Chapter 17: A Trip to Disaster V
Aetheris-Veston Border—Awakened Camp.
5:45 PM.
The time was as it is written above. The sun had obviously gone down to the point the sky was beginning to be painted black.
And despite that, it looked like it was still quite early for the students to retire.
Curfew by Shane's words was by 8 PM.
Which meant two things; they had immunity till that time and Shane was doomed with paper works, which were reports that would be submitted to the school concerning students activities during camp.
Going by his words, they had at least more than two hours to do whatever they liked, and they did.
There were enough facilities for that.
As said earlier, their lodgings were similar to that of high-end hotels, or even resorts, which had swimming pools and activity rooms.
Not to mention the mini-park and mini-mart that were obviously close by, because nothing screamed "survival training" like being able to buy imported chocolates at a marked-up price.
Naturally, the students scattered like feral cats once given the green light.
Most students, like Arianna and her entourage, had chosen to camp at the poolside despite the time—evening.
Like that, after Arianna had given her own opinion to Shane by the time the lodgings would take precedence, the others hearing this too were quick to follow.
Chitose and a few others had taken a lift to the gym, presumably to bench-press their problems away.
Alfonso and the others had surprisingly, and yet unsurprisingly, led the charge to the mini-mart, even before anyone else.
Of course, Arianna didn't miss a chance to make fun of them when she realised that.
The rest were obviously scattered, going about as they liked.
Rather—most of the A-class, on the other hand, were calmer than the other classes.
Lucas had joined Kaiden as usual. Enma, with his laziness, had retired for the day. He delegated his part of the work Shane was supposed to give over to Kaiden.
Kaiden, who is secretly more hard-working than Shane—at least in terms of actual organization—had agreed within a heartbeat with a casual nod of his head.
Now, with Lucas by his side too, they could help Shane relieve some of his workload. Which is good for Shane.
It's not now that the members of the A-class knew in any way that Celeste wasn't reliable. As in, actively unreliable.
What had she done?
Oh, nothing much.
She had left the entire supervision to Shane's hands. Something that'll incur more annoying remarks from the higher-ups, should they hear of this.
There would be so many complaints that even paperwork itself would file for worker's comp.
However, that doesn't change the fact that he was a good help.
Heck, she felt like Shane would make a good student council president after Eira.
But of course, once he becomes part of the student council in general, she wouldn't be able to be lazy like how she has been doing for the past month.
Hence, back then, she had obviously said such, "Don't try to join the student council!" Very and demonically happy had she said such words.
That is to say, Shane, who had never planned for a workload like this, had planned to live like Enma—no, that guy is more hopeless than Shane was.
Hopeless as in, Enma looks like someone who hadn't gotten rest in a long time, yet somebody like him has to help the council take care of the student affairs.
More so, them—the four of them after school ended. Shane had wondered why Enma hadn't hung their heads yet with their constant troubles.
But that doesn't matter now. And that was why he hadn't pestered Enma. As for Damian, on the other hand.
Currently, he was with the Tendou Scion on their way to the mart. Most obviously, the girl was the one who invited him for the walk.
Rather, it was like this: on behalf of Shane's request, Damian had been on his way to the Mart when she had invited herself.
Naturally, that was to say that a certain person certainly didn't plan for this to happen, certainly not.
"Is it just me, or does the sky look more beautiful from here than in the city?"
Ayaka, hands tucked behind her back, looking to the sky as they walked out of their lodgings.
She had left her equipment, mostly her katana, back at her room, as there was no need to have such a weapon on her at that moment.
Besides, if she were to take the weapon, no doubt the boy beside her would tell her to take it easy.
But as someone who came from a samurai family that had been established even before the magic era, the katana they hold is more than a symbol.
Previous Ayaka would have held on to the teachings of her family so strongly.
She was the type of girl that would follow the textbook down to each last detail. That was the type of person she was.
And if she hadn't met him, she would have continued to be so.
However, since he began training her, she had begun to relax.
She more than any student knew of the Creed's strength. To her, the hierarchy around them felt more like that of equal people than brothers.
Obviously, the respect was there more so towards Enma, who even Damian had said, 'He's one person none of us three would wish to piss off.'
For Ayaka, who personally knew of Damian's strength, hearing those words from him had her trying to imagine how terrifying Enma was in contrast to Damian.
However, there was no reason to think about it.
"Is that so? Oh. It's true, well, if I were to guess, it's because of the lower concentration around here."
Controlled environments had lower mana concentrations, leading to areas like this—where the sky itself seemed clearer, purer.
After all, having a higher concentration around here would spell nothing good for travellers.
And while there were occasional spawns of dungeons around, it wasn't as occasional as it happened for other places.
It's obvious that concentrated and long exposure to mana has an effect on the surroundings.
After all, that's how dungeons, valuable materials, and herbs form, so it isn't something to be surprised at.
According to some theory of an old scientist, mana affects the surroundings in ways that couldn't be observed.
