“What the hell is going on here, Lad?” I feel relieved when I hear Sarfak’s voice, then give him a brief explanation as fast as possible. “You really cannot help but keep getting into trouble aren’t you?” He muttered sarcastically. I want to protest because it is really not my fault that trouble keeps coming to me, but decided to shut my mouth and wait for him “I don’t really know anything about healing, but I know someone that mastered dryad healing magic in my village. She will know what to do about them.” “How far is your village from here?” I asked seriously. He glanced at the little girl who is looking at us nervously and the unconscious boy and replied, “If we move fast like when we first met and didn’t meet any trouble, one hour is enough to get there.” I know from his subtle glance what he really wants to say. If we move like when we chase down by the gorilla for the first time, we will arrive at Sarfak's village in one hour. But we can’t do that with the girl with us. “I
“So, if you can do that earth trick before? Why did you need my help? I can think of several ways of how to beat that gorilla with your trick.” I asked Sarfak who is still lying on the ground. He is still breathing furiously, and there are traces of blood on the corner of his mouth. “My trick -as you can say- is the application of magus manipulation from our tribe, and it is not something that I can do it freely for now. I am still an apprentice after all. Once I am accepted to be a dwarf warrior and get access to our library, I can learn a lot of things for the magus user test to get a master to teach me.” He said with passionate eyes. “What is the difference between apprentice and master?” He shakes his head at my question. “It is almost like comparing heaven to earth. Apprentices are people who learned the basics of magus manipulation in our academy, and once they graduated, they will have to pass this rite of passage to become the warrior. This is the stage between apprentice an
“So, Sarfak, what can you tell me about the dwarf tribe?” I asked, trying to make conversation as we walked around trying to trace the gorilla’s whereabouts. “Well, you are a stranger, so I cannot give you any detailed information. I will give you the general one though. We are a warrior tribe that is tasked by God to protect nature. From what, at first we didn’t know. But everything changed when we met humans for the first time, more than 100 years ago. His name is Magus, I think.” I was dumbfounded at this information. “Wait, is this Magus the first one who managed to manipulate the energy inside our body?” He snorted. “Of course, he would say that to his fellow human. The truth is, the dwarf tribe and the other six tribes like elven have manipulated magus since the beginning of our world. That is why we are the ones that God gives the task to protect nature.” “Then, why did the energy name as his name?” He shakes his head at the bewildered look on my face. “Lad, it is not the
“Hhhhh…… Hhhhhh…….. Hhhhhhh………..” My breath is starting to get heavy. My clothes are wet already, full of sweat. I still don’t know how, but the last ten minutes suddenly turned out to be a disaster. The gorilla is still chasing me with an abnormal speed and agility, while the chimera is behind the gorilla, trying to catch up with us, but having a problem with the forest terrain. To make it worse, here is a strange guy that blew up my plan to avoid any confrontation with Gorilla, keep following me while keep doing something idiot that makes the two beasts chase us. Honestly, I have managed to distract the beasts twice with my gun, shooting random beasts while running in the opposite direction. But this idiot keeps shooting his arrow at the beasts to make it turn its direction back to us. When I glared at him, he just grinned sheepishly, as if he did nothing wrong. ‘Urgh.. When this is over, I will beat this idiot to death..’ I vowed inwardly while increasing my pace to leave the go
“So, do you have a lead to Amasia?” Sara didn’t give me an immediate answer. Instead, she just stared at me with calculating eyes, trying to figure out if I can really back my threat up or not. ‘She didn’t believe my threat but decided to take it slow and carefully. Good. At least she will not do anything reckless that can be dangerous.’ I nodded, pleased with her reaction. After our little ‘throwing threat’ session, Sara is looking at me and the twin’s room cautiously. She may not believe my threat, considering she didn’t tell me anything important about mage, so she probably thinks I am still in the dark. But by the way, I throw my threat full of confidence and calmness, it gives her a little doubt about it. This is the real purpose of my threat, to make her think about it carefully, so it will give the twins time to learn anything from Blessing of Magus and confirm what she has already explained. I still don’t want to think about what I would do if she lied to me. I know it is
“Okay, let me get this straight. So both of you are able to read the book that even Andra’s program could not decipher, and somehow it contains information about Andra’s condition. Is that right?” The twins nodded while looking at me cautiously, as if afraid that I will not believe them. I just sighed, trying to keep my sanity in this complicated situation. “So, what can you tell me?” They looked surprised, and I cannot help but feel a bit hurt at their distrust of me. “Look, I can guess what both of you probably think right now. You are wondering, why do I believe your word that seems irrational, right?” They nodded. “To be honest, I am tired of all of this superpower stuff that Sara explained, and I don’t know what to believe. But I know for a fact that I can always rely on both of you and Andra, so you can tell me whatever ridiculous thing you read, and I will still believe in you. After all, family always sticks together, right?” They lowered their head, ashamed of their though
Okay, it is official now. This day is the worst day ever. From the destruction of our home to Mama’s death, I thought this day could not be any worse. But I am definitely wrong. Here, in a cave, the source of our problem talked about Andra’s death casually, like it is something that happened daily. I really want to slap her face right now. However, much to my disappointment, I took a deep breath and tried to control my emotion. It will be no good to lose my calm right now, especially to the only source of our information. After I get a bit calmer, I look at him coldly and said, “Explain, now.” She gulped a little bit. “As I have already told you before, I have a suspicion that Andra is a mage. Do you remember about it?” I nodded. “Well, the book that he held confirms my suspicion. That is Blessing of Magus right?” I keep silent, not confirming or denying her accusation. “You don’t need to tell me anything, because I know what the book is. It also answered why Andra could use magu
-- Devin PoV -- On the battlefield, a surprise attack is a common thing. There are a lot of cases when my enemies send a suicide attack at night. As a soldier, I trained myself to react with my instinct first and think later when the surprise attack happened, because you will need every little time you have to save yourself. I honed my instinct for almost five years to face unexpected situations like a surprise attack. So when a scream is coming from the other room, the room where we place the black robe man, I instinctively duck for a cover. I didn’t have to worry for Andra and Sara, because Andra is also trained in this kind of situation and he is closer to Sara, so he will definitely protect her. And a few seconds after the scream, our home exploded. A tremendous boom shook the building, shattered the wall, leveling our home to the ground just in a blink. ‘Cosma! Nina! Mama!’ My mind is screaming, begging for me to move quickly to find them. After looking around and seeing Andr
-- Sara PoV -- ‘Is she awake?’ I can hear a small whisper coming from a little girl from afar. ‘Not yet. I think it will be soon.’ Another girl, this one comes from my side, returned the question. After hearing that conversation, I started gaining consciousness. I want to groan. However, I don’t have any energy to do that. I don’t know how long I have been asleep, but by how weak my body it is right now, I can estimate the last time I eat properly was almost three days ago. Then, a memory of three days ago struck my brain like a lightning. I can remember all of the torture that I experienced for almost three days in a row. And then, a name suddenly came through my brain. ‘Aliyya!’ While I cannot remember clearly what is exactly happened three days ago, I can still remember that my sister was also kidnapped with me. Just the thought of what would the kidnappers do to my little sister in the hand of the kidnappers makes my body sweat heavily and my heart beat faster. I tried to ca