Chapter 12 : Confrontation(Part 1)

3rd Person POV - Night Time

In an unknown part of the Island, there could be seen a black-haired girl that reached her hip, while she had a communication device near her ears, but not in plane sight.

She was sitting on the branch of a tree while talking to someone through the communicator, she wasn't in a good mood from the facial expressions she was making. And this was all because of a certain pair of black and blone hair cadets.

"Boss, have you come into contact with him?" A woman's voice could be heard from near her ear, from the way she talked, it seemed that she was the black haired woman, now called boss's subordinate, but she was very carefree with her tone.

"Unfortunately, No. I haven't even been able to come near him directly. He's always with that blonde-haired girl." She said in disdain. It was obvious that she was angry.

"Oya? Are you jealous of the princess, boss?" The woman on the call asked in a teasing tone.

"Huh? Of course not! I'm just angry that I couldn't even judge him... even though he's a potential team member..." Boss answered.

"Oh I wouldn't be so sure about that if I were you boss. It's obvious that the princess would invite him to her guild in the future, and from their relationship, he would probably accept." She said.

"...that's a problem as well. But I don't think I'll have the chance to meet him right now. Besides, it's almost time for that monster to show up. I have been detecting mana signatures from the centre of the island for quite a while." She continued:

"It will probably be appearing any time now." She concluded.

"Well that's true, and we have to get the dust as well, its a rare drop from a monster that barely appears nowadays." The women ended her sentence.

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**Next Morning -- 4 AM**

3rd Person POV --Inside what looked like a tent --

A blonde-haired girl was sleeping on a bed. Next to the bed was a futton on which a black-haired boy was also sleeping in an akward position. His blacket was thrown into oblivion.

*Chirp*

*Chirp*

Sound of birds' chirping was heard, which seemed to break the sleep of the girl.

She slowly opened her eyes, her vision was still foggy. She changed positions a few times, and soon woke up.

"...he looks like a heavy sleeper, hehe~"

Yawning while streching her arms and rubbing her eyes, she got off the bed and went near him, putting the blacket on him. She than went outside of the tent quietly.

After that, she started exercising and stretching her body. She than went into the forest to find her morning prey.

Meanwhile, after some time, the black-haired boy seemed to wake up from the continuous sound of birds and wild animals.

He slowly got up, repeated the same process as the girl, and went outside of the tent, his eyes still heavy.

After washing his face near the river, he came back and started exercising. After a good five minutes, he stood up and went to the grill stand. After getting the ingredients out of the bag, he started cooking.

**After a few minutes**

*Hush*

*Hush*

The previous girl came out of the bushes. Her clothes were a bit dirty while her hair seemed to be messy. She had just came back from her daily training.

"Good morning, Hajin. Is breakfast ready?" She greeted in a soft and beautiful voice as she sat on a chair next to the table.

"Good morning, Rachel~" He greeted back in the same soft tone. And added: "And yes, just a few more minutes."

She noded as she started cleaning the blade of her rapier.

After a few more minutes, Hajin came with two plates in his hand. The dish today was Rice with roasted monster meat. After that, they started eating while talking about random topics.

*BOOOM!*

A loud boom could be heard, its direction being the centre of the island where the tower was.

Both of them quickly turned their head towards the sound as they got on their guard. While Hajin thought 'is it already time? Isn't it too early?'. But there was no use thinking about that now. As it had already occured, they had to deal with it.

"... Should we go?" Hajin asked while readying himself as he got off. Rachel did the same and replied,

"Yes."

Hajin held out his hand as he said, "Let's go than."

"...?" She just stared at the hand with black eyes, not understanding what he meant.

"We would get there quickly if we use my abilities." He answered as he understood her questioning look.

She just started more for a few seconds but than shook her head and said, "...Ok."

As she held his hand, Hajin focused on the direction of the sound with his eyes as he poured Stigma's Magic power into his hand as it soon covered both of their bodies.

Spending a large amount of SP, Hajin held his breath and thought of the location he wanted to go.

Although this was normally not possible, since he spent 10 times the normal SP required, he gained an extra ability for this power. The next instant, both of them were nowhere to be seen.

