Sometimes, when the cart jolted and disturbed his reading, he would even lazily grumble at them.
"Why should we be working ourselves to death down here while he enjoys himself up there?!"
"Exactly! What kind of teacher is that?!"
Many of the students had been holding in their anger, wondering how the academy could have let someone like him be their teacher.
Aside from their hopelessly unreliable teacher, who had offended almost everyone, the mission itself had gone fairly smoothly.
As the sun slanted westward, they entered the final rift passage on their journey.
The sky inside the rift darkened faster than the sky outside. At some point, the light had faded.
After traveling for most of the day and dealing with rugged terrain along the way, the students were exhausted.
The caravan's people and mules had reached their limits too.
The caravan boss suggested a rest, so everyone spread out to survey the terrain, following the camping procedures recommended in their textbooks.
They were in luck. Nearby, they found a natural narrow valley.
The entrances at both ends of the valley were narrow passages where only a sliver of sky was visible.
The walls rose straight up like sheer cliffs, with only a thin streak of light visible overhead.
Beyond the entrances, however, lay a relatively open stretch of level ground, like a natural shelter from the wind.
It was an excellent spot, easy to defend and hard to attack.
Even if Void Beasts suddenly attacked, they would have an ideal terrain advantage.
Yuejian, who had been engrossed in his novel, seemed to notice only now that the group had stopped.
He frowned. "Why are we stopping to rest? There's only one stretch left. Let's finish it and get off work as soon as we can."
Setsuna, who had been holding it in the whole way, rolled her eyes. She had finally had enough.
"Teacher! We've been traveling all day. We're tired, you know!"
"Tired? Even I haven't said I'm tired, and a bunch of youngsters like you are already complaining?"
Even Qiji's mouth twitched when he heard that.
He hadn't expected there to be someone in this class even more shameless than him.
Unwilling to be outdone, he immediately chimed in, "Old Yue, you've been sitting in the cart all day. Of course you're not tired."
Yuejian paused and turned to Qiji. "What did you call me?"
"Old Yue. Didn't you say it yourself on the first day of school? 'Because I'm irresponsible, you don't have to call me teacher~~'"
Qiji mimicked him sarcastically, and it was a remarkably convincing impression.
The chat was delighted.
"There's a master mimic in Class Eight!"
"I'm dying! But honestly, Haji Qiji looks more like a teacher than he does!"
Yuejian stared at Qiji for two seconds, then suddenly laughed. He thought this masked kid was rather to his liking.
At any other time, he might even have shared his favorite romance novels with Qiji.
But now-
He looked up at the vividly colored moon above the rift and remarked,
"But sure enough, a lot of the time, even when you're tired, you can't stop."
He clapped his hands and raised his voice a little.
"No rest. We're moving on!"
Everyone had just sat down and taken out their rations. Complaints erupted at his words.
Yuejian ignored them. "That's an order-if you don't want to die."
Hearing Old Yue say that, Qiji instantly realized something.
His expression grew slightly serious, and his ears twitched as he listened carefully for the faint sounds carried on the wind.
A moment later-
"Watch out! Stay alert!!!" he shouted.
The instant his warning rang out!
"Rumble!!!"
A muffled roar like thunder came from the distance, drawing steadily closer.
Then the ground beneath their feet began to shake violently, and loose stones tumbled down the rock walls!
Everyone snapped their heads up-
It wasn't an earthquake!
Far away, through the mouth of the valley, they could just make out more and more crimson beast eyes pouring out of the darkness.
Void Beasts!
Countless Void Beasts in a berserk state!
Stampeding madly!
Straight toward them!
How could this be?!
Qiji frowned at the spectacular, almost exaggerated sight before him.
He had read the first season's plot synopsis countless times. It was no exaggeration to say he knew it backward.
This escort mission had been mentioned only in passing in the script. An incident on this scale wasn't supposed to happen at all!
The next moment, Qiji's nose twitched slightly beneath his mask.
