Chapter 183: The Red Terror Of Mistral Weave Forest [Part 3] The Red Ape’s thunderous roars spread in the forest as it rampaged against the swarm of Ants that attacked it without care for their lives. Charles had ordered his minions to attack the Red Ape, so that Alex and Bob could get a head start as they ran away to escape its line of sight. After giving his orders, the teenage boy also made himself scarce because facing off against a Rank 5 Monster with his current strength was suicide. Professor Gareth, who had seen everything, gave Alex and Charles a thumbs-up in his heart. If the two of them hadn’t braved the danger to save their fellow student, it was highly possible that Bob might have died today. ’Damn it! Why did Grumpy suddenly turn berserk?’ Professor Gareth had known the Red Ape for years, and although it lived up to its name at times, it wouldn’t attack any students without good reason. In fact, this was true for most of the beasts living inside the forest. The Lord of the Forest, who ruled over all the monsters, had forbidden them from attacking the students of Frieden Academy unless it was in self-defense or if their lives were on the line. Obviously, they could not kill the students either. High-ranking monsters didn’t dare to disobey this rule, so Professor Gareth was assuming that Bob and his friends might have attacked Grumpy with the intent to kill. ’Still, dealing with three students should be very easy for Grumpy,’ Professor Gareth thought. ’There is no need for it to enter a berserk state for that.’ Given the urgency of the situation, the Professor had only one solution. ’I’ll knock out Grumpy first and question Bob later.’ Having made his decision, Professor Gareth finally appeared before Grumpy, ready to engage the Red Ape in battle. "Grumpy, no treats for you for a month!" Professor Gareth shouted as he body-slammed the Red Ape, sending it crashing through several trees. However, the Red Ape wouldn’t be downed by such an attack. It stood up, angrier than before, and thumped its chest before unleashing a deafening roar of dominance. A moment later, it lunged at the Professor. The ensuing fist fight obliterated their surroundings. [E/N: RIP trees] From a distance, the instigator who had flung the vial at the Red Ape smiled faintly before disappearing into the shadows. Although it was quite unfortunate that no students had died today, this incident would still be enough to make things difficult for Professor Gareth for a while. Meanwhile, Alex, Bob, Grint, and Jorven were telling all the students they met to leave the forest as fast as possible. They cut straight to the chase and informed their peers that staying in the forest meant certain death because a Rank 5 Monster had gone berserk. It wasn’t hard to convince the other students because all of them had heard that blood-curdling roar that made their faces turn pale. The teenagers left the forest one by one. Alex, Dim Dim, and the Crimson-Furred Throwing Monkeys stayed behind to look for more students to warn. Just as Alex was about to head to the western side of the forest, he saw a Dwarf girl riding a Rank 3 Alpha Forest Wolf. They were followed by a dozen Rank 2 Forest Wolves. "What’s happening, Alex?" Fran asked as soon as their eyes met. She noticed that the young man seemed to be searching for something. "Fran! It’s good to see that you’re safe!" Alex replied. "A Rank 5 Red Ape is currently rampaging in the northeastern area. I am looking for other students so I can warn them to leave the forest for their safety." "Understood. I’ll help you!" Fran had already known that something was amiss, prompting her to seek the Alpha Wolf’s assistance. The Alpha Wolf had agreed to accompany her and investigate the disturbance. "Thanks!" Alex gave the young lady a thumbs-up before running to the east to look for other students. Fran didn’t hesitate to ask the Alpha Wolf to spread the word to his underlings. A wolf howl reverberated through the forest. All the Forest Wolves under the Alpha Wolf’s command mobilized to heed its order. Half an hour later, almost all the students had already evacuated from the forest. Alex, Fran, Charles, Bob, Grint, and Jorven still remained in the forest. They had all teamed up to search for straggling students. "Are you sure that all the students are now safe, Dim Dim?" Alex asked. "Dim!" "Good." Alex sighed as he looked to the northeast. He could not see the Red Ape or Professor Gareth, but he knew roughly where they were from the former’s roars. The Red Ape was a Wandering Field Boss, so it was stronger than most Rank 5 Monsters. Even Professor Gareth wouldn’t be able to quickly beat it on his own, but that was fine with the middle-aged Professor. He knew what Alex and his friends were doing, so his goal was not to defeat Grumpy but to buy his students enough time to evacuate everyone. He was also waiting for the Red Ape’s berserk state to die down instead of fighting it to the death. Fortunately, Grumpy’s movements were starting to get sluggish, which meant that the effect of its berserk mode was slowly coming to an end. Five minutes later, the eyes of the Red Ape finally returned to normal and its body collapsed on the ground. It no longer had the strength to continue fighting because it had pushed itself to the limit, exhausting it completely. Seeing that the Red Ape was unconscious, a sigh escaped Professor Gareth’s lips. "You’ve finally calmed down," Professor Gareth said wearily. He then took out a magical rope to tie up the Ape’s limbs, just in case. When that was done, he contacted some of the Professors in the academy to inform them of the incident that had just transpired. ——— Outside of the