Yale couldn't mistake that laugh. That was Heruk's voice.
However, another laugh sounded just after that, which meant that Heruk wasn't alone.
After hearing that laugh, Kermu was who had a strange face because that time, he was the one who knew to who belonged that laugh.
The group advanced until they saw the other party, Heruk was in a group of eight, they had more people than Yale's group.
Furthermore, there was another guy, but he was lying on the floor in a sorry state, Yale's group didn't know if he was alive or not. However, it was clear the identity of those who left him in such a sorry state.
Fortunately, that guy wasn't one of Yale's friends nor had some relation to the other members of the group.
However, although he wasn't one of his friends, Yale knew about him. He was the guy who he had beaten in the tournament with one hit when stepping in the expert stage.
"Hahaha, this is the second one, I only need to kill five more."
Hearing Heruk's words, Yale worried about his friends because his words implied that Heruk had killed someone else from the academy before.
Moreover, Heruk was also planning to kill Lor based on the numbers he said.
At that moment, someone in Heruk's group noticed Yale and the others.
"Oh, so we have some audience. How are you, Kermu? I see that you still don't die despite relying on that puny team of yours. You even recruited some waste to increase your numbers."
The one who said that was also a member of the Kurk clan and someone who hated Kermu due to his high position in the clan.
"Kreg, so you are also alive and doing wicked things when no one sees you. You don't have any honor. You are a disgrace for the Kurk Clan."
Kermu also hated Kreg due to the latter's underhanded acts. Those were things a noble shouldn't do. However, Kermu never managed to obtain enough evidence to make the clan punish him.
Heruk was the only commoner in the opposite group; all the other seven members were from the noble clans or the imperial family.
Including Kreg, there were three members of the Kurk Clan; they were the dominant faction in the group.
Two of the others were from the Hyeran Clan, the same clan as Hyrk.
There was also one from the Zhan Clan and one from the imperial family.
However, there wasn't any member of the other two clans. Yale had yet to meet someone from those clans.
Seeing the faces of his teammates, Yale had no doubts that they recognized members of their clans on the other party and that they didn't have a good relationship with them.
"You have also recruited that guy. You can't say anything about us recruiting someone."
Hyrk was who spoke, he opposed to recruiting Yale at the start, but after all the things the group lived together, he also considered Yale as a friend.
"We indeed recruited him. He isn't bad. We already decided that our Hyeran Clan would recruit him, we even gifted your younger sister to him, and he accepted very happily."
One of the members of the Hyeran Clan replied to Hyrk, who was almost losing his control after hearing that they dared to gift his sister to a commoner.
Hyrk had a little sister, but her body had problems and the experts in the clan sentenced that she wouldn't be able to practice in her whole life.
Hyrk had trained hard to obtain enough status to protect his little sister from the clan abuses. The Hyeran Clan was a body supremacist and valued strength above everything else. A little sick girl like Hyrk's sister would have a rough time without any protection.
Heruk was the type of practitioner the Hyeran Clan liked, and since the other party hated Hyrk, he decided to gift Hyrk's sister to Heruk.
"Wait, that one within their group is Yale, someone from my academy. I need to kill him! You! Hand over him to me! He should die in a painful death!"
At that time, who broke in anger was Serka.
"In your dreams, a mere commoner like you can't touch him."
Serka didn't think her words well. She didn't notice what her words could mean to the others. However, since she didn't have any brothers or sisters, Yale was the most direct family she had with the exception of her mother, so she was angered when a nobody ordered to hand him over to kill him. She may be considered a genius healer, but that didn't change that she was still too young. In those circumstances, she was completely unable to control her emotions.
"Isn't he another commoner? Why do you protect him? You are engaged with that Kermu from the Kurk Clan, right? Are you cheating your future husband despite he himself being present?"
The one who spoke those words was the Zhan Clan's member, he noticed somewhat strange in Serka's previous words and wanted to try to anger her a bit more to see if he could discover the reason.
Seeing the situation, Kermu was about to tell Serka that she should cool down herself before continuing to speak, but he was late.
"Yale isn't a commoner! He is my cousin!"
