Chapter 9: The Talk
“Are you okay?” I hear the boy’s voice from a distance while the fight was ending. I don’t say anything, because I’m no longer there. I left behind a [Phantasm] just for the sake of running away. It was a skill that creates an illusion that has full physical substance and properties to the illusion made. It’s cost was a 7,500 points of either health and/or mana. It was a skill that tore me apart to use during my final battle against the [Demon Lord] because I ran out of mana, and had to use my life instead. Add the cost of the final teleportation, some of my muscles were torn as the cost.
Although it should’ve been a minuscule cost for me now, considering the fact that I’m sealed, this ability just drained all of my mana and a heavy feeling of blood loss hit me as I ran away, but I stop myself from fainting and keep running. It appears that my little trick has been seen through, though, because I hear a scream from the snake girl towards the directions I’m escaping from. It seems like one of them has the ability to see through illusions.
I don't want to interact with these people at all, so I continue to try and escape with this chance. Of course, all of that could be my imagination, and they just want to talk to me about why I was observing them and ask me to stop, but I kind of don’t want to risk it and will continue to see if I can run away. After several twists and turns, I finally find a way out of the alleys. Straight back into the park where I started from. Sadly though, it looks like I won’t be getting away.
It was starting to get dark, and there were very few people still hanging around in the park.
I try to walk through, but my muscles began cramping up. What a time for that to happen, right? Well, considering how much running I just did, even with my current stats, maintaining a high speed sprint for long periods of times will hurt my body. Along with the blood loss from using [Phantasm], it was only natural that something like this would happen sooner or later.
I manage to shuffle my way slowly to one of the benches, and lay down on my back, waiting for the group to catch up to me. I try not to move as much as possible, just remaining still on the bench, waiting for the cramps to clear up. I soon hear several footsteps entering the park, which began to slow down to a walk. They were all converging towards my direction, but I just lay here and decide to accept whatever happens now.
“You really don’t want to talk to us, huh?” A voice calls out to me. It was the boy again.
“You stupid? Did you think that this guy avoided us for the whole week and ran away from us just now for fun? No! It’s probably because Raina wanted to test him, and could’ve potentially killed him!” This sarcastic voice, if I recall, belongs to the skeleton. He seems as agitated as ever.
“Stop with your lies, it’s clearly because he saw you and got scared.” The voice of the boy with pointy ear replies. Those two are pretty close huh? Those two began insulting each other back and forth, completely forgetting about me. While this happened another conversation began between the wolf and the lizard girl.
“He’s probably an [Assassin]. A high level one too, because there’s no way anyone could escape my watch four days in a row without a strong stealth ability. He’s really fast too, based on what we’ve seen already.” The lizard girl says.
“No, I think he’s a [Shadow Mage]. If he truly was an [Assassin], those thugs wouldn’t even have scratched him in close combat, but instead, he was just about to be captured by them.” The wolf-man replied.
The snake girl joined in the argument with the skeleton and dark skinned boy. They were all seriously starting different discussions about me in small groups. This is actually pretty irritating to listen to. Only the siblings actually came up and approached me.
“So, what’s the problem? Why do you keep running from us?” The boy asks.
“Because she didn’t want to see you. Got a problem with it?” A voice comes from the entrance of the park, and the friend who left me earlier came back.
“And why’s that? Who are you anyway?” The snake-girl asks.
“I’m her friend, and you’re all just bothering her. I’ll beat all of you down if you–”
“It’s okay…” I said as loud as I could. It wasn’t very audible though, but Thoth understood me anyway. She immediately stopped talking and just glared at them from where she stood. I sit up on the bench, and face the group in front of me. Thoth comes over to my side and stands next to me. For now, I’ll just talk to them.
“…why, me?” I try to ask them, but obviously they were confused.
“‘What do you want from me,’ she says.” Thoth was able to translate for me. Thank god she was here, otherwise this would’ve been far more difficult.
“Is she–” The boy begins to ask but Thoth cuts him off immediately.
“She can’t speak more than four words. Just shut up and answer the question.” How aggressive. I didn’t think that she was this type of person. Even though her stats are probably much weaker than theirs, the intimidating aura she's releasing is causing them to hesitate a bit.
“Well, we wanted to request something of him, or her. But we can talk for a bit if it’ll make her feel more comfortable.” The lizard-girl responds. Thoth turns to me, and I nod in confirmation.
“Talk to her.” This is someone else, isn’t it? The Demon Lord I knew wasn’t as cold as this one. Even in the face of death she was cheerful. What’s with this aggressive change of character?
The group hesitated for a bit upon hearing this. Asking for a minute, they walk away for a bit and form a circle, discussing something amongst each other.
“Not gonna run from them anymore?” Thoth asks me with a worried look on her face. Man, this guy was seriously the previous Demon Lord? I think she cares for his friends a bit too much, and her emotions are changing in heartbeats when it comes to me.
I shake my head in response to this, but she kept the worried look on her face. I pinch both of her cheeks and pulled them up, trying to make her smile.
“Ow, ow, ow, ow, stop! What the hell are you doing to your own face!?” I let go of her face, and she glares at me.
“Smile.” I say to her. Surprise covers her face for a second, but it disappears as the smile came. My words had too much effect on her, I’m kind of scared about this. It’s like she’s my faithful pet dog, loyal to my every command. This is what comes to mind when I think about that scenario:
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
––––––––––
“Thoth, fetch.” I throw a stick, and Thoth the German Shepard goes to fetch it.
