The blaze and fervour in Leon's eyes now also had a flicker of annoyance. It was like your intention was only to help someone, but you are just like a clown in the other person's eyes.
Kiel this time didn't even look at Leon. He just glanced at Aida. That stuff on assurance- he was not buying that. Many times in the past he was fooled by such lines to make something… Let's not talk about the past now.
Rather than being helped by others, Kiel preferred to help them instead. This way he was not at the mercy of others. He didn't like it the other way around.
And from the looks of her, the earth girl was not recovering any time soon without external help while the escape time was limited. Now that he had a tad understanding of what he was going to face, there was no point in staying in this makeshift group.
"Little girl, how much do you even know about forces to come to this conclusion?"
There was clearly a sneer on Kiel's face as he walked to the front door. Well, it couldn't be helped. She was advising Kiel about the stuff that he was the master of. Obviously, he would disregard her.
And as he walked up on to the front, which was now the back of the battlefield; some of the kids who were attacking the door and some others standing on his path, quickly veered off, clearing a path for him.
Leon was a little infuriated now. All he wanted was to help. Why behave like this? The Kiel guy did help them and the brute strength that he displayed had really astonished him to no limits. Even someone like him who had his strength enhanced from his bloodline ability had to look the other way in this regard. And the speed that Kiel possessed, Leon could not even gauge his movements, which were all quite strange as he was sure Kiel was never using any bit of mana.
And the worst thing was that he never even sensed a bit of mana or the usage of any spells from Kiel. In his battle mode, he was very sensitive to mana. But there was little to no mana in Kiel. So even physical reinforcement magic was out of the question.
The only thing that could explain the phenomena he sighted upon pure physical strength!? But how is that even possible for a kid of 8 years old to have such brute strength?
However, that was it. Even if Kiel possessed enormous physical abilities, he was well aware of the speciality of Aida's earth spells. The wall before him was the same wall that protected him from losing his life in that event.
'Even… even that monster could not break the spell.'
*Gulp*
'Should I even be glad about that?'
*Sneer*
'Aida's element is quite a special one. The spells that she conjures are like an extreme conductor of forces, transmitting any amount of force all around itself and then to the ground. That's what grandpa said. It could only be broken with only some high ranking magic that had touched upon principles. So…'
[A/N: Principles are not Laws of nature]
"Let him be Leon. *cough* Once he figures that it is impossible for some things to happen, maybe he will cooperate with us. And it is not like we can stop him now anyway. "
"Hmm."
Now Kiel reached the front door. He looked in the direction once and then took the glove off his right hand, gently touching the wall in front of him. If not because of the zombies' growl and the other kids' spells blasting off, there could be a pin drop of silence now. Even Leon, Aida and Neel were watching him quietly.
"Miss Earth! I really was keen on destroying this wall to test the depth of my strength. I don't know why you think that this door cannot be destroyed. But your explanation of the stone's composition changed my mind."
Seeing the eyes on him, Kiel continued.
"So allow me to give you a piece of advice that took more than a millennium of brains to find out: Even light cannot escape Gravity!"
CRACK CRACK!
*gulp*
'Huh??'
The moment Kiel finished his monologue, everyone could see cracks speedily forming all over the wall. On the other side, you could even see the side wide-open mouths of Aida and Leon looking like saucers.
"..." nothing could hide their astonishment.
BOOM!
Small pieces of stones all broke apart and started falling down, breaking the horizon, blocking their vision, pointing to the front door tightly blocked.
Everyone stood their wide eyes watching the rocks and stones falling down, implying the plunge of the stone wall that was stopping them from escaping from this goddamn never-ending horde; which was gone now.
The almost broken front door was now visible too. Some even forgot the zombies at the back resulting in them being dragged away from the lifeless.
However, Kiel was not done. He formed his extended palm into a fist and then shifted right next to the front door punching it straight in the middle. The door flew off as the dusty outside world was now visible to everyone there.
A blue-orange hued sky, signifying the incoming dusk lay in front of their eyes; filling the eyes of some of the weak-willed with tears. Finally, they could escape from this goddamn place.
Aida who was still looking at Kiel with eyes as wide as a saucer could not stop herself from asking from behind
"How… did-you-do-that?"
Kiel too turned back. However, only a wide smile lay plastered on his face instead of any answers. He bowed to the other like how a magician presents himself after ending his performance.
"Thanks miss for advising that I shouldn't use extreme means now but be on energy conservation mode. Well then now it is time to part ways! See you all on the other side!
.
And… for that question, I already answered that!"
Just a few words, and the next moment the silver-haired boy vanished too from there leaving behind a dust-filled trial. However, the kids were most focused on the open doors, not on the boy who saved them.
"We are free! Let's go let's go!"
"Hurry up!"
The kids gushed out of the auditorium like a herd of zebras running from a lion. It was such a terrible experience to be closed up in a place full of zombies. There were zombies in the front too. However, they were a handful. Most of them seemed to be concentrated on the opposite side.
Neel conjured a wooden blockage to block the zombies from gushing at them while the kids made their escape.
"Look at all these idiots! Why do I have to even help them?" Although he was complaining, he didn't do a bad job.
Leon too carried out Aida, while supporting her. His blood did give him increased regeneration. However, it hasn't reached its mature state yet. So he could only wait for it to do its job slowly. As they all came out Leon and the others searched for Kiel in that huge dungeon gate, which lay without even a single scratch even now.
