No Hiding Place

Fiona could see from Mark's eyes that he was not convinced. She thought that she would be able to convince him about going to the island and also make him interested in their guild at the same time, but it turns out that things cannot be that simple! Mark was going to need a lot more proof for him to see that he should go to that island alone!

"Very well then. You do not seem convinced, so let us take an excursion! I'm sure you'll feel a lot more willing to listen to what we have to say when you see what we have seen."

Fiona's blessing flowed out from her once again and spread in all directions before grabbing hold of a man from over a kilometer away! Her blessing was strong enough that even from his distance, the man could understand what she wanted and obeyed her!

Ratatatatata!!!

The man was the driver of the helicopter and he was immediately forced to bring the helicopter towards them by Fiona's power! This was how easy it was for Fiona to get anything that she wanted! She didn't even have to say a single word! Just spreading her blessing was enough for her to get anything that she wanted from anyone around her! In the eyes of humans, she was literally Aphrodite herself!

Mark was skeptical about going with the superhumans now. He knew that there was no need for him to wait for their help since he was going to get a helicopter from Pat later today, but Mark also had no idea what he was going to be meeting on that island! Pat already said it before that there were many heat signatures on that island and that meant that there were many monsters there! It would be better to learn more about he monsters there and what kind of ranking those monsters had before going to save Arit. Mark was desperate to try and get Arit out of there, but he wasn't stupid enough to believe that he could fight through a nest of Calamity Class monsters!

The helicopter landed a few meters away from them and Tilda bid them farewell as she had to go and look after Lightning Rider and make sure that the treatment was going well! She thanked Fiona and Tylor fo coming to help out in the battle and Fiona only scoffed and told her that the Phoenix Guild owed the Artemis Guild a lot for the help that they gave them here and she would be calling in the favor at a later date!

Tilda understood how the world of superhuman politics worked and she just thanked Fiona once more before she left. Once Tilda was gone, they all walked towards the helicopter and entered before it took off towards the National Superhuman Agency.

...

Arit was cold! She huddled in on herself and shivered as she felt an intense cold dig deep into her bones and make her entire body hurt! Her wet uniform and socks only added to the cold and it made her head feel like it was filled with water! There was no solace from the cold in this place and the only thing that she could do was to hug herself tightly and hope that she would not be noticed by the many monsters that were walking around here!

Arit had never seen something like this in her life! She was in an underground cavern that had stalagmites growing from the ceiling and glowing with a light green hue to provide light for the environment and that allowed her to get a glimpse of the things that surrounded her! There were monsters everywhere!

Ant-headed monsters, fish-headed monsters, and even some monkey-type Anima moved across the cavern floor, carrying scraps of food. Sometimes they would take animal flesh and at other times they would take fish and even octopus deeper into the cavern. There was no stopping and they just continued to do this while ignoring Arit as she froze to death on the floor!

Arit had never read about something like this. She was someone that always wanted to know new things so she loved to read and Arit had never heard of monsters working together like this! Why were they working together? According to what Arit studied, the Anima were mindless creatures that only followed their natural instinct to attack humans once they saw them! But if that is the case, then Arit knew that she should be dead and the monsters here should not be working together!

Were the humans wrong? Did they just not understand enough about the Anima and they went ahead and thought that Anima were all mindless creatures that had no purpose? Or maybe this was something new that humans have just never seen before. Maybe the Anima were evolving.

All these thoughts went through Arit's mind and she only hugged herself tighter as the intensity of the situation made her shiver once more!

'Mark, please. Save me.'

Arit could only think like this as she felt her body slowly going still. She had been hiding in the staff room, watching the television and trying to see if GHOST would win against the ant-headed anima that attacked the city, but she was stunned when she saw the face of GHOST! She had been looking for Mark all this time, but she had no idea that Mark was actually outside there fighting against that monster! She felt so stupid at that moment when all the various signs finally came into her mind and clicked into place!

All the times that Mark would disappear from class and from the house! And all the time that he would come back with an injury that was too serious to be left untreated and she would have to help him so that it doesn't get infected! Arit thought that Mark was just a Hooligan who liked to fight on the street and someone who likes to play hooky! She had no idea that he was actually a superhuman!

She should have known! All the signs were right in front of her and she just kept on denying it because she trusted Mark more than anyone in her life! She was so stupid! She should have known!

Arit kept on thinking in this manner while she was hiding in the staff room, but she didn't have any time to react as she suddenly heard a massive force crash into the window of the staff room and into the room! Arit turned around in shock and she saw that it was a fish-headed anima that was looking around her room and sniffing the air. She immediately hid under the table and held her mouth with both hands! What was an Anima doing here? I thought that the superhumans were taking care of them!