Yale didn't know what to do at that moment. Serka had told him to hide his identity as a Zhan Clan member, but she was the one who said it to the other party at the first chance, and that member of the Zhan Clan didn't seem to belong to Serka's faction.
"Your cousin? You don't have any cousins. Your father didn't have brothers or sisters, and your mother only has that traitor woman as her sister."
That guy stopped a moment before continuing.
"I see, he should be the son of the traitor. How do you dare to call him noble! He is a bastard son at most. He will pay for his mother's crimes with his life. Hand him over, or you would also be a traitor."
At that moment, it wasn't a matter if Heruk wanted to kill Yale or not, Serka's lack of self-control had escalated the matter to another level.
"In your dreams."
Unexpectedly Nurvey was the one who spoke, she usually didn't like to talk and less to people like those in that group in front of them, but she did it to defend Yale.
At that moment, Serka finally noticed that she made the situation even worse than before for losing the control and saying things she shouldn't have said. She was still too immature and had lost the control of her mouth due to the anger.
"Oh, so even the little princess spoke for that bastard. I always felt that you were an annoying girl with that personality of yours, but who would have thought that you would even defend a traitor from a noble clan, you are a shame for our imperial family."
The boy who spoke those words was also from the imperial family, but although he was older than Nurvey, his status was far lower than Nurvey's.
"Why waste our time with words. We can kill them all. Who cares about their identities. Here no one will know what happened."
As Heruk said those words, the others in his group smiled.
"I knew that you were suited to join our group, our thoughts are the same."
After Kreg spoke, everyone in their group prepared to battle, but they didn't move.
Kreg was the one who formed that group and all of them were as shameless as Kreg himself. They wanted to use the Special Realm to enjoy evil acts without fear of punishment. Of course, killing those who they didn't like was also something they liked.
Yale's group also started preparing themselves for fighting. They wouldn't wait to be executed without opposing resistance despite being on the weakest side.
Both parties remained in their positions without daring to make the first move.
"What happens, Hyrk? Are you afraid to battle with me? You never won against me before in the clan. It is normal that you fear me. If you kill those companions of yours, I will forgive you and let you join our party. What do you think?"
Hyrk lost his control when he heard those words. He would never betray his friends. He was an elitist and looked down upon the commoners because they used to have that kind of behavior, so he couldn't tolerate that a member of his clan acted in the same way.
Furthermore, his mind couldn't bear hearing a fellow clan member tempting him to do the same, even if that member was in bad relations with him. Moreover, that same person had dared to decide the future of his sister unilaterally, so Hyrk was on the verge of losing this temper from before.
"Wait!"
"Stop!"
Yale and Kermu shouted at the same time. They had a bad premonition about what would happen once someone charged forward.
However, Hyrk charged forward, ignoring their shouts. He had always been impulsive, but when things were related to his sister and the honor of nobles, he wouldn't hear anyone. That was his biggest flaw, and the one who had spoken to him previously knew that flaw very well.
After two steps, the bad premonition became true, a trap was activated, and the ceiling started to fall. All the group was in the area of the trap.
The ceiling's fall crushed Yale and his group, which made a smile appear on the faces of the other party.
"Hahahaha, that hateful Yale is finally dead!"
"With Kermu dead, my status in the clan will finally soar!"
"That unsociable princess is finally dead! I had been waiting for this day for many years!"
"That fool, I was going to kill him either way if he didn't trigger the trap, but he killed all his members due to his impulsiveness. His acts were too easy to predict."
"That proud little girl is finally dead, and the traitor's son is also dead! My father will reward me when he discovers it! Sad that I don't have their heads to show, but there is no way to find their heads after being crushed like this. Heruk, you should take me to your city, I need to hunt that traitor and any other family he had."
"Don't worry, I know about his clan, and he had a sister. The academy protects her, but that shouldn't be a problem to your clan."
"If an academy tries to stop us, we will simply kill the whole academy for disrespecting the noble clans."
If he took his faction's elders to that backwater city, exterminating the whole city would be easy.
After saying that, they left with their laughs resonating among the whole cave.
They believed that they had annihilated Yale's group, but they had underestimated Yale too much.