Erin’s heart sank at the officer’s words.

Disqualified? How could that be? She couldn’t accept it!

It felt as if a thousand swords pierced Erin’s heart at the exact same time. Her body started to tremble and she could barely breathe air as she processed the heavy news that the patrolling officer just gave her.

“No, there has to be a mistake! Mako can’t be disqualified!” Erin protested, her voice trembling with emotion.

“I’m sorry to say, but there is no mistake. Mako Grey has been disqualified and transported off this island.” The patrolling officer said.

“What… he… he… how… w… why?” Erin said weakly as she had no more energy left to even show her emotions after going through several minutes of excruciating pain.

Her vision became blurry as tears filled her eyes and slowly started to fall down her cheeks.

She couldn’t believe it!

Mako was right in front of her when she engaged the Beetle King and finished it off quickly. She thought that maybe he was just knocked out by exhaustion, but she never thought that he was dead.

“How can this be…? If he was going to die, why didn’t you save him from that beast?! Why did you let him die?” Erin shouted at the patrolling officer in anger.

The patrolling officer was confused as to what Erin was talking about, and it gave him flashbacks to the moment when they did almost let Mako die if it wasn’t for the weird and unexplainable skill that healed him and allowed him to continue fighting.

However, Mako still didn’t die so what was the cadet in front of crying about?

“I don’t think you have assessed the situation correctly,” The patrolling officer gave a response after affirming that Erin believed that Mako had actually died in battle.

“What are you talking about?! As soon as I arrived, I saw Mako collapse on the floor with that beast crawling toward him. In order to save him, I quickly killed that beast, but after that, I started feeling that pain, and when I recovered he was already gone.” Erin stated.

“Since I already killed that beast, nothing could have killed him in that short amount of time, so that only means one thing. He was dead by the time I arrived and that beast was going to consume his lifeless body.” Erin finished giving her explanation.

Even though the situation was pretty tense and serious, the officer could help but crack a smile as he couldn’t believe Erin’s thought process.

Looking at the patrolling officer smiling, sent all kinds of wrong signals to Erin’s brain as she couldn’t believe that a grown adult would do something so cruel and tyrannical in a moment like this.

Rage and anger were bubbling inside of Erin as she saw that smile, and even though she had little energy left, she was considering using it all to teach the patrolling officer a lesson.

However, before she could do anything that would get her disqualified too, the patrolling officer spoke again in a calm and soft tone.

“Mako Grey is not dead.” The patrolling officer stated.

All of the anger and other emotions inside Erin quickly came to a pause and she couldn’t even properly process the patrolling officer’s words.

‘How can that be? Is he really alive? If he wasn’t dead then why did he say he was disqualified? I had arrived so they can’t say that they disqualified him because he was unconscious and had no teammates around to look after him. So why did they disqualify him?!’ Erin thought as she processed what the patrolling officer meant.

However, before she could get another word out, the patrolling officer spoke again.

“Allow me to be a bit more clear with you. Mako Grey has only been disqualified from the test due incapability of continuing the fight. He is still alive and since a commander healer is on standby, he should make a speedy recovery.” The officer stated.

Erin didn’t know whether to be happy or sad after hearing this news. On one hand, she was happy that Mako was alive, but on the other hand, he was still disqualified from the test, just like Iris.

Erin tried to persuade the patrolling officer, telling him that she has healing pills and that he should just return Mako, and that she can take care of him.

“Please, I beg of you! I can’t lose another great friend.” Erin said as she fell to the ground on all fours and started crying.

The patrolling officer’s expression softened, understanding the pain and frustration in Erin’s voice.

He shook his head sympathetically as he crouched down toward Erin’s eye level.

“I understand your feelings, but there was nothing you could have done. Even we don’t know fully what has happened to him, but a while back he used a weird skill that allowed him to heal his body from all injuries and become a total beast and he used that newfound power to beat the Beetle King.” The patrolling officer began to explain.

“However, after using a very insane skill attributed to his energy ability to dismember the Beetle King, he collapsed onto the ground and that was when you arrived.” The officer added.

