Let's turn back a few minutes, to before Frieren heard the explosion...
Deep in a dense jungle somewhere south of the first-round examination grounds for the First-Class Mage Examination in the Grobe Basin, far from the lake.
The sun overhead had already begun to slant westward. Judging by the angle of the light shining through the layers upon layers of dark-green leaves, it would probably set in about four hours.
By then, the first round of the First-Class Mage Examination would be coming to an end.
At that point, any team that had failed to capture a Stille, or had suffered any casualties, would be eliminated without mercy!
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At that moment, the two temporarily allied teams led by Annie and Fern—including Übel, Methode, Lei As, and the sixth member, whose name was Lanto—were cautiously making their way through the forest toward the exit of the examination area.
They believed that the entrance was where everyone had entered, meaning it had long since been thoroughly searched and showed no sign of any Stilles. Since few people would normally go looking there, it might be relatively safe and help them avoid clashing with other teams.
However, as they advanced while suppressing their mana, none of them knew why, but they all had the faint feeling that in addition to the fresh scents of soil, humus, and grass and trees filling the air, a faint, almost imperceptible killing intent was also lingering throughout the dense forest.
Clearly, someone was watching them from the shadows!
And that was hardly strange!
After all, the two cages in Annie's hands contained the mission targets—the Stilles. Like lamps attracting moths in the darkness, they were bound to draw the covetous attention of the many teams that had failed to catch any