...
"Hey Mike! How have you been? I haven't seen you in weeks." An armored knight shook another knight's hand. They both smiled.
"Oh, about, I must have contracted some kind of illness, but I have recovered."
"Mhm, you must have had a bad time. But hey, here you are! Let's party this over a beer with those baldies, bahaha!" They both had a good laugh and continued chatting until their shift was over.
They made their way toward a tavern in the city, and when they arrived there, there were already people at a table.
"Ohh! If it isn't Mike, have you recovered, bud?"
"Damn, it's been a while since I last saw you!"
"You old Greece! "Give back my money!" Said the last one jokingly.
"Yeah, sorry, I must have contracted some strange kind of illness, but I've recovered. It was pretty uncomfortable being experienced and quarantined until now."
"Alright, let's not talk about that anymore. Let's feast and drink out of our minds! Drinks are on me!" With that sentence, everyone cheered out loud.
They all started drinking copious amounts of beer until they were dead sober, and they all left at once.
At some point, they all separated. "Nice to have you back. It was getting pretty boring with those faggots. Rest well, alright? I don't want to be left alone again!" At the end of his sentence, he walked toward his home and waved at Mike.
Left all alone, he stood there in the middle of the night. He watched everyone leave one by one.
"Ouch…"
Just as he was about to walk his own way too, he felt a sharp pain in his head.
"Hm, maybe these are some side effects." When he thought about going back with his old fogies, a smile appeared on his face. This smile, however, was accompanied by a creepy phenomenon.
His normally brown eyes had changed to a deep blue color, and in his eyes were other smaller eyes of purple, red, and blue colors. Making a beautiful yet creepy pattern...
…
In the principal's office, an old, bald man was sitting in front of a handsome man with long black hair.
The man looked bored but was looking at the old man in front of him. This silence continued for a while until the bored man spoke in a very mesmerizing voice.
"I've taken care of those old greedy pigs; it's too late now, but remember to do as assigned next year."
The vice principal shuddered when he heard that; he knew too well what 'take care" meant when it came to him.
"Y-yes."
"Marcel, why are you so formal these days?" Aren't we already close? We used to hunt those poor demon children because of that corrupted trash of a king.
If I could go back in time, I would cut his head off again. Fortunately, I took the reigns and built this academy, or this kingdom would have perished long ago."
"As you wish, Morvain, I wanted to talk about the kid; he has woken up after almost two weeks," he said in a grave tone.
"Oh… So it has started again." Morvain's tone became nostalgic, opposite to Marcel's...
"This is going to be another 'carnage' because of 'them'. How unfortunate or fortunate this will be entirely depends on their wills. Some may find ascension, while others will find their long-due punishment.
I wonder if I'm going to be the former or the latter, hehe."
"Can't we just kill him? We could stop it from happening." The old man was cut off.
"Haha, Marcel, my old friend. Do you really think that if it were that easy, that kid would still be alive? Are you sure you don't want to be 'rejuvenated'? I feel like your brain is starting to rot." The principal laughed out loud.
"Thank you for the offer, but no. I do not wish to be like before. I have already lived long enough to know that this world will crumble on its own; seeing it happen with my own eyes would give me a death full of remorse."
"What should we do about the kid he brought in?"
"Just let him have her; if it can contribute to a better future, then I wouldn't care less."
"But the kid may be done with that."
"Let her be, if that is her fate. A wound teaches better than a professor."
The old man looked dejected, knowing full well what would happen to the little girl.
…
"Hey, do you know what happened to him?" Asked a girl with long dark hair and blue eyes to talk to a red-haired boy.
"Who's him?" He asked confusedly.
"Dante."
"Haah, why would you search for that bastard among all the people? Nyx, don't tell me you have fal- Eugh!" Before he could finish his sentence, the girl elbowed him in the ribs.
"Hey, are you fucking mad?"
"Shut up. How the hell am I supposed to fall for that jerk? I'm only looking for him because of his pet."
"I think some friends of mine said they saw him today. He had just left the healing facility and ran toward the entrance and met Sylph, which he grabbed and left the academy."
Just as they were about to argue any further, a girl with glasses answered in Rowan's stead.
"What?" Rowan, still angry, asked her in an irked voice.
"I had a friend who was wounded and saw him on the way back. I didn't ask for any further reason; why would I?" The girl was totally unfazed by Rowan's aggressiveness.
…
Crouching before a motionless monster was Dante, and behind him sat a white-haired girl just looking at the scene before her.
Dante's morphed arm was going back to normal.
"What did you do to it?"
"Removed. Consciousness and will." His voice was slightly trembling.
"Oh…" Her voice clearly implied a small amount of sadness for the former horse, but it didn't rise above affection or something like that.
Just like someone seeing a dying and dismembered pigeon that has been run over by cars. It was a pity, but not something to be sad for.
This, however, triggered something in Dante—something weird and thus unknown. It was such an irritating feeling that he felt like murdering the mindless creature in front of him and ruining all their efforts.
"Oh, but don't worry, Sylphie. I will find you something even better than this!" His eyes had turned back to their usual red color.
This, however, didn't have any effect on her mood, which made him even more irritated.
"What will happen to that thing from now on?"
"I don't know. However, I have a hunch that it has become like a golem, mindless." He told the truth.
Most of the time, when the hazy and clouded personality took over, he would remember very little information and sometimes none at all.
After using his healing skill on the horse, alligator, and human-like creature, it stood up and just stayed there. The former fierce red glow and luster in its eyes have completely disappeared.
Just an empty shell of its past suffering...
"Sit."
At Dante's, it sat like a dog—a huge dog.
"Hand."
It gave one of its hands, the claws from before having retracted.
"Is Skull a result of some experiment too?" Sylph asked, and her tone was as emotionless as ever.
"No, I don't really know a lot, but it's bad to do that."
"Why?"
"Let's say you can't think on your own, and I ask you to go chop some wood. Then, how much wood is there? If you know how much wood is some wood, then are you going to dumbly sit there? This is a tricky thing.
In battle, it's even worse; if you order it to kill something, it will do anything in its power to do it, even at the cost of its own life. Or if it has killed something, it will just stand there dumbly."
"How is it a half-failed experiment?"
"I wonder, maybe it's the hooves or something. It seems to run on four, so it is unbalanced. This, however, is compensated by its huge leg strength."
"Well, while we're at it, we should test this new toy, right, Sylphie?"
She just looked at him in silence before starting to climb over the white monster.
…