'There is something behind this bush.' Ashton thought and headed deeper into the bushes.
The forest he was in, was filled with bushes all over. But this particular bush was different. It was faint and almost unrecognisable, but there were clear signs that the bush had been interfered with. By interference, Ashton meant that the bush looked more as if someone had slashed it and then tried to cover it up, but did a poor job.
'... Could this be a trap?'
As he was making his way deeper and deeper into the bush, Ashton realise that it might as well be a trap. Since he knew that the examinees could use the 'natural' resources of the zone, there was a high chance that one of them had used the branches and vines to make a trap for the others.
'It is better to check things out rather than jumping headfirst into the unknown.' Ashton quickly backtracked his footsteps to where he had shot down the crow, 'Well, this is one way to confirm my suspicions.'
He threw the broken crow into the bush with all his might and listened. A moment later there was a loud clunking noise. Ashton carefully followed the noise and there it was. A hidden chest right in the middle of the bushes.
The chest looked quite old but was well decorated with ornaments. It almost felt as if the chest was begging him to open it.
'I... really was overthinking things.' Ashton shook his head and opened the chest.
However, as soon as he opened the chest, someone shot an arrow at him. However, thanks to his enhanced perception skill, Ashton easily dodged the arrow. But he could feel something was off. The next moment, there was a blinking notification in front of him.
__
You have been affected by <Luna's Curse>.
Your werewolf stats have been reduced by 30%.
__
"The hell?" Ashton blurted out as he read what the notification had to say, "When did I get- wait a minute!"
It only took him a moment to realise what was going on. Unlike what he believed, he wasn't the first one to discover the chest there. There were three others who had been lurking around there. Those bastards waited for someone like him to show up and open the chest...
'Because there was a curse placed on the chest... damn it! Why didn't my perception skill work on them or the chest?'
[It would seem one of them has learned concealing magic or carrying a tome with them. Which helped them fool you.]
The system's reply only made Ashton madder. Couldn't Lucifer have the system inform him about all this before? But then again, it was his own fault to be blindly dependent on the skills and not his senses.
As for the question of tomes was concerned, until and unless they found it in the zone, there was no way they could use an outside material here. Thus Ashton was pretty sure at least one of them had concealing abilities.
'They found the chest and knew it was cursed. So they used the concealing magic to hide themselves along with the curse on the chest. After that, they waited for someone else to open the chest so they could take the items and kill the one who opened it. Clever bastards...'
"Huhu, looks like we caught one of those nameless dogs." The red-headed kid carrying a bow and arrows smirked. Following his lead, the other two emerged from the flanks and cornered Ashton.
"It's a good thing that he isn't one of the nobles we know. Which means-"
"We can eliminate him without fearing about retaliation from his guardians."
The other two kids were twins and had black hair and were carrying swords. But more importantly, all three of them had the same insignia carved on their clothes.
'So they are from the same family... no wonder they are working together.' Ashton thought before getting into the position to battle it out, 'Thankfully, the curse only applies to my werewolf genes and not the others.'
He looked up the stats of all three of them, and they were all around level 7. Which meant they were a couple of levels below him. However, thanks to the curse, Ashton had more or less the same stats as them. Still, he could use his other genes to overpower them, but before that, he needed to check something.
Ashton then looked up to see whether there was any surveillance in that area or not. It was obvious that there was. After all, the director and the faculty members wanted to know who was the one to find and claim the treasure.
'Things are not going to be easy for me. Are they now?'
There was no chance in hell he was going to risk using his other genes when the others were watching him. Even if the ones in front of him did not notice him using his skills like that, the director and the faculty members would.
However, he wasn't out of any ideas just yet. He jumped over the chest and quickly grabbed whatever was inside it. He had taken the curse, so it only made sense that he took the weapon inside as well. But he had not even remotely expected to get what he did...
'This... I can work with this!'