Chapter 3:

Survival of the Waves

Blade: Belonging


"Hey there buddy!"

"What do you want?"

"Nothing, just a little chat while we wait for the rest, there isn't anyone else here, my choices are pretty limited you see."

"Talk to a wall, I don't feel like listening to an idiot today."

"Woah, no need for that."

"Gonna cry?"

"You are starting to annoy me, kid."

"Oh my, a man is crying because a 'kid' annoyed them."

"Are you really an unmannered peasant? Did your parents not teach you how to speak to those older than you? Or did your parents leave you because of the way you speak?"

"Insult me all you want, but don't mention my parents"

I might have about 3 minutes before anyone comes to try to stop me, should be enough time for them to come save him.

"OH HAHA! What's this then? A little dispute between the first two finishers. HAHA. Wonder if the guards will be able to stop those two!"

Quickly I stabbed my sword into the ground and froze the ground along with the idiot. I made sure that he wasn't able to use his own magic by freezing him up to his neck. Just in case the guards got here too soon, I quickly began running around in a circle with my sword scraping into the ground creating a wall out of ice.

"W-what are you doing?"

"Lost your confidence now, huh, men are really pathetic aren't they?"

"I'm s- so- S-SORRY!"

"Asking for forgiveness now, I see."

"Please, I- I was just messing around!"

"Fine, I'll let you off this one time, but remember, there won't be a chance for you to say sorry next time."

"T-thank you!!"

"I'll let the guards get you out."

"Wait! NO GET ME OUT OF THE ICE!!"

"Good luck in the next part of the exam."

Listening to idiots like him gives me a headache, why can't they solve issues themselves. I cut open a hole in my ice wall and wandered off leaving the guy frozen. Some guards will probably take care of him later. Unfortunately, the guards didn't seem to approve of my sense of humour.

Without a word they grabbed me and put me down to the ground as if I was some sort of animal.

"Hey, wanna take it easy? You're a little too rough for a little guy like me who isn't putting up any resistance"

"Shut up, you will stay like this till the other guards unmelt the ice!"

"Right okay, but if you hold me this tight I won't be able to breathe…"

"Then stop wasting your breath and shut up!"

"Would your buddies mind-melting the ice quicker, it rather hurts being down here you know."

"How many times do I need to tell you to shut up!"

"My bad, I forgot that you guys are weak. I'll just wait for a bit then."

The guard grabbed my head and just as he was about to smash it into the ground I quickly created some ice under his foot causing him to slip and release me. I honestly thought that the guards wouldn't be this bad but I supposed men are pretty dumb.

"Oopsie Whoopsie seems like I let out some ice, my bad, hope you're not mad or anything."

"You're lucky we are in a public place. Next time I see you, you won't be so lucky!"

"Oh man the heat really must be getting into your heads, want me to cool you down?"

"ANNNNNNNNNNNNND THE TIME IS UP! The 5 minutes have finally ended. Those who haven't completed the obstacle course, or managed to give up, will be allowed to watch the rest of the examination… after a small fee of course. HAHA!"

Oh, the timer is up finally, it felt as if it wasn't going to end. Must suck for those who failed, but since they are men I didn't have high expectations anyway. Although, there still is a fair number who managed to get past it, quite astonishing if you ask me. Searching around, I did end up spotting Takeo-san in the crowd, glad to see he managed to get past that plank.

"Congrats on passing the first stage of Kato-kun!"

"You too Takeo-san would have been rather boring and hilarious if you managed to fail so soon."

"Haha, yeah… wouldn't be fun... "

"Try not to mess up on the next two stages."

"Same goes for you."

"I don't need to try not to mess up, I basically passed the exam already."

"Confident as always."

"I'd say try it but to be confident firstly you need to be strong, and no offence, you're far from that still."

"N-"

"ALL RIGHT RECRUITS!!! Time for the next stage. This stage is team survival. There will be 5 waves which you have to survive to pass. Each wave will consist of double the number of demons and will consist of a new, stronger demon every round! The first wave will start with only 20 demons; the rest you can count yourself. If you can count that is. HAHA!"

This sure does sound fun, but I may have made more enemies than allies, working in a team might end up being fairly difficult with my current relations. At least I'll have the opportunity to examine everyone's blade arts before we have to do the deathmatch.

