Can the sadness that magic cannot take away be offset by love?

The muscular woman shook her hand and the dagger flew out neatly. The man climbing the tree had his back to the dagger, but he was quite skilled and dodged the dagger by twisting his neck. The dagger pierced deeply into the tree trunk, which showed how strong the muscular woman was.

The tree climber broke out in a cold sweat. When the muscular woman was about to chase him, Iris cast a spell from a distance to freeze his feet. The tree climber was unable to control his strength and immediately fell to the ground. His head was pierced by an icicle that suddenly shot out from the ground. Then the tree climber disappeared on the spot.

"A-level mission: After receiving the mission, you will be rewarded with 1000 points for every 10 people eliminated (number of people eliminated: 1)"

The progress of the mission was updated in real time. Iris just glanced at the information and looked up again. The muscular woman's five fingers of her right hand were exerting force and rushing towards her throat.

She stood up at lightning speed to avoid her hand, instantly sent several ice blades to pierce her vital parts, dodged the six daggers coming towards her, and nailed the person to the tree with the long ice spikes.

A chilling warning of danger came from behind her. Iris formed an ice shield on her back to block the tip of the attacking vines, and threw a large piece of ice knife behind her.

Turning around, the man with the board jumped down from a high place, and dense offensive plants rushed towards him. At the same time, the remaining four people who found something wrong made their own choices.

The short-haired girl was a fire mage. When she threw fireballs at Iris, she didn't care about the plants of the man with the board at all.

The black-haired man couldn't find a chance to throw the water ball in his hand after the short-haired girl threw out the fireball. After a while, she changed the water ball into a water arrow and shot it out at the right angle.

The two people who looked at each other stood up and ran out.

These people really are... they thought that a new person who could pick pears for them honestly had come, so they unanimously voted out the last guy who picked pears for them and poisoned them.

But I didn't expect that people who can pick pears honestly may not be honest in other things.

"A-level mission: After receiving the mission, you will be rewarded with 1000 points for every 10 people eliminated (number of people eliminated: 6)"

There were only two people left in the shade of the trees. The muscular girl was bleeding. Iris touched her muscles enviously and when she was satisfied, she raised the ice pick with a smile.

"A-level mission: After receiving the mission, you will be rewarded with 1000 points for every 10 people eliminated (number of people eliminated: 7)"

Iris wiped the blood off her hands, slowly stood up, and looked towards her destination.

The afterglow of the setting sun fell through the gaps between the leaves, and the thin figure gradually moved away in the overturning orange-red light.

*

"New warning information has been submitted. Please review it and handle it in time."

All the playing cards fell on the table, and everyone lying or sitting in the monitoring center seemed to be awakened from their dreams by this reminder.

Those who were crossing their legs sat up straight, those who were dozing off woke up, those who were shuffling cards stopped, those who were eating potato chips hurriedly wiped their hands, and even those who were playing games put down their smartphones.

"So early this year? In previous years, the warning messages only started to appear in the second or third round, and the earliest one was in the late stage of the first round... It's just the beginning now."

"Let's see what's going on..."

All eyes were focused on the game scene projected on the big screen, and the monitoring room fell silent for a moment.

Albinia Daisy rubbed her sleepy eyes and saw a familiar person on the screen when she looked up.

She closed her eyes, opened them again, and looked again.

In the picture, the gray-haired wizard sat cross-legged on a piece of ice, eating a pear with a crunch.

The background is a frozen village. The people walking on the road, the wooden houses, and the low fences all remain motionless. If you zoom out, it looks like the microscopic world contained in those toy crystal balls that are stationed in stationery stores all year round.

Except for the village in the south that has been reduced to ashes, all the villages in the marginal area are in this state now.

The judges believed that they had seen a lot, so they were only surprised for a moment by the magical reserve. Someone then raised a question:

"Uh...freezing the map is not against the rules, and the frozen contestants are dying of suffocation and then are called out of the competition venue - what is the point of attention - wait? Why are those students still in there?"

"Not suffocating, just unable to move, the ice sculpture--uh--there are ventilation holes around the student's nostrils."

"..."

One of the judges pulled up Iris's information, and after seeing her background, everyone's eyes fell on Albinia.

Albinia was a little hungry after sleeping for a long time, so she took the pastries provided by the organizer and ate them bite by bite. She didn't even move her eyelids when being watched by so many people.

Everyone silently withdrew their gazes.

"Arrange a team to treat frostbite and be on standby at all times...How many people? They're on the big screen, can't you count them yourself?"

"Do we need to change the subsequent steps of shrinking the map? Of course! Hey, you two, come over here and take a look..."

"The medical team monitors students' physical data in real time..."

