had dropped low the instant the chaos began. But the tentacles attacked without discrimination, and one swept in from the side, cutting off every path of retreat.

At that hair's-breadth moment, a hand shot out from beside her and clamped around her wrist.

"This way!"

A tug came, and Yukino felt her body go light. She was dragged in a sliding dive toward the podium.

Whoosh!

The deadly tentacle swept past almost brushing the tip of her nose, and the wind it stirred stung her cheeks. The wall behind her was blasted apart the instant she slid clear.

Shido Makoto pulled her to a stop in the corner to the right of the blackboard. Using his memory palace, he had worked out that this was the one blind spot in the entire classroom. Tentacles raged all around them, but not a single one could reach this cramped space.

The frenzied assault lasted a full ten seconds. Then all the tentacles withdrew, shrinking back into the teacher's tattered body, and he returned to his earlier long, gaunt form. His dead-fish eyes swept over the wrecked classroom and the wailing Mark on the floor, and he spat out two words:

"Class dismissed."

With that, he turned and walked out of the classroom.

Inside, every surviving Veteran turned to look at the man who was untouched and even had the leisure to brush the dust off his clothes. During that attack, everyone had thrown every trick they had into surviving. They were battered and ragged, and some, like Mark, had paid a heavy price. Yet this man called Fang Si hadn't just come through unscathed. He had even saved someone on the side?

Shido Makoto let go of Yukino's wrist.

"Stay close."

Yukino instinctively flexed her hand and only then realized her heart was racing unnaturally fast. She took a deep breath and forced her turbulent emotions down, watching Shido Makoto's back with a complicated gaze. There was shock in it, and lingering fear, but mostly a sense of security she hadn't even noticed herself.

The classroom was a shambles, the floor strewn with splintered furniture and broken bricks. Mark, minus one arm, was still groaning in pain in the corner.

Lin stood up from behind a pile of boards and brushed off his clothes. He looked a little pale but didn't seem hurt. He walked up to Shido Makoto and said gravely, "Thanks. If you hadn't drawn most of those attacks, I might have bought it too."

It was both thanks and, in a roundabout way, a gesture of goodwill.

"That idiot Mark thought he was clever and nearly got us all killed." Lin glanced at Mark in the corner, making no effort to hide his contempt.

The other surviving players now looked at Shido Makoto with entirely different eyes. In a dungeon where death could come at any moment, a strong, reliable teammate meant better odds of survival.

Just then, the loudspeaker in the corridor crackled to life.

"Zzzt… Evening study session is over. All students, return to your dorms immediately."

"After lights out, loitering in the teaching area and corridors is forbidden… I repeat, after lights out, loitering outside is forbidden…"

"Let's go. To the dorms."

Lin checked his watch. "It's nine at night now. We don't know what time lights out is, so we'd better hurry."

No one dared to dawdle. They climbed out of the rubble one by one and followed Lin out of the classroom.

Yukino fell into step beside Shido Makoto, half a pace behind him. Without anyone noticing, Lin, Shido Makoto and Yukino had formed a temporary little group.

The corridor was dimly lit. As he walked, Lin murmured to Shido Makoto, "It's confirmed now. Rule Sixteen was a trap. Combined with Rule Four, it was meant to weed out clever idiots like Mark."

"Mm." Shido Makoto answered simply.

The group followed the corridor to a building. A sign hung on the door: Student Dormitory.

They pushed open the main door. A middle-aged woman in a dorm matron's uniform stood there, watching them with hollow eyes. She pointed upstairs.

"Grade 11, Class J. Third floor, Room 301."

The players were led to a dorm room at the far end of the third floor. Inside was a long communal sleeping layout, with a dozen or so beds lined along the walls.

Once in, everyone appeared to be sorting out their bedding, but in truth they were quietly sizing each other up and trading intel.

Shido Makoto's gaze swept the room, and his brow furrowed slightly. Almost at the same moment, Lin, who had been checking the beds, noticed something wrong too, and his face changed.

"Something's off…"

Lowering his voice, Lin said to Shido Makoto and Yukino, "Look at the number of beds."

He held out a finger and began counting them one by one.

"One, two, three… ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen…"

"That's not right! There were only twelve seats in the classroom, which means there are only twelve of us players."

"But there are… thirteen beds here!"

Shido Makoto's eyes settled on the bed in the farthest corner of the room. It looked like no one had slept in it for a very long time. A number was written at the head of the bed.

[13]

Twelve players, thirteen beds.

Who was the extra bed for? Or could it be that a hidden thirteenth person had been mixed in among them all along?

…