[Kevin’s POV]
‘4 days..’ Kevin thought as he walked inside of the classroom. It’s been 4 days since he last saw Michael.
It was strange considering while he would always be late, he would never skip class completely.
Even if he found it as boring as him, Kevin felt like he wouldn’t do that.
‘Lena isn’t saying anything either’ He glanced at her and sat down in his seat, the lesson would begin shortly.
He had been training with mana control lately, his strength had risen a fair deal.
It was difficult as he believed it was impossible for anyone to do at the early levels, only in the 150 level range could someone finally control their mana.
Yet he was able to do it now, both by enhancing himself and by projecting the mana outwards.
The same went with Chloe, he felt like she improved a little too fast, for all he knew, she might also be a regressor.
But after countless times of giving hints and her failing to notice them, Kevin dismissed that idea.
He took a glance at Elizabeth and she glared back at him, they spared nearly every day now and she always lost.
‘She doesn’t quit though’ Kevin nodded to himself as her progress is almost as good as theirs and they were considered quite the gifted bunch.
Of course, there was a monster called Michael, but he was not exactly normal.
The lessons continued and for some reason, Kevin grew a bit weary.
It seemed like a normal day, yet he couldn’t shake off the feeling that something might be wrong.
The classroom was lively, while the outside was deathly quiet.
His unease intensified as he went outside of the academy to train, he found the glares and envy of others quite a bother.
Was it his fault that he was better than them?
As he walked to a nearby facility, one that seemed completely empty except for the workers, he noticed Elizabeth had been tailing him.
Kevin sighed and turned towards her, casting the Shadow Stop skill, which made the target’s body stop in place.
There were the negatives of it costing a lot of mana at the start, yet due to his proficiency in both lives, he was able to figure out a way to make it less costly.
It was a temporary skill and it only lasted a few seconds, however, despite it being so simple, it was one of his most favorite skills.
Making others his shadows and forcing them to fight for him was his favorite.
“I told you not to follow me” Kevin walked up to her, a faint hint of annoyance in his tone.
Elizabeth tried moving around, breaking free from the skill, however, she was not able to.
“Let me go” She glared at him further, causing his brows to furrow.
“You are being a little unreasonable don’t you think? You stalk me, then start demanding for things” Kevin complained and released her from the skill, making her almost fall to the ground.
“You said we would train together” Elizabeth said, her glare getting more and more intense.
Kevin’s eyes momentarily widened before he composed himself.
‘I forgot..’
“However, just as he was about to start thinking of an excuse, the ground began rumbling, causing the entire building to shake.
Kevin was confused for a mere moment before he understood what was happening.
‘It’s a bit delayed, but it’s finally here’ He went outside and saw a portal the size of a building appear near the academy.
From what he remembered, this certain event should have happened weeks ago, he was not sure why there was such a massive delay.
Yet, his worries intensified as the size of the portal only increased, it had been bigger than his initial expectations, but now, it was at least twice the size of what it was in the past.
“Is that… a dungeon?” Elizabeth asked with a confused look as she watched the ever expanding portal slowly move to the sky.
‘What the fuck..?’ Kevin was even more shocked now, first the size, now the deviation, it was nothing like the past.
He could see people running away from it in fear, some even stumbling and falling onto the ground.
The dungeon portal was now fully in the sky and it finally stopped expanding, instead, it began pulsing out energy, which made Kevin’s breathing a little rougher.
Taking a glance at Elizabeth, he saw she had the same problems as well, however, it seemed like they were more prominent as she began trembling with her breathing being even rougher than his.
“We should g-” Kevin was suddenly interrupted by a massive gust of mana that pushed him back a few meters, even throwing Elizabeth a fair distance before she managed to catch herself with her sword.
He looked at the portal and saw a few, maybe 10, red blobs started slowly descending from the sky.
They looked normal at first glance, however, upon taking a closer look, Kevin could see the sheer amount of mana inside of them.
‘Fuck.. they are mana bombs’ He contemplated on what to do, while they were descending rather slowly, by the time he walked back to the academy, they would have already hit the ground.
He had time to escape and little to no time to help the others.
The only person that he could take with him at the moment was Elizabeth, whose shaking appeared to be intensifying.
“Hey, are you alright?’ He asked her, waving his hand in front of her face.
Elizabeth’s brow twitched as her trembling stopped for a moment, swatting away his hand “Yeah, don’t do that again by the way.”
“Fine” Kevin shrugged and looked onwards at the falling mana bombs, there appeared to be some people casting spells at them, trying to slow them down.
However, they were unsuccessful as the bombs seemed to resist their mana completely.
He could see the police force running at him and going past, not even warning them to evacuate, that’s how panicked most were.
Could he have stopped this from happening? Maybe.
Would he risk revealing his hidden identity to others? Definitely not.
Even if he did warn the others about this potentially happening, most would think that he was insane, while abnormal stuff was common, foresight was certainly not.
There have been people who claimed to have foresight in the past, however, they were all deemed crazy and thus ignored.
Kevin watched as some strong individuals jumped into the sky, grabbing some of the mana bombs and redirecting them.
They were not strong enough to completely neutralize them it seemed, as they began flying everywhere but the academy.
Most were directed towards a few open spaces inside the inner part of the city, however, a few couldn’t help but fall in the direction of where some people were located.
Kevin looked up even higher and noticed something, one of those bombs was heading directly at him.
As he was prepared to switch places with his shadow, he remembered that he was not alone, Elizabeth was standing still and looked at the incoming mana bomb, seemingly frozen in fear.
‘Fuck… What’s wrong with her? One moment she is badass, the next she is a complete wimp’ Kevin face palmed and felt around for his shadows, he noticed he only had a single one.
Meaning, he could only switch one person and leave the other to fend for themselves.
He was conflicted, he never thought he would need more than one shadow to escape while in the city, yet here he was.
‘I should just leave…’ Kevin began enveloping himself in his own shadow, however, halfway through he stopped.
‘…’ He couldn’t take away his eyes from Elizabeth’s expression, just seeing it made his stomach churn.
“Elizabeth” He called out to her but was met with no response.
“Elizbeth!” At his shout, she managed to finally snap out of it, looking directly at him.
And the moment she did, he cast a swirling vortex, enveloping her and, in her place, a shadow appeared, mirroring Kevin’s experience.
It was still impossible for him to make shadows travel through other shadows, so he was not able to attach one to Elizabeth, if he could, they would both be safe.
He took a deep breath and looked up, the mana bomb was almost nearly 100 meters away, its velocity constantly increasing.
Kevin didn’t waste any time and began running in what appeared to be a safe location, however, if they really were mana bombs, he couldn’t be 100% sure that he would be safe.
‘I am going to regret this, aren’t I…’