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*Center Of the Island*

"Ugh! Why can't I hit you?!" Nayun yelled as she tried to aim at a butterfly monster's wings. But the movable tree braches which the monster was controlling would always get in the way.

"I didn't want to you this, but now I don't care!" She yelled again as she drew the sword she was holding on her back. She still wasn't used to the feeling of piercing flesh, but beggers can't be choosers, and she understood that.

How did this even happen? Well, they heard a loud sound from the Island's centre when Nayun was hunting some rabbits in the forest. Suho along with Nayun and Jonghak had formed a team, although, Jonghak just wanted to be near Nayun.

When they heard the sound, they just rushed at the source and there they found this monster. The monster had two huge butterfly wings on its back which could shoot fire. Not just that, it could also control the trees as if they were puppets, making it a dangerous opponent, at least for cadets.

Suddenly, some branches got grabbed Nayun from the waist. She tried to get out, but in vain. The branches, or tentacles, were holding her body with great force.

"Nayun!" Shin Jonghak seeing this got angry and rushed towards the monster.

"Let go of her you damn monster!" He jumped in the air and vertically slashed the branches while enforcing the spear with Mana. The spear cut through the branches like butter while Nayun fell to the ground.

She adjusted her centre of gravity and landed on her feat. Jonghak, still in rage, kept slashing the monster's tentacles.

Suho on the other hand was chasing the monster itself, but as the monster was in the sky, it easily dodged the attacks while flying.

Suho enforced mana into his sword and slashed towards the monster, a blue coloured crescent moon slash flew towards the monster and hit on of its wings. Just when Suho thought he had succeeded, the monster's wings regenerated which left Suho in dispair as he looked towards the monster.

The group continued fighting while hoping for backup to arrive.

*A Few minutes later -- Some meters away from the fight*

Hajin and Rachel teleported at the scene a few meters away from the fight. Quickly, they started running towards the fight. Rachel took out her Rapier while Hajin took out his gun and reloaded it with Magic bullets.

When they arrived at the scene, they saw the monster fighting Suho, Nayun and Jonghak. Suho was rushing in on the monster to keep it distracted, Jonghak was occupied with the tentacles while Nayun was firing magic arrows as support, but none of them was able to hurt the monster as its skin was too strong.

The arrows only had some amount of mana which was flowing from one end to another, therefore, its attack power was not as high as compared to Hajin's bullets which compressed Mana to a single point, thus making them more affective.

"Suho! Nayun! We're here!" Suddenly, a voice of a girl was heard. They didn't have the time to look behind, but that was not needed. They knew this voice very well, it was Yeonha's.

Yeonha along with a few more cadets were seen running towards the scene. When they arrived, the team finally had some time to rest, but that didn't last long.

The monster, annoyed at the bunch of cadets that didn't seem to stop coming, roared in anger. The tentacles multiplied in numbers many times and their size also increased. They also became more durable.

It seemed that the monster was not having it anymore, as the tentacles rushed towards the cadets. Thus, the fight continued.

The situation was getting worse and worse as the cadets began to grow tired, but the monster showed no signs of exhaustion.

After observing the battle for some time, Hajin finally decided it was time. If it continued any longer, someone could get a critical injury. And even if it was capable of being healed, it was never good to feel that extreme pain.

"Rachel, you go and help Yeonha and her group. I'll take care of the support and Nayun." He said in a serious tone and added:

"Also, try not to get caught in those branches or it'll be difficult to escape."

"OK." Rachel noded and got up, flexed her legs and jumped straight into battle.

She slashed the tentacles surrounding Yeonha and grabbed her from the waist, than quickly jumped out of the tentacles' reach.

"R-Rachel-sii! Thanks for helping." She was surprised that Rachel came out of nowhere, but still didn't forgot to thank for the help.

"Mm, no problem. Can you get up?"

"Y-yes, although, I wouldn't be able to fight. I need a healer. My team has one, so I'll go to them."

"Mm, Ok." She said as she jumped away and went to the other cadets. Soon, the only ones left fighting were Kim Suho, Shin Jonghak, Nayun and Rachel.

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Word Count : 1669