Chapter 156: Chapter 156
After Zemel begrudgingly reported his progress to Taiboku, he left the clock tower with his cloak down, masking his appearance once more and heading back towards his hidden base. Once there, Zemel took off his cloaks completely while gritting his teeth in anger. Fury rose within him when he thought about what happened earlier in his day. Zemel let out a sigh as he opened a bottle of wine, pouring it into a glass. However, just before Zemel sipped his glass of wine, he saw an injured figure dressed in complete black lying in front of him.
Zemel furrowed his brow; he moved closer towards the figure dressed in complete black. “Number One?” Zemel exclaimed after he checked the figure. Zemel took off Number One’s clothes, and he found that Number One had burn injuries all over Number One’s body. After seeing how badly Number One was injured, Zemel immediately went over to a room to his right. In that room lies several lit up crystals that were neatly arranged into a line.
When Zemel entered the room, the fury he held for a while fully exploded.
“Rargh!”
Zemel roared in anger letting his mana explode around him. Zemel looked at the now four dimmed crystals, “You incompetent fucks!” he shouted. Zemel’s anger was boiling hot. He wanted nothing more than tear someone out right now. But, when he remembered that he still had a mission to do, he calmed down. After that, Zemel returned to the other room and brought Number One, laying him down on the couch nearby. Zemel clenched his fist while biting his lower lips, “Eru, was it?” he muttered, “I’ll kill you when all of this is over.”
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In the vicinity of Sylphid Academy, a panicking young student was running away from a creature so monstrous that it was able to kill two friends. “Hah, hah, hah”, he panted hard as he continued running towards the academy. “I’ve got to tell the principal. That creature is not normal”, he muttered below his breath. As that young student was closing in to Sylphid Academy, the creature suddenly appeared behind him. “Roar!” the creature let out a bestial cry before swiping its massive claw at the running young student.
Caught off guard, the running young student was sent flying by the creature’s swipe. The young student tried getting up, but the creatures three claws managed to leave an injury on his back, making his vision blurry and his head dizzy upon losing blood. The young student glared at the monstrous creature with unwilling eyes, “Is this how I end?” he closed his eyes, accepting his demise. The monstrous creature let out a roar before swiping his claw towards the young student.
But the demise that the young student was waiting for did not come to him. “Is it over? Am I already dead?” he mumbled as he slowly opened up his eyes. When the young student’s eyes were fully opened, he saw an armoured figure with long blonde hair tied to a ponytail. “You alright?” she asked with a gentle smile. The young student blushed a little when seeing a beautiful face shone by the sun above, “Y-yeah”, he said, stuttering in his words. “Good”, the woman in armour said; she turned her head around towards the monstrous creature that she cut off its arm earlier.
“Grr”, the creature that resembled a troll growled. It lowered its posture and extended its severed arm. Before long, the creature’s arm grew back then it let out a furious roar towards the armoured woman. “You know what they say, the louder they bark, the weaker they are”, the armoured woman responded to the creature’s roar as she closed her distance quickly. The creature tried punching the armoured woman with its big, muscular arm. However, the armoured woman calmly raised her left arm. A metallic shield emerged from her gauntlet, blocking the creature’s fist.
“That’s all?” the armoured woman stoically stood, “Then my turn”, she said, brandishing her sword. The armoured woman easily cut off the creature’s regrowth arm. After that, she proceeded to cut the creature’s other arm. Then, the armoured woman crouched down, with a single swipe of her sword, the monstrous creature that stood several feet taller than her had its legs cut down. “Rawr!” the monstrous creature fall down, crashing his humongous body to the soil below. The monstrous creature tried regenerating its arms and legs, but the armoured woman pointed her sword at its head.
“Lightning”, the armoured woman chanted, causing her sword to glow yellow as she thrust it into the monstrous creature’s head. Then, the lighting element on the armoured woman’s sword destroyed the monstrous creature’s innards, killing it instantly. The armoured woman sighed; she sheathed her sword and waved her left arm, putting away her shield, “Phew, that’s that.” Not long after, a dozen of soldiers approached the armoured woman from behind the young student. Then, a standout individual from among the soldiers walked forward. She had short blue hair and a round, cute face, “Why are you always rushing alone, commander?. Do you know how worried we are?” she said as she pouted.
The armoured woman flashed a gentle smile before patting the blue-haired girl in the head as she stood a few inches taller than her, “Sorry, sorry. But if I had not rushed over, the poor young student over there would’ve died.” Then, the armoured woman, the blue-haired girl and the rest of the soldiers turned their heads towards the young student, making the latter nervous.
The blue-haired girl crouched down; she extended her hand towards the scared young student, “It’s okay, it’s all over now”, she said. After hearing that, the young student felt something in his heart was lifted off as tears streamed through his eyes. The blue-haired girl put the young man in her arms, comforting him and continued hugging the young student until he finished crying. His cries resounded all over the plains, making the atmosphere around them heavy and sombre.
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“Is what you said true?” the armoured woman furrowed her eyebrows after hearing the young man’s story. “Y-yes, it’s true. The one that pursued me was only a single monster; there’s a whole pack of them in the Coast Forrest”, the young student stated. He continued, “My friends and I had a task there from the academy to collect herbs and other materials for a research subject. And that’s when we stumbled across a strange building right in the centre of the forest”, the young student said as fear was visible in his eyes.
The young student’s body was trembling, “Out of curiosity, we checked out that strange building. At first, we found the building fascinating. The materials used for the building was foreign to us. We tried to enter the building, but the door was closed. We looked for another entrance, and eventually, we found one right behind the building. Through the cracks behind the building, we managed to somehow squeeze ourselves in. Once we did, we found a huge stair down to the underground. We followed the stairs downwards before finding ourselves inside a massive room, devoid of light”, the young student narrated.
The young student took a deep breath before continuing, “Curious of what inside, my friend cast a spell, which illuminated the entire room. After that was when our nightmare began. Once the room was illuminated because of my friend’s spell, we saw many monstrous creatures that did not exist in the academy bestiary.” The armoured woman frowned, “Like the one we killed earlier?” she asked. The young student nodded, “Yes, and some”, the young student informed.
Then, the young student continued his story, “We were surprised. Shock and fear overwhelmed us as the pressures the monstrous creatures gave us were really suffocating. But when we saw that the monstrous creatures were not moving, we breathed a sigh of relief. We began to explore the place, but when one of my friends touched one creature, it moved slightly.” The young man shuddered before continuing, “After one creature moved, the other monstrous creatures also moved. That’s when one of my friends got killed by the creatures. We ran for our lives, but when I stumbled down, my other friend threw me away and stayed in my place.”
The young man sobbed, “H-he used himself as a bait to lure the other monstrous creatures, yelling to me to escape and tell the principal. However, not all monstrous creatures went towards my friend. One of them, that monster”, the young man pointed at the troll-like creatures, “Noticed me and chased me. I managed to last long enough to exit the Coast Forest and the rest… Was history.”
The armoured woman gritted her teeth while the rest of the soldiers had ugly expressions on their faces. “Now you guys understand the severity of the situation, right? We need to hurry up back to the academy and report it to the principal”, the young student urged. The armoured woman nodded, “Right, we need to hurry up and report it to the principal.” However, just as the armoured woman said that multiple roars could be heard from the direction of Coast Forest.
“Not good.”
“Roar!”
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