Dignitas scowled as he watched Alicer favor him with a condescending look. He appreciated what he had done for him a lot, much so that he felt like spiritually cheating on Lorelai and kissing the assassin.
In truth, if he had not been there to save the author, the current situation would've taken a bad turn, almost to the point of no return.
The author's unwilling desire to acknowledge that he was on the same level as the other people in this world had shone through once again, forbidding Dignitas from ever trusting nor relying on anyone too much.
"Totally not how I thought this confrontation would go." He sighed, placing a hand on his broken spine.
By now, Alicer had finished up on the rest of the ogres. Their cheat-like regeneration made no trouble for the assassin's attacks—each slash packing enough power to rend its targets' soul from their bodies.
With a final huff, he snapped his fingers, causing a torrent of flames to pick up and swallow the corpses of the beasts, leaving nothing behind.
The assassin approached Dignitas, who had somehow steadied the upper part of his body and leaned against the same wall he had been slammed on.
Digging into his pockets, he threw the crippled author a small vial containing a potent green liquid. "Drink up. It's an A rank potion."
Not bothering to question the origins of the vial, Dignitas shoved the potion into his mouth, emptying the contents in a second.
The effects were instant, as expected of a high grade potion. Dignitas could feel his shattered spine beginning to repair and realign itself. All of the wounds he had sustained during his battle, along with the ones before—including the cuts left by Dainsleif's red blade, had been restored.
He instantly attributed this to the difference in the sword's rank and the potion's. It made the seemingly mythical-like sword turn less… mythical in his eyes. The armament that he had believed to be deadly to any living beings was now… not as deadly.
Still, his hopes were high. Dainsleif was a growth-type artifact crafted by Duvari's mentor. Surely it had more secrets that even the future God Of Smithing did not know about.
Now that Dignitas was healed, it was Alicer's turn to be confused. Confused at what the former would answer his questions.
Crouching down to the author's level, he began to ask him about a number of things.
"What are you doing here? Did our fight not teach you to care for your body more?"
Seeing as he most likely would not let him go without being satisfied, Dignitas prepared himself to answer both as much and as little as he could.
"Firstly, we're here to exorcize a demon. Though I think you know that yourself well enough."
Despite being stretched out across the floor, Dignitas could still see the battle. He noted how the assassin effortlessly cleaved his way through the ogres without a single trace of being perplexed on his face. It was as if he had been in a Lockheart before, not to mention one that had been taken over by a demon.
"Secondly, nope."
Seemingly understanding that he wasn't going to get much out of Dignitas with this question with how little he was speaking,
Alicer continued. "Who else did you come here with? And where are they now?"
"Three people. Two of them are inside the same type of room we're in, and one is brazenly looking for the captives the demon has stored up somewhere in the castle."
Alicer didn't need to ask their names. Even though he rarely ever stayed in the open for long, he knew practically every student in this school as if they were his friends. It was one of the privileges that came with his job.
"'Kay, I guess that's enough. You should get out of here now. If you don't, I'll drag you out myself."
"Can I at least get a few minutes to rest? The potion's still working its magic, and I don't wanna waste it."
Alicer furrowed his brows. Then, he turned in the opposite direction, before materializing his daggers in his hands.
"Do as you wish."
The next moment, he slashed the daggers in an almost perfect circle, creating a large gateway that flickered into existence. The gateway seemed to lead outside, as evident by the familiar walls and the carpet of the castle showing.
Alicer walked through the gateway, before making a right turn, in the direction of the other doors.
"Come to think of it, I never did ask him why he's been avoiding my text messages, heh."
Picking himself up, Dignitas made way for the gateway despite still being slightly wounded, fearing it would shut on him.
He turned his view sideways into the hallway. Dignitas had picked the very first door, and as such he was able to see all the others with a mere turn of the head.
And there, he saw the door beside him already opened. It seemed like Alicer had already gone into another one to look for Curie and Bigsby.
Leaving the assassin to his work, Dignitas continued on his way through the castle, once again embarking on a wild John goose chase. He had no doubts that Alicer would be able to rescue his two companions, especially with how easily he had saved him.
But then again, he didn't care if the assassin didn't. Curie and Bigsby, while very useful, weren't part of the group he considered "necessary" to complete the story. They were simply a means to accomplish his goals—the former serving as emotional support for John and the latter a teacher.
Wait, now that he thought about it, Bigsby was kind of essential too. He still had to teach the author the ways of blind combat, after all.
***
It was only two hours later that Dignitas finally came upon a trace of John. And it wasn't in the way he had expected.
Instead of finding a trace of his mana, he had come across a piece of his hoodie.
While it would normally have been impossible to discern the torn piece of cloth as John's, it was only possible thanks to the easily distinguishable trait that his hoodie had in the chest area.
That being, the symbol of the Ad Mortem Guild: two battle axes similar to the ones Bigsby wielded, crossed together as if to mimic a clash.