A strange, exceedingly faint scent filled the air, like a mixture of cloying blood and scorching spices.
Combined with the unnatural crimson in the Void Beasts' eyes, Qiji instantly understood everything.
It was the Kamishiro Family's Red-Hot Incense!
Used together with their unique Mind Echo, it could stimulate Void Beasts and send them into a brief frenzy.
Their strength would soar, and they would fight without fear of death!
This scene had never appeared in the original plot, yet now it was unfolding before his eyes...
Then, without a doubt, this development-
Was because he had killed Kamishiro Seigen!
His intervention had caused the plotline to veer off in an unpredictable direction, setting off a chain reaction!
"This is a little troublesome."
"But only a little."
Qiji was glad he had taken part in this mission.
Otherwise, wouldn't he have missed such a golden opportunity to show off?!
Chapter 28: The Strongest Among Them All
In the distance, the horizon trembled.
Countless pairs of blood-red eyes formed a churning, burning sea of scarlet in the gloom.
Amid deafening roars and the thunder of their charge, the Void Beast horde surged toward them!
They were packed so densely and covered so much ground that there was no counting them!
It was as though some force had gathered all the Void Beasts in the rift here.
A force of this scale was far beyond what a D-rank rift should contain!
The previous combat assessment, which had been a little beyond the syllabus, looked like child's play compared to today.
Stimulated by both the drug and the Echo, these Void Beasts were fiercer and harder to deal with than usual.
If the last assessment had been hard mode, then what Class Eight faced this time was a full-blown hell-level dungeon!
Two weeks had passed since the last combat assessment. New students in Class Eight had awakened Echoes one after another, and their strength had improved to varying degrees.
But against a beast tide on the level of a natural disaster, that little improvement was a drop in the bucket.
The mission's difficulty had gone far beyond what Class Eight could handle.
Of course, Qiji was not included among the members of Class Eight in question.
For Qiji personally, it was probably like a level on easy mode becoming difficult enough to make him break a little sweat.
After his initial surprise, Qiji quickly returned to his usual composed demeanor.
The rest of Class Eight's students, however, were in a complete panic.
Fear gripped their hearts!
How could this be...
How could so many Void Beasts appear all at once?!
They were going to die, weren't they?!
At this critical moment, when they could almost smell death, everyone inevitably turned to Teacher Tsukimi on instinct.
Because he was the only adult present who possessed power.
Although many of Class Eight's students had already awakened Echoes, they were ultimately just a group of fifteen-year-old children.
"Teacher-!"
"Teacher Tsukimi-!"
Everyone looked toward Yuejian.
Yet Yuejian simply continued leafing through his novel, as though he were so absorbed in the story that he was oblivious to everything around him.
Their expressions changed. "Teacher Tsukimi, you... please stop reading! This is no time for that!"
"Teacher Tsukimi, you'll step in, won't you?"
As the voices around him grew louder, Yuejian dug in his ear with his little finger, looking somewhat impatient. His eyes never left the page. "Step in? What do you mean, step in? Why should I?"
"Isn't that your responsibility as a teacher?!"
"Responsibility?"
Yuejian seemed to have heard something utterly ridiculous and boring.
"I told you from the very first day I took charge of you-
I'm an irresponsible person, so don't expect anything from me."
As he spoke, he even began to reproach them with complete confidence.
"Besides, didn't I make a point of saying before we left that we should go straight to our destination without delays?
If we hadn't spent time setting up camp and resting, the situation wouldn't be this bad.
People have to pay for their own mistakes..."
Seeing the Void Beast horde draw closer and closer, Bai Lili grew anxious.
"Teacher! I know you're saying all this because you want to train us! Echoers have to stand on their own eventually, and we can't always rely on others!
But this situation is obviously beyond the scope of training! It's a life-threatening emergency!
According to the Academy Teachers' Code and the Echoer Wartime Regulations, the teacher leading the group is obligated to protect the students!"