Disturbing
Disturbing
"Um, Aurora?"
The platinum blonde had already noticed when Evelyn entered the room, and got up from the floor as she waved Cecilia away. "Hello, Evelyn."
Of course, who was Cecilia? She was the girl who had spent the past two years annoying Aurora almost every day. When had she ever listened to this woman?
"Our game isn't over yet!"
The platinum blonde gave her an impatient look. "I only agreed to play kingdoms with you because Evelyn hadn't arrived yet?"
"So? You can't leave a game in the middle. Is it because you're losing?!"
"I… I didn't know the rules at all. It doesn't matter even if lost?"
"Hmph. Just admit your defeat then."
Cecilia huffed as she walked away smugly.
Evelyn cleared her throat, thinking that Aurora's bullied look was also quite cute. "It's alright. She's a bit unreasonable, don't think about it too much."
"Mhm."
The pink haired girl tilted her head curiously as she led her teacher into her room. "What were you here for, by the way?"
Aurora nodded. "I wanted to discuss your training regiment before. You said you were tired and left, so I thought you would be resting, and should have been done by now. But you weren't here?"
"AH."
Evelyn couldn't help but be a little embarrassed.
She hadn't expected Aurora to chase her all the way here, after all, so she never thought about it too much while making an excuse. At that time, all she wanted was to get back so she could finish her 'power ups'.
And then, once she was done, she whimsically decided to attend the rest of the classes.
Evelyn sighed. 'I should have just stayed here, hah…'
But now that she had been caught, she could only make an excuse. "Un, I felt alright later so went to attend some classes. Well, never mind that, please tell me what you had in mind?"
Aurora nodded as she followed Evelyn to take a seat on the bed. "Un, so I was thinking, you don't really need to stay at the academy to follow the classes like regular students. Your growth rate will be better if you just stay with me, and we can move your training to the wonderland of doom, is that alright?"
Evelyn had been worrying about how to convince Aurora to let her leave for the forest herself, and Aurora's proposal right now was just like music to her ears. "Perfect! It's perfect! Ahem, I mean, of course I agree with your arrangements."
The platinum blonde didn't mind her enthusiasm, and seemed a little happy that her training plan was so well received.
Of course, Evelyn had to spend some time convincing her to bring along her 'pets'.
"They might be a 'part of your strength' according to the academy, but I don't think that way at all. Only your own strength matters. A-And I'm not good at paying attention to multiple things. I would rather focus on one."
Evelyn could only plead. "Don't worry, Aurora. I'll take them on my responsibility. I promise it won't be an issue!"
In the end, her teacher could only reluctantly agree.
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Knowing that Vivian was sure to throw a tantrum if she knew that Evelyn was taking Ruru and Bree along while leaving the two sisters at the apartment, Evelyn decided to take the easy way out. Instead of explaining everything in person, she just left them a note and escaped early in the morning along with her two still-groggy little 'pets'.
Aurora of course had no issues with her absurd timing. After all, sleep was more of a luxury than a requirement for them.
They didn't take any teleportation portals, and Aurora directly wrapped Evelyn up in a water bubble as they shot straight through the academy grounds and towards the valley that led to the Wonderland of Doom.
Evelyn felt that the two guardians at the valley had stirred briefly as Aurora passed them by, but they seemed to settle down just as quick.
She didn't know the exact spot for their training, but Aurora probably had some destination in mind.
Minutes into their 'trip', however, the platinum blonde frowned, looking disturbed.
"What's wrong?"
Aurora shook her head. "Something's not right. The wonderland… seems different from usual."
However, after looking around for a while, Aurora still couldn't find anything unusual, and decided to settle the matter with her student first before looking into things more thoroughly.
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Only after the platinum blonde was gone for almost ten minutes did a group of people dare to come out from under an enchantment.
The leader, a tall, lanky man with brown hair, breathed a sigh of relief. "Thankfully, we had this artifact for concealment. If it had been any other group, they might not have been so lucky."
"L-Leader, that was Aurora, right?"
The man nodded. "No mistaking it. I don't know why she's here, but this might definitely throw a wrench into our plans. We have to find the prince fast and get back with that thing before anything goes wrong!"
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"I have scoured the nearby area to make sure there aren't any strong monsters. Un, but if you feel something wrong, you can break this bead. It will protect you until I arrive, alright?"
Aurora didn't stay with her for long after dropping her off near a lake, and Evelyn shrugged as she started exploring on her own.
Although she was also interested in whatever 'strangeness' Aurora had noticed that caused her to be anxious, she knew that she may not be strong enough to really get involved with something like that. It was better to focus on her own matters first.
Now that she was finally in the wonderland of doom, she could start testing out just how effective the combination of Bree's purification and her Calamity really was.
And the perfect test subject presented itself just a hundred meters away. A blue furred deer like creature with a single crystalline horn that glowed dimly.
