Ren and Sophia got out of the building. As soon as they stepped outside, Ren immediately deployed his shades to cover himself, Sophia, and the puppet from the rain. The puppet was a civilian puppet, meaning it had the same conditions as a human, and an injured human being affected by rain wasn't something he wanted to risk. He honestly didn't know if it mattered or not, but he wasn't going to take chances, so he covered them anyway.
He also used shades on the puppet as a carriage, with Sophia holding the end of it, while he used the rest of his shades to stabilise their footing. Overall, the walk was smooth. Nothing challenging had happened so far.
But that didn't mean anything, because the light pillar was really far away. It would take hours of walking normally to reach it, and during this long walk they were most definitely going to run into other students, which would lead to fights. And who knew—the terrain would probably get much more dangerous the closer they got to the light pillar.
If they were lucky, his shades would still be helpful while moving through the terrain like they currently were. He even used his shades to cross a river by creating an unstable bridge, like he did in the last test.
And then they continued walking.
"Hey, Sophia."
"What is it?" she asked.
"Do you have any powers?" Ren asked, even though he already knew the answer.
She stayed quiet for a little while, then spoke.
"No, Ren. I don't have any powers."
That made Ren pause for half a second before he immediately started moving again. He didn't want to appear odd in front of her.
She doesn't have any powers? What is she talking about exactly?
He clearly remembered her saying she had powers and that she didn't want to use them before because she said they were powerful and she didn't know how to control them. Now she was pretending they didn't exist.
Ren couldn't exactly ask her why she was hiding her powers. After all, for some reason the two of them were still hiding their identities, even though they both knew who the other was and where they met—the nightclub.
Ren just shook his head. It's fine. It doesn't really matter. She probably has her reasons for hiding it.
After all, it's been a while since they saw each other—almost a month.
And a lot of things had happened during that time.
He joined SIED.
He met an alien.
He created Shadow Skeleton.
He saw magic for the first time.
And he even met Cass.
He could've never expected any of that to happen during such a short period of time.
So, who knows what she's been through since then.
They continued walking through the woods normally until they stopped, having just arrived at the edge of what looked like a small town.
But it wasn't really a town.
It was small—more like a modern village. The buildings looked updated but at the same time, they were old and broken, basically it was abandoned for a while.
They stood there for a second and looked at each other.
"Should we go through the village or walk around it?" Ren asked.
Sophia thought about it.
"I don't know… We could just walk through it. Unless there's anyone else passing through, I don't see a problem. But if we go around, we'll have to walk normally, and it's not that far of a turn and it might be safer considering most people might head inside the village so I think we should go around the village," Sophia replied.
Ren nodded along in agreement.
But just before they moved to turn around—
A yellow dome suddenly appeared around the village, closing off the entire area.
Ren and Sophia were just barely inside it.
"What the hell is happening…" Ren thought to himself.
Is this some sort of ability?
He immediately tried to touch the dome with one of his shades. Obviously, he didn't use his hand—who knew what would happen if he touched it directly?
The shade touched the dome… but nothing happened.
At the same time, the shade couldn't pass through it.
They couldn't get out.
Ren glanced at Sophia, who looked just as nervous as him.
Okay… someone could've created this dome to trap everyone inside the village… but why?
Depending on how many people were inside, they just grabbed everyone's attention, which would cause a huge fight.
Maybe they wanted that—but that didn't make any sense. There were no benefits to purposely fighting other people. The objective was to rescue civilian puppets, not eliminate each other.
Then why—
Ren's thoughts were all over the place, trying to figure out what was happening.
"Hey, Ren."
Sophia called from behind.
When he looked back, he saw her checking the test phone.
"Check your phone," she said calmly, still looking at the screen.
Hearing this, Ren also checked his phone.
There was a new message.
You are in the range of the Special Condition of the Second Test — Extraction.
The second test is centered around rescue in dangerous zones—more specifically, carrying a civilian out of a hazardous area.
But that isn't the only way to do it.
Plenty of heroes and soldiers rescue civilians through extractions—situations where a plane or helicopter drops in and takes the civilian, or whoever they're rescuing, out of the danger zone.
This special condition of the second test is basically that—an extraction.
And if you know anything about extractions, sometimes they're messy. Sometimes they're done while enemies are nearby.
Sometimes under heavy pressure.
This was the gist of the extraction:
Someone had already triggered it.
And now, everyone inside the dome had to take that person down.
If the person who triggered the extraction survives for 30 minutes with their puppet intact, they will be teleported out—successfully completing the second test—while everyone else inside the dome fails.
But if the person who triggered the extraction gets eliminated before the 30 minutes pass, then the dome will disappear, and everyone can leave and continue the test normally.
However—
If the person who triggered the extraction is eliminated, and only one person—or one team of two—remains with a puppet intact before the 30 minutes end…
Then they will be extracted instead, completing the second test early.
Good luck.
That was the end of the message.
Ren stared at the screen for a little while longer before sighing and putting the phone back in his pocket.
"Sophia."
"Yes?" she said, straightening up.
"Stay here. Or hide somewhere you can keep the puppet safe," Ren said while walking toward the village.
"I'll go see what I can do inside."