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"Are you ready?"

"Yes."

"Then let's get going."

"How many more do we have to kill?"

"Hmmm, 88?"

"Why that much?"

"Donno."

The pair of Dante and Sylph quickly ran in one direction.

"Why this way?"

"Come on, Sylphie, you seem a lot more talkative than yesterday, no?"

"Maybe if you had read your monster encyclopedia, then maybe we wouldn't have almost died."

"Shh, don't be silly; that was not our fault."

*coos*

A black bird flew next to them and slightly activated his skill, giving us the decided signal that there were crocodiles ahead.

"Prepare yourself; Skully has scouted some lizards." Dante said, a smile slowly appearing on his face.

..

The giant evolved crocodiles were lying on the muddy dirt, relaxed; they had had their meals and had their mouths wide open.

Crocodiles usually did this to cool down, as they were cold-blooded predators.

Just as one of them was about to close its eyes, it heard a slight whistle and lost its eyesight.

*Roar!*

It cried out as it alerted its other partner, but before it would react and fully stand up, it fell to the side.

The tendon of its front leg had been cut clean by a white-haired little human. In an attempt to kill her, it opened its mouth wide open and violently bit down, only to feel immense pain as it bit into something extremely hard.

The black bird that had blinded its partner was currently in the bloody and toothless gap in its mouth. Yellow illusory scales were covering it in a sphere shape.

Its reaction time had been slowed by the immense pain, and so, before it could react, its head fell to the ground. Small wisps of fire were silently burning in its bloody gash.

The other blinded crocodile was struggling and wriggling in an attempt to catch something and bring it into a death roll.

Seeing as it made no results, it started running toward a random direction; unfortunately for it, it rammed a tree...

Like yesterday, around it appeared yellow illusory scales, and then it was quickly killed.

"Sylphie, how come you're so strong?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, not everyone can decapitate such a big creature. Incapacitated or not, it would take a few hits to cut that thick neck."

"I donno." She responded evasively while turning her head away.

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"Did you really pull a Dante on me?" Dante chuckled slightly.

"Alright, let's get going; it's getting easier and easier to hunt those things."

"We have already cleared this periphery of the forest; let's go around."

She suddenly stopped and looked slightly to the side, a frown appearing on her face.

This of course caught Dante's attention: "Bandits?"

His question was met with a nod.

"There! We've finally found another one of those carcasses! We're going to be rich, I'm telling you!"

As they heard the voices from a distance, they saw five men emerge from the bushes. They were all wearing light armor, probably so they could run away just in case.

They were all wearing black and gray.

Behind them was a single, slightly malnourished horse pulling a big caravan made to store things. As they approached, they quickly spotted two figures.

The person at the front of the group, who looked like their leader, spoke.

"Fuck off, kids, it's ours now. I don't know how you found the carcasses, but you can't handle something like these alone."

His voice was metallic and tired, as if his throat muscles were giving up every now and then.

"Ok, we found this first, so we're going to take the cores."

"Kid, I'm already doing you a favor by not selling you on the black market; fuck off before I change my mind."

"Boss, that white-haired girl could sell for quite a bit, no? And she looks very pretty. I'm sure those perve nobles would give us quite a bit, right?"

"Hmm, true. You fuck off." The chief pondered for a bit before trying to dismiss the boy.

Dante, on the other hand, was disgusted by their gazes. He was planning on letting go as it was useless to him, but now he had been challenged.

"Sylphie, same as with the spider." He only said that as the girl with a disgusted frown next to him summoned an ice rod and her body started glowing red.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" Said one of the side kicks.

But before they could react, a black blur appeared, and the next moment, they heard a scream of pain.

"Aaahh!! My fucking arm!"

When they looked over, they saw that one of their camarades was missing his arm; he was holding a bow, so now he was useless.

Their eyesight was then covered by a thick mist of vapor.

"Stay next to each other!" Don't get taken out alone!" The experienced leader quickly commanded.

"Fuck! Why did it have to be mages of all the things?"

They didn't move, too terrified by the flying thing taking them out. This scene continued for a minute or two before they suddenly saw a glowing yellow light coming from some distance away in the mist.

Before they could react, they heard something tearing through the air, and then another scream echoed. When they looked over, they were horrified by their leg-crunched comrade.

