A hidden base in the mountains
Hmm...
This security is kinda lax for the stuff they're doing.
I'm currently sitting in the back of what I think is a caravan. My arms and legs are chained and I have a black bag over my face. The black bag seems to be made out of leather mixed with some ruliem, a special powder made to put people to sleep. The leather also seems to have some sort of property to make it hard to see through using magic.
Inside the back of the caravan are me and seven other people. Out of everyone though, it seems like I'm the only one that is awake. I can even hear some snoring coming from the man closest to the front seat. I assume all of them are students of the academy given the amount of mana contained within them.
From the direction we are heading to it seems like it's the Northern mountains. We've been moving for quite some time already, so we should be arriving soon. I guess I'll get to meet the mastermind behind the three boys and those incidents that have been happening in the academy as of late.
The incidents I'm referring to are disappearances of students at the Fermone academy. For the past year or so academy students have been disappearing for two or three days, only to appear right after that with no memory of what had happened. Well most of them at least, some of them never returned.
A couple of professors tried to deduce what was going on, but all of them came to a conclusion that it had nothing related to magic and all of them were just "stressed". After all, they were enrolled in the greatest academy in the nation and with that comes a lot of pressure.
But still, that's a load of bullshit.
Since everyone that had disappeared weren't nobles or students of the top classes, nobody really paid a mind to it and the school just shrugged it off.
Funnily enough, these incidents only started happening when Leroy and company entered the academy. I kinda suspected they were the ones behind the kidnapping since they were giving out such dark aura, but I chose to ignore it because it wasn't really in my good faith to go out of my way to help strangers for no reason.
But since they decided to touch me, that's another story.
I can't wait to meet the guy behind this. It seems he's doing something very interesting to the reappearing students.
From what I found out after examining them, each of the students that reappeared, appear to have some sort of creature growing within their bodies. It sorta looks like a worm, and it feeds off mana, growing very quietly inside the bearer. Because of this, the reappearing students all fell terribly sick afterwards and some are still bedridden. The mana extracted from them seems to be flowing to somewhere else. The worms also seem to be quite undetectable as well, because besides me, I don't think anyone else in the academy has noticed it.
This has led me to believe that the mastermind is at least first rate.
The caravan suddenly made an abrupt stop. I guess we're here.
I immediately use a detection spell to sense the whole area and couldn't help but feel amazed.
Woah.
Whoever it was that did this really put a lot of effort into establishing this base. On the outside it seems like a small little hideout, but on the inside there's a three story base spiraling downwards into the mountain.
It looks like they've been here for quite some time.
We should build something like this in the demon realm as well.
Maybe I should talk to Elaine about it.
Five, six, seven.
There's seven life forces inside this facility at the moment. Out of all of them only one doesn't have dark energy surrounding them.
Hmm? Demonic energy?
Did a demon get captured as well? No that can't be, it's too weak and faint to even be noticed.
Unless it's someone who has just learnt demonic arts a day ago, none of the demons' energy should be this faint.
The only other reason I can think off is...
Before I could finish thinking, I felt a sense of mana disruption as the caravan started moving once more.
It seems like a large scale illusion array was placed on this mountain to cover up the existence of the base. Much like the one we have back at the demon realm.
But compared to that, I can't really say this is an illusion array, more like a huge joke.
The next few moments were spent heading downwards. Now that I look at it, some of the life forces don't seem to be human, they are more like hybrids between humans and monsters, is it by any chance...
"You're finally here."
A voice could be heard coming from outside the caravan. It was coarse, deep and horrendously rough, it sounded like whoever it was drank pure acid on the daily.
"It's good to see you again master."
That was Leroy and he seems to be talking to this so called "master". Is he the mastermind?
"What are you doing? Quickly throw them into the creation room."
"Yes sir."
The conversation ended quickly and the back of the caravan was opened.
We were greeted by three other people that seemed to be working in this base. Although I say working, it seemed like they were forced because of I can sense the worm inside their bodies. They should be the students that disappeared from the academy. It seems as though they wanted to keep some workers around but didn't want too much unwanted attention so they just took a few.
The next few minutes, the goons brought us to a huge room with a row of several steel tables. All of us who were kidnapped were then tied down to these steel tables by the use of metal chains. I took up the steel table towards the right of the room.
Currently I am still not able to see that clearly due to this bag over my face, but based on what I'm detecting, there's all sorts of magic tools in this room. Most of them seem to be related to black magic while the rest seemed like random possessions and weapons, they were probably the belongings of past victims.
However, I am currently most interested as to what is in the next room. From what I detected when we arrived here should be lifeforms there, albeit not human. There was also that one lifeform with a small amount of demonic energy.
Several more minutes pass and the main door to the huge room opens and I could feel the mana of Leroy and his master walk in the room. I guess the two goons and the workers were given other tasks to do.
"Master please reconsider!"
Leroy says in a pleading tone.
"No you useless child!"
Screams his mentor.
"I will not be lending you one of the chimeras! You don't even have the power to control them anyway."
"I can! I will prove it to you! With the power I received from the other vessels my power is more than enough to be able to control one of them."
Leroy continuously pleads like this for a whole minute.
Do I really have to listen to this student-teacher quarrel? If this goes on I might actually just break out and destroy everything. The only reason I'm not is because it wouldn't be entertaining.
But the stuff they are talking about...
A chimera?
Aren't those man-made creatures formed by fusing the bodies of many mana beasts? I haven't seen one myself because they weren't present in my previous lives, but based on the books I read in this world, chimeras are created by so called chimera makers. They have extremely high battle prowess depending on their fused body parts.
A few years back, one of them appeared in the Ashelock kingdom and wrecked havoc in a city close to the capital. It took more than 5 third rate mages to bring it down. And based what I Elaine reported, that chimera was said to be on the weaker end of the spectrum.
So are the creatures in the next room chimeras? I guess I'll find out soon.
"Enough!"
The side door finally opened, and from it exited a creature of towering height. I can't see that clearly right now, but from the structure alone, it is definitely not your regular mana beast.
From what I could make out using the mana flow, the one to exit seems to have the head of a poison gorilla, but the body of a huge queen terequila, which is a species of giant spiders. The creature also had other little traits from what I could tell, but one thing was certain, it was an abomination.
The creature lined up behind Leroy and his master as though it was a loyal servant.
"Now then, let's begin."
Said the master in a frigid stern voice.
"Leroy, go wake them up."