Jun checked over her supplies and equipment one last time. Nearly everything she needed was stowed in her Void Bag except for the things she'd be wearing. She still wore her black school uniform, the enchantments Shiori had placed on them at the start of term far exceeding any other clothing she could have afforded, though she'd augmented her protection with a coat meant for the cold winter snows. Unlike the sets of uniform clothes she'd received as a scholarship student, the coat was something she'd purchased herself. Though it wasn't enchanted, it was a high-quality piece of clothing, made from specially treated monster leather and padded with wool for warmth and protection from the cold winter snows. With the attached leather hood up, the coat kept her positively toasty, and she was certain that it'd be invaluable out in the Forest, especially as the expedition would be keeping them out for a week.

  Over her new coat, she wore a leather belt with the sheathes for her dagger and a short sword she'd claimed from the thugs. She still wasn't great with a blade, but for what they were about to do she would rather have a weapon and not need it than need it and not have it. Though, if things got bad enough that she was forced to use her sword, she was probably dead. Her main weapon was still her spells, and the majority of her earnings had gone towards bolstering that strength.

  An engraved steel wrist guard was strapped to her right arm with a series of three Bronze ranked monster cores set into slots along it. The piece was enchanted to enhance the stability and resilience of mana constructs, allowing spells to travel farther and take more punishment before unraveling, perfect for a mage that focused on barriers and snare spells like she did. With the piece of gear, it made her spells about half again stronger than normal, a significant boost, but it came at a cost. Buying it took most of her savings from the past few months after selling all of the loot she'd split with her party and her roommates, but Sara and Cecilia had made a compelling argument. It was better to have a single useful piece of gear that she could rely upon in an emergency than a dozen mediocre items that would barely last the expedition.

  The enchantments that let it function took in far more mana than could be sustained from the environment, each use draining a full half of a Bronze monster core. For some reason she couldn't feed her own mana into the cores to recharge them either and had to depend upon other monster cores or waiting a week for it to recharge if she fully drained it. Shiori's explanation was confusing as she started talking about the differences in mana wavelengths between harvested mana cores and mana cores in living beings causing conflicts with each other. Clyde's explanation was clearer: if she fed too much of her mana into a harvest mana core it would explode.

  Having three potential bombs strapped to her wrist made her nervous, but six chances to make a spell far more powerful was hard to pass up, and as long as she was careful to just pull the energy from it into her spell rather than push her mana through the armament, it'd be fine. Probably.

  Checking through her Void Bag one last time to make sure she wasn't forgetting anything, she slung the strap of the magical bag across her body and strapped her shield to her arm before checking herself in the mirror. A blush colored her cheeks as she looked herself over. She looked... intimidating. The training with the Sergeant, her friends, and even Arwen had taught her to hold herself with confidence, her back straight, shoulders back, and chest pushed out. With the weapons strapped to her body over her long coat and the hood up, she couldn't help but feel like she dressed as an assassin out of a story. Cringing internally at that thought, she still couldn't help feeling a little bit cool, especially as Shiori jumped onto her shoulder, completing the look.

  "Stop staring at yourself in the mirror kitten, you're going to be late," she said, pushing herself into Jun's hood and wrapping around her exposed neck. Shiori's fur was warm against her skin, perfectly protecting her against the winter chill. Who needed a scarf when you had a cat?

  Jun took one last look around her room to make sure she didn't miss anything and headed out the door, quickly making her way through the building and campus to meet up with her teammates. The chaos that had plagued the campus for the last two weeks was missing and few students were out and about, with most holed up in the magically heated buildings. Every student she saw was carrying weapons and wearing armor and bags. While most had small bags that Jun suspected were storage bags of some sort, a few had large traveler packs, likely those who couldn't afford the enchanted containers on top of everything else they needed.

  As the front gate came into sight, she saw her teammates huddled in a group and Jun sped up, the last to arrive. Like the rest of the students who'd gone through the past two weeks of training, each of her teammates looked tense, the tiny shifts in their posture making it clear they were scanning the area for ambushes. She wasn't sure how she felt about the last two weeks of training. She hadn't particularly trusted most of her fellow students in the first place, especially with the nobles who constantly acted like they were better than everyone else, but the constant random ambushes just made her more suspicious of everyone. Though, Shiori pointed out that it was good training for her to stay aware of ambushes and look for hidden threats, even if it left her feeling little trust for just about everyone except her friends and teammates.

  "It's about time Jun! It's freezing!" Aya greeted her, bundled up in a coat similar to Jun's with a thick wool scarf wrapped around her neck and face and her staff hanging from her shoulder on a strap.

  "Sorry, I got a bit distracted," she replied.

  "Why don't you just use fire magic to warm up?" Keira asked Aya with a frown. Unlike Jun and Aya, the scout wore a hip length coat reminiscent of the snow camouflage Jun used to some hunters wear during the winter months on Earth in her small town. She supposed it made sense as Keira's role made it important that she be able to move around without being seen, and camouflage didn't need mana, but it was still surprising to see something so seemingly modern next to medieval weapons.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Never mind that, we're all here, we should get moving." Michael gestured towards the gate as several students walked through wrapped in winter clothes and carrying weapons. Where Jun and Aya wore long coats and Keira a shorter camouflaged one, the healer wore a flowing set of robes with wide sleeves, his hands tucked inside of them. Jun couldn't imagine the robes were very warm with how form fitting they were, but Michael seemed comfortable anyways.

