The group quickly reached the academy. It was pretty late, so most of the students were asleep. Since Elius was carrying the girl, he wasn’t moving as fast as usual, so Ian went first at full speed to tell Idarin. He quickly went into Idarin’s room and opened the door. Idarin was sitting with a man, and they curiously turned to look.
“Mr.”
Huff.
“Idarin”
Ian was out of breath.
“Help!”
Huff.
“Poisoned.”
As soon as Idarin heard that, he disappeared and reappeared in front of the kids entering the academy. They flinched with the sudden appearance of his, and Idarin’s eyes widened at the sight of the unconscious girl in Elius’ arms.
‘Isn’t she Lizzie?’
Idarin put his hands on her and disappeared again with the girl without saying anything.
Sharon was humming and tidying up a messy bed in the infirmary.
“Sharon!”
“Ahh!”
Sharon jumped out of scare and turned around quickly.
“Didn’t I tell yo-”
But she came to herself immediately after seeing a messed-up girl in Idarin’s arms.
“Put her to the bed! What are you waiting for?!”
Idarin did as he was told.
“What is wrong with her?”
“She is poisoned and has almost no pulse. Can you cure her?”
“It depends but probably yes.”
She quickly poured some mana on her to analyze.
“The poison has spread too much, so it may take some time. Leave me alone, and don’t let anyone interfere until I say the otherwise.”
Idarin nodded and left her alone with the girl. When he left the infirmary, he saw the kids looking at him with concerned eyes.
“What are you all doing here? She is in good hands, don’t worry.”
“Is it okay to leave them alone in there?”
Nora asked that because even though the girl looked like a victim, there was a slight chance that she wasn’t.
“Don’t worry. She is actually one of this year’s students. Now, what happened? Tell me in detail.”
Then he led them to his office. The man he left behind was still in there.
“Is everything okay?”
He asked in a deep voice. The man was calm, but his sharp facial features made him look menacing.
“I don’t know. Let’s figure it out together.”
Idarin sat on his chair and turned towards the kids, waiting for an explanation. Then Nora began to tell what happened.
“… Then we saved and brought her here.”
Idarin nodded.
“Anyway, good job all. You sure don’t know anything about the guy who was attacking? Why would anyone want to attack my student?”
‘Do they not know that I’m running this academy?’
They couldn’t say anything. Idarin also thought that was all they knew and was about to send them to their room, but Ian broke the silence.
“It was Silvershiv.”
He wanted to keep it for himself, but he realized that it was a stupid idea. Idarin raised an eyebrow after hearing that.
“Silvershiv? Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m pretty sure.”
‘What would they want from a student?’
“Come on, kiddo, Silvershiv is attacking a child? It doesn’t make any sense.”
The man sitting across the room said, and Idarin was also nodding.
‘What the hell?’
Ian was in shock.
“What do you mean doesn’t make any sense?”
“Hmm? They might be contract killers, but they had ethics and morals.”
As soon as he said that, Ian’s blood boiled in anger.
“What the fuck did you say?”
The atmosphere suddenly became heavier, and he began to walk towards the man with a face like thunder.
“Ian!”
Elius put his hand on Ian’s shoulder and tried to stop him.
“Tsk.”
Ian reluctantly stopped and tried to calm himself down.
“What was that all about?”
The man asked with a perplexed expression.
‘How come they don’t know the bad side about the Silvershiv? Are you kidding me?’
Ian took a deep breath, turned towards Idarin, and opened his mouth.
“I don’t know how you can be clueless, but there is something you should know.”
* * *
Idarin and the man were sitting in his office after sending the kids. Both of them had dark expressions.
“If this is true, how come they just let that Ian kid walk away from the organization like that?”
The man asked.
“I don’t know, Leon. I have so many questions right now. Most importantly, how come they manage to keep it hidden for this long, and how come Chase hasn’t done anything about it?”
“Brainwashing little kids and turning them into killers, killing innocent people just because they got offered some money.”
Idarin nodded.
“Looks like they’ve been working really hard to cover it up.”
“This is beyond corruption. But if it is like that, they won’t stop chasing the girl until they kill her. Something must be done quickly. Idarin, don’t you think we should report it to the emperor?”
