When Team 277 emerged from the maze, several hundred examinees had already passed through the exit.
Clearly, Larkspur and the others had not found the exit particularly quickly.
Although Tudingui had already used her real abilities, their starting position had been terrible—after delving through several nodes, they had ended up quite far from the actual exit. So even though they hurried as much as they could, it had still taken them nearly an hour to reach it.
Larkspur had no particular thoughts about that result. Compared to the tens of thousands of examinees, finding the maze exit among the first few hundred was already quite good. Adding in the bonus points Team 277 had earned inside the maze, their final total score ranked third, which was exceptionally impressive. In fact, judged by Larkspur's own goal of keeping as low a profile as possible, the result was almost too good.
Tudingui, however, did not seem particularly satisfied with it.
Although she did not show much emotion on the surface, Larkspur had caught the faint urgency she displayed while searching for the exit at the end, as well as the dejected look on her face when she learned that her exit ranking had fallen beyond the top hundred.
"This was only the first practical assessment. Isn't this already a pretty good start?"
Taking advantage of a break while Tudingui rested, Larkspur pretended to say it casually. "As long as we perform steadily and get decent rankings in the next few assessments, it won't be impossible to take first place in the end, right?"
"Hm? Ah."
After realizing that Larkspur was speaking to her, Tudingui paused for a few seconds before responding softly. "Sorry. Was my disappointment that obvious?"
Larkspur had not expected her to put it so directly.
"...Not really. At least