High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 881: Chapter 229: The Observation Room Outside the Venue

”A-type Hunting Zone, all is normal. The Auxiliary Hunter of the Judgement Hunting Team is currently dissecting the second pair of wings on the six-legged Fat Heritage, expected to finish within half an hour... The emergency team is ready to release the Ying Mountain Fatty Legacy to ensure that the Judgement Hunting Team can still find new prey over the next two days.”

”B-Bing Hunting Zone, the You Yao Qi Hunting Team, while pursuing a flock of yi sheep, inadvertently drove them into the adjacent D-Ding District, causing accidental interference to the YPO Hunting Team who were hunting... After the Hunting Committee’s jury deliberation, the You Yao Qi Hunting Team, due to involvement in unfair competition, is docked 10 points from today’s routine score; the YPO Hunting Team, due to their disorganized response, is docked 10 points for emergency performance.”

”C-subclass Hunting Zone, the Queen of Hearts Q Hunting Team, while hunting a Tiger Demon, failed to timely subdue the Tiger Demon’s capture’s vengeful spirit, leading to the fragmentation of that vengeful soul... The scholarly committee on ethical discipline management suggests imposing a 5-point moral penalty on the Queen of Hearts Q Hunting Team, and issuing a yellow card warning to the student, Queen Joan, who is the leader of the team.”

...

This is the off-site observation room for the First University’s winter hunting event, responsible for constantly monitoring various developments in the hunting zones and reporting to the corresponding departments at any time.

In past years, this observation room was manned by teaching assistants from the Assistant Team. Due to staff shortages this year, the responsibility for this observation room now falls on the student union, the Club Union, and other student volunteers.

At this moment, a veteran from Jiuyou Academy, clad in a red robe adorned with three black edges on the collar, is standing in front of a huge screen, watching the stream of information gliding across the screen and muttering to himself.

The screen displays the entire array of hunting zones of the First University’s winter hunt, divided vertically into six columns from A to F, with A column’s hunting zones being on the outermost edge, carrying the highest risk; Zone F located the innermost, with the lowest risk; and horizontally divided according to the ten Heavenly Stems, similarly with Alpha at highest risk to Yi at lowest.

Each hunting zone corresponds to a small segment of the screen which shows the respective hunting team’s general activity and performance for evaluation and scoring by the First University’s professorial joint meeting and the winter hunt’s Hunting Committee jury.

Every piece of information that floats across the screen is a suggestion or opinion provided by many of the winter hunt’s sponsoring and co-sponsoring entities, including the Hunting Committee, the student council, the professorial joint meeting, the School Works Committee, and the Assistant Team.

This veteran from Jiuyou Academy’s duty is to collect and organize these opinions, then file them for review after each day’s hunting and rest period, serving as valid evidence to audit whether the Hunting Committee’s scoring decisions are just or not.

At this moment, his hands are lightly held in mid-air, beneath which lies a row of neatly arranged notepads. Above each notepad hovers a pristine white feather pen.

Each notepad corresponds to a section of the screen, representing a specific hunting zone during the First University’s winter hunting event.

Each feather pen records only the messages corresponding to its designated number.

This moment, accompanied by the veteran Jiuyou Academy student’s urgent and loud voice, those corresponding feather pens begin to dance lightly across the notepads.

”We all saw that the vengeful spirit attempted to attack Peter Greenspan! Isn’t the punishment from the student council’s ethical discipline management department way too unreasonable?” a sophomore from Alpha Academy complained in a low voice, standing not far behind the red-robed veteran.

She was referring to a suggestion for a penalty in the C-subclass Hunting Zone that had just swept across the screen.

”It’s really curious... Everyone knows Queen Qiong is unpopular at Alpha Academy, yet you can speak for her, which is quite amusing.” Another junior in a blue robe approached with a cheeky grin, ”Don’t you know that the head of the Student Union’s Ethics and Discipline Department is Gongsun Yuan from Alpha Academy?”

”This has nothing to do with the academy’s stance!” the witch from Alpha exclaimed irritably, ”This is about the credibility of the Student Union!”

”Where there are opinions, there are stances, and opinions without stances hold no convincing power,” shrugged the junior warlock from Starry Sky Academy as he sauntered off to the side, turning his head to add, ”As for credibility, what is that thing! There is only one thing in this world that truly has credibility...”

Saying this, he raised his arm and vigorously waved it in mid-air, fiercely stating, ”And that is the fist!”

”Barbarian,” the Alpha witch pressed her lips tightly but said no more.

She and the other students, all volunteers from various academies—of course, these volunteers were exclusively students whose academic credits ranked in the top 5% of their academies—were assigned the duty to supervise the work of a veteran from Jiuyou Academy and to keep an eye on the situation on those sixty screens at all times.

Should there be any anomalies, they had to report immediately to the respective departments of the Winter Hunting Committee.

For instance, if a hunting team was clearly violating the rules, they needed to capture an image and report immediately to the referees of the Hunting Committee; or if unfamiliar prey entered the designated hunting grounds, they had to report it immediately to the committee, which would decide whether to drive it away; furthermore, if a hunting team was in distress, or if any team members were injured, they needed to connect promptly with the corresponding medical group.

After all, the outskirts of First University were extremely vast and it was difficult for the assistants of the Assistant Team and the limited-capability school workers to cover every aspect and ensure that all students safely completed their winter hunting missions.

The veteran from Jiuyou Academy responsible for broadcasting real-time information turned a deaf ear to the minor disputes behind him.

He had more pressing matters to focus on.

”In A-type Hunting Zone, Absolution Hunting Team has already driven the Star Ape group into the encirclement, preparing for the next hunting operation. The Hunting Committee grants them a perfect score of ten for their performance in driving the prey... Damn, can someone tell me why Star Apes look so much like weasels?!”

The red-robed warlock, who had been completely focused on the screen messages, finally couldn’t help but complain after seeing the image on screen D Alpha: ”And why can a group of weasels be officially assigned as a hunting team’s prey in D District? Could it be that the instructions from the Hunting Committee were wrong?”

Behind him, the young wizards responsible for monitoring began flipping through the little black-covered booklets in haste. Soon enough, someone found the relevant entry and explained to the red-robed warlock the dual pronunciations and meanings of ’狌’.

This did not satisfy the red-robed warlock.

”Has the Hunting Committee confirmed there is no mistake regarding the target prey?” he asked again, looking up at a green-skin parrot that was perching at the top of the screen and appeared to be enjoying the show.

”Absolutely sure, those chaps from Absolution are indeed up against those weasels,” the green-skin parrot leaned in to listen for a moment, then flapped its wings and nodded affirmatively.