The wind grew fiercer, and a blizzard began to swirl, narrowing visibility.

"Sharqan, I’m counting on you."

Lihan summoned his jade-green leopard to scout ahead.

Familiar landmarks that once served as markers had vanished, urging caution.

Luckily, Lihan and his friends had already geared up with winter supplies.

“We owe this to Professor Garcia.”

“We made these during Professor Verdus’s class, didn’t we?”

Ignoring Durrgyu’s question, Lihan shifted his gaze.

Sharqan returned, nodding to indicate that the path was safe.

“Hold on. We still have a long way to go, and I don’t think I can carry them all the way.”

“Wardanaz, no matter how annoying it is, you can’t just throw them off the cliff.”

Gisel attempted to tease Wardanaz.

However, Lihan and Durrgyu’s responses weren’t what he expected.

“No…”

“That might be a bit…”

“…It was a joke.”

“Oh, right. Yeah, I thought so too.”

“Hey, both of you, shut up.”

Gisel resolved never to joke with them again.

“So, Lihan, got any ideas?”

“Rise, warriors of bone.”

With a wave of his staff, Lihan chanted, summoning three skeleton warriors who carefully lifted the trainee knights onto their backs.

“This should do it.”

“Um, Lihan…”

“Yes?”

“What if these knights wake up?”

“Can you hand me an eye mask?”

Lihan not only bound the trainees but covered their eyes with masks. Only then did he look reassured.

"That should do it, right?"

"......"

"......"

Gisel and Durrgyu exchanged complicated glances.

Putting the knights to sleep, binding them, and making skeletons carry them—it all looked…

“He seems genuinely evil.”

“Like a dark sorcerer from old tales.”

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Oh, I’m just… impressed by your use of skeletons.”

“It’s nothing worth mentioning.”

Lihan was slightly embarrassed by Durrgyu’s praise.

---

“Ugh…”

Rabda stirred, a pained groan escaping him.

His memories were hazy. He recalled sitting in the carriage, then a sharp pain in his abdomen…

“What happened?”

Rabda and the other trainee knights blinked awake.

They found themselves in an unfamiliar cabin.

The fierce wind howled outside, but a roughly built fireplace crackled, keeping the cold at bay. The pantry was stocked with canned lamb, eggs, peas, marmalade, sugar, salt, tea leaves, and coffee grounds.

‘Where…?’

“Oh, you’re awake!”

Lihan, holding a ladle and checking a pot, quickly rushed over.

“I was worried! You all just collapsed!”

“W-what happened, Wardanaz? Where are we?”

Lihan hesitated, exchanging a quick glance with Gisel.

“Don’t you remember? The carriage was attacked! A monster attacked it!”

“Really?”

“Yes. We barely managed to escape with you.”

Lihan and Gisel went on to describe how a vicious mountain monster had attacked their carriage, threatening to devour the trainee knights.

Meanwhile, Durrgyu remained silent, chopping onions. He knew he couldn’t spin such a tale convincingly.

“T-thank you. I’m ashamed… We should have protected the front line.”

“It was an unexpected ambush. The mountains are dangerous.”

“Were there giants too? I heard there are giants in this area.”

“…Maybe. I think there was one.”

Lihan adjusted his story to match what the knights wanted to hear.

“So, where is this place?”

“Probably a hunter’s cabin.”

“There are hunters here?”

‘Good, they’re convinced.’

Lihan exchanged a meaningful look with his friends. It seemed they had cleared the most difficult hurdle.

‘We just need to stay here for a day.’

The trainee knights shared their thoughts.

“Is it okay to use this place?”

“No choice. We’ll have to prepare for monsters. The professor said he’d come find us.”

“?”

Lihan froze.

“What did the professor say?”

“Oh? That there are monsters in these mountains and that we should be ready.”

“You just said he would come here?”

“Ah, right. He said monsters would come find us. That’s a given in a dangerous area, isn’t it?”

“......”

Rabda wasn’t exactly wrong.

In such treacherous areas, monster encounters were inevitable.

But Lihan’s intuition, honed at Einroguard, hinted there was more to it.

‘Something’s off…’

Thud, thud, thud—

Suddenly, there was a knock on the cabin door. Durrgyu lifted a board from the window to check outside.

“!”

To his surprise, it was other students from the White Tiger Tower.

Half-buried in snow, the White Tiger students shivered and knocked on the door.

“H-help us!”

“Open… please open the door! We’re freezing to death!”

“Bartrek? Cltran?! How did you get here…?”

“We were attacked! It’s so cold. Please, let us in!”

Durrgyu hurriedly opened the door.

The White Tiger Tower students tried to enter the cabin.

“Paralyze!”

Lihan swung his staff, casting a paralysis curse.