"He's been through here. Probably fought something strong if it managed to get a hit on him, albeit shallow."
John had an ability that prevented him from taking any damage for a set amount of time. And even without that, he had his blinking time ability, and his already abnormal speed that rivaled Wang Jin's—or surpassed his, for better or worse.
The point was that if this enemy managed to land a hit on John, then it was most likely going to be a pain in the behind to fight.
Thankfully, the path he was now on was straight and narrow, not diverging into another hallway or ascending or descending into staircases like the rest of the castle.
With a restrained huff, Dignitas dragged his mentally battered body through the halls of the castle. He ran into a few straggler demon goblins a bit later, but was able to dispatch them with relative ease. They were dozens of times more dangerous when in groups, but when together, a few well placed slashes were enough to kill one, C- rank or not.
Just when Dignitas had finished killing three more goblins, a mysterious feeling of dread descended upon him. It was as if someone had found the switch to the pressure and flipped it to be much more debilitating.
Dignitas found that making even a single step, much less raising his leg up. Beads of sweat simultaneously began to drip down from every part of his body, making it feel icky.
"And just when I thought my worries were gone…"
It seemed like Fate wasn't done playing with him yet. The straight legged hallway suddenly shifted, the walls glitching in and out of reality. Before he knew it, the once regal castle had turned into… a courtroom?
Dignitas found himself in the whims of something stronger once again.
His body was transported inside what seemed like a witness podium. Only, bars upon bars of iron were caging him in like a prisoner in jail. He tried to pull it apart with his hands, but it wouldn't budge a single bit.
Next, he tried to slash through with Dainsleif, but the limited space he had didn't allow for any sizable movement to be made. It was simply big enough for him to stand up and move a few inches. He compared the cage to what most birds would often be placed in.
The cage he was now in was modeled exactly like those hanging homes, only without the hanging part.
Looking around, he found the entire courtroom to be filled with rows of seats located high above where he was. They were all empty, just like the castle walls.
In front of the cage, there were three sets of podiums that rose high above, forcing him to look up. The middle of the three podiums seemed to be slightly higher than the ones on the sides, although all three still resonated with authority—a clear sign that Dignitas was not the one in control here.
By now, he had realized what he was in.
"This is the third time in a week that I've been inside a Mana Domain. Goddamnit, give me a break."
Based on the feeling he was getting from the mana particles, he was most likely inside a domain of the Order Affinity.
A sub-affinity of Light, Order was one of those "conceptual" affinities like Mental and Negativity that were never present in the atmosphere. Instead, most Order affinity magicians gathered their energy from a place with many civilized people.
Namely, cities and towns.
Order was in a way, another name for Holy. It dealt with the expelling of evil substances through purification. Then again, the definition of evil could be twisted however the user wanted it to.
But strangely enough, Dignitas could not sense a single presence inside the Domain.
"Damn it. Can't. Get. Out." He gritted his teeth as he once again attempted to pull the bars apart.
His endeavors seemed to be fruitless once again.
It was at that point that Dignitas noticed the air around him getting hot. As if he wasn't sweating enough already, his body continued to secrete more droplets.
Was someone cooking the cage from below?
"Looks like someone found the switch to the temperature as well!"
The temperature was increasing by the minute. For some reason, the floor of the cage–er, the courtroom, was beginning to heat up. Nervous, Dignitas increased his strength.
And when that didn't work… Well, he had other ways to make things that didn't go his way, go his way.
"Taking this from you, Professor Shib."
In the already tiny, cramped space of the cage, Dignitas unsheathed Dainsleif, and started drawing a very particular object on the floor beneath him. He moved the sword intricately, making sure to draw it as close to perfect as possible.
Which was quite hard due to his lacking skill, but if he was able to rapidly dish out platforms for John while in the middle of a battle, then he could make something better while not in one.
A few seconds later, a thin structure brought itself into reality. It was twice his size, but looked reasonably sturdy due to the amount of mana he had put into drawing it. Holding the end of the structure in his hands, Dignitas stuck it through the gaps In the bars.
Thankfully, it fit through the bars snugly, and managed to get stuck at a certain point that was carved in deeply.
Now suspended in the air, Dignitas positioned himself toward the side, where he had enough space. Then, gathering all the leftover strength he had, he rammed himself into the structure.
"Gah, fuck!"
However, instead of the plan working like he had hoped, the cage instantly disappeared into a million glowing gold fragments, causing him to charge and trip onto the floor.
Pulling himself up, Dignitas raised his sword in preparation. Was the cage a timed trap set to make him look like a fool?
Dignitas looked around.
Still, there seemed to be no sight nor smell of someone in the vicinity. The author walked around, trying to get a sense of the place.
The Domain seemed to have a different feeling to it. Unlike other Mana Domains that seemed to focus on annihilating any foreign object the owner deemed dangerous, this one just let Dignitas do his thing.
It was almost as if… it was a Domain that had no owner.