“Hmm.”
Idarin thought for a while.
“I guess I should give him a visit. We should also do a meeting here tomorrow before that. An emergency meeting.”
Leon nodded and got up.
“I’ll gather them.”
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Then he left the office.
‘If they manage to stay hidden for this long and covered up all the contracts they got, they must have a strong backer. Hmm, anyone can be a suspect.’
Idarin’s mouth curled upwards.
‘Finally, something entertaining is happening.’
* * *
Elius was trying to sleep, but he couldn’t.
‘Hmm, I skipped today’s training, so I should work harder tomorrow.’
Then he sat on the bed.
‘Speaking of training, maybe I should try it.’
He closed his eyes and focused on the mana around him.
‘Give a command to mana, give a command to mana, hmm let’s see, what should I do.’
After thinking for a while, he finally decided on something.
‘Ohh! Knowing my target’s openings could be useful. Can I do that?’
He increased his focus and went deeper into the mana. While going deeper, he was constantly repeating by himself.
‘Show me my target’s openings. Show me my target’s openings...’
But after ten minutes, nothing happened.
‘Am I doing something wrong? Hmm.’
He focused again, and this time he tried to be more specific. This time, in less than 2 minutes, an image formed before him. The image of intertwined lines.
‘OOOOHH!’
He became excited, not just because he actually made it, but it looked easier than he imagined. He was expecting a mountain of lines, but he could’ve solved the thing he saw in a few hours. Hence, he began to do it in excitement without wasting too much time.
The first rays of the sun were coming in through the room’s window, but Elius was still sitting with his eyes closed. Finally, after 3 hours, he connected the last line to its beginning and ending points. Then he felt a surge of power run through his body, and the number of his nodes increased by one. He hurriedly opened his eyes.
‘I did it!’
Elius turned his head to still sleeping Ian and activated his newly acquired spell.
‘Please work.’
An itchy feeling covered his left eye while he was glancing over Ian. Then he saw little circles all over Ian’s back.
“What?! Full of openings!”
Of course, it was due to his sleeping state, but Elius was excited enough to ignore that right now. He shouted in excitement and jumped out of his bed to check his reflection on the window. He must have shouted so loudly that Ian began to rub his eyes.
“What is what?”
Then he opened his eyes.
“Oh my god, your eye is on fire!”
“What?!”
Elius quickly turned toward the window and saw his left eye glowing blue.
“Ahh!”
He tried to put it out in panic.
“Oh no, wait, it is my new spell.”
He sighed in relief and rechecked his reflection. Since he was standing casually, there were a lot of circles glowing all over his body.
‘Holy!’
“I’ve gotta go.”
He left Ian, who was still trying to understand what was happening, alone in the room.
‘I only thought about creating spells about attacking or defending, but adding functionality? Bwahahaha! It is going to be a long day!’
Then he left the academy with a smile.
* * *
“Today’s supply looks pretty good.”
A man with a white coat was climbing the stairs while looking at the bottle box in his hands. Inside the box were 16 bottles of red liquid. He nodded in satisfaction.
‘Damn these stairs, whose idea was to create an underground facility?’
He reached for the door and opened it with an irritated expression. At first, he couldn’t grasp what he saw and didn’t move for a few seconds, it was more like he froze in fear. Then, the supply box in his hand dropped, and he began to stutter.
“Wh- w- wh- what!”
It was a bar, but that wasn’t the surprising thing. The bar was just a cover for the underground facility. The terrifying thing was the state of the bar. It was a total mess, broken glasses, chairs, and tables were everywhere, but most importantly, there were dead bodies.
A man was sitting in the middle of the bar on the only undamaged chair, drinking. The bar’s walls were painted with blood. It was a total massacre, a scene from hell. With the appearance of the alchemist, the man sitting in the bar snapped his fingers.
“Of course! It was behind the alcohol shelf!”
The alcohol shelf was the door that opened up to the facility. Then the man got up and began to walk towards it. The alchemist was too afraid to do anything since he had never seen anything like that. The man walked past him and began to go downstairs. That made the alchemist fall onto his butt. For a second, he felt relief since the man didn’t do anything to him, but then he felt a hand on the back of his collar.
