Rise of the Eromancer

Chapter 80 Rhys, The Side Character

"It… it ate him!"

"Where did it go!? It was just there!"

"Run!"

If there was one thing the man that was just suddenly eaten by the camouflaging giant lizard, it was that it would be better not to separate — as they say, there was strength in numbers. But alas, putting untrained and unsupervised civilians in a situation like this always leads to one thing, mass death.

It was a repeat of what happened to Rhys on his first days in the corps; this time, however, Rhys seemed completely out of it and not even caring about the chaos as he remained crouching on the ground. His eyes were wide open, and his mouth was the same as he breathed in and out of them as if there was something stuck between his throat.

While the other examinees were panicking from a hiding predator, Rhys was just being attacked by panic itself as he grasped his hair tight and covered his face; if he still had his other hand, it would probably be clasping his drumming chest.

[Do not separate. Absolutely do not separate!]

Another voice, not Hannah's, reverberated in the air,

[Help will be coming soon. There is a safety bunker 750 meters away from—]

"!!!"

Everyone let out a collective yelp as the voice speaking from them from the Surface was suddenly cut off. How could they not, when they saw the very same gigantic lizard that ate their fellow Examinee do the same to the large speaker? This time, however, they were even more terrified as the beast was able to chew on the large rod bars that were caging the speaker.

That cage was supposed to protect the speaker from the monsters in the testing hall… and yet that lizard was able to just gnaw on it without even any sign of resistance. And perhaps the worst thing about all of this…

…is that they couldn't see the monster again as its camouflage truly made it seem completely invisible.

"That… I know what that is now!" And while everyone was busy doing nothing and being frozen in fear, one of the examinees raised his voice and started flipping a book he was carrying, "E… everyone, it's this! It's a Fog Kamelos. It's—"

"Give me that!"

And before the man could even start explaining, one of the other more muscular examinees suddenly snatched the book from his hand.

"W…what are you doing!?" The owner of the book tried to grab his book back, but the thug refused to let go and even started pushing his face away.

Due to their size difference, with the owner of the book almost being literally half his aggressor's size, the scrawny man could really only try and shake his head… and when he found he couldn't reach the book no matter what, he bit the muscular man's hand; his flesh almost like rock due to all the calluses.

"Ugh! You fucking psycho!" The muscular examinee quickly let go of the book as he checked his hand. And after a few seconds of staring at his mangled flesh, the muscular man suddenly let out a roar and lunged toward the owner of the book — pushing both of them toward the damper area of the swamp until the water now reached their knees, "I just wanted to look at the monster!"

"S…someone stop him! He's going to kill that boy!"

No one, however, helped the owner of the book as the muscular man started strangling him; even pushing his head into the knee-deep water and drowning him at the same time. Suffice it to say, the only thing the owner of the book could do was wriggle and wave his hand randomly in the air.

Until that is, his hand touched the muscular man's head — because as soon as it did so… a loud bang thundered in the air as everyone watched as blood just oozed and showered from the man's ears. His body, instantly turning limp as he fell onto the scrawny examinee.

"H… Ho!" The scrawny examinee struggled for a bit as he pushed the man away. Fortunately, the man was not as heavy as he looked as the scrawny examinee was able to push him to the side,

"I'm… I'm alive…" The scrawny examinee gasped for air as he coughed out all the water inside his lungs. And as soon as he recovered, he started rummaging through the water; not knowing that while he was searching for his book, the ripples he continued to create were calling for a serpentine slithering beneath,

"I… I got it! It—"

And before he could finish his words, a common-sized snake lunged onto him; creating some sort of humming as its 2 pairs of wings that had the same color and transparency as the swamp water fluttered at a speed almost invisible to everyone.

It was fast, incredibly so — but it wasn't agile enough to avoid the machete suddenly swinging down straight through its neck; cutting it in half.