It was Dante's earth dart combined with wind. It had missed its original target, but as they were all grouped, it still hit.

The spell was badly cast, so the projectile turned midway, but it was still fatal as it horizontally hit the enemy's legs.

They were now turned at an unnatural angle.

"Everyone start running toward the source of the attack!" The leader commanded again; staying idle was not going to get them anywhere.

The three remaining bandits quickly ran toward Dante, but before they could make it to their destination, they slipped on the ground.

Ice had been cast on the ground. The next moment, they saw a glowing red figure with a sword swing at them.

The leader, still on the ground, tried to parry, but he wasn't the target of that swing; it hit the person next to him, cleanly decapitating him.

The white girl was now vulnerable to any strike. Thinking he could finally see hope in their hopeless situation, he prepared for a swing but was only met with the feeling of his arm becoming lighter, followed by intense pain.

"Aaahrgh!"

The last one just dropped his sword to the ground and put his hand in his hair; his pants had taken on a darker shade.

After everyone was incapacitated and the fog had disappeared, the surrender looked around only to see a black bird with his leader's wrist in its talons.

When looking at who had escaped, he discovered that everyone had their feet cut off by that bird to prevent them from running away.

"Well, well, I wonder who is going to use whom now, haha!"

When he turned around, he saw the dark-haired boy looking up at him. In an attempt to not anger the boy any further, he lowered his head beneath the boy's height.

"Good boy, at least you have a semblance of intelligence, hehe." The boy patted the man's head. This scene looked even creepier as wailings of pain resounded in the background.

"How did you see them through the fog?" Said the white-haired girl; she was looking at the cripples with murderous intent.

"Oh that. Skully was using his skill behind the enemy, so I just shot at the glowing thing in the fog." A humble smile appeared on his face; his eyes, however, asked to be praised.

He was unfortunately met with another question.

"Why did you want to capture them instead of killing them?"

"Oh, that's fine; don't worry. I'm just punishing these young people for their mistakes; no bad deed goes unpunished, as they say, haha!"

"Thank you for your mercy!"

The man kneeling before him lowered his head even further, thinking they had finally been spared.

"Oh, but your punishment hasn't even started." The boy's behavior started taking a creepy turn. One of his red eyes was slightly hazy and clouded.

"Until now, I've been wondering what will happen if I do 'that' to humans." His right eyes then completely turned hazy and clouded.

However, as the transformation finished, the man was overwhelmed by an extreme fear, as if his every cell had abandoned all will.

His mouth, in an attempt to save himself, opened wide to muster one last scream, but only a small amount of air came out.

Sylph watched all this in silence; she had already discovered that Dante was not normal. Going from a frail, shy person to an amical, sadistic one to another personality that she couldn't define.

The person in front of her had saved her, even if she tried to save him first; he could have just lied and sacrificed her.

Now she saw another side of him; he didn't look like he needed to hide anything from her. This was a strange act of unconditional trust toward her.

Maybe he was affected by something and couldn't make any clear decisions.

In her thoughts, she saw another figure march out from the woods; he was tall and was clad in the heavy, lustrous armor of the academy. She was on guard; this knight had nothing to do in the forest.

Dante turned his head, his red eyes coming back to their dark gray color.

"How ingenious of two students to be able to capture these rascals!" The knight, a few meters away, spoke with a very old voice.

"Mister, who are you?"

"I am one of the officers of the academy, and as you've been going out lately, the vice principal told me to clean the forest of any bad weeds." When he said that, his gaze landed on the regrouped, crippled bandits.

"It seems that asking for help was unnecessary. What will you do with these bandits?"

"Don't kill them? They said that they would sell us to some pervy noble."

"If that's so, then I'm going to watch." He said it behind his visor.

"Mister, aren't you being too rude?" Dante asked in an annoyed voice.

The knight didn't say anything and just watched. He looked very imposing and powerful and emitted an atmosphere of a battle-hardened warrior.

Sylph, on the other hand, just walked toward the still-crying bandits and, one by one, slit their throats open.

They all somehow struggled but couldn't do anything. The knight was, however, intrigued by the last one, who just stood there, silently accepting the blade and tearing his throat open.

When she was done, she looked toward him and asked in a monotonous voice, as if this were her everyday life. "Are you happy now?"

The knight just stood there and slightly chuckled before walking out of the forest, his armor not making the slightest sound.

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