"Haah," I sighed, climbing into pod 473.
It was surprisingly comfortable. Like, genuinely comfortable, the kind of comfortable that made you want to close your eyes and not open them again for a while.
[But isn't that the whole point?]
"Yeah, you're right," I muttered.
It made sense. The pod was probably designed this way so users would relax quickly and slip into unconsciousness without a fight. I settled in and had to admit, jokes aside, I would absolutely steal one of these if my dorm bed turned out to be as bad as I was imagining.
"?!"
I spun around on instinct. Someone was staring at me, and not in a casual way. It felt like two hands wrapped around my throat.
"Oh, crap."
Seated in the pod right next to mine was the elven princess. She was gritting her teeth, squinting at the back of my head, not saying a word, just staring like she was deciding exactly what she was going to do to me.
[Number 473. You are advised to sit properly in the pod.]
I swallowed and turned forward, forcing myself to look away from her. This was going to be rough. First Anna, who was probably the most unhinged person in this entire facility, and now Lyra, who looked like she hadn't blinked in a full minute, right next to me. What great luck.
Something gripped my head, and before I could react, everything went black.
"Haah!"
I sat up, gasping.
"Get up, we don't have all day," said a sharp, completely indifferent voice above me.
I looked up. Maria was standing over me, looking down like I was mildly inconvenient.
"Ugh," I grunted, getting to my feet.
"Where are we?" I asked, looking around at the destruction surrounding us. Buildings on fire, broken glass everywhere, cars lodged into the upper floors of high-rises. It looked like the end of the world.
Instead of an answer, I got an irritated glare.
"Hey, don't look at me like that, it was a rhetorical question," I said, dusting myself off just as Loren appeared, walking toward us from a short distance away.
"We should find somewhere with food and use it as a base," he said, sounding like he'd already done a quick sweep of the area. "This exam lasts a week."
"A what?!" I stared at him.
[You kept getting lost in your thoughts during the briefing, so you missed pretty much everything the instructor said about the exam.]
Both Loren and Maria were looking at me like I'd said something incredibly stupid.
"Did you not hear a single thing?" Maria asked, sounding more annoyed than anything else.
"I got sidetracked," I said, avoiding her eyes.
"You do know how many points you need to pass, right?" she asked.
"Yeah," I said, not sure where she was going with this.
"Then focus on getting a thousand. I don't care how useless either of you are, but if you don't hit that number, I'll make sure you both regret it," she said, then turned and walked east toward a large building in the distance.
Loren and I stood there for a moment.
"Ah," he said quietly, which about summed it up.
She had just threatened the two of us without breaking stride. That, combined with everything else, only made me more certain about my suspicion. Maria was probably a villainess. I still couldn't place her name anywhere in my memory of the game, but that didn't matter right now. What mattered was that staying close to her seemed like a bad idea.
I waited for Loren to follow her, then slipped into the nearest alleyway.
It looked like I was on my own for this one.
Haah. Well, at least it wouldn't be boring.
[...Definitely.]