The organizers and the venue managers were so busy that the judges yawned:

"What does this have to do with us? Why do we ask the judges to work hard every day..."

In the past, there was only one rule in the exchange competition: killing other contestants was not allowed. After the use of the space ball this year, this rule was even cancelled.

Albinia finished her meal, drank her tea, then leaned back and closed her eyes again.

The warning message means that you should pay attention to the student's subsequent behavior. Just because he or she has not violated the rules now does not mean that he or she will not do something out of line in the future.

The rules of the competition only stated that dying students would be teleported out of the arena, but they didn't say they would definitely be revived. What if someone deliberately beat someone up on the field without killing them, and kept delaying until the person's body functions were almost destroyed before delivering a fatal blow?

In this case, even if you leave the stadium in time, you will most likely die soon after coming out.

It was almost the same before the space ball was used. Before the rescue teacher came, we would do our best to destroy the loser's body, but deliberately avoid the fatal parts. When the rescue arrived, although the loser was still alive and had not violated the rules, he could no longer be saved. Or even if he was saved, he could not go to the competition field, and he might even have difficulty taking care of himself in the future.

So the committee quietly added a program to the monitoring system - if a contestant with such tendencies is found, a warning message will be added to the judges.

Although the biggest effect of this warning information is to allow teachers who go to rescue to prepare in advance...

Albinia has seen this kind of thing many times. This year, several of the judges are new, so it would be best to give them a reminder.

But she was too lazy to say it.

The other judges who saw through it didn't say much and pretended to know nothing.

In today’s arena, even “killing” is not considered a violation, so what will happen if something “goes out of line” later?

That's outside the stadium.

The judges looked at Iris eating a pear for a while, and then went about their business.

Iris didn't know all this, she just wanted to complete the competition with Miss Witch - if all these people were eliminated, how would she count the heads then?

She had no choice but to temporarily block the movements of her prey, leaving them only a hole to breathe.

As for whether the ice would harm other people's bodies...

How could her little head consider so many details?

Iris worked all night long. At dawn the next morning, she found the place where Ernest was resting, holding a bag of pears. In addition to St. Ferguson's and Enil's students, there were some other people around.

She closed her eyes as soon as she sat down next to Ernest. Facing everyone's puzzled gazes, he looked at Iris, who had even found a reason for him, and explained:

"This is my companion. She went to look for food."

For the first round, you can bring your own items... Didn't they bring any food?

But no one actually asked this question. The people of the Aaron Kingdom had heard a little about the relationship between the two of them, and they also knew that the Novero family was involved in many things. Although they couldn't figure it out, they didn't dare to comment too much.

The others were not familiar with the two of them, but they still planned to rely on Ernest and the shadow to deal with them. They were a little happy to know that he had a companion.

Since they are my companions, maybe this new guy is also very powerful...

It’s not that they are not afraid of being eliminated by Ernest later, but without Ernest they will definitely be eliminated by Sombra.

Dying early or late is death - it's better to die later.

When Iris opened her eyes, her pear was neatly placed aside and a fire had been lit nearby - and I should emphasize that it was basically a fire that everyone in St. Ferguson had scrambled to start.

It's as if you're afraid that if you're a step late, someone will light the fire - if someone's fire accidentally sparks, your life will be in danger.

The students were roasting game they had hunted nearby over several fires, which were quite close to the edge of the city.

It’s not like they didn’t bring their own food—they were just too hungry.

If you add together the spices everyone brought, it will be enough to make a few delicious meals.

Iris stood up and stretched, then she saw Ernest leaning against the wall changing his bandages, and she looked at him a few more times.

He had several wounds on his body, all wrapped in white bandages.

The potion didn't work? The fight with the shadow was really intense.

Noticing her staring at him, he raised his eyes and asked:

"How many people are there?"

Iris made a "7" gesture to him.

"Seven thousand?"

Shake his head.

"Seven hundred?"

Still shaking his head.

"Seven."

She said with a smile.

Ernest thought about it for a while and figured it out.

She was talking about the number of people she had eliminated so far, while he was asking about the progress of her match with Sombra.

If you have to count heads later, you can't kill any number of people. If you kill these people, you are out and no bodies will be left.

After thinking for a while, he asked:

“Why are there seven more?”

"I met him on the road, and I'm too lazy to drag him away."

Very reasonable.

Someone came over with two large pieces of meat with chicken legs and shared them between the two of them.

Iris pointed at the pears she had brought and said with a faint smile:

"It's very sweet. Share it among you."

She has never been stingy with such small things.

It was not long after breakfast and everything was quiet, so someone's sudden howl would be very conspicuous:

"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"