Blood Queen Reborn

It was the day of the expedition, an event long awaited for. Currently, all of the first years were seated together in the canteen with their homeroom teachers, at least, most of them were with a few exceptions being the teams with 6 members.

Peter’s group was one of these teams, as even though Del was his homeroom teacher, he was assigned to a different teacher named Kaffin. He was the homeroom teacher for Cia, Sarah, Howard, Micheal and Garret.

Even though they didn’t need to eat, Erin was there with her team for the sake of putting up appearances. Vorden noticed that Erin, Layla and Fex weren’t eating anything despite the fact that it was breakfast time.

"Hey, you guys remembered to eat breakfast, right?" Vorden asked, trying to ease into the topic.

"Oh I remembered," Fex said, then took a swig of his flask.

Vorden took a quick glance at it, and was reminded of old jugs of the past, "Is that... alcohol?"

Fex smirked, being sarcastic, "Worse. Hard drugs."

Vorden thought that Fex was just trying to be edgy for the sake of being edgy. There was no way any of the students at the military base could somehow smuggle in drugs. In fact, Vorden was forced to do a drug test when he first arrived.

"Oooh, I need to be friends with this guy," Raten commented over Vorden’s shoulder.

Vorden didn’t say anything, but he quietly groaned. Getting high was the last thing any of them needed, what they needed to do was focus on the expedition.

The teachers would be traveling with their classes, while the Sergeants Faye and Leo would lead the group. They were meant to defeat any of the stronger beasts while also acting as scouts.

All of the students were dressed up in their best beast gear, including Del. He was wearing something that looked like a mage outfit, including accessories around his wrists and legs. On his back was a shield with no weapon.

’I can’t believe that the school is really doing this. What was the Head General thinking? I’m not a fighter, why do we homeroom teachers have to go along with them?’ Del shuddered, ’These kids don’t even know what could possibly be on the other end. If they did, they would be just as nervous as me.’

In the past, Del used to go on orange portal planets, and the level of danger they had was never consistent. Sometimes it would be a place that was basically a green portal planet without any shelters, and sometimes it would be like stepping into hell, not knowing if you’re going to live to see tomorrow.

’I thought by becoming a teacher I’d never have to risk my skin again, but no, I guess fate has other plans,’ Del worried.

One by one, the classes were called into the portal room, and soon enough it was Del’s turn.

Before the students could see him, he did a religious gesture on himself. People nowadays weren’t very typically religious, but Del felt like following tradition today.

In the portal room, Del’s class were preparing their things, and readying themselves. Standing at the front next to the orange portal was Del himself, sweating profusely.

"Can every group present please raise their orange scanning devices!" Del shouted.

Each of the group’s leaders did as asked, with Erin holding hers up.

When he noticed Erin near the back, Del felt a little peeved. Even though his class had one of the few level 5s of the school year, he had read the report that her ability was apparently ’not working.’

’I can’t even hide behind the strong students,’ Del thought, annoyed, ’I bet that copying student guy on her team can’t use her ability either. This is awful.’

"I will now explain and show you how the scanner works. I will only explain once, so listen up," Del raised his own scanner, "The scanner is fairly simple to use. You will only need to point it at an object. You can see that, on the screen, you can select the area or item that you want to scan. Then, once you confirm, the scanner will do the rest for you. Simple, right? So remember, don’t mess it up."

The student named Hubert raised his hand, and Del glared at him until he lowered it.

He cleared his throat, and continued, "The scanner can be used to scan almost anything, buildings, beasts, plants, water and so on and so forth. It will try its best to break down the information it has received and display it on the screen for you. Although, this is not the goal of the expedition."

Del paused, and sighed, eyebrows pressed together as irritation was building up.

"What you students need to do is look for things on the planet which have never been scanned before. If another team, or the item has been scanned, you will receive no points. Because of this, we will need to constantly move into unexplored territory. "

Erin and Quinn thought the device sounded a lot like the inspect skill, making them wonder if there would be any differences in how the two would scan the same thing. Would one reveal more information than the other?

"Now for the most important and very crucial part. There is quite a range on these scanners. Before engaging in combat, it will scan every beast that is within your vision. The most useful thing about these scanners are that, even if they have never seen a beast before, it will be able to tell you what level the beast is at."

"As for the expedition, me and the other homeroom teachers are going to go to our assigned spaces. We are going to stay there for a while so you can scan the area thoroughly. If you run into a beast that’s a tier higher than intermediate then..." Del’s face scrunched up, and said with disdain, "Then you must tell me immediately. I’ll inform the Sergeants, and they better arrive as soon as possible."

Faye and Leo were going to stay in the center of the classes, being about as equally distanced between them all so in case of a distress signal, they could reach them quickly.

Once Del was done, the teams grabbed their supplies, and began going through the portal one by one.

Near the back, Erin noticed that Logan was doing something to his scanner. Most likely some advanced technology thing that she didn’t understand. At the same time, Vorden was with Quinn, chatting to him about another team.

Sensing that this was the best time to bring something to her attention, Fex walked up to Erin, and spoke in a low enough voice that only they would be able to hear with their sensitive hearing.

"When I went to Logan’s yesterday, I saw something in his room that you should know about. I’ll tell you more when we get some privacy, but there’s a portable portal in his room. One of our origin."