“Thoth, sit.” She sits down in front of me after fetching the stick.
“Thoth, sic.” She chases my target down and bites their neck off.
––––––––––
This is probably one of the scariest thoughts I’ve had about her. Even more than my imaginations of what the [Demon Lord] would look like before I met him. I should try to make sure she doesn’t turn psychotic for me or anything, or else a blood bath would occur to anyone who dare treats me badly.
The group finally finishes their small discussion, and returns to speak with me. They decided to begin with introductions to break the ice. Though this didn’t work very well in school, so I’m not confident that it’s going to work here.
“So I guess I’ll start. My name is Ash Vanick, and I’m a 14 year old human. This year will be my 3rd year studying at Krystalis Academy. On behalf of our group, we’re sorry for causing you inconveniences.” How very polite of him. Honestly, he looked like the type of guy who would have became the hero instead of me.
“Raina Vanick. Little sister. 13 years old, 2nd year. Nice to meet you.” I call lies. This girl barely even looked like she was 10 years old. Now I’m hearing that she’s 13, and that she’s my senior by one year. Along with that, she was far stronger than most people I’ve seen in my previous life.
The girl’s voice was emotionless though, unlike the time when she was just about to fight. Her voice was full of excitement during that. Honestly, she scared me just as much as Thoth. Especially when she gave me that smile when she left after throwing that javelin.
“My name is Deome Taliroc. I am a Wolfman, a species part of the Beastmen race. My age is 16, the second oldest in the group. I will be in my 3rd year as well, because all of us except Raina started attending at the same time.” Although he has the most intimidating appearance, after listening to him, he sounds like one of the more intelligent people of the group.
“I am Peria Gilmuir, a Salamander of the Reptile race. I’m 15 years old, and I’m also a 3rd year. This is my familiar, Ghost, a spirit from Hell.” So she was a mage capable of summoning a spirit from a [God Tier] [Dungeon World]. I heard them talking about being over powered, but some of these people should just graduate already and head towards the [Immortal Tier].
“I’m Haki Nitesh, a dark-elf. I met these guys six years ago, and attended the same time they did as well, so I’m a 3rd year. I’m the oldest one here, at 34 years old, so that makes me the senior of every student in the school!” He boasts. Well, actually, if anyone was the oldest here, it’d be Thoth here next to me. She’s lived at least 300 years.
“Yeah, you’re an old man who shouldn’t even be here. Get out of here you damn pedophile, we all know you’re only here for the booty that you’re never going to get!” As usual, the skeleton, Ghost, provokes the elf.
“What was that, you god damn pathetic slave!?” Haki retorts
“Shut up! I chose to become her familiar, so we’re partners! Partners!”
“I’m sure the familiar contact made you out to become my slave though?” Peria immediately denies their relation, confirming Haki’s claims. Immediately after hearing this, Ghost goes to the nearest corner he could find and takes the fetal position, sulking in it.
“Well, now that those two idiots finally shut up, it’s my turn! My name is Minaya Firhasha, a Snake from the Reptile race as well! I’m 15 years old, in my 3rd year as well!” The snake-girl introduced herself pridefully. I don’t know what’s there to be prideful about, but she was proud of it anyway.
“So that’s everyone from our side. Will you two introduce yourselves?” Ash asks us.
“…Aria… Bwynhild–“ I bit my tongue. Ow. I never thought I’d screw up in my introduction. This was worst than when I tried in school. I look up at Thoth, and pull on her arm, trying to make her introduce me. She faithfully does it.
“This is Aria Brynhildr. Human, girl, 1st year at her school. Oh yeah, she’s about 1.4 meters tall, and she’s eight years old.” She boastfully tells them my height and age for some reason, and emphasized the girl part. Probably because they mistook me for a boy earlier. They were mostly surprised at hearing my age though.
“Wait, what?” Haki asked.
“Stop right there, stop, stop, stop! So basically, she's an overpowered kid!? At the same level of Raina!? The new holder of the most [Overpowered Child] has now gone to you! Sorry Raina, but she is way out of your league at this point!” Ghost immediately said. Normally when one is overtaken, they’d have a look of depression or something similar, but instead, I can see glints of glee flashing in her eyes.
The rest of the group began making comments like this and confirmed the fact with Thoth. Peria used lie detection spells that wouldn’t even have worked if Thoth tried to lie. But they got their confirmation, and became excited.
“…excited…why?” I ask. Thoth translated it again for me.
“Why are you guys so excited?”
“This girl is 8 years old, right? But she was still able to see and dodge Raina’s [Ice Javelin] at max speed. That’s definitely amazing potential right there, because Raina here has the makings of an A-ranked Adventurer already!” Peria responds.
“If I were to guess, her agility is at least 200, no?” Deome asks. I remain silent, but I don't deny it, so they take it as confirmation.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the record has been officially broken! Over 200 agility at the age of 8! We got a complete monster right here!” Haki states. Raina's eyes were literally sparkling at this point, as she glued her eyes onto me. I can imagine her requesting me to become her sparring partner right after this discussion was over.
“That means she should be able to take on ‘Zellaroth,’ in the Spring Tournament…” I hear Peria mutter to herself. Not a good sign, it seems that one of my theories is coming true. They want me to participate with them in the tournament. I open my mouth, about to state my intentions of ending this conversation, but I was interrupted by Ash who suddenly bowed down to me.
“Please, listen to our request!” I couldn’t get out now.
–––––––
Author's Note:
Warning - Next chapter, MC will turn into biggest pussy 2015, chapter 11 she will regain her bearings