Chapter 22: Recovery
Alexandre finally had to admit it to himself: He was tired. Of course, his body had been profoundly modified by Virus Z, so he could endure far more fatigue and trauma than ordinary people. He'd still been feeling perfectly fine while most of the other candidates had been exhausted. In fact, under normal circumstances, Alexandre only needed about two or three hours of sleep a night.
But he'd recently received heavy wounds from the Hunter-crafted wires that had cut him down to the bone all over his chest and arms. Those wounds had healed very well over the last day, but he'd lost a lot of blood and the healing process had taken a lot out of him. Alexandre wished he could do like the other candidates were doing: find a hotel and get some rest.
But he also knew that would be foolish.
Alexandre had learned enough about the Hunter Exam to know that the final test would be tricky and dangerous, even for him. If someone like Omega was truly willing to give the candidates a full day to rest, then the final exam would be rigid and merciless indeed. Alexandre would need to exert the same military discipline as the Hunters themselves.
Before arriving, Alexandre had already memorized all the publicly available information about Hunter Island—its general geography, mostly. The island was about 1,000 square kilometers in area, the size of a small island nation. It gave the Hunters all the room to carry out whatever experiments and exercises they wanted.
Then, earlier that day when he'd entered the town of Hunter's Paradise, Alexandre had noticed an enormous brick building looming in the north. It had looked somewhat like a school building even from a distance, so Alexandre assumed it was the Hunters' university campus. After eating lunch by himself and taking a very short rest, Alexandre set off toward this building.
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