"Thank you for meeting on such short notice," said Kilian.
Olivia checks the time on her wristwatch before crossing her arms around her chest. "You said it was important."
Kilian takes out a photo of Max and places it on the table between them. "Maxine Esposito. What can you tell me about her?"
Olivia sighs. "Seriously? This could have been an e-mail."
"This is important."
.
.
.
When the snow-white-haired woman and dark-haired sprite got as close to Ditte Winkle as the former wished, they were unable to sense anything so the elemental concluded that the twins must be at Erste Winkle and that was where the duo were headed.
"How's your head?" Diana asked.
"Better," Hunter replied.
"And the memories?"
"I am getting memories, just not mine."
"What?"
"It's a long story."
"It's a long road ahead of us," said Diana, motioning to the vast desert around them.
[Hunter ...]
Hunter stops.
"Act natural," Diana said in a low tone.
"I don't think that's possible now."
Hunter grabs Diana and quickly pulls her out of the way just in time as an elemental shoots out of the ground where the snow-white-haired woman was standing.
"I was wondering when you were going to pop out," Diana said. The person in front of them had green skin and long braided hair that extended to the middle of his back.
They began hearing chants from behind them. The two Metropolitan School of Mysticism students turned to see hordes and hordes of green-skinned men and women descending from the dunes around on their sandboards while screaming at the top of their voices. "Woo! Woo!"
"Are these the orcanes you were telling me about?"
"Yes."
"There are a lot of them," said Hunter.
"That is true," Diana agreed.
"Give us every valuable item on you, and maybe I'll let you go in one piece," said the green-skinned man. He spoke each word separately and drawled every single syllable.
"We don't have anything valuable on us, I'm sorry you had to gather everyone in your extended family for nothing," said Hunter.
"What the hell are you doing?" Diana whispered to the teal green-eyed boy as the orcanes surrounded them.
[She's right, provoking them isn't the best strategy especially since you're the only one with powers here.]
'Huh.'
[Diana is a plant elemental, correct? I don't see any plants around us.]
"I was willing to spare you but maybe some of 'my extended family' would like to have you for dinner."
"Like have me over?" Hunter asked. "I don't know about meeting your parents after only the first date," he said.
The orcane grits his teeth before grabbing a ball from the belt around his waist and throwing it at Hunter.
The dark-haired boy snatched it out of the air but the moment he held it in his hand, the ball exploded into dust, covering the sprite's hand. "What the --"
[Magic negation.]
'Well, shit! I can still use soul magic.'
[If that doctor hadn't stopped your healing. Soul magic takes a lot of energy and the only reason you can manifest so many souls without losing consciousness is thanks to said healing.]
'And since I don't have said healing now, I can summon around three souls for about three minutes before passing out.'
Hunter looked around. 'There's only one way I see us getting out of this unscathed.'
The sprite's eyes meet with that of the snow-white-haired elemental. 'Only problem is we have an audience.'
[I better put on a show then.]
Hunter's pupil disappears momentarily and they return as Waleed was now in control.
Waleed used his hand to loosen the man bun and let his hair fall to his shoulders. Unique markings appear on his forehead, nose, and cheeks.
[Come at me. All of you.]
The orcanes rushed at the demon who snapped his fingers causing a large number of the green-skinned beings' heads to explode and their bodies falling to the ground lifeless.
This next batch of the orcanes rushed forward and one of them attempted to hit the dark-haired demon in the face.
Waleed grabbed the orcane's arm before swinging him at his fellowmen. The degenerated necromancer snapped his finger and another large number of the orcanes fell lifeless to the ground.
Just then, Waleed felt the sand he was standing on convulse.
"Hunter, look out!" Diana warned.
The ground sinks which causes an explosion of dust.
[I knew it.]
"Huh?" The earth elemental turned to see the demon behind him.
[You're the only mystic in your clan, aren't you?]
The earth elemental forms a boulder from the ground and hurls it at Waleed. The demon stood and watched as the boulder hit him and broke into tiny pebbles.
"Y -- You're not human are you?" the green-skinned man stuttered.
Waleed turned to Diana who had been surrounded by orcanes. He snapped his fingers and two huge trees appeared between the Drumalak and the assailants. A wide grin appears on the snow-white-haired woman's face.
The earth elemental broke a sweat but despite witnessing the incredulous abilities of the demon, the green-skinned man persisted with his attacks.
The orcane crouches down a bit before using all his might to form two huge pillars on each side of the demon. The orcane then uses his abilities to move the pillars towards each other so that they crush the teal green-eyed demon in the middle but when they do, Waleed walks out of the dust unscathed.
[How boring.]
The demon grabbed the elemental by the throat and held him up in the air with his left hand. Using his right hand, the degenerated necromancer forms a spear with the sand below. The spear floats up to the demon's hand who uses it to stab the orcane before tossing him away.
The demon turned to the plant elemental to see how she was faring. The snow-white-haired woman had reduced the number of the enemies to two. Waleed smiles before relinquishing control of the body back to Hunter.
The sprite opened his eyes to see the once vast sand field now covered with blood and corpses and two huge trees in the middle.
'What the hell happened here?!'
[I'm going to put the memory of the event in your head.]
"Al -- Aargh!" The sprite shouted out loud and fell to his knees because of the sudden memory in his head.
"Hey." Diana quickly ran to his side. "Are you okay?" She asked getting on her knees to look at the sprite's face, the snow-white-haired woman had finished off the rest of the orcanes.
"I'm fine," Hunter replied. "It's just ... Whenever I do this," he used his hand to do a sweeping motion of the surrounding. "... I get really tired."
"Oh? That was amazing," the S-grade student complimented. "How did you create the trees?" She asked.
"It's simple," Hunter started. "Similar to instant transmission ability, the only difference is instead of moving myself to a different location, I move things from the other location to where I am," he lied.
"Wow," said Diana amused.
[Huh. That would work actually. I wonder if anyone's tried it.]
'No one has, I'm a revolutionary!'
"That's brilliant," said Diana. "Now I wish I had instant transmission ability," she added.
Hunter smiled. "Don't. I'm basically a vegetable right now," he said.
Diana laughs. "Can you at least walk?" She asked.
"I --" Before the sprite could finish, his thought, the duo felt a rumbling on the ground. They looked up to see more orcanes coming from ahead riding on sandboards.
"Not again!" Hunter sighed.
"Don't worry, I've got this," said Diana who used her abilities to move the two trees to each of her sides.
"Don't attack," said Hunter.
"Why not?"
"Look."
The sandboard came to a stop in front of the two Metropolitan School of Mysticism students and the orcanes got down from it. "You killed them," said one of the orcanes.
"Well, they were going to kill us," Diana said defensively.
"No, that's a good thing," said the orcane. "These people are rogues who have raided travelers time and time again, it's why most visitors don't use this route."
The orcane looked up at the snow-white-haired woman's face for the first. "You're a Drumalak," he said. "It is an honor to welcome another member of the greatest dynasty to walk this realm to our humble city," said the orcane, bowing a little.
"Another Drumalak?" Hunter asked.
"Yes," the orcane smiled.
"How many Drumalaks are in your city?" The sprite asked.
"Three."
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