Zaram and Kaname descended on the zombified students with their best attack, and their strike blew up their malformed head in a single strike. Yet, they were not dead. The body of the zombie wriggled and attempted to attack, all while Ethan remained hidden in the shadows.
They were strong! The zombies were comparable to 2nd realm, and it took a few strikes to take them down. The upside was, these zombies didn’t have any skills, and instead were just physically capable.
Zaram cut through their bodies, and eventually, struck a hard object at their center. The zombie collapsed. Kaname noticed, and replicated the feat soon after.
Ethan remained in the shadows, watching, as his two summons investigated the zombies’ corpses. They were strange, and their center was a hard, black shard. Kaname carved it out of their corpse.
[Ethan: There’s still more, but it seems to be further down.]
Kaname checked the walls. [Kaname: There seems to be something hidden in these stones...] She checked, and soon pressed one of the bricks next to that glowing green light, and the walls itself shifted, to reveal a hidden passageway.
The sensation of tremendous darkness only intensified, and Ethan felt like there was at least someone in the fourth realm down below, perhaps even in the fifth.
[Kaname: The power hidden in these passageways feels strong. I am unable to guarantee your safety, master.]
Ethan understood what that meant. [Ethan: You go.]
Zaram and Ethan retreated, and Kaname ventured down the passageway alone. The passageway led Kaname deeper, and deeper underground, into what appears to be an even older set of passageways.
She followed the sensation of the dark goddesses’ power, it bubbled and leaked, and she eventually arrived at the door that led to a large underground chamber. She activated her camouflage ability, and peeked.
There were three of them, all masked in black chanting and praying. Kaname was unnoticed for a few minutes and she tried to make sense of what she saw.
One of them spotted her. “There’s an intruder.”
The power of the fourth realm surged out of the three, and blasts of dark energy rushed to the door. Kaname dodged, and charged ahead without fear. She was going to be destroyed, but at least she would see who was on the side of the dark forces.
The three black-clothed persons didn’t appear female, and they dodged when she attempted to cut them. One of the black-clothed’s attacks almost landed, and instead detonated on a wooden log.
“A student.” One of them said. “We’ll have to cover up her death.”
Kaname grinned. “Come and get me.”
They laughed, and a few of the dark dogs appeared. Kaname grinned. They even wanted to serve up some additional rewards for her master, how convenient!
She switched her focus, and slayed the dogs, to the bewilderment of the instructors. “Something’s wrong.”
She slaughtered the lesser creatures easily, but then one of the black-cloths charged at her from the back, and attempted to choke her. She stabbed her katana through herself, and drew blood.
The pain was very real, but she was just a summon in the end. “You- insane monster!” The black-clothed behind her choked, the katana didn’t manage to hit any vital points. She ripped the katana upwards, cutting through her own body, and cut through the black-clothed man’s cloak and mask.
“She’s not-”
She grinned, and then, vanished.
“What-!”
***
“The haul from our little stunt,” Kaname said back in Ethan’s room. “I suspect they’ll be tracking me more strongly, so our interactions should be minimized.”
“Wouldn’t they assume you died?”
“Without a corpse? I doubt they are so stupid.”
Ethan nodded, and saw the four more little fragments on his palm. They vanished just as quickly. Zaram also passed him the two cores carved out of the corpses, and when he touched it, he felt the same energies from within them.
[You’ve gained 2 shards and 4 fragments of divine energy. You now have 2 shard and 9 fragments]
The two zombified-monsterized corpses also had some other things on them. Old identification cards.
Everin Greenhouse, Pollos Blacktiger
Two commoners, but the cards themselves look really dated, at least a lot older, but it didn’t particularly indicate the year of these two candidates. He’d have to investigate them later on- Wait.
He had a cheat.
“[Student List for earlier batches].”
[Selection is too large. Please state your range].
“[Student List for the past 10 years].”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Five books popped up in the room, and Ethan stared at Zaram. “Zaram, help me with this?” Ten years meant five batches, and five batches meant at least two thousand names to go through.
It took them about two hours, but eventually they found the two students’ names in the 5th year batch. That meant these guys were supposed to be in the 5th year.
“What should we do with these, actually?” Ethan thought. If they’ve been missing for a while, it’s likely that finding their cards would put him in the crossfire. No. It’s likely the administrative team is compromised, and they would know he was in the underground passageways.
So he couldn’t return it. But his ninja could, since Kaname was already compromised anyway. First, he’ll have to find out how long they’ve been missing.
“I briefly saw the features of one of the black-clothed men, and I am likely able to recognise him if I see him.” Kaname said.
“Then tomorrow, we’ll split up and look for it.”
***
Week 4, Day 1
Ethan needed to get to know some fifth years, to find out more about the missing students, and how they were zombified.
“Ethan Blacktree?” A student walked over during breakfast, Ethan briefly saw him as one of the commoners. He nodded.
“Yes?”
“Julius is awaiting your response. Would you accept the arrangement?” Ethan looked at the boy his age, and shook his head. This was really just a distraction. He was here on a mission, to protect the heroes, and this task didn’t really bring any benefits to him.
