“……Stop standing there and state your business already.”
The girl, seeming to have patiently waited for some time— with a voice like the murmuring of a clear stream, she spoke to me. Her brows furrowed from displeasure and her eyes glared at me, following with a cold sigh afterwards.
“…H-Huh? Oh, yeah. Sorry.” I apologized.
It was probably I was staring at her for too long.
…I almost lost myself there. What is she?! It's like I'm getting sucked into some sort of abyss. This girl is dangerous, really, really, dangerous. I need to be careful not to get sucked in again.
“Erm… I just transferred here today and I got lost somehow, can you show me the way to the Student Council President`s building…?” I asked with a smile.
For how eerie and awkward my smile is, I guess anyone would be able to tell just from her reaction.
“…this— again.”
She murmured as she hung her head low, seeming to have gotten herself a headache as she placed her hand on her temple. Then she glares at me with an upward gaze, with quite the scornful look on her face, as though she was glaring at a mere bug.
Nevertheless, my gaze never shifted away from her one bit. Eventually, our eyes met…
“……!”
…and her eyes visibly widened, adjusting her head up back so she could look at me directly.
“(…that can't be…!)”
She then whispers very softly, with her voice being as quiet as possible, so quiet that was not meant to be heard, and she even covers her mouth to hide it from me. But my hearing is unexceptionally good, so I'm able to hear it.
Then again, she seems overly surprised for some reason, but I can't tell.
Her expression immediately changed afterwards. Looking extremely complex.
Her face looks slightly tensed up, as if she was angry, yet at the same time her smile looks somewhat delighted. Her eyes were slightly soaked with tears, as if she were sad; her hands were hidden from my line of sight and I saw her shoulders trembling, as if she`s in fear.
I find myself dumbfounded. How should I even react to this?
After she clenched her right hand on her skirt, the expression she made earlier had disappeared in an instant, with nothing but a firm expression on her eyes now. From the look of it, it seems like she's going to ask for something…
“…duel with me, now.”
Such a frightening thing to demand!
“Wha— no way!”
I was trying to avoid this at all costs!
And it`d be troublesome to cause a huge ruckus on the first day, on top of that, I`m even duelling against a girl. She doesn't intend to put her things aside either, is she so confident that she`s able to fight one-handed? Quite the character.
Seeming to have already anticipated my answer, the girl then held out her right hand on her chest.
“…I, Kuroyuki Shiroha hereby challenge you, Lucifer Vermillion, to a forced duel.”
A duel, by its definition, is a contest with deadly weapons arranged between two people in order to settle a point of honour. But now in the modern era, a duel nowadays is a contest between two parties, and for what the contest is, it`s to fight till either one of the parties are knocked out or surrender. However, a duel must require both of the party’s permission in order to execute it. If you were to force it, the opponent will be forced to participate in the duel, then both parties must fight till either one is knocked out, surrendering is not allowed.
To go to such lengths… are you nuts?! Can`t you even see? My blazer is white colour— Huh?
—the heck? Hers too is—!
I wanted to quickly run away from the activation range, but it's too late. The system already detected her request, with a screen popped up in front of us, making its arrangement.
‘ERROR. OPPONENT ‘LUCIFER VERMILLION’ DOES NOT EXIST.’
Lucifer— Vermillion? Although it had the exact same first name as mine, Vermillion is not my family name.
As I heaved a sigh of enlightenment, that girl`s murmurs caught my attention.
“……so it's not you…”
She said with an extremely tired voice as she averted her eyes, looking so fully filled with disappointment and sadness, making a face which seemed like tears might burst out at any moment.
Her expression made my heart oddly tense up— as if it's being squeezed tightly to the verge of getting a cardiac arrest.
That girl wiped her eyes with her right hand, for the purpose to calm herself down. She then raised her head and gave me a quick once-over cold look.
She then raised her right hand, pointing diagonally downwards to her 10 o'clock direction with an irritated expression.
“…there.”
My head turned to where she pointed.
I'm surprised she's able to tell the direction from up here. Is she even pointing in the right direction?
“……”
With that, uninterested in my response, the girl turned her heels and began walking towards the edge of the branch. Before I could even face her again to ask for anything clearer or saying my thanks to her, she jumped down and vanished from sight.