Forest... "Ouch!" Bob couldn’t help but cry out in pain after getting slapped by the nurse, Rin. "Are you really a man?" Rin asked in disdain. "I used Heal Slap on you, so your injuries should have recovered by now. Now, get out of my sight before I slap you again!" Alex, who was about to ask Rin to heal the bruises on his body, suddenly changed his mind after hearing and seeing that loud, crisp slap. Rin was all but done with Bob, but Alex could still hear that slap ringing in his ears. The twin nurses were slapping, punching, and kicking the injured boys. As for the girls who were injured, the nurses only used Tenderizing Touch. The ladies soon fell asleep due to how relaxing the twin healers’ touch was. The boys who saw this couldn’t help but think that they were being discriminated against. Unfortunately, there was really nothing they could do about it. When Rin and Lin were finally done with their work, they picked up the little bun that had been assisting them in treating their patients. "Dim Dim, I heard that you helped rescue the students earlier?" Lin asked with a smile. "Dim!" "Good boy, are you hurt?" Rin inquired. Dim Dim shook its head. "Dim!" Although it wasn’t injured, the two nurses started to give the little bun some tender loving care. The boys, including Alex, could only look at Dim Dim with envy. Suddenly, Alex felt someone tugging the corner of his shirt. "If you’re hurt, you can just drink this potion," Fran said, a potion in her hand. "This is just minor bruises," Alex replied. "Using a potion is a bit wasteful." "It’s just a low quality healing potion, so it’s not that precious," Fran insisted. "I carry a lot of them because I use them to tend to the beasts in our farm." After hearing her reply, Alex accepted her offer and thanked her. A few minutes later, Professor Gareth finally left the forest and asked everyone to gather in front of him. "Although it is regrettable, we will have to stop our little game today," Professor Gareth declared. "However, the scores will still be tallied, and the top three players will be awarded the Academy Points that they rightfully deserve. "I do realize that this game was far more difficult than I originally envisoned. It might have even traumatized some of you. As such, I will be making some changes to the rewards to reflect that." Professor Gareth then scanned the faces of the students who had experienced quite an ordeal inside the forest. "The one with the highest score in the badge collection will get 3,000 Academy Points," Professor Gareth announced. "The second place will get 1,000 Academy Points. The third place will get 500 Points. Last, but not least, all the students who participated will be awarded 100 Academy Points!" This sudden declaration made the students cheer because the Academy Points were the currency used in Frieden Academy. Since none of them were seriously hurt, they gratefully accepted the rewards. Professor Gareth didn’t care that he was spending more points than he had originally intended. This was the least he could do to compensate everyone. "Now, I will be adding up the points," Professor Gareth said before snapping his fingers. All the pouches that the students were holding glowed faintly and flew above the Professor’s head. Half a minute later, a projection that tallied everyone’s score appeared. ——— Top 1 = Charles Lambert (481 Points) Top 2 = Fran Terra (242 Points) Top 3 = Alex Stratos (143 Points) ——— Alex was quite surprised that Charles had gotten a lot of points in a short period of time. What he didn’t know was that Charles had also managed to get Grumpy’s violet badge. That was actually the second reason why he had asked his minions to attack the powerful monster. As if waiting for that moment, a notification sounded in Alex’s head, informing him that his quest had also been completed. ——— < Hidden Quest Completed! > Mission: The Hunter and the Hunted Goal: Try to get as many badges as you can. Rewards: Will depend on the number of badges you acquired. [Calculating Rewards...] [Alex Stratos is in Third Place. However, since he has saved the life of a fellow student and helped to evacuate everyone, his efforts will also be considered when calculating his reward.] [Reward calculation completed!] Rewards: 3,000 Arcana Points. ——— Alex did a fist pump because it had been a while since he earned so many Arcana Points, which was something that he really needed right now. He planned to buy the Rare Skill Book, Multitask, from the Arcana Shop. It cost a whopping 20,000 Arcana Points. He now had 18,940 Points and the book was almost within reach. ’I hope I always get missions like this.’ Alex couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear due to how happy he was. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢 Although there were a lot of ups and downs that happened today, no one was hurt. Everyone was awarded Academy Points, and Alex got Arcana Points as well. Charles, who had managed to get first place, was also very pleased because he had really pushed himself to win this event. His only goal was to collect enough points to buy the cure for his sister, which was one of the main reasons why he decided to take the scholarship test of Friden Academy. ——— A/N: Only one Chapter for today. My GERD has been acting really bad since two days ago, and I decided to take a rest for now. I didn’t manage to get any sleep last night because I was having trouble breathing due to my throat constricting. If you guys never heard from me again, know that I probably got isekaid to one of my stories, and starting a brand new adventure in the world I created. Wishing that I will still be here tomorrow to write another Chapter for you guys.