If this Julius Storm is annoyed, so be it. In fact, he intended to let Lady Irina know of the scheme. “You can let him know I’m not interested.” Ethan answered.
“That’s a pity.” The boy walked away, and Ethan realized the ducal heirs may have connections to those in the 3rd and 5th years. So, he decided to walk around and look for Lady Irina Altria instead. At the very least, Alia had a point. It wasn’t nice to play with a woman’s heart, so he should at least get that point across to the Altria descendant.
It wasn’t particularly difficult to find Lady Irina Altria, she had a large group of female sycophants whispering praises and lavished her with attention in one of the fancy restaurants.
“Greetings, I have news for Lady Irina Altria.”
One of the sycophants immediately barked. “Why does a commoner believe his news is worth relaying to Lady Irina Altria?”
Irina was just there, but didn’t cut her ‘friend’ off. But Ethan could tell she listened. Ethan decided to just spill it. “Lord Julius Storm attempted to engage certain parties to seduce Lady Altria.”
The sycophants laughed together in synchrony. “Hilarious! You are accusing a ducal house of engaging in such a scheme?”
Irina stared at Ethan. Ethan just nodded and realised they were not buying it. “Yes. I will leave now-”
“-wait. Where’s your source? What evidence do you have of this scheme?” One of the sycophants asked.
“Lord Julius Storm and a person named Chase Sands approached me two days ago to offer me this particular proposal. Promised a titan-grade should I succeed.”
“HAH! As if the ducal house would give you a titan grade!” The sycophants laughed some more. Ethan had nothing more to say, and just decided to walk away. They laughed, but Ethan felt their gaze on him anyway.
Irina looked uncomfortable, but she said nothing.
***
“You’re back.” Instructor Sorus was in his office. “Oh let me add to your GP for a job decently done.” Ethan noticed his card now had 47GP. “I’ve got nothing else for you today. Lemme check-”
Ethan waited as Instructor Sorus walked to the other offices, and eventually returned. “Instructor Antonia Argos needs some help with sorting out her lab’s storeroom. Will pay 3GP.”
“Got it.”
She looked at Ethan just briefly, and started to walk. “So you’re the new hired muscle. Come.”
Antonia led her through a series of stairs and pathways, and eventually till they reached a room. The keys opened to reveal a dusty, unkempt room.
“Clean this up.”
Ethan peeked into the room, and noticed there were a tonne of books scattered everywhere and papers and flies. There were also a lot of little trinkets and statues. “Anything particularly private and confidential there?”
“Not anymore. These are all historical items. I just want it neat and sorted where they all belong.”
Ethan nodded and then got started. One of the troubles of life in the Garden was the lack of a real army of maids and assistants. All the nobility had a massive army of servants, but the Garden itself only allowed two to three servants for each nobility due to the limited living spaces. This was partly why some of the ‘servants’ of the wealthy nobles are actually students themselves, sent and sponsored by the noble family to support their descendants.
Coming back to the instructors, the Garden maintained a large staffing, cleaners, assistants and all that, but they were mainly focused on the common areas, and it’s clearly insufficient for what the instructors wanted.
Many instructors had a noble background, and thus were used to having assistants around.
Ethan looked at the messed room, that was clearly untouched for a while, and took a deep breath. All this for 3 GP.
In a way, still worth it, since he didn’t have other means of earning GP.
He started to clean, and most of them were old notes, old books collected from all over the place. There were also jars of stuff from all over the country, tagged but poorly arranged. It took hours, but eventually the room looked somewhat passable.
“Huh. Not bad.” Antonia had returned a few hours to check on him. “This’ll be enough.”
The GP was exchanged and Ethan walked out, exhausted.
It was just along the streets back to the residences, when a friend spotted him.
“Ethan, where did you go!” Megan shouted. “There’s people looking for you!”
“Uh, running errands. What’s up?”
“I said there’s people looking for you. Like... Lady Irina Altria!”
“Ah fuck, why?” Ethan cursed. He just saw her earlier this morning.
“How’d I know?” Megan shook her head. “The Altria people were really pushy about it though- Oh speak of the devil.” As it turned out, the Altria people eventually found him, too.
“Ethan Blacktree, we have a task for you. Come with us.” Three girls came, and pulled him away without even letting him object. Megan looked on helplessly. They pulled him to a quiet corner under a tree, and one of them immediately stated their goal. “We have a counterproposal for you. Seduce Miss Violet Whitetower away from Lord Jon Milfern.”
“No. I’m not partaking in this stupid love-triangle.” Ethan rejected it outright, even if it involved the heroine. A part of him wondered whether this was the dark forces at play, making life difficult for the heroine.
“Rejection is not an option.”
“I say no.”
“You’ll pay for this.” The three girls said and then walked away. “No one dares to snub the duchy of Altria.”
“And you’re acting on her behalf?” Ethan asked. “I want to hear it from her mouth.”
“You-” One of the girls pulled the rest of them back. The three girls just walked away, and Megan eventually waited for the three girls to leave before catching him once more. “Andrew’s looking for you too, but mostly just to ask you for dinner and drinks. He wants to introduce you, Alia and Basil to some seniors.”
“Ah!”
That was just convenient.