42nd chapter : arcade .

After finding out that Arthur has deployed his own contact with his curse Marco had no chance but take him somewhere as at the same time Emilis was about to do something that would ruin the things between them but eventually it happens that he notices that something happened to the barrier he put up on Arthur.

Half an hour after everyone goes back to sleep.

“Uhm, can you tell me where you are taking us again!?”.

Arthur asked as the two of them along with Sophie were walking to some other place as Marco mentioned it was important.

“Since you felt it then I have no choice but to actually train you myself. It’s not something worth given that we don’t have the same witchcrafts but the more important thing is…” Marco was talking as they were heading towards a dead end.

At that moment they trespassed a natural barrier as they looked like they went through a huge tree. It was extraordinary for Arthur but Sophie happened to be already in this place before so she was happy that she could go back again. After reaching the place Marco continued what he wanted to talk about.

“... Is that we aren’t like the rest of the red mermaid members! the three of us!” Marco patted both Sophie and Arthur’s head.

“Ohoho!! how did no one notice this place!!” Arthur was surprised as he didn’t really give any attention to what Marco told him, he went roaming with Sophie around.

Marco sighed then stopped Arthur from roaming around further so he can continue explaining about the current state of Arthur.

“I understood that generally so you don’t need to reply, also I’m disappointed that Marco nii can’t use lightning and uses only wind, becaulalaglggalaaaaaa!! what was that for !?!?!”

Arthur responded then got wind blowing up in his face by Marco who looked annoyed for some reasons.

“That was for underestimating my witchcrafts kid and I’m still your big brother so have a little respect for me. Now can you tell me the name of your curse?” Marco responded with a calm smile on him as the two were taking a seat on the ground.

“Uhm, her name is Karma, well at least that's what she said and seems like she’s afraid of you” Arthur responded while looking around him still fascinated about the place.

Marco was surprised about the name as it is a well known name around the entire history, more or less he thought that the name has some relation to the strength of the curse.

“More or less, if she’s afraid of me then it means that I can control it if you go berserk. that’s good I guess” Marco stated as he was looking around Arthur who sighed after hearing what Marco said.

“Well , for now, as I said earlier, we are different from the others. So! From now on there’s no need for you to train the same as them, you’ll be training with me”.

Marco announced patting Arthur’s head after smiling a little. Genuinely Arthur was overwhelmed in happiness because of this sudden change in plans, it worked for his side well.

The second that Marco put his hand on Arthur’s head, a sudden surge of euro particles flowed through Arthur’s whole body as if he regained a lot of his strength and his body felt lighter.

“Most of the others need body reinforcements from the serments but not us. We can break free from anything by just training harder, like this”.

Marco explained some stuff as after that he showed Arthur a small example, he unleashed a wind thrust at a big rock demolishing it into ashes.

“That’s cool!!”.

Arthur and Sophie shouted in unison as Marco stood from his seat.

“Well, I thank you for that. Now, you gotta figure out what your curse is, at least until she tells you a hint or something or…”

Marco was giving his advice before he would stop the second he realized that neither Yuna nor Selicia nor Cedric had come to see him for the past week.

“Is there something wrong?” Sophie and Arthur asked out of curiosity seeing Marco tilt his head to the side.

Marco looked at them heaving a sigh at the situation.

“No, nothing important, we gotta figure out your curse without the others knowing and we have only five hours left, no sleeping until then!! get ready to fight me!!” Marco yelled as he took off his glasses and gave them to Sophie.

Seeing that his brother was serious about it, Arthur got enthusiastic as he wanted to show results from his own training with the others since the surge of euro particles was just adding more strength to him.

“I’ll show you my most powerful witchcraft!!”.

Arthur roared, pulling his hands together and was about to charge a lightning attack therefore Marco blew him away with a kick.

“You’re defenseless when you try to charge your attacks, think of something else!!” Marco’s kick was hard.

Arthur felt the hit and barely balanced himself on the ground after that, the pain overwhelmed him for real this time.

“Marco nii you’re being too hard!! don’t kick Arthur nii like that!!” Sophie was worried about it too.

Hearing her made Marco sigh a little as he apologized to her though he kept the same level of attacks, and after trying to land a hit on Marco Arthur realized that his attacks weren’t neither sharp nor filled with any techniques.

Marco noticed that and smiled at him.

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“Well, I don’t know any witchcrafts about lightning so you gotta figure it out yourself”.

Marco spoke to him then unleashed some fatal blows, smacking Arthur onto the ground before taking a jump to the back so Arthur would take a rest.

The brothers were having a blast of battle training, at the same time Arthur started getting used to it now.

An hour later,

“That’s hard for me, you know !! I’m still eleven, and karma hasn't shown up yet!!” Arthur was talking, upside down again from Marco’s hit.

“Try to use euro forced attacks not only normal kicks, if you charge euro particles like you do with lightning in the middle of the battle I guess you’ll figure something out of it”.

Marco gave him a bottle of water while looking after Sophie who was running around acting like she was training.

“That’s easy for you!! and Karma!! At least give me a hint!!” Arthur roared.

“I thought you realized what our curse is by now!?!” she responded eventually.

Marco looked at her as she went behind Arthur from fear.

“Try to remember, what happened when you first met her?” Marco asked.

“If I remember well, the guy from earlier was about to pierce my heart with a serment but I instantly dodged him and knocked him out with a hard punch. it was filled with something like from your chains” Arthur answered as he pointed at Marco’s glasses.