“Hey, hey, why are you sitting? Who will show me around then?”
Alchemist shivered but didn’t do or say anything, and he just let the man drag him along. The hall was long. It seemed endless at first, but after 5 minutes of walking, they finally reached where the fun stuff happens.
The man instinctively clogged his nose because the facility was reeking rotten flesh mixed with blood. He lifted the alchemist and threw him forward.
“Get up and show me where you produce those little red things.”
Alchemist hurriedly got up and began to stutter.
“H-h-here, there are only three rooms.”
“I can see there are only three rooms, but is that it?”
There were indeed three rooms, and their walls were glass, so it was easy to see what was in the rooms. The first room was filled with hearts, and they were inside of a liquid in glass bottles. There were countless types of herbs and colorful elixirs in the second room. Finally, there were required lab items to produce any kind of elixirs in the third room. The man began to examine the rooms.
‘W-where are you, you bastard. You are late.’
Alchemist thought to himself. Today was the supply day, so the alchemist was waiting for the buyers. He hoped that they could save him.
“Hmm.”
The man stopped examining the rooms and turned towards the entrance.
*Tap* *Tap* *Tap*
A silhouette slowly appeared.
‘Yes! Yes! I am saved!’
“What is happening here, Evan?”
His tone was menacing.
“V-Vinny! P-please save me!”
Evan quickly got up and ran to Vinny.
“Oh-ho.”
The man eyed Vinny from head to toe, and he noticed the tattoo on Vinny’s wrist.
“You are quite loud for an assassin.”
Vinny smiled.
“Wow, only high-ranking members have this tattoo. Surprisingly, you can recognize.”
“Yeah, I’m full of surprises.”
He said mockingly.
“So what is a high-rank member of Silvershiv doing here?”
Vinny shrugged.
“Even if I told you, it will be for nothing since I’m going to kill you.”
Then a blade appeared on his hand.
“You know, a few years back, I learned some amusing things about Silvershiv.”
Then his voice became serious and heavy.
“Like how they use children to do their dirty business and kill innocent people for money.”
After hearing that, the smile on Vinny’s face disappeared. He was frowning now. The man saw that, and he smiled this time.
“Whew, did I touch a sore spot? And as if that wasn’t enough, now you have a connection with all of this. I was planning to deal with you guys later, but I might change my mind.”
“Yes, you definitely need to be killed.”
Then Vinny rushed towards the man, but he was calm and shaking his wrist like he was warming up.
“Since we are in a narrow area-”
Vinny was already in front of him and aimed his blade at the man’s neck, but all he cut was the empty air.
“I won’t unsheath my katana, so-”
Vinny appeared behind the man with swift movements and aimed at his neck again. But the result didn’t change.
“Show me what a high-rank member can do against an unarmed person.”
Vinny was getting angrier.
‘How can he see my movements? There is no way he is faster than me.’
Vinny kept trying, but he couldn’t even put a scratch on the man. He was avoiding using any magic to not to damage the facility.
“Sigh. Is that it? I love idiots who think they can beat everyone with speed.”
Vinny’s face was completely red from anger.
“You bastard! Who are you?!”
He again swung his blade while shouting, but this time instead of dodging, the man caught Vinny’s arm.
“I’m your worst nightmare.”
Then he smiled like a demon and twisted Vinny’s arm. The cracking sound echoed throughout the facility.
“AAAH!”
Then the man quickly snatched his blade and stabbed Vinny’s throat in an instant.
“That is how you aim at someone’s neck, idiot.”
Vinny’s motionless body fell to the ground, and the man turned his attention over the shaking alchemist. After their eyes met, the alchemist understood there was no escape from this situation, but the man shook his head in disappointment, unlike his expectations.
“Just go.”
Evan smiled happily.
“T-thank you!”
Then he turned his back and began to run.
“Haha, Woah, he really thought I would let him.”
The man was still holding the bloody blade. He raised it and threw it like a rock. The blade flew towards Evan, slicing through the air, and stabbed on the back of his head.
“Okay, let’s wrap thing up.”
In the next minute, he destroyed every material in the facility and got back to the bar. He grabbed the bottle he was drinking earlier and left while whistling.