“While you fought and killed the Beetle King, we checked up on him, and even though he didn’t have many injuries, his pulse was very low and he had severe mana fatigue. We were unsure about what to do, but then we received orders from higher-ups to take him to the clinic and disqualify him.” The officer finished explaining.

Erin just sat there in disbelief as she heard the complete story. Mako had never mentioned a skill similar to what the patrolling officer described so she was wondering that perhaps it was a desperate move with a big risk.

The patrolling officer got back on his feet and started walking away from Erin who still sat on the ground in disbelief and shock, resenting the fact that this whole thing happened because of her being hesitant and too clung to her emotions to follow Bill’s lead and arrive here earlier and possibly save Mako from overexerting himself.

“Don’t beat yourself over it! From the way it looked to me, he had already chosen to be disqualified, once he had activated that skill as he was no longer in control of his body and was fighting off of pure instinct. You wouldn’t have made a difference even if you had come sooner.” The patrolling officer said as he turned around one last time after walking about ten feet away.

Erin looked up at the patrolling officer’s face with a glimmer of hope while her eyes continued to tear up.

“Can you say that with absolute certainty?” Erin asked in desperation.

To Erin’s question, the patrolling officer smiled again as he said,” You can never be completely certain about anything. Everyone makes choices that affect what outcomes they will receive. Mako decided to activate that skill, and this was his consequence. He wanted to slay that beast before getting disqualified, and he achieved that. Be happy with his decision and his sacrifice.”

Erin’s face glowed up a little after hearing that from the patrolling officer.

“Now, I would advise you to harvest that crystal and return back to your friends. You still have four more days until the test is over.” The patrolling officer said as he started walking again.

Erin only stared at the patrolling officer and nodded a little to show her agreement. She slowly started to pick herself off the ground, but her muscles still hurt like crazy and it was going to take some time until she could move properly again.

“Oh and one more thing… You won’t be able to use your mutant gene for quite some time. The reason you went through all that pain just now was that you exceeded your own threshold and overused your mutant gene. I would advise you to refrain from using it at all until you have been checked out, or else things could get complicated.” The patrolling officer said before disappearing out of Erin’s sight.

‘What did he mean by a mutant gene? Did he mean my glowing eyes? Is that what they are called?’ Erin thought as she heard the officer’s last advice.

Since he had already disappeared from the scene, she couldn’t ask him to explain, and she would just have to go with her gut and assume that he meant his glowing eyes.

She never wanted to go through that pain again, so she told herself to not activate her glowing eyes under any circumstances until this was over and she got checked out by a medical professional. ｂ𝚍𝚘𝚟ｌ.ｎｔ

She slowly made her way back to the Beetle King’s body and using her ice ability, she manipulated the ice spikes to retract back and turn into water.

With the ice spikes gone, There were several large cavities inside the body of the Beetle King, and Iris was easily able to spot the shiny crystal embedded into its muscle fibers.

The body absolutely reeked due to the blue blood that was starting to rot, so Erin quickly removed the crystal from the body and quickly ran away from the decomposing body.

She was insanely tired and drained, so much so that she couldn’t even run anymore and so she steadily tracked back towards where the shelter, Bill, and Leon were.

It took her a lot of time to slowly walk back to the shelter considering how far away Bill had launched her in order to reach Mako.

By the time she had arrived close enough that she could see the outline of the shelter in the distance, the sun started to rise and release its warmth on top of the west mountain.

A few distances away, Bill stabbed through and killed the final Terra Beetle with the combat knife that had seen some better days, marking the end of the fifth and final wave.

The warm sunlight greeted Bill’s face as he took a breath of relief, knowing it was all finally over. Leon was passed out next to him as after taking out the majority of the Terra Beetles with his last resort skill, he was completely exhausted and collapsed on the ground.

After Bill took a couple of moments to collect himself, he noticed a figure of the person approaching them in the distance. The figure was moving quite slowly, but after focusing a little, Bill was bale to identify the person.

“Erin?”