Marco looked at him then made some chains appear.

“Well, my curse is about erasing. I can erase euro particles or things in particular” Marco answered as Arthur made a sparkling expression again.

As he heard Marco’s ability, Arthur was getting more enthusiastic about it. It meant more surprises for him.

“It means if I can get an op ability too!!” he stated looking at Karma.

“I can’t say that it’s not an op hax, but I don’t wanna talk about it!!” she replied “hmm, I’m sure our ability is about absorbing and using, Like absorbing euro particles then use it for our own”

Her reply made Arthur have a smug face, turning instantly towards Marco with that smirk. At that moment, Marco was surprised too as he found it logical after sensing that his euro reserves grew more when the attacker tried to hit on Arthur then went back to normal.

“Suits your latent ability I guess, since she was that friendly to tell you about your curse means that now you gotta train on using it and not using it. In other words, when and where to use it too !!”.

Marco said what he had in mind about the training that he forced on Arthur to take, alas for Arthur it was a hellish one because of how picky and noticing his older brother is.

With that training undergoing a total of four hours before heading back to the restaurant, Arthur felt the pressure of death for the first time.

Later that day, the training of the red mermaid was postponed in the morning as Alba decided something else for them.

“Huh?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN!!??!!”.

They were surprised for the most part of it, although relief was the dominant expression on their faces.

“Chill out now. Since you made such a progress in just a week, you guys don’t need any muscle training anymore and since you passed through phase two roughly, the third phase won’t open unless you pass a thorough actual fighting lesson. I heard from Emilis that you did some night hunting while he was away right?” Alba explained himself.

“Yup that’s right, but does this mean that we’re gonna get our serments back?” Alice answered and asked on behalf of the others.

“yeah actually. You guys made some huge progress unlike someone who was roaming around for the past week” Alba pointed at Marco who was eating in the middle of the talk.

“Hey, I can do much better than them in the meantime. And I guess it’s good to get a rest” he complained quietly.

“For now please leave him outside of this, if we aren’t going to do that running around thing then what are going to do now?” Alex asked as she saw that it was needed to know more than letting it be a surprise.

“Oh!! you guys are going for a dungeon run!! There’s a dungeon behind the forest far from where you guys always train, it existed even before I came to this realm, and thus it didn’t have any breaking”.

Alba answered her question as they all felt like it was a good opportunity, therefore it was shrouded with mystery somehow, a long running dungeon that hasn’t had any outbreaks is far too dangerous.

“Hmm?” Alex was worried.

“If you're thinking about it then no need, I cleared the dungeon once but the next day the monster respawned again. More or less it looked like it was built that way” Alba smiled at them as a way of removing their doubts.

They all accepted that and felt relieved to hear that they could have actual battle training.

“You didn’t tell me about that dungeon before?” Marco addressed Alba.

“Hmm, because you left before me remembering about it, you were happy with me being a tough training session so I didn’t feel the need to find anything else to train you with” Alba answered.

“I lived here for six months. How's that possible?” Marco asked again.

“Don’t think a lot about it and let us go!!” Carla pushed him outside the restaurant as they took their leave quickly.

“She’s getting a lot happier than usual. Something good happened?” Alice asked.

“Don’t ask me but I guess because she slept with Sophie last night or something happened at that time”

Arthur was also showing a calm enthusiastic face. They all got the hint that something happened to him.

After getting prepared that fast. Alba closed the restaurant then led the way to the dungeon. While walking Marco noticed that Sophie was also getting excited as her bunny ears didn’t stop moving the whole way while she was on his back.

“Is there something you wanna tell me Sophie?”.

He asked therefore before Marco would get an answer Alba started speaking the rules of today’s training.

“Since we are going to split up, I’ll go on my own” Marco had a plain reaction ignoring all what Alba said then went inside first.

“No one would really have a good team up with him for now besides Carla but let’s ignore that for now, I’ll go with Carla. Zack and Alice, you two are together. Then lastly Xavier and Arthur together. I wouldn’t let Arthur really get inside on his own but he himself for now is in an abnormal state so let’s get going and if anything happens retreat at once ok!”.

Alex was in charge of scheming the teams as she shocked Alba about how she would do such a thing in a calm composed position.

“For now if you meet up with Marco, any one of you, try to drag him for teamwork. The first to reach the boss room will get a winning prize!” Alba was smiling as he saw them entering the dungeon with the same enthusiasm he had.

After entering the dungeon, Xavier saw Arthur looking like he felt something was up with Arthur which made him ask about it.

“Nothing wrong but for now I feel a really ominous feeling about this place” Replied Arthur.

Arthur’s response made Xavier worried but he patted Arthur’s head telling him not to give the feelings of guts much importance since it’s his first time inside a dungeon.

“Sigh, I wasn’t expecting that we would end up together!!”.

Alice complained while looking around, waiting for any monster to appear alongside Zack.

“Neither me but here we are. Anyway, let’s get going and proceed. It's still a competition after all!”

Zack was getting pumped up since it has been more than years since the last time they entered a real dungeon.

For red mermaid’s members, mostly the night hunting that rarely happens for them is the only way for them to receive an actual fight against monsters whichever was the type of the monsters, in that aspect most of them were happy to get this experience during the training.

Alba realized that their enthusiasm had a hint of sadness at one point or another, he felt the pain behind their usual laughs and mockery they have towards each other.

Realizing that single thought made him more confident in their growth, at the same time, more confident in their will of living by now.

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