I know she carried a Tupperware on her left hand, wrapped with a pink cloth decorated with cherry blossom petals. Though it looks like I spoiled her mood for breakfast. But if she asks me to leave, I would`ve left. She's leaving so soon, too soon.
Speaking of leave, what time is it?
8.24am.
Lucky, I still have time. I should get going.
“…Stay back...”
Seconds before I am going to jump down from this height, I heard a familiar icy voice.
It's her.
She's still here? Sounds like she's in trouble… That's impossible right? I know she's strong, not a weak girl that needs to be rescued like a princess.
...But I better check on it just in case.
“Hup…!”
Ignoring my height and landing spot, I jumped.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
I might crash land on her, but I couldn't care less about it now, it's too late to stop.
Brushing across the last line of flowers, the view below shocked me through and through.
“...Whoa? What's with this thick fog…!?”
Now I can't even measure when I should prepare a landing posture.
…Hope this works.
I immediately swung my fist as hard as I could, aiming at the ground. It’s hard to actually punch on mid-air, so it only thinned a little around my area below, revealing a small green spot.
'Better than nothing.' I thought.
I entered the fog area— Brrr… It's freakishly cold! It's not fog, but mist? I thought it's summer!
I landed safely. It didn't take long for the mist to thicken back again.
Damn... I can't see anything here with this thick mist around. I can't even see my own five fingers in front of my eyes. The atmosphere is so chillingly cold. Even someone like myself, who's adapted to extreme temperature change is shivering.
Thanks to my clothing`s function, it starts to heat up, warming my body.
At the same time, a strong wind suddenly blows. By strong, it's actually strong enough to make a normal person trip if not careful.
First heat, then cold, now wind? What's wrong with the weather here?!
But thanks to it, it scatters the thick mists in an instant— unveiling the view right in front of me.
“...Huh?”
I was dumbfounded.
In front of my eyes stood five supposedly cool-looking guys, their blazers are dark brown in colour and their ties are light blue (the very same tie like mine, so they are first years like me). Strangely, their hands wrapped on each other on their waist, and their bodies were sticking together— their blazers are brown, so they look like sticks, a bundle of sticks. Like those classic stories that I heard a lot, 'a stick can break easily, but not a bundle of them' and the moral of the story is teamwork, to work together. Something like that.
As you can see, I live on an island, and for your information of the fairly damaged helicopter and not being able to cast magic nor being casted on, I had my difficulties to travel off the area on the island. Ironically, more or less you can say— I'm stranded.
If you compare me to a monk who lives on mountains, isolated from the society, not knowing how the world works, and say that I'm 'same' as them, then you are completely off the mark— I'm not like them.
First off, I'm not bald. I had my hair kept slightly longer than what most guys would do.
Second, Restia and Ruby are able to teleport off the island with magic, so they are, in a way, connected to society. With their daily stories they brought back, this somehow becomes the wire for me to stay connected to society. In addition, they are able to teleport the stuff they brought back to the island, I'm able to enjoy the luxury of using wireless connection (it's shabby though), technologies, especially the one I had in my pocket.
My memory is bad, you could even say I had a memory loss— as far as I can remember, I've been living on the island for 8 years already. Just as I was wondering, though I'm barely, but still catchable to society, I was thinking, perhaps— I was wrong.
I had my reason to add 'supposedly cool looking'. Well, perhaps their faces were those cool types, but their actions or their expressions aren't. The colour on their faces had been drained white, they were drowned with fear— they would probably faint if they didn't see me. Now they are even pleading with me for help. How uncool.
The touchy feeling that applies between girls where Restia and Ruby are excellent examples, and sometimes I even worry whether they are lesbians for a few brief moments, have now been completely smashed to pieces. Have gay became an important part of society now instead of lesbian? The era seems to have changed— or should I blame it on culture instead? Yeah, perhaps I should, the culture shock is truly shocking indeed. Well, in the end, society or culture— none of that matter... It's gross, and I don't feel like looking at it again for a second time. I sincerely hope I was hallucinating.
Actually, I think I am— you know, hallucinating. Around those 'gayish' dudes, there are traces of ice loitering around them, on those rods— are those spears? Okay... Now that I observe carefully, there are lots of spears made from ice, some stabbed on the ground, some laying on the grass, and icicles are actually sprouting from those spears under the hot weather. This can't be happening, right? Though anyone is able to create ice with magic, I sense no mana.