"Before we begin, to make things harder since we can. HAHA! You will be required to protect this young boy. If he gets harmed then everyone automatically will fail! Now let the fun begin!"

The 4 gates around the arena pit began to hatch out demons instantly. Luckily they are only the skeletons, they may be one of the weakest if not the weakest demon type, so there shouldn't be much of an issue, however, as the numbers increase we may end up overwhelmed unless we secure a good tactic to deal with them. For that, we will require a leader, and I doubt any of these guys are smart enough to take the leadership, so I guess I'll have to try myself.

"Guys! All of you come close so that I can form a wall around the boy to protect him!"

"Don't tell us what to you kid"

This is why I hate men, they never think properly. Utterly irritating. If I end up failing because of those idiots I'll make sure they never forget me. But currently, I have to ensure that the boy is safe on my own.

"Kato-kun, don't worry, I'll support you, tell me what you want me to do."

"Takeo-san, thank you! I knew you weren't as stupid as everyone else!"

"So then, what's the plan, how are we going to pass this?"

"My original plan was to have everyone stick to one place while I make an ice wall around us so the boy is safe, but since everyone wants to do their own thing, we have to try this with just the two."

This is going to make me tired to death but there's no other option. We will have to manage alone, luckily the rest of the idiots will distract a fair amount of the demons so we won't have to deal with all of them.

"Takeo-san, I want you to protect the boy while I form the wall. Can you manage that?"

"Haha, without a doubt, you do what you need to do."

"Don't you start with that laugh, the commentator was more than enough."

I grabbed my sword and began circling around Takeo-san and the boy. I made sure to do multiple to make the wall thicker in case the demons were to start smashing it. I circled around them maybe 5 times. That should be pretty much a decently thick wall.

"HAHA! Seems like we have quite the smart recruit this year. No one in the past had the idea of forming a wall. Although there seems to be quite a lack of teamwork, from the sound of it there is no communication either. HAHA, this could be quite the issue for everyone in later waves."

How can he manage constantly telling everyone the obvious, all it takes is to look at what's going on. Only those who are blind would need him but I doubt that anyone blind would manage to find their way here, to begin with.

"Woah, when did you learn to do something like that?"

"I learnt it a while ago when I was going around training. But since there were no other ice users in my area I had to learn and perfect this spell all by myself."

"That's quite impressive. That tends to be a fairly complex magic for people to learn."

"Oh, really? I didn't know that, probably since I didn't have anyone to properly teach me anything. I guess I'm built differently."

"Haha, I suppose so. Anyways, what are we going to do now that we have the wall?"

"Since the boy is now protected we don't have to worry so much, instead we can fight off the wave from the top of the wall. From there we will have easy kills."

"That's pretty smart. Would have been great if everyone else bothered to listen to you, we would be able to get all of this over much quicker."

"Right? This is why I hate most men here, they are nothing but talk. When it actually comes to doing anything they just run off like a bunch of idiots and swing their weapons around as if they are uneducated monkeys."

"Haha, yeah…"

"I said most, don't cry about it."

I think I may have come off a bit too aggressive, but so be it. I don't have time to care about a man's feelings.

Anyways, we do not have time to waste on small talk. We need to do our best to hold off the demons from getting to the kid. I quickly raised a pillar in the centre of the wall and put the kid on top, in case the walls were to fall the kid would still be safe for a little bit longer.

"Takeo-san, mind standing on the wall and just attacking the demons with your magic?"

"Sure, no problem."

"I have a plan to quickly take them out, give me a min."

I jumped off the wall and formed a slide down to the ground. Looking up to see what Takeo-san was up to, he seemed to be fairly useful finally, which was a relief. I took a deep breath. Closed my eyes. I stabbed the ground with my blade and released my breath. As I finished releasing my breath all the ground around me began to freeze. All of the demons got their legs frozen. Now that they were unable to move it was a quick job to wipe them all out from a distance.

"HAHAHA, What an outstanding idea to de-mobilise all of the demons!! Now that they don't have to run around after the demons, this wave will be easily completed. HAHAHAHA"

After that everyone quickly managed to finish off the demons without much struggle. Finally, the first wave was over and I managed to gain some trust from a few of the other guys. This will be a great help, hopefully, they all will soon realise they can't manage this alone and that we have to work as a team to finish this off.

Oshitami
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