  Cian didn't say anything, simply nodding as he turned around and walking towards the Academy Gate. Jun and the rest of her party fell in behind the quiet warrior, following behind him as they headed for the meeting point Arwen gave them. Out of all of them, Cian looked the most like he belonged in a fantasy world. He was dressed in his usual chainmail armor, though over the past months he'd augmented the protection with more pieces of steel plate armor that protected his shoulders, forearms, and thighs. A fur cloak and fur lined gloves and boots protected him from the winter chill, and instead of solely relying on whatever storage artifact he used to keep his weapons, a scabbarded longsword and dagger sat strapped to his belt. Like Jun he also wore a shield strapped to his arm, though where Jun's was a smaller and lighter shield that barely covered her torso, Cian's looked like a manhole cover strapped to his arm.

  Despite the weather, the city outside the campus was busy with more than heavily armed students walking the streets. Shoppers, guards, merchants, and workers hurried about the Academic Quarter, and things were even busier in the Central District. As they walked, Jun couldn't help but notice that some of the buildings had decorations going up that reminded her of Christmas on Earth. Still green boughs of pine trees, festively colored ribbons, and shiny ornaments of metal and painted clay already hung in some store windows and upon some of the larger buildings, yet those mundane decorations were far outdone by the mana lights twinkling in dozens of colors, with some of the fancier buildings even showing what could only be illusions of animals and people frolicking and playing.

  In a surprisingly short amount of time the students passed through the gate out of the city to find a group of hundreds of well-armed adventurers milling about as dozens already streamed for the Forest.

  "FEA Students over here!" a voice called out. Jun and her teammates turned towards the voice to see it belonging to a serious faced woman with a prominently displayed Academy medallion marking her as a professor.

  Aya took charge, leading the way to the Professor who consulted a clipboard and wrote a few notes down before directing them to larger milling group of students. It wasn't long before Arwen joined them with a smirk, the elf for once fully armed and armored. His leather armor looked well maintained and seemed to practically glow with mana. Jun had sometimes felt mana from stronger workings from her professors and expensive enchanted items in some of the stores she'd been in. His gear seemed to scream power. The bags under his eyes had reduced a bit, like he'd finally gotten a good night's sleep after weeks without, but the energy he gave off was still dangerous and unstable.

  Jun couldn't help but shiver a bit as her instincts screamed at her to get far away from their advisor, though it didn't seem anyone in her team noticed. Why would they when they stood about in a dirty slush of trampled snow and mud, ice white flakes slowly accumulating on the heads and shoulders of anyone who stood still too long? Trying to distract herself, Jun looked around the group they were in, spotting another four well-armed adventurers that gave off the confident and dangerous pressure of an experienced Gold ranked advisor just like Arwen. Each of the four led teams of students, some of whom Jun recognized from her classes.

  Melody, Mara, Emily, and Gina stood in a group with two boys, the group of six led by a stern-faced man wearing well-polished steel plate and fanciest healer's amulet Jun had ever seen. According to Michael, the amulets were a mix of spell focus and rank insignia indicating a healer's power and capability, the more ornate, the stronger the healer. Given how ornate the man's amulet seemed to be, far more so than any of the professors she'd seen during training classes, the man had to be a powerful one.

  As if sensing her gaze, Mara turned and made eye contact with her, the apprentice healer's eyes narrowing as she frowned and said something to her teammates. The other five turned to glance at Jun, the girls glaring as one of the boys smiled and winked at her. Jun ignored the boy's flirting as she held the girls' glares for a moment, read to pump mana into her spells at a moment's notice. She still hadn't found out why the other girls seemed to hate her so much, but after the past few weeks she found she didn't really care about the why. All she cared about was . The trial, the accusations, and the rough training had been bad enough that she just didn't have the energy to deal with whatever childish grievances they held against her.

  Besides, they were about to go into the wilderness. She doubted they'd have to deal with each other for long.

  After a few more students were directed to their group, Professor Galimund walked over and signaled for the group to join him. "Welcome first year students to the Winter Expedition. This will serve as your final assessment for the term for all adventurer track classes. The goal of the Winter Expedition is to assess your performance as an adventurer while addressing appropriately leveled local threats. Each of your advisors have been provided with a map of the surrounding area and each team has been assigned a general location to investigate and clear of as many priority threats as possible."

  "This year's priority target is goblins. While there has been a standing bounty on goblins, their numbers have steadily increased in the area over the past few months. The current threat level has been identified as being high Iron to low Silver in the general area with several full hordes and roving warbands occupying the outskirts of the Forest within a week's walk of the city. Higher level students and members of the IAG have been assigned to address those threats. As first years in the Bronze to low Iron levels, your assignment is to find and eliminate scouting groups and small raid groups."

  "Your performance during the Expedition will impact your grade. While your advisors will be accompanying you," Professor Galimund pointed at each advisor in the group. "...they have been instructed not to interfere unless necessary." The Vice Leader paused as he looked each of them in the eye, his gaze hardening as he lingered on Arwen and Jun's team for a moment before moving on. "Students, you will be responsible for every decision made while out in the field. You are to return to the city in one week."

  The man turned away as he finished speaking, only to stop and look over his shoulder at the assembled students. "As serious as judging your performance during this test might be for your stay at the Academy, remember that this Expedition is dangerous. Students have died even with a Gold ranked advisor watching over them. If you find yourself choosing between a better grade and your life, I advise you to choose your life."

  https://www.patreon.com/NekoSaigai