All the people turned their necks towards Maina..
"Augh!" Matrix got hurt yet again while turning his neck.
Warren and Mino were giving surprised glances at her. Amene facepalmed.
Rest were staring at her with their mouths open.
"Pfffftt...hahaha" Jeryl laughed out.
Reinard's wry smile deepened. Barn was grinning ear to ear while Yaleena's mouth was still open.
"W-why are all of you staring like that?"
"Heh... since you are the only one believing us, I will show the proof to you only, Barn declared smugly, casting quick glances at the others.
"Ha? But why! Shouldn't that be the opposite..."
Warret tried to protest.
Barn's quick glances towards Mino didn't go unnoticed by him.
[That guy is trying to make me believe isn't he? I w-won't!]
He turned around and declared awkwardly, "S-so goodbye Sir Doc! I can't afford to miss out class anymore!"
Opening the door, he ran away.
In class, they started chatting.
"Didn't you guys get any strange feeling in their vicinity? Like something is flowing or churning around in your body?"
Amene asked.
Each and every one of them nodded. Mino said, "I don't feel anything, only an extremely slight feeling."
"Mmm? that's strange... I felt it quite clearly..."
The others nodded in approval, leaving Mino confused.
"Anyways, are you sure you met this person? We didn't get any leads regarding your injury healing. Was this meeting a waste of time?"
This was Amene's question.
"No it wasn't. I think these people are somehow related to that killer! We have to find out who killed that person with the so-called dark element flash... and we have to stop that person! And these people can help us!"
Clenching his left fist tightly, he declared this with a serious tone.
" 'Help' Us you say? Snap out of it Warret. Come out of your fool's paradise. What the fuck made you think you can do anything? "
She asked in an exasperated voice.
".....!...."
No reply. Warret remained silent.
"Warret. Don't bother yourself with people who claim to be wielding stuff incomprehensible to us. We can't do anything about them."
Royo's advice. Quite logical.
"Well they told they would show proof..."
Maina started to say in a soft voice...
"Yes? And what of that? We are insignificant you know. We may die any moment, just like that man who did today, hit by that black flash and whatnot. We don't have any control over it."
Mino said this in a dull, flat tone before returning to his desk. Others kept quiet. They knew it was true, and that there was no denying it.
______________________________________________
The same underground room which used to be the hideout of Allocyst. The rosewood was giving off an eerie glow as it reflected on the blue light on its reddish brown surface. In the ornate fireplace, a flame was burning silently. A bluish flame.
A man was standing near the flames, his shadow flickering along with the flame.
A heated argument was taking place in the room.
"It's all your fault!" a booming, raspy voice cried in an accusative tone.
"Heh... you were weak..."
A girl's voice resounded, mocking the man.
Veins popped on the man's forehead while his voice became even louder.
"DON'T FUCK WITH ME!!!"
"Yeah I won't... you are not my type actually."
Once again she replied in a bored manner.
"Malay... you are going too far. It's your fault to begin with. He didn't say anything wrong."
A flat cold voice resounded. It indicated that the person speaking was intensely annoyed by the girl's behaviour.
"Yeah I know they escaped, but why the fuck is Gruff so angry?!"
Malay asked, annoyed. She didn't even care about him and just considered him to be a speck of dust. But Josh did. And he knew why Gruffold was so angry.
"Because of your casualness, his long time partner Nahem was destroyed. It's a massive loss of power. Not only that... can you even imagine what he's going through? His mental state? You can't sympathize... and you won't empathize either. What if you Anges met the same fate as Nahem?!"
Josh couldn't help but raise his voice as emotion crept into it.
It triggered an almost instantaneous reaction. Malay opened her eyes wide which looked bloodshot, a tremendous amount of heat energy converging on her palm.
"The fuck you said?! My precious Anges... is comparable to that piece of thrash?! That brutish composite sword?"
The garnet like crystal inside the bracelet in her palm glowed brightly. What it was trying to convey was incomprehensible to Josh. But Malay understood it quite well.
"Don't worry Anges... I won't be as careless as that barbarian..."
Crazy she was, she too had a bond with her weapon. It was an instrument for casting conjurations though, not exactly a weapon.
It was hypocritical, considering how she described Gruffold as Nahem. Or perhaps it was arrogance, too much for her own good.
Gruffold had left.. or else he would've surely gone berserk hearing her words.
Suddenly the corners of Malay's lips turned up. She happily said, "I've taken down another one, who interrupted me while I was going to assist Gruff."
"Just a single person was able to hold you back?"
"Of course not, two assassins had appeared out of nowhere. It was tough fighting against three physical attackers, all three well versed in dark element in the dark sewers."
"So we get more enemies... the number of enemies still remain ten?"
"Haha let me complete. One I killed was of Allocyst. The other two I killed were not of Allocyst. I dunno whether they were against or for Allocyst, but they were surely against us."
"Good job."
"Of course, not like the fool who couldn't even kill a single one of them."
She smugly snapped her fingers and the bluish flame extinguished. Enjoying the darkness, silence and the lingering ominous feeling in the air, she stood up and started walking out of the room after saying something to him.
"Let the chaos begin..."