"Eep!" The scrawny man could really only crouch; avoiding the snake's head as it still seemed to want to bite him. And as he watched the snake of the head slowly being swallowed by the swamp water, the scrawny man turned to look at the person who saved him — only to see a woman even more muscular than the thug who wanted his book,

"J…Jenny!"

"Hm," the muscular woman, Jenny, did not really say anything and just nodded. If Rhys wasn't currently having a panic attack, he would have probably thought how similar the woman looked to the Cyclops Barbarian he saw back in the Underworld Corps.

"You saved me, sister…" The scrawny man gasped for air as he placed his hand on his sister's muscular arm, which was almost the size of his entire skinny waist, "...That snake, it was a Snake Waterfly—it wasn't exactly venomous, but its bite makes you thirsty enough to even drink swamp water, which would be contaminated with its eggs. The eggs would then hatch and start eating you from the inside."

And as his brother suddenly started explaining out of nowhere, Jenny just nodded her head and started pulling him out of the water. And soon, the other examinees started gathering around the two and listening to the scrawny man.

And while all of this was happening, Hannah and the others from the Explorer Association were watching from the Surface; some of them were relieved, while most of them were gripping their heads as two people had already died, and it hadn't even been an hour.

Hannah, however, had her eyes completely focused on one single aspiring Explorer who was just crouched down on the ground and doing nothing.

"Well, that's anticlimactic…" Hannah whispered to herself as she placed another gum on her mouth,"...Do something, No. 120. I thought you would be the main character of this test…

…but you're not even a side character."

Hannah sighed as she continued scanning all the monitors in front of her. And soon, her eyes started to squint as she saw an interesting group of people — the group Rhys noticed earlier who seemed completely used to the sudden Gravity Shift.

While the others were fawning and starting to surround Jenny and her scrawny brother, they were completely isolated from the rest and seemed more interested… in Rhys.

They were glancing at him, subtly but aggressively at the same time.

"Hey, old man. I don't recognize those 5," Hannah then obnoxiously grabbed the head of the person closest to him, forcefully facing it toward the monitor she was looking at, "Can you bring up their file?"

"That—we have better things to do! We're cleaning up your mess, Ms. Hannah!" The man quickly pulled his head away, only for it to return straight into Hannah's palm like a yo-yo, hard, "T…I'll look into it!"

"Go," Hannah rolled her eyes as she waved her hand; her eyes, staring back and forth between Rhys and the group as a small smile very slowly crawled on her face,

"Maybe this is a good way to waste my time aft—"

"Don't do anything, don't do anything."

And before Hannah could finish whispering to herself, she noticed a man beside her anxiously biting his nails.

"...Aren't you the GM of the Laughing Bronze? What are you doing here?"

"Ah, Ms. Hannah. Long time no see…" Kenneth only glanced at her while monotonously greeting her before turning his focus on the monitor showing Rhys; repeating the same words over and over again —

"Don't do anything… don't stand out."

Fortunately for Kenneth, Rhys truly was not doing anything even after several minutes had passed. He was no longer breathing heavily, but his head was still down; his eyes, now finally scanning the area. He wasn't scanning for the hiding lizard, however, but he was scanning for the cameras scattered and hidden around them.

The cameras were more of a threat to him than an overgrown chameleon.

"Everyone! The Fog Kamelos is a Level 2 monster, but we could easily defeat it if we work together since it's a territorial monster! It doesn't hunt in a pack," the scrawny man raised his voice. And with Jenny standing beside him, no one really dared to say anything else. But why would they? This scrawny man seems to be their way to survival,

"The man that died earlier is right — we stick together, we survive. The Fog Kamelos has a small appetite, and once it is full, it won't feed for an entire day."

"Does… does that mean we are safe!?"

"No," The scrawny man shook his head, "In order for it to be full, it needs to eat… an entire cow. The person it ate is definitely not enough. So we need to be vigi—"

"I have a suggestion!" And all of a sudden, one of the members of the group that kept themselves isolated raised their hand,

"...What about we feed it the Lowborn?"