Anyways, where is she?
PAK!
Just as I turned my head to the left and saw the girl, with her right hand lifted to her shoulder height pointing at us, she snapped her fingers with a shuddering, cold look.
On vague impulse, I took a giant leap backwards.
What happened afterwards was so abrupt, my movement was stunned and froze while I was still on flight in my trajectory.
The spears that scattered around those dudes— like seeds, spiked ice vines sprouted and grew larger and longer, coiling them in an instant. Ice roses then budded from the vines and blooms afterward, covering over any space that's left around them, as if they were trapped in a box. Lastly, the roses then transform to a large ice rose instead with a few vines at the base spreading outwards, like a work of art.
...They were frozen.
I landed the same time when they were frozen. Speaking of which, her ice nearly nicked my shoe.
I immediately understood where her confidence came from. It's a dream to think she might lose. This girl— this very human girl right in front of me, she's...
...a frickin
Should I blame this haphazard situation on luck or bad luck? One of her type can easily crush one hundred powerless humans in an instant. Not to mention those five, though they are armed with guns, but she crushed them easily.
Okay, I know many might be curious about what is a
25 years ago was known as the year of calamity. This was the very year where the worst death had ever occurred, because 20% of the world's population had died. The cause of death was the mysterious 8 meteors that strike on different places.
It went through three stages.
The first stage is the impact it creates when it strikes the ground. Though many had already avoided it when the warning signal was on, there are still some who's unable to escape from it. Though, that's not the main reason for the mass massacre.
It was the second stage, the cause of it was from the enormous amount of energy released by the meteors. Nearly 20%, also almost 32 billion people had died, but that only applies to every race except humans. Death by scorching from fire, death by suffocating from drowning, death by frost from extreme cold, death by malnutrition absorbed by parasite plant, death by electrocution by lightning, death by petrification, death by slaughtered by vicious winds and death by hallucinations.
From it, the meteors were likely predicted to contain the elements of fire, water, ice, wood, lightning, earth, wind and light.
Lastly, the third stage, the danger zone. Though compared to the first and second stage, the third stage is harmless, but yet— many killed themselves, and humans were mainly involved in it for the sake of research. After the impact from the first stage, craters were created. No matter who, including humans, who steps into the crater or attempts to enter from above— within a certain range of a radius, they will be immediately perished to dust nonetheless, not a single speck of cell remains.
After a year, miraculously— someone is able to step inside the radius and take the meteor, one person each. Unexpectedly, they were granted with supernatural powers— based on the meteors` elements, of course. If you were asking why they know they were able to approach the meteor, and why they wouldn't perish in the dust— that's because they were guided by the 9th person, he's also the first one to obtain the supernatural power.
He had the darkness element.
So in total, nine elements.
Except the ninth person, these guys that possess supernatural power are able to ‘gift’ others. In other words, they were able to transfer some of their energy into others, giving them the supernatural powers. Greediness is not allowed to them, or rather, there are rules set by the meteors. It was said that they had a will of their own, anyways, those who are greedy will perish to dust, one person can only take one element.
Sooner or later, with their fame spreading throughout the world— and soon they were given a title, known as the
Then again, later then it was found out that the offspring of the
Perhaps.
Perhaps that's why— all of the
They disappeared after two years from the year of calamity, not leaving a single trace behind of their whereabouts. Till this very day, no one knows who and where they were. Though, there`s still quite a lot of
Rumours say that if you ever met one in your life, this means you will be blessed with extreme luck. But rumours are just rumours— who knows?
By the way, don`t you find it strange to have nine
That remains a mystery.
But there's one thing for sure.
There's only one person in this world who`s a darkness element
Now then, back to the current situation.
“…Another one…” The girl mumbles.
As if not a single memory of me remains in her, she made an annoyed look and swayed her right hand upwards with her first three fingers— the thumb, fore, and middle finger as if it was the most natural thing to do.
“Whoa!?”
Just like that— a simple movement.
She summons waves of snow, like a tsunami— at least 4 metres high, hurling towards my direction.
So— this is a