The spell was swift and had a wide range, perfectly immobilizing the students.

“Argh!”

“!?”

Durrgyu looked at Lihan in shock, unable to understand why he cast the curse.

Ssss—

The bodies of the White Tiger Tower students began to melt, morphing into an abnormal monster.

“Shape-shifter!”

Gisel shouted, horrified.

Shape-shifters had the terrifying ability to transform freely, often mimicking others.

Although doppelgangers were the most infamous, not all shape-shifters were the same.

This creature, a Shifting Slime, was one of the higher-grade shape-shifters.

“Keep them at a distance! If they get close, they’ll be hard to handle!”

Drawing his twin swords, Gisel created space between them and the slime. If it got close, things could get complicated.

The slime, seemingly flustered, kept shifting forms. After trying the White Tiger students, it finally morphed into Lihan.

“Don’t attack! I’m your friend!”

“Got it!”

Gisel unhesitatingly drove his sword into the slime’s face, producing a beautiful, clean strike.

Schluck!

The paralysis curse and enchanted strike dealt significant damage, forcing the slime to retreat into the snow.

‘If it gets away, we’re in trouble!’

“Sharqan, go!”

The leopard lunged forward. With its sharp sense of smell, Sharqan had the advantage against shape-shifters.

To reinforce their defenses, Lihan summoned skeleton warriors to guard the cabin entrance.

Crunch!

Sharqan bit into the slime’s leg as it tried to burrow into the snow.

The slime abandoned its leg and attempted another transformation, but the deep snow made it hard to grab hold of it.

“Snow, transform into sand!”

Lihan chanted hastily.

He had practiced converting sand to rock and vice versa, but turning snow into sand was new.

Quickly picturing the properties of snow and sand, Lihan completed the spell.

The snow dispersed, transforming into sand.

‘Perfect!’

“Thunder Spear!”

Lihan conjured a lightning spear, courtesy of Professor Voladi’s rigorous training, allowing him to cast without lengthy incantations.

Zap!

The lightning spear struck the slime, causing it to melt completely.

Typically, a slime had a simple structure; enough damage would destroy its core, ending it.

This was no ordinary situation, though.

“…Einroguard professors really are something else!”

Lihan sighed.

Who else could have acquired a Shifting Slime?

It was clear Professor Ingardel had called in favors to acquire such a rare creature for the exams.

‘Fighting enchanted bulls was easier.’

He could now see Professor Ingardel’s hidden scheme for these finals: scattering students across the mountains and unleashing trained Shifting Slimes to attack them.

Unaware students would be deceived by the appearance of friends, only to be caught off guard.

“This is… unreal.”

Durrgyu looked shocked.

“But it sounded exactly like Bartrek! How did it mimic him so perfectly?”

“Professor likely trained it secretly, observing us all along.”

Lihan, who had studied shape-shifters under Professor Lightningstep, knew that slimes operated as primitive colonies, mimicking by observation.

Durrgyu was stunned.

“They’d go that far?”

“I was surprised too. But Einroguard’s professors could definitely do that.”

Lihan cleaned up the slime remnants.

Those remains felt like the last shred of trust he held in Professor Ingardel.

‘From now on, I’ll consider Professor Ingardel as just another Einroguard professor.’

As he pondered, Rabda expressed genuine admiration.

“You guys are amazing. We came to help, but you’re handling things so well.”

“Oh, it’s nothing.”

Lihan silently thanked the Shifting Slime for creating a warm moment. Without it, Rabda might have asked about his headache from the sleeping potion.

“Wardanaz, it was impressive that you identified the slime immediately.”

“Yeah, you noticed the difference despite the blizzard.”

“It felt off because I know my friends so well.”

Durrgyu took Lihan’s words to heart.

‘I failed to notice… I need to pay more attention.’

‘A Shifting Slime, huh?’

Even Lihan was amazed. Initially, he had intended to subdue the White Tiger students, not expecting a monster.

Einroguard truly kept one on their toes.

‘I’ll

 have to be even more proactive.’

“Eastern slope.”

Gisel, who had been keeping watch, spoke gravely.

“They’re coming this way—over ten people.”

“…!”

Lihan opened the cabin door and peered down.

A large group of students and trainee knights was indeed approaching the cabin.

“Let’s keep them out.”

“Agreed.”

They both nodded. Letting such a crowd in, especially with possible shape-shifters, was unwise.

The closer the group got, the grimmer Lihan and Gisel’s expressions grew.

The crowd included copies of Lihan, Gisel, and Durrgyu.

The fake Lihan pointed toward the real one, shouting,

“Those are the fakes!”

“What…? This is insane!”

Lihan was dumbfounded.

Shape-shifters were supposed to mimic only basic behaviors—how could it even incite a crowd like that?