Heck, what mana is, most had failed at giving an answer on what that is. However, it had been theorised that mana were like particles, and awakeners were people that could contain said particles and use them to perform miracles as they do.
And that is to say, places like a country where awakeners go and come, and because the awakeners also have different ranges of mana, and even awakeners with stronger mana are even good at mana manipulation.
Despite this, because there are thousands of people with mana within a certain space, it's only natural that even small particles of mana would drift that space aimlessly.
The phenomenon of why this happens has yet to be known.
There was something called an ozone layer, and like that, it had been given a name like so, «Blanket - Mana Particles that Covers The Sky».
"But it's beautiful, isn't it?"
"Nngh. I agree."
Damian nodded before then glancing over to her and then back at the sky before he let out a characteristic comment.
"Wouldn't it be better if we start going now? It's almost six."
"Ahhh! That's right, now let's go."
Ayaka. The one time she had made up her mind to be bold about it, she grabbed Damian's hands and pulled him towards the mart that was just adjacent to their lodgings.
Damian was obviously stunned by her sudden boldness but had allowed her to do such.
They had entered and began wandering the place, side by side. This time, like the name, it was a "mini-mart."
This world tends to play such a joke on people that things weren't as they looked.
A mini-mart from Aetheris could be bigger than a mart from another city.
Not to mention the mega infrastructure hub called Second-Float.
That thing can be called a city on its own, with the amount of resources that had been poured into such infrastructure.
"Its overseer is the Great Clan, isn't it?"
"The Great Clan, huh? That's what they are called."
Great Clan.
Even though the whole thing about the supernatural just happened not long ago, that it can be dated back to more than two hundred years ago—
People had formed clans. Big families that oversee the Awakeners as well as the people on the "Otherside" who had appeared here with the opening of the gates.
Entropy is led by the Valerie family, the Awakened Association is led by another family, and not to talk of the rest.
They were the ones who managed to rally the awakeners of back then, and before they knew it, they had become the Great Clan watching over humanity.
They had the highest authority per se; in other words, you can refer to the head of each Great Clan as an emperor in their own right.
That is how much power each of these clans has.
"I always thought you and your brothers were at least a part of their clan or a subsidiary clan of theirs."
"Us? No way." Damian shook his head.
"But it's because of this I think so."
Ayaka had simply said, shaking her head.
Because of their unnatural strength, it would be more believable if they said they were from one of the Great Clans.
However, because they had always denied it like so, which makes it unbelievable.
However, Ayaka knew better than to push further.
"Then, if that's the case, I want to know what you think about them."
Ayaka had said so, her finger on her lips as she said so.
She didn't really know the Creed brothers as she knew Damian.
No. It was a far stretch to say she even knew Damian. What were they thinking? What is their goal? What is their motive?
For people on their level, they didn't need to attend Yosen, or any Magic Affiliated College for that matter.
Yet, it makes one wonder why they did.
Damian paused by the sweet sections, picking a candy bar, before pointing it at Ayaka.
"Nothing in particular."
Damian said with the same old, unchanging expression of his.
The expression was that it was serious, but not too serious, yet you'd barely see any hint that would make him seem to be lying.
Yes. Damian was the kind of person that was incredibly hard to see through.
The Creed aside, they have been together like that for a very long time.
Not to mention Creed. If he had heard this statement, he would have simply nodded his head and exposed Damian's true thoughts.
After all, the Creeds had what they were interested in and what they were not.
For Shane, anyone could probably guess, with the amount of illegal things Shane runs in his basement; one could only imagine.
Kaiden and Damian, on the other hand, are no doubt the hardest amongst them to see through, but to Shane, they weren't anything more than open textbooks.
Perhaps you can attribute it to the fact that they were brothers; yes, that would be the most simple explanation.
"Then, what about your brothers?"
Ayaka tilted her head to the side as she asked that.
"Amongst us, I'd say the only person that mostly cares about these things is probably Shane."
Damian said as he turned back to sweets, picking a few, just because, rather, Damian and Shane had a sweet tooth.
Realising that Damian was heading over to the store, Shane had told him to get some lollipops for him.
"Shane…"
Yes. How could she not know that guy? He was the same scoundrel that forced a maid outfit on her during Halloween.
She had yet to pay him back for that embarrassing moment, dammit!
Other than that, that annoying class rep keeps putting weird ideas into her head about Damian, telling her some, 'The easiest way to get Damian to open up to you is to conquer his stomach!' type shit.
Now that she thinks about it. He did say Damian had a sweet tooth too.
Wait, was Shane trying to matchmake them the whole time? No, that couldn't be possible!
'Wait up—!'
Now that she thought about it, it was possible; she could almost imagine the class rep, head raised high with a smirk, while looking down on her.
While she did have interest in Damian, it wasn't like that.
It was now Ayaka who understood Shane's true motive. She had mostly been oblivious about it. Now she understood.
"Ayaka?"
"Ahhh, sorry, I was lost in thought."
Ayaka said that as she nervously waved her hands in front of her, she could have sworn a certain person was mocking her with a smirk at this time.