Chapter 17
Kyle was staring blankly at the cut left in Yukina’s arm by the dagger thrown at her. The culprit was snickering a small laugh. The dark elf was pretty sure that she hit the weak spot of their group. She could tell at a glance that the girl was the weakest of the group and that the boy greatly cared about her. Following the logic dictated by a fair amount of battles, she threw one of her numerous daggers.
Her daggers were special. They were enchanted in order to cut down any magical manifestation. Illusions, fireballs, or even beings made out of mana, everything could be sliced down by her dear daggers.
It was then that the auctioneer felt something was wrong. Her eyes, trained to see magical formations as well as the tiniest details of a living being perceived something incredible. A huge amount of mana was pouring continuously from the boy toward the ethereal girl. And her wound was healing at an incredible speed.
And in the meantime, she felt a… presence that made her shiver in fright. While looking for the emitter of such anger, her gaze fell on the boy. The next instant, his mask appeared in front of her face, barely a couple of centimeters away of her nose, and she felt something. Or more like the absence of something. When she detached her eyes from the creepy mask and looked to the lower half of her body, she found a shard of black and white mana impaled in her belly. The two colors seemed to both intertwine and repulse each other, irresistibly hypnotizing the now blurred gaze of the dark elf.
She only uttered one word while coughing blood. “...Monster.”
A voice filled with various negatives feelings answered the now dead body. “Seems like it.”
Kyle took a while to recover his cool-headedness before looking around the room. “Yukina, did we take what Svanta-san asked us?”
“Yes, we have the documents.”
Kyle bent and took one of the dark elf’s daggers on the floor. “Anything wrong with your “body”?”
“All fine. The dagger had a corrosive effect but I got rid of it with your mana.”
Kyle and Yukina stared silently at the dead body for a little while. “If she hasn’t trailed us, she wouldn’t have had to die. I wonder what kind of bond she had with the High-elves...”
“We will learn it eventually.”
Kyle nodded. He took a deep breath and started accumulating around himself. “Let’s finish all this mess. I don’t want to rot here.”
**
After the last prize was sold, the auctioneer left hurriedly. The dark elf’s behaving surprised a certain lady. Her hand was her chin through her mask. The moon and sun represented on it giving a thoughtful complexion.
It was very unusual for the auctions to end this quickly after the bids. Usually, there was some time that the participants were using to have a drink with the others, comparing their finds of the day.
While realizing that the silent man who spent -albeit unwillingly- most of the auction with her had disappeared, she smelled something was wrong. A sudden burst of bloodlust filled the room and everyone shivered. After a moment, the things looked like they were settling down.
When the participants of the auction started to relax, stroking their mustaches or patting their hairstyle, someone screamed. “My slave!”
The woman with the mask of moon and sun looked around frantically. Each and every slave present and sold during the auction was now floating in the air inside bubbles of red, blood-like, mana. Her bad premonition intensified when she screamed. “GET DOWN!”
The next moment, the whole floor of the ball room burst. Hundreds of shards of mana of the same color as the previous bubbles rushed out, tearing everything on their bloody paths.
The floor tiles were no more than thin dust. The chandeliers were shattered in myriads of small glowing sparks. Blood spilled everywhere, nobody was spared. The moon and sun-masked woman miraculously escaped, dodging by a hair breath a dozen of shards thanks to her thorough training. The slaves were totally fine in their bubbles. They were totally speechless. Only a small child was crying in one of the bubbles, the sound of his sobbing partially muted by the thick mana bubble surrounding. Most of them had eyes shining with both fear and hopes.
Then, entering by the “staff only” door, she saw the man from earlier. His grinning mask was bloodied on his left half. She was shocked. ‘So the one that killed everyone was him.’
She asked, more to herself than to the young man facing her a dozen of meters away. “Why?”
Surprisingly he answered. “Had business to do… And had to repay them for something.”
She fell on her knees. Kyle walked past her, not sparing her a single glance. Thanks to a little draught that made his mantle flutter, she saw a lot of scars on his face from the corner of her eyes.
He then took a small momentum by taking a few steps before jumping in the air, blending in the surrounding darkness. The mana bubbles slowly dissipated themselves, liberating the now free slaves from their hold. One particular little girl, a dark elf around ten years old, followed with her gaze the path Kyle took. A hint of adulation could be seen in her childish eyes.
**
When the otherworlders arrived at the now in ruins brothel, they widened their eyes while facing the width and precision of the damages. The only facility that was ravaged was the black market’s building. Everything around it was unscathed and only some windows were broken by some debris of the former auction house. The former slaves were laying on the ground, perfectly unscathed and were looking at them with a mix of fear and expectations.
But what astonished them the most was the masked woman that was standing on her knees. Her mask, a mix of a smiling sun and a crying moon gave a cryptic feeling. Small tears were reflected on the moonlight and the flames that were raging in the rubbles of the brothel.
Lion was perplexed. “She is one of the participants right?” Everyone nodded. “So why is she crying, why doesn’t she fly away and why Kyle spared her but not the others?”
Gwyneth spoke. “We will reserve these matters for later. For now we need to help the slaves. Go look after them, I will see to this young lady.”
Followed by the others, Lion made his way toward the small group of slaves. They were around twenty. Farah’s gaze was attracted by a particular one. She was a young dark elf, her white hair were dyed red by the surrounding flames and her eyes were shining with delight. “How are you, little one?”
The elf’s eyes locked on Farah’s. “I saw a dark hero today.”
Thanks for the meal