Thanks to my mom suddenly interrupting me right before I typed the first word, I totally forgot what I wanted to write.
My first draft of this chapter, compared to what it ended up as, was hugely different. It isn't different in the sense of minor details or stuff, but I actually rewritten this chapter, 3 whole times.
While I want to believe that I did a good job, I think I could have done much better on this one. Using that many characters was hard for me, sadly, and I couldn't use the full potential of everyone.
Thank you, for reading the story. Thank you regardless if you followed this story or not, and thank you if you favorited this story. I don't deserve this, but some of you think otherwise.
Also, Arc 0 - Chapter 4 is out. I think I need to revamp the whole arc 0 before I start on my next chapter though...
That idiot. Did he really think that being SSS ranked allows him to be so careless? The arrow I just fired was dipped in one of the strongest paralysis poison I could get my hands on, and he took it without even dodging! With him, the only dangerous one down, the rest are a piece of cake!
Blood splattered on my left cheek.
I instinctively turned towards that direction, but another wave of blood coated my back.
I fearfully turned towards the principal of AAA, who was up, and smiling, with the arrow in him. There is a small patch of blood around it, but it didn’t seem to affect him at all. He had an arrow nocked, and it was pointing at me.
I wonder what my last thoughts then were.
Clint, Ashley and Rex had all turned away, and I was the only one that directly witnessed the carnage the principal dealt.
After falling onto the ground, he threw 2 arrows by hand, killing the 2 beside the enemy’s leader instantly, while getting up with a backflip. Their leader was still laughing when the ones closest to him died, one after the other, and it was followed by his death, with the arrow destroying his head.
He silently drew more arrows, without the laughter he had just a short while ago, and fired them one after another, killing at least 10 people before they were freed from their shock. They took cover behind random boulders, large stones, pillars. They did everything they could to put something between the reaper and them, and tried to slowly approach him.
But his next arrows simply pulverized the boulders, killing the people behind them, “Come on! I can pierce a dragon’s skin with these arrows! Stop wasting lives already! I’m still waiting!”
That was the cue. The enemy, who had been confused, were enraged from those mocking words, and mindlessly charged towards him. Ashley frantically created a large barrier to block the enemies, but the principal turned back, shaking a finger, “Watch, kids. There are many ways to fight even when severely outnumbered, THIS is one of them!”
He shot an arrow upwards, but with little force. It flew up, curving down before it touched the ceiling, and it landed on the ground, where colorless magic erupted from it. A huge tornado appeared, dragging all the enemies into it (
The tornado stayed for almost a minute, before letting the survivors go. There are about a hundred of them in battle condition, and they were all preparing to strike back.
That’s when a blood-chilling laughter echoed from the floor above.
A red haired teacher charged into the chamber, riding a staff. She was laughing madly, and she charged into the enemies, while sparks fell around her, exploding and burning as they touched anything. Following that is a huge pillar of fire, erupting from the middle of the whole group of enemies, and disappearing quickly. Few survived the flames, and they charged at the laughing maniac.
That turned into a male suddenly.
As all the enemies jumped on the person, he raised a hand, which held a rectangular spell card, one of those that are extremely expensive and is thought to be extinct. The card burned, and the space around him distorted. All the enemies around him suddenly flew away, smashing into the ground, ceiling and walls.
“Eiden. Come on, we don’t have much time.” The man with dark blue hair said. He wore an old leather coat, trimmed into a jacket, and a grey undershirt underneath. Now that he’s close, I could see that while he had a leather glove on his left hand, his right arm was robotic.
“Back off. You can look at it when we’re moving.” He said with a bored look, and left for the next floor.
“Come on, kids. We need to go, NOW!” Pushing us forwards. Clint reluctantly followed, while still holding Ashley’s hand. The girl, on the other hand, was nervously looking at the one leading all of us. Rex and I traded a look, and I understood that he was confused as well.
“So, what is going on up there? Is the 2 thousand men real?” The principal asked from the back of the group, while we entered the next floor. We were being pushed to run, while both the principal and this unknown man were keeping up to our pace.
“There are at least more than 2 thousand. Might be 3 thousand or so. They’re still holding them back though.”
“Good enough. Oh. A split.” As the principal said, there was a fork, and with no discussions whatsoever, the person leading ran into the right path. When I turned back, the principal was missing. It seemed that he ran into the left path.
We kept on silently, and just after a short while, the principal returned, continuing on where they left off, “How long do we have?”
“Not really sure about that. They’ll retreat slowly as they hold them back. I suppose we would have 15 minutes per floor of theirs? They were at the 3rd floor when I came down.
