Chapter 23: Precedent Surprise

DING-

The elevator doors parted.

Ding!

The group exited the lift.

An awkward silence ensued.

Or it would have if been one if Mr. Smith wasn’t whistling happily.

He seemed to be on cloud nine after a certain pathetic pushover agreed to change his plan after a bit of pestering from a particularly happy someone.

Damn you.

Asher, determined to break the atmosphere, coughed.

I glared at him.

Avoiding my eyes he said,  “Um, okay, so new plan. Lucas will go to the surveillance room, in any chance that one of the members of the other team is good at hacking, Lucas will- you know, do your thing.

Julian should scout the area, he will wear different disguises as he patrols the area, so he doesn’t look too suspicious.

Lacey and Stacy will protect Mr. Smith, in the guide of doing paper or computer work in one of the work cubicles.

The rest, AKA me, Amber and Elijah will try to hunt the kidnappers as they enter the building. We will prioritise stealth over arresting the kidnappers. 

Remember, Mr. Smith’s safety comes first and foremost, now, scatter.”

Everyone turned and went to adjust to their separate roles.

Lucas took out a keyring with many USBs attached, twirling it around his index finger.

Julian chugged an eye colour changing potion.

Lacey offered Mr. Smith a hand.

Stacy flicked her hair and walked off.

Asher placed his ear bud in.

Amber slid a knife into a hidden compartment of her boot.

BEEP BEEP.

The watches on their wrists all went off at the same time, in synchronisation. 

They all stumbled, alarmed at the ear piercing noise. 

With the exception of mine since I already expected something of the sort to happen and turned off my notifications beforehand.

The ring of USBs in Lucas’ hands was flung across the room.

Julian choked on his potion.

Stacy tripped.

Asher dropped his other ear bud.

Amber stabbed through the sole of her boots.

HAHAHAHAHAHA-

I gleefully egged their stupor on inwardly as they all attempted to look for the source of the notifications, trying to brush it off.

Karma for them, acting dramatic and all.

I turned to Lacey, expecting her to also make a fool out of herself.

Unfortunately Lacey didn’t have much of a reaction.

“…”

Ah. 

This kind of ruined it for me man…

The others soon all slowly broke out of their disoriented state and turned off the alarm on their watches. Pausing even more awkwardly than before, they turned around and walked back, pretending nothing happened.

Rolling my eyes at Kaida rolling on the ground with laughter, snickering, I turned on the projector on my watch.

On the white wall next to us, a blue hologram hovered on it, displaying a video of the professors of Xira.

Professor Kyle began, “I will make this short and quick, there is a new, impromptu task for you guys out. 

Select three to four members of your group to participate in the task. 

There will be a teleportation circle that will appear after this video ends. The selected members will stand on the circle and wait for it to activate.

Keep in mind you will still have to complete the ongoing task.

That will be all.”

The hologram window flickered and disappeared.

Then, the watches dropped an ink filled glass orb each and rolled into position, faintly glowing with mana. They stopped to form a circle before self-destructing.

A magic circle took shape as the ink from the orbs engraved itself into a teleportation rune on their own.

A blinding flash appeared and then the magic circle glowed, indicating its completion.

I grinned, “So who’s going?”

***

Students gathered, bustling in the open.

More soon materilsed in flashes of light, an after effect of most teleportation spells.

Miraculously, none of them teleported through one another.

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The school must have spent more resources to get their hands on those kinds of expensive magic circles.

After minutes of waiting, they looked around for any source of command or task left by the professors, with no avail.

Confused, the students turned to each other, 

“What’s going on?”

“I know right? Why isn’t anything happening?”

Me, Asher and Amber were currently standing in a plain grass field in front of a cave.

I was watching everyone who were currently waiting for Professor Kyle to appear.

…it’s been a little over 20 minutes now.

I stared at my phone with mixed feelings.

Should I just enter the cave since I already know what’s going to happen?

Or will I appear suspicious?

How can I lead the group without gaining much attention?

I wonder if the others will be okay with a change in plan for another time today once again.

My train of thought was interrupted as more and more dissatisfied voices began to speak up, impatient and jittery under pressure.

“Where the hell is the Professor??”

“I bet the professors are testing us right now.”

Various opinions rose but the group ultimately couldn’t decide on what to do collectively.

Trying to calm everyone down, Asher spoke up.

“Uhm. So guys, it’s been 20 minutes and no professors have appeared yet. 

As mentioned earlier, it wouldn’t hurt to consider this a test, even if it isn’t. Better safe than sorry.

How about we wait a little longer before deciding on what the majority wants?”

The group let out some more unsatisfied complaints, but not as loudly as before.

Who the hell would dare to offend the number one in an unsupervised area?

Asher playing leader huh? This could work.

But first, how do I get him to do what I want?

Meh. I’ll worry about that later. Looks like I can’t talk to him about it with so many eyes and ears around.

How about I try a different approach at first?

“What about entering the cave, it’s clear that the cave has something got to do with the assessment task.”

“What if part of the test is to NOT enter the cave?”

“Yeah, will you take all the blame for failing us all?”

Oh. Right. I had almost forgotten who I was seen as.

I sighed dramatically.

“Alright. What about this?

I’LL enter the cave ALONE and check it out for a bit.

If anyones going to fail, it would be ME.”

I added heavy, sarcastic emphasis on certain words, all the while speaking slowly as to explain to a child and doing strange interpretive movements.

No one seemed to have any valid arguments this time.

I turned around to make my way to the cave when a familiar voice called out to me.

“Elijah! Wait up!”

I turned around, irked.

“What do you want, Asher.”

Unluckily for him, I stayed up a bit more last night and was prepared to counter whatever argument he threw at m-

“Take me with you.”

Eh?

“I trust you… sort of. It’s too dangerous to go in alone anyways. We can fail together.”

Asher quickly explained his logic.

To be so trusting when he didn’t even hear the plan for the assessment…

He is truly… one of a kind.

Same to that Asher simp behind him.

I pretended to consider it before ‘reluctantly’ saying “But we don’t know what will happen. You guys have more to lose then me anyways.”

“I’ll go with Asher too.”

Amber piped up from behind.

The Asher simp in question folded her arms and grumbled, “Since you’re both idiots, you at least need someone that’s intellectually competent.”

If I didn’t know any better I probably would’ve flipped the middle finger at her.

Hah, this tsundere.

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