After I got punched by Yin I realized something, that punch was deceptively heavy,
I thought a normal punch like that will, at best, break my nose but instead of punching me in the middle of my face he punched me in my cheek.
Right after that I started feeling dizzy, and I went unconscious.
That was unexpected,
"Alfred..!"
As I opened my eyes, I saw the pained, almost watery gaze of George.
I shook my head, while sighing. He worries too much,
I lifted my hand, curled up a fist and punched him lightly on his shoulder.
"What are you crying about? I am not dead." I smiled amusingly.
"I-I know but.." he looked at me and then hugged me.
"Oh you're up? Good." Then I heard the murky voice of Mike. His empty eyes slightly unnerved me.
"What's up Mikey? You don't look good." I looked at him as I stood up from the bed I was laying down on.
"I wonder why that is." Even though he looked scary I knew he was worried as well.
"Oh come on, don't be like George I am fine~" I did a bit of stretching as I started walking towards Mike.
"How did you get knocked out anyways? What even happened?" Mike asked with furrowed eyebrows.
"Glass pearl did it." I clicked my tongue as the bitter memories flowed in.
"Now way!!" "I knew it!!"
Both Mike and George reacted differently.
"He is so dead!" Mike said, furious. He was about to walk away when-
"W-Wait Mikey!" Goerge stopped Mike. And Mike did stop but…
"Geo…" Mike slowly turned around his eyes glowing in dark red as menacing waves of power started emitting from him, "Do you intend to stop me again? I didn't chase after him because you stopped me back then. In the first place if you hadn't stopped Alfred from completely incinerating him we wouldn't be having this conversation right now! It's always you holding us back that we end up in all kinds of trouble-"
"Mikey!!" I screamed, how dare he, "Mike, I dare you to finish what you were about to say." Quickly calming my senses, I also unleashed my aura. I can tolerate many things, but fighting among sworn brothers isn't one of them.
Mike remained silent, staring me dead in the eye before turning to look at George "...I am sorry, bro." Then he came closer to George and pulled him in a hug, as he muttered, "I didn't mean any of that, I am just on edge because of that damned cripple."
Even though Mike can be menacing at times, he is also the most caring among us. Though he is a bit shy to show it.
George happily hugged Mike as he said, "It's not your fault, and I didn't mean to stop you this time," Then he separated from Mike as looked at me and continued, "If we're doing this, we will do our best. And we will make sure he is dead."
"Well, Sure, but how..?" I asked, somewhat unsure about what he meant.
"Oh, don't worry about that, I have a plan." George said, full of resolve .
"Ah, so if you had a plan you should have said it sooner." I laughed wryly.
"A-Ah, Ab-About that before I could say anything Mike kinda sorta interrupted me so, haha.." But just like passing wind, his confident demeanor vanished like it was never there before.
"You know you don't sound reassuring at all, all of a sudden, right?" Suddenly, Mike chimed in and snickered.
"S-Sorry about that…" Just when Geoge was about to start sulking.
Mike smacked him in the back of his head lightly.
"Being gloomy only suits me fucker, now start explaining."
Looking at their verbal exchange, I smiled wryly.
They are hopeless, they are so hopeless but even if they are hopeless they are special because they are my first friends.
…
It's been about half an hour since I have seperated ways from Mike and George.
George is using our personal connections to search for Yin,
Mike is checking in on Yin's dorm room. If he is inside of the dorm then we won't be able to kill him today, but if he isn't inside of his room then Mike will meet me after buying some weapons.
And I am following some leads to search for the guy.
When I was almost knocked out I remember seeing Yin running towards the Market. I was knocked out for less than 10 minutes.
There is a realistic possibility that he might have taken care of whatever business he had in the forest but there is also the possibility that he is inside of the forest.
Now assuming he is inside of the forest, he will either try to finish his business really quickly and get out as soon as possible or he will try to hide in the forest and take his time.
If he tries to get out quickly then he will most likely be in the core or the outer border of the forest. Both of these places are pretty crowded so I am sure George will find him if he is there.
But if he tries to stay in the middle zone of the forest it will be hard for us to find him no matter what we do. I am sure the other students will also let their guard down after searching for him for a while, and he will most likely take that opportunity to run for his dorm room.
Scratch, Scratch.
I started scratching my head, thinking 'What should I do…' while staring at the trees. Trees huh, wait…Trees!
______
"George! I found him!" I heard a random guy whom I don't quite remember running up to me, panting.
"Hmm?" I looked at him with an expressionless face and urged him to continue. I don't talk to most people other than Mike and Alfred in this academy in fear of them finding out that I am a pushover.
"So..quite a few of my friends have seen Yin walking towards the core of the marketplace, but after I asked around the people who were returning from the core of the marketplace it turned out that they haven't seen Yin there. Which means…"
'He is most likely in the middle zone of the forest.'
If it's in the middle zone, there are at most ten or so shops there. If we start comb searching from one side to another we might just be able to track him down.
"Hey," I said in a deep voice.
"Y-Yes?" The guy replied nervously.
"Let's go, tell everybody to start searching in the middle zone." I said, again in a deep voice.
"We will comb through that damned forest."
"Yes, as you wish." He said, before running off again.
I will make sure to pay for what you did to my sister, and my friend..
______
Alfred damaged his orb in today's magic session, currently I am on my way to the market to buy a new one for him along with some gear for myself.
Yin wasn't in his dorm room, which means he is outside, so I quickly told some decently strong guys to stand guard at his dorm entrance as I went on my way to the market.
…
It's been a while, I have bought everything I needed.
As I was about to go search for Alfred-
Swissh..!!!
I heard the sound of a firework going off…wait, that's not a firework. That's Alfred's fireball that's flying towards the sky.
Boom-!!
And when it exploded I was sure of it, that's Alfred unless there is someone else who is from his blaze household in this academy.
I need to check out what's happening.
As my eyes glowed, I quickly turned my head to the side, as a random tree entered my vision I walked up to it, and the tree slowly started stretching like a spring and soon it turned into something similar to a compressed spring.
Then the concrete near the tree turned into ropes and soon a rope bridge was created that was connected to the top of the spring, it's other end in front of me.
When I was done perfectly positioning myself on the now spring-like tree, it released. Sending me high up in the air.
The tree, and the white concrete that had be deformed by me before immediately started turning back to its original state after its job was done.
Damaging property inside the academy has some very strict repercussions and that restricts most people's power to a certain level.
But I am an exception to this rule, because when the effects of my power wears off everything returns back to its previous state.
As I approached the ground, my eyes glowed again and this time all the trees where I was supposed to fall started stretching, soon all of their branches turned into ropes and they quickly got intertwined with each other forming a sort of trampoline where I safely landed.
Now I am about a hundred meters away from where Alfred fired his fireball. In a densely packed forest such as this one it would be hard for anyone to travel ten meters let alone a hundred but I am different.
My eyes glowed once again, slowly all the trees started stretching and soon a straight path opened up for me.