[08:15 PM]
Fredrick released the barrier, returning them to the normal world.
However, by this time it was already nightfall.
"Huh! Is it still dark?" Alon proclaimed in shock. "I thought your magical barrier prevented anything from within, from affecting the outside world?"
"Yes, it does."
"So why are the clouds still dark? Isn't it supposed to go back to the way it was since I am no longer out of control?"
Before Fredrick could reply to him, a feminine figure ran towards them. Then bent down to get a hold of her breath.
"Huh? You again." Alon proclaimed.
"What do you mean me again? That's rude, y'know," Natasha said as she raised herself while using her right hand to take her hair towards her back.
"What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to have evacuated with the rest of the candidates?"
With a pissed-off voice, she proclaimed while she stood; Her left hand was on her waist, and her right was raising the index finger while she bent a little in a posture as if she was lecturing him. "And why would I do that? After waiting this long for you guys to return… Huh?"
"What did you mean you were waiting? We probably just took about a few minutes inside the barrier. I don't see how you could call that waiting."
Meanwhile, Fredrick stared at Natasha as he folded his lip, she then stared back at him with an angry expression. Before saying…
"You didn't tell him?"
With the question she asked, Alon became confused. Why was she so friendly to him, and most importantly, why were they both looking at each other in a way as if they knew something he did not?
Meanwhile, Fredrick turned his face away from Natasha's gaze. It was already scaring him by just knowing that she was looking at him. "I did not," he said with a low tone.
Alon became more confused. How can she be talking to the exam conductors so casually? Do they know each other? He thought.
"Now let me tell you something…" Natasha said as she stretched her right hand and grabbed Fredrick's right ear.
"Ow, ow, ow…!" Fredrick screamed in pain.
"Don't just take someone somewhere without telling them what the place is, or how different it is from the normal world. And-"
"Umm…"
Before she could finish, Alon interrupted her as he raised his hands.
'WHAT!" Natasha shouted as she turned to Alon.
Her action made Alon's heart skip a bit. He was not familiar with her looking this way. He had always pictured her as a person who liked to disturb others. Or so he thought because that was how it had always been anytime they met each other.
"U—Um… So like I'm sorry to interrupt, But what do you mean he didn't explain everything about the barrier?"
Natasha then removed her hand from Fredrick's ear, as she faced him.
"Right!… The thing is, this darkness is not the cause of your outburst. It is already nightfall"
Alon's eyes widened as he stared in shock. "What!… That's not possible. Are you telling me we spent half of the day inside that place?" he said in a shocked tone.
"Yes. That barrier isn't just an ordinary barrier. It is more like a time dimension—which doesn't obey the laws of time that our world does. So the minutes which you thought you guys spent there, were hours out here."
Alon couldn't believe what he had just heard. He then wondered if this was magic or something.
"That was why I called it my 'Ultimate Dimension Mana disruption Magic'," Fredrick said as he used his hand to rub his ear, which had already turned red.
Natasha looked at him and brought out her tongue a little bit, which meant [Good for you], that his ear was like that—Before then, turning to Alon and said.
"It is not just an ordinary magical barrier. It is rather complex and not many people can master it. There are only a few people who know he can create it, which you now belong to."
"So how come you know about it?" Alon asked. "What is your relationship?"
Natasha then smiled, turned to Fredrick, and placed her left hand over his shoulder.
"We are besties!" she proclaimed, as she used her left hand and punched him in the stomach.
"Ugh!"
Fredrick grunted in pain at the sudden force that collided with his stomach.
Cough' Cough'
"What was that for?" Fredrick asked trying to catch his breath. "I didn't even do anything wrong this time."
"What do you mean… bestie. You always do something wrong." Natasha said sarcastically.
Meanwhile, Alon just stood there as he watched them going over each other.
"We are not besties, don't mind her. We are just cousins. As you can already tell our last names are different"
"Yeah, sure… we may be cousins, but we did grow up together, didn't we? We played with each other every day and had so much fun, not until you took the mages exam to the academy and left me."
At this point, Natasha placed her hands on her face and then sobbed, acting like she was shedding tears.
Alon then simply showed a brief smile, at her performance.
"By the way—" He said, "If it is already night, how are we going to have the second stage, and where are the rest of the candidates?"
Looking around, he noticed there were only a few people still in the messy, or rather destroyed arena. Few including Lean.
Lean was at one side of the arena, not too far from where—Fredrick, Alon, and Natasha stood. He was able to hear all they were talking about and was now trying to process them.
His thoughts were clouded.
From Alon's intense magic power to getting out of hand, then the barrier that Fredrick created, and to knowing more about what the barrier is capable of, and also the relationship between Natasha and Fredrick.
All this was information that he never had from the novel. Knowing now this, he then realized that not everything in the novel was going to be exactly as he knows it.
"I don't think there will be any more stages today… right?" Natasha asked Fredrick.
"Hmph…" He sighed. "With this destruction, I don't think that there will be any other stage. By the way, I was never planning on making it a two-stage exam anyway. I was just going to make it one."
"You… lazy!"
Natasha exclaimed. "You always do things your way."