“Ah! What happened to Miss Mel?” Ashley suddenly asked, and the principal replied, “She swapped places with the gentleman in the front. It was a spell called [Space swap].”
“Who is the person in front anyways?” Rex, noticing a chance to ask, finally threw up the question that bugged him as well as me.
“Hm. I’m the father of Clint here.” He said, and I could feel him smiling, “You might know me better as Dusk.”
Dusk, the mad destroyer.
14 years ago, he along with a girl called Shiina, sabotaged a mission, destroying a magical artifact a 1020 adventurers were tasked to retrieve. The magical artifact had a concentration of 9, and the mass of a dragon, and was destroyed while the adventurers were fighting. The whole place exploded, and the remaining 1018 adventurers died there and then.
After that, he ran from the site, and killed 100 of the hired SS ranked adventurers. He appeared all around the world after that, killing people left and right. Whenever he appeared, people would die, and because of that, his bounty added up gradually to 63 million gold.
This person, worth 63 million gold bounty, is Clint’s father. And he’s currently leading us deeper into the dungeon.
From his and the principal’s conversation, there seems to be a few people fighting the 2 thousand people that wanted to capture Clint.
I don’t know what the people want with Clint’s father, or the principal, and they are indeed scary. But if they want to capture Clint, then I will join his side…
Whenever there is a fork, the principal will split off to search the other paths. Clint’s father makes surprisingly good guesses, and up to now, we had not backtracked even once. There were also monsters, but Clint’s father would slice them up with his sword quickly. Compared to Kuro-senpai and Clint, he was in a whole new level. All I could see were flashes, and the monsters would be cut up instantly.
Suddenly, when we were at the 7th floor, we heard some rumbling from above us. “Go, go!” the principal shouted from behind, and we quickened our pace. We ran thorugh that floor, and the next, often hearing rumblings from above. At that time, we were forced to backtrack twice, and each time causes the rumblings to gradually approach us.
“How many floors are there here?” Dusk suddenly asked, I turned back, and realized that the principal that had been gone for some time finally returned. With the sounds of war above, and the tapping sound from our shoes and boots on the ground, I have no idea how he knew that the principal returned at all, especially with him hiding his mana traces so well.
“Should be around 12 or so. They harvest multiple bars of manasteel from floor 12, or so the report stated.” The principal said, causing all of us, except for Clint, to wonder what he is talking about.
Since Dusk is Clint’s father, it was natural for him to know what they are talking about, right?
Following that, we charged into the 10th floor, and continued on. “They’re 2 floors up.” Dusk suddenly said.
I was already tired at this point, and upon hearing the words, I tripped.
I suddenly felt extremely light, and Clint quickly held me up before I fell. Dusk, Nobody and Rex kept on running, while Clint and the principal stayed behind with me, “Come on.” Clint said, crouching down. His face was pink, and I instantly understood what he wanted.
With him giving me a piggyback, we ran on quickly.
His hair has quite a nice scent….
“Ashley…” He whispered, but I kept on enjoying the ride.
I was slightly guilty that he had to carry me… but this is so nice…
“A 4 way split in front. Take the left side.” The principal said, and we turned left, while he ran forwards. We ran by a few monster corpses, and soon met up with the others. Nobody turned when he noticed us, and smirked at Clint, who scowled back.
“Quit playing around.” Dusk said, and both of them went silent. We reached the next floor soon, before the principal rejoined us, but Dusk didn’t stop, instead, started running faster. At this point, Rex conjured a thundercloud and lied on it. It was extremely inefficient, but at least it worked. Nobody was doing the same thing, standing on 4 knives, 2 on each foot, while gliding forwards.
2 orbs appeared around Dusk, but they did nothing until the next wave of monsters appeared. When they did, both orbs rapidly fired mana bolts at the enemies, killing them rapidly. It was similar to Nobody’s orb, which he rarely uses, but it was much faster and stronger. Using that, our overall speed increased slightly.
“Do you think we should help them?” The principal, who just reappeared, asked, but Dusk shook his head, “We need 2 people to efficiently search through the floors. We would be forced to fight it out if we couldn’t get the directions to the next floor anyways. The girls are good at fighting more enemies anyways.”
“Then I’ll just run ahead.” The principal said, and suddenly accelerated, dashing through all of us quickly.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Why didn’t you do that in the beginning….” Dusk sighed.
We reached the final floor, the 15th floor, when the ‘girls’ are one floor above us. There is a huge mechanical construct inside, a machine? Robotic thingy? I’m not sure what it is called. That’s more of Nobody and Clint’s expertise.