However, there was no sign of Kiel. Well, it was quite in their expectations after realising his speed.
Everyone started quickly forming groups to run out. However, what started from a thirty over group seemed to only be half of its former self… And it was just the first trial…
Leon was still thinking about the impression Kiel and Astrid were talking about. What was that all about? He was quite sensitive to mana, but this place had an overabundance of surrounding mana which made detection quite troubling for him. So his senses were not yet working to the fullest potential here.
"What happened? What are you thinking?"
"Hmm? Nothing… Hey Aida, do you think Kiel could have stayed with us?"
"Mmm? Nah… let him be. He didn't look the type to form groups or be under anyone. We should focus on how to reach the escape route. That way we can meet him earlier."
"Hmm? you are right. We will see him soon anyway!"
°°°
Somewhere a little distance away from the auditorium.
GROWL! GROWWWL!
"Ouch-ouch, damn what the hell was that door made of? My right-hand looks like it will fall off."
[Host! Scan completed. There are no injuries, only some bruises on your right hand. They will heal up pretty quickly!]
"Only bruises… phew, but was white a headache! Helping others is quite an ordeal, isn't it? Hope I did collect quite a lot of data. That would be worth it! Oh, by the way, Azrael, how much time is remaining for the trial to finish?"
GROWL! GROWL!!
Kiel was sitting on the roof of one of the buildings along the escape route munching on some protein bars that he found inside one of the stores along the way watching the sun setting down slowly.
It had been only ten minutes since he got out from that overcrowded room. But his body seemed to be a little hungry now. Well, it has been like that after he woke from his three years of beauty sleep. His metabolism had highly increased with his body strength. So finding something to eat was really a necessity for him.
Within his vision, he could see many of the zombies crowding near the stairs of the building he was on. Luckily he smashed the stairs to prevent them from coming up. Otherwise, it would have been quite a hassle. However, he could still see the zombies stretching their rotten arms to get to Kiel.
From all the observations he made till now, he could infer that the zombies could definitely sense him and others. Maybe from the badge? Or something else who knows? Some more experiments were needed however he could not lose the silver badge.
[Beep… Mission 2- Time remaining: 02:09:21]
"Hmm? What only 50 minutes passed by? Isn't that too slow? I already thought that I would have around 1 hour more to do the job. Are you sure it is right?"
[Beep… Host need not fret. I provide the most accurate information. There is no miscalculation.]
"I see. Hmm, It must be because of the relativity of time that I thought too much time has passed. Well, whatever. Azrael infer the shortest and efficient path to reach the destination from the system map"
[Beep… Acknowledged Host. Evaluating the shortest and most efficient path…. Evaluation successful. The path is marked with green on the Map and is estimated to take around 65-75 minutes. Host is advised to follow the map accordingly.]
Kiel could see the changes on the circular map in the right bottom corner of his vision.
"Looks like there is still some more time to play here. Azrael show me the scan simulation of the previous fight in the auditorium. Don't miss any details"
[Acknowledged Host.
Building up simulation from Host's memories…
Invoking visual data records in Host's optical cortex…
Complete]
Just as the system prompt ended Kiel could see a smaller version of the auditorium he was in previously, in front of him. The entire thing was just like a hologram from his previous world, just in 6k. This was an ability upgrade that Azrael went through after the last upgrade. And the crazy thing was it was all going on inside his head. So no one else but him could observe it.
When he witnessed the massacre scene while in the whole princess-assassin play in the woods, the system could only use verbal statements to depict an event or a scene in front of him from his stored memories. Now it could create visuals. Like you could only read novels before, but now you have manga and anime adaptations for better visuals. The only thing missing was the audio content. But for that maybe the system needed another upgrade? Or maybe he could learn to lip read?
Why was Kiel going at this now? It was because he wanted to find out even the most minute clues on these things below him, and how the hell was this dungeon even holding up. He literally wanted to fucking dig this entire place down so that he could learn how the hell was this possible.
This was another reason why Kiel was not interested in fighting and was standing at a corner to observe only first.
"System fast forward to the zombies' arrival"
As Kiel demanded, the simulation started itself and fast-forwarded. The system was like his own Jarvis from a vintage film.
"Hmm? Stop stop! Ya, stop there."
Kiel was just visually scrolling when he suddenly noticed something unusual. There should be four bronze cards, but including the now-dead psychic girl, there were only three fightings? Kiel tried playing the video again. Was she related to anything?
"Now go back by 10 seconds and zoom in to the left of the front door. Now focus on that odd girl and play it."
In front of him was the fourth girl. As usual, Kiel didn't recall her name. And why did he even forget about her? Was it because she didn't have much of a presence?
Kiel observed when just as the zombies broke down the walls, the girl melted into the shadow of a zombie. The zombie then walked back among its herd disappearing.
"Hmm… interesting. Azrael marks her as a threat and reminds me to analyse her mana signature for future reference. She may turn out to be a good specimen in understanding the nature of the mana of this world."
[Acknowledged Host! Setting Reminder]
Kiel munched on his last cookie and then stood up. Dusting off his pants, he looked down at the zombies and threw was a small stone at one of the zombies.
'Hmm… Alright, let's try a small experiment before going out.'
[Host! This is very risky! I would not recommend doing this as any mistake would result in irrecoverable damage!]
"Hmm, you were saying?"
Although he asked Azrael for its opinion, the next moment he jumped down straight down the roof.
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