Evelyn sneakily tried to get closer to probe it using her skill, however, the creature sensed her existence immediately.
Of course, as soon as it started rushing in her direction, Evelyn wasted no time in getting her 'Compact Iron Bow' out of the spatial belt before shooting off an arrow towards the beast.
It agilely managed to dodge the first shot, but the second one managed to barely graze it.
The beast didn't seem to care about it much, but moments later, it skidded to a halt as Evelyn casually walked to its corpse.
'Soul Searing Arrow' really was quite a bit better than she thought.
It was a skill she had created herself, imbuing some of her soul power inside each of her shots, it was her way of using the Searing Soul cultivation method to enhance her own archery.
Unfortunately, her 'prize' this time proved to be quite lackluster.
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[Blue Horned Deer Corpse]
— A deer's corpse that is blue and has a shiny horn.
— The horn's powder can be used to make an aphrodisiac that is effective on those below 20 spirit power.
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"That's it? Why was it so confident then?!"
Of course, Evelyn knew that not all beasts in the forest had to be high level, but going by how easily it had spotted her and how dauntlessly it charged to attack, she had thought it would be at least level thirty or above, meaning a minimum of grade 3 beast!
As for this thing… she could kill it with her pinky finger!
Of course, useless as it was, she still shoved its corpse into her inventory. She had plenty of space, after all.
Thankfully, it only took her a few more minutes to find her next target, and this time it was a large canine that couldn't possibly be another dud, and her probe skill confirmed her thoughts.
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[Gravuil Wolf: Level 28]
Physique: Beast
—Affection: 0%
—Physique: 112
—Spirit Power: 74
—Soul Value: 54
—Vitality: 310
—Skills: ???
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"Un, this thing should rely mostly on physical attacks, I guess?"
Evelyn didn't think there was a need to be too cautious against something that was far below her own level. If she was truly on her own, she could have even tried testing out her physical capabilities against the beast.
Of course, since she was with Bree, she had to be mindful not to put her in unnecessary danger.
The beast this time didn't notice her at all, and by the time it realized something was wrong, Evelyn's arrow was already on its way to his head.
A single swipe of its mighty claws broke the flimsy little iron thing into pieces, but just as it was about to charge in the attacker's direction, it felt a wave of nausea flood its body.
While the beast was still in shock, Evelyn fired another arrow, this time infusing it with not just soul power, but spirit power as well.
This time, the arrow cleanly made its way all the way through the beast's torso and flew out of the other side, causing it to shudder and fall to the ground as it let out one last dying growl before its death, glaring in Evelyn's direction.
The pink-haired girl sighed as she made her way to the second kill of the day.
"Even with spirit power, the second arrow shattered anyway huh… I guess these are just too weak at this level. Maybe without soul power they would be completely useless against the stronger beasts…"
Just as she had put away the beast's corpse, she heard someone walking in her direction and hurriedly concealed herself along with Bree and Ruru.
"Are you sure you heard something from here, Craig? I'd be pretty pissed if we got into another fight with a beast for no reason."
She guessed that the man was probably talking to the very same Craig who had been missing in this wonderland of doom for a while now. Maybe the boy had found some companions, and Evelyn was very glad that she hid herself in time, because Craig was definitely not someone she would be happy to meet in the middle of this forest.
She even thought she recognized the voice of the man who had spoken, and when he finally walked near her location, she finally realized who it was.
"It's that bastard Professor Dane!"
Of course it had to be him! She was now extremely, extremely glad that she had hidden herself in time.
Evelyn didn't know how strong Craig was, but she thought she should be able to at least escape alive from him after all her power ups, but against this Professor Dane, she would be a sitting duck!
As for the bead that Aurora had left behind, Evelyn was quite familiar with how her concealment method worked, and knew that no matter how amazing the bead was, it would at most come into effect after ending the concealment, and at worst completely go to waste.
And if she took the chance to get out of concealment to activate it? Evelyn didn't want to take such a chance at all.
After all, Professor Dane was a senior professor at the academy, and his strength was definitely exceptional. Even if Aurora's bead could protect her against the beasts in this forest until she arrived, there was no guarantee that it would be able to do the same against this guy.
So Evelyn had no choice but to hide and wait for them to go away.
The barrier isolated everything except for her sight, and Evelyn couldn't hear them anymore after that first sentence. However, she could still make out most of what they were saying through their lip movements.
"I'm sure I heard the sound of an arrow! There's a good chance it is one of my kingdom's cavalry units sent for me. If we can reunite with them, getting out of this place would be a piece of cake!"
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DustyDream:
I messed up today's upload! Ahhhh! >_<
Just when I thought it can't get worse, I couldn't even fix it because the modified words cannot be less than before, and the botched chapter was a lot longer than it should have been… on the plus side, it's a super long chapter?
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