“[Space cutter: Storm]”
“
It took an attack from Dusk and the principal to destroy the huge mechanical construct. The mechanical construct was suddenly cut up, even though Dusk didn’t chant at all. The various parts of the mechanical construct fell to the ground, and while it was still falling, an arrow pierced through the body of the construct, shattering a shining blue orb, which caused a huge lightning explosion. That was all it took to destroy the construct.
“Rigel, gather everything!” Dusk said, quickly running back up.
“Clint, put Ashley down, and both of you help me place these chunks into the chest.” The principal ordered us as he pointed at multiple glowing blue stones. “Insignificant and Rex, gather the bars.”
He then walked to the edge of the room, and did something there. Lines and words appeared on the ground, turning into a weird shape… That’s magic… but what is that?
When the drawing was done, what is left is a circle with a huge mess drawn inside. I have no clue what it is, but the principal told us to move the few chests of manasteel ore and ingots, then we waited.
It took barely 2 minutes, before the rumbling reached the climax. A girl holding a huge cylinder object ran in first. She had caramel hair that is extremely similar to Clint’s, she seemed frantic as she ran quickly towards us. The next person was the head of magic, Professor. Gwen. As usual, she had her black hair tied in a bun, and she held a magical tome with her right hand. Unlike usual, she isn’t wearing her spectacles, but instead is holding it with her other hand. She rapidly created short portals and gradually blinked forwards. The third person came after a while, Miss Mel, the school nurse rode into the floor, not laughing, not screaming, and just charging towards us.
“Is everyone ready?”
“Not yet!” The girl with the cylinder object said, panting, and as she said that, a humanlike mechanical golem charged into the room, followed by a flying round object. “We’re done!”
“Activate!” Professor Gwen shouted, and the circle below us glowed.
“Wait! Clint’s dad-“ I finally realized the missing person, but the scenery changed. “Isn’t here yet!”
We were in a somewhat grand room. It was well decorated, and even had a red carpet over the floor. If only the stacks of paper wasn’t thrown about most of the room.
“Late.”
The person sitting on a couch, wearing an old leather jacket, smiled as he said the single word.
“I suppose we owe you explanations, so, ask away.” Eiden said, while he leaned back on a couch across us. Just nearby, Alferdo made coffee and tea for us, while we faced Eiden, who was sitting in between Mel and Mom.
I stomped at Nobody’s feet, as he was starting quite intently at my mom. I’m sorry to tell you that it is disgusting even for me. He was suddenly aware of who he was looking at, and turned away.
There wasn’t a trace of embarrassment on his face….
Rex instantly took the main question, and asked rudely, in the tone I would use when I speak to Eiden, “First question, what was the whole thing about, and why the top criminals of the world are with all of us here?”
The principal nodded, then explained about what actually happened many years ago, during the siege. I was told that too, 2 years ago, and it was quite unbelievable, yet, it didn’t feel like they were lying…
Rex frowned at the answer, while Nobody nodded, only Ashley was the one who didn’t believe it, “What do you mean? How could you say that all nobles are corrupt?”
The eyes of Eiden sharpened, “I say that because I personally know it, Ashley Dewspark. 11 years ago, the head of Dewspark, Adam Dewspark, tried to stop the other nobles when his daughter, your sister, Katrina Dewspark, was to be sacrificed for a greater cause. He was stripped of all his noble titles, and was assassinated. You were lucky to be admitted to one of the orphanages, Ashley, the last of the Dewsparks.”
“Eiden!” Mom shouted at Eiden, who simply shrugged. Ashley’s face paled, and she started crying as she realized the truth. She was hurting my arm by gripping it tightly, but she was too distressed to notice.
At least… I had mom and dad… and Carla…
“Back to the main point. We are the leaders of the rebellion as our master disappeared. For now, our goal is to stall for time to help you all grow. I’m not even going to hide this from you, who had seen the influence of the enemy. We lack forces. We might be strong enough to stall a force of 2 thousand, and maybe win with some losses, but we lack forces. That is why AAA is here.”
“So, AAA is here to train us to be your slaves?”
“AAA is here to train you guys, so that you guys get to actually survive long enough as someone that isn’t a slave to the trash government.” Eiden then laughed, “So, in fact, we are training you not to be slaves.”
Surprisingly, Rex nodded in agreement, despite his huge claim previously.
