The Demon That Laid Dormant

Hidden Piece (1)

Well, that plan could wait for a while. 

<You know, I can’t even peek at your brain anymore, so why not just tell me about the plan?>

‘You will know when the time comes.’

Yeah, he would know when the time comes, which would take a while. I had no plans of rushing even if I wanted to climb the tower right now. That would only lead to my downfall. For now, what I had to do was…

“Classes…”

Why did I feel like I had to have a high school life? Maybe no one can answer that. But now that the deed was done, I had no way of reverting back. I had to play along with the ‘student’ identity so as to not draw any unnecessary attention.

“Let’s just get over with it…”

I began to pace towards my classroom. My footsteps were buried in the gossip and shouts of the excited students gathered here. 

“Hey, what are you going to do after classes, Erza~?”

“Huh? Oh, I am going to hit the cafe, or maybe the training arena.”

“Wow~ so cool~”

The pair of the annoying girl and the stoic girl made me feel a little iffy. I didn’t know if this was intuition or not, but I felt like I should stay away from them, especially the one with the indifferent eyes… Erza.

But oh well, not like she could do anything to me. If she came to bother my plans, I could simply chop her head off and feed her to the Great Serpents on the fifth floor (from The Book).

I kept on walking towards Mercy.

***

“Fuu…”

Mercy. I didn’t know who chose this name but he sure had a very bad sense of naming. And I knew it, this place would show anything but mercy to me.

<Like you are one to talk.>

‘Shut up.’

Creak…

I turned the doorknob and the clicking sound of the door entered my ears softly.

‘Don’t forget. Be cold and indifferent.’

The best method to prevent anyone from approaching me was to dismiss them even before they had a chance to talk to me. 

Maybe I was about to miss one of the most important things of high school life, but I didn’t care. I liked it this way.

I opened the door and marched forward. In an instant, all 50 pairs of eyes fell on me. 

To be precise, it was my hair that caught their attention. Even though my appearance was never actually revealed to the world, the whole tower knew about the perpetrator of the School Massacre. Ominous white hair that strikes fear, red eyes that crave for bloodshed, a devilish smile taking pleasure from death and excruciating screams, and finally, the name, Ken Raizer—that’s what the world knew about me. But now, other than the hair, there were no other features that indicated that I was the devilish demon that slaughtered over 120 lives. 

“Hey, that guy…”

Ah, I had almost forgotten this feeling of alienation. Humans are fundamentally evil and would do anything to satiate their selfish needs, even if it is as trivial as having fun. 

And I was an easy target to have fun with my wavy white hair. 

I walked ahead with my eyes staying indifferent to their piercing gazes. For the record, when I use Arte, my eyes turn bloody-red and at other times, it’s black. That’s why I was able to stay clear till now. 

I looked over the class and found a lonely seat in one corner of the class. And just as I expected, as soon as I started to make my way towards that seat, some feet ruffled and quickly got off the seat around my destination. They were practically declaring I was going to be bullied as hell.

‘Heh… kids.’

<You are a kid too.>

‘Maybe.’

<What ‘maybe’? You ARE one.>

‘Shut up, you are annoying.’

Anyway, a free seat was waiting for me now.

“Oh…?” 

Well, high schools were convenient at least. In middle school, I had to carry a burden full of notebooks on my back, but now, the things I needed were all in this… this small box.

Dimensional Storage, a very common artefact the tower gifted us humans, a demon in my case. The name’s pretty self-explanatory, it acts as storage by storing things in another dimension, if I may. 

“Hmm…”

For now, I took a seat and began to ponder. What were my plans? Well, that was obvious. There was a dungeon right below this school and there was a hidden piece too, a hidden piece that would raise my stats, five-folds, no, ten-folds. 

“Keke…”

I hadn’t even realized and I was grinning. 

Slam—

The door was kicked open with a roaring noise. My eyes turned to the person that kicked the door with such passion. If possible, I wanted to kill him for interrupting my train of thoughts. But, well, almost every teacher here could either burn me to ashes or freeze me to death with a single flick of their finger.

“Woah~ this class sure is packed with a lot of strong ones.”

That was true. Almost 90% of this class were special and talented. But of course, they were weaker than me. There were even wide-known prodigies among the people here.

“Huhu… this will be fun. Anyway! My name is Jenice Ryne! And I am going to be in charge of Mercy and supervise you chicks grow this year.”

A towering stature, muscles bulging out like inflated balloons, and eyes filled with burning passion and ambition. Also, a stupid grin on her face. 

…this woman will surely be a bothersome person.

“Haa…”

I sighed quietly but apparently, the sigh didn’t escape her eyes as she was staring at me with an amused expression. What was there to be amused?

I returned her stare with coldness.

“Haha, I am getting the cold shoulder already?”

The students looked at each other and turned around to the teacher, clearly confused by her sudden statement. But Jenice simply shrugged, laughing.

“Let’s start the class then!”

I was already regretting coming here…

***

…the classes ended and I was completely exhausted. I’d rather train for hours.

I wanted to fall on the bed and let dreams take control of my brain but my feet were off to somewhere else, a place no one knew about.

When the Tower first appeared two years before my birth, people who entered the Tower from Earth searched the First Floor relentlessly and even found some things they couldn’t understand. They tried to comprehend and find something new but all in vain. They stopped their search and concluded that the First Floor was a place to stay, and proceeded to make their habitat.

It was understandable. 

There were no monsters whatsoever, the place was not hostile and provided a perfect place to build homes, and plenty of strange animals non-existent on Earth as food. 

But they made a mistake…

“And this was their mistake.”

An ordinary boulder with slightly strange patterns. The full moon was gently embracing the boulder and me at the same time vividly and it revealed the ‘switch’.

I took out a wooden block. It was shaped as if to cover everything but a precisely carved design. I put everything I had to make it and if it didn’t work, I’d be really pissed.

“Fuu…”

After taking a deep breath, I hovered the wood over the switch. I didn’t need anything else for this work. The wood was the keyhole, and the key was…

“The moonlight.”

The moonlight seeped into the carving and a click resounded.

“It worked…”

And now, it was time to move.

***