“What will happen after this?” I asked, wincing a little from pain. Ashley was still crying while I… rubbed her hair…? I don’t understand why I did that at all…
“First, their attack failed, and almost 500 S ranked adventurers lost their lives trying to capture Dusk, Shiina, me and Clint, their 4 targets that could lead to the fall of AAA. They might also be trying to get Carla, that’s why she has been in supervision up to now.”
“Clint’s sister.” Nobody explained, and Rex nodded in understanding.
The most dangerous people to them is dad, mom and Eiden. By capturing me or Carla, they can lure mom or dad in…
I need to be more careful from now on…
“Anyways, because of this failure, both Dusk and Shiina’s bounty is going to increase, again, by I don’t know how much. For now, it is unlikely that they will attack us, as we are quite fortified here, so, you guys are going to train here while we deal with everything outside.”
“We don’t have much of a choice, do we?” I said, sighing.
“Sorry…” Mom said, “We didn’t… want you to get involved in our problem…”
I shrugged, “I didn’t want to as well… But… I might as well…”
“Just take it easy for now, at the very least, you all have 4 years of safe time, maybe less? Well, we don’t have time left, so you guys have to go.”
It was already near midnight, and with that, we were dismissed.
“I’m back.” Dusk suddenly said, returning to the room dragging a teacher, the teacher that gave us this mission, into the room. He was bound and gagged, and was trying to break free from his restraints. “Gwen?”
“Understood. [Mind read].”
The teacher that was struggling suddenly stopped, and slumped over while Gwen had a palm over the teacher. After a while, she stood up, shaking her head. “Nothing new. John is still missing.”
“Damn it…”
“Shiina, you still got nothing, right?”
I nodded, “None at all… I had multiple scanners flying around the continent, but there are no traces of John near the surface.”
“The same, then?”
All of us sighed.
Our leader, Dusk and Shiina’s friend, John, had gone missile while looking for information of the enemy’s main base. He was the only one capable of doing it, yet, he had suddenly disappeared. It is unsure if he died, or was captured, or was still looking around. We also had shadows around the continent, looking for traces of the enemy base or John, but they all showed no results.
We were gathering forces, but the war has already ended, if John is gone. That’s why, all of us wanted to believe that he’s alive.
“Then let’s just rest for today.” Eiden said, lying on the couch, exhausted. Humans really suck, if he was a golem I could pop an electric crystal and he would be fully charged again…
But we’re tired as well. Me, Mel and Gwen had to fight off 2000 of them, stalling them while retreating downwards. If we were careless even once, at least a few of us might not be here anymore.
I followed Dusk out of the office, leaning tiredly against him, and giggled. “Do you think you could give me a princess carry?”
“I would, but,” He pointed at the front. There was a boy, the pure mechanic of the group. He stood there, with 8 knives hovering behind him.
And he bowed, it was a 90 degree bow, “Please! Take me as your student!”
I looked at Dusk, but he simply looked back, “He’s talking to you.”
“EHHHH???”
“Please!” He dozega’d at me.
“Wait a second!”
“Please.” He lied on the ground, face down.
“It seems that he’s trying to get as low as possible.” Alferdo pointed out, and I shouted at him, “I know that! But why? Why would you want me as a teacher?”
“Because you are my goddess.” He said.
I glanced at Dusk, slightly worried that he would kill the young boy, but he simply shrugged. Luckily, he didn’t exactly take it seriously.
“I don’t mind sharing her with you. After all, I know that she’s an awesome woman.”
“Master, you have officially made a reverse harem.”
Did I say luckily? I meant unluckily.
“We’ll have less time together though…” I said reluctantly, but Dusk smiled at those words, “Then, we just have to use the remaining time better, right?” He looked into my eyes, ignoring the boy who was still lying on the ground.
“Ok then. Student, no, Boy, I will take you as my student. Every Thursday and Friday, come to the engineering lab 3 past midnight.”
“THANK YOU, KAMI-SAMA!” He shouted, still lying on the ground…. Creepy.
“Come on, let’s go.” Dusk said with a laugh, before activating a card to return home.
We were in the gardens near the main building. After leaving the principals office, Ashley led me here, and the person herself is now looking at a few flowers silently.
“Hey, Clint…?”
“Yes?”
“Do you know, what it is like to be alone…?”
“… I’m not really sure…. No…”
“… I never knew what happened to my family, you know. When I was self-aware, I was already in the orphanage… with my staff… I never knew my family. Everyone shunned me because of my silver hair. It was… It was…” She turned towards me, and cried in my clothes, “I want to be angry… I really really want to… but… but… why…? Why can’t I get angry?”
The only words I could say then, were, “I don’t know, Ashley… I don’t know…”