The Return - 65

A/N: So, wanted to say sorry for not posting in a long time. I mean, it wasn't because I was lazy or anything, as I literally wrote 5 completely different drafts for this chapter because I dug myself into a fucking deep ass hole last chapter, and so, I had no idea what would be the best direction to move the story after that. Well, sorry about the wait, and I hope you like the 6th iteration of this chapter that I personally think is the best way to move the storyline forward (This is probably why I shouldn't be a pantser, but what can I say? Planning out chapters is a serious no-go for me, blocks my creativity or some other shit).

"Did anything happen while we were gone?"

"The L... It was bombed from the inside."

Hearing this, I tried to process what had happened, as I knew that there was never an event like this in the novel.

But, before I could process this, some students in the back started screaming and stabbing the students in front of them.

Looking back suddenly, I saw the mouths of devils as they were dripping with human blood.

Immediately seeing this, I took out my deck of cards and shot one card each into the skulls of the assailants, whilst the others around me were still staring in shock.

"Thud! Thud! Thud!..."

Hearing the thuds, Ms. Krenshaw grabbed my hand suddenly, but, by then, it was already to late.

I had eliminated all of them.

"W-why'd you do that, Ashen?" She asked in a low whisper.

"They looked demonic, so I eliminated them." I replied back, whilst just shrugging my shoulders.

Then, figuring out what this phenomenon was, I asked one of the people closest to the back a question.

"For how long where you stuck in the portal?"

"..."

"W-we lost count after 1,000 days."

After hearing this, most of the people in the front were in shock whilst Ms. Krenshaw couldn't help but worry about the sorry state of the students in the back.

I mean, it seemed like they hadn't aged, but they were all wearing clothes that it looked like they had made, and you could see that some of them were sick or on the verge of dying.

The rest of the people in the front started questioning the people in the back, before questioning each other.

It didn't take us long to figure out that, the closer you were to the center of the island, the quicker time moved for you.

So, the ones that had stayed on the beaches because they were too afraid to fight the boss monster experienced a few centuries or so of time passing whilst the one closer to the middle, like my group, only experienced 3 days on the island.

This was enough to figure out why the students in the back had attacked, after all, who wouldn't go crazy after that much time had passed?

We also figured out why a whole half of the students were missing, as, judging from the way the students I had just killed were eating human flesh, well, it was pretty obvious what they had decided to do after not being able to find any more food on the island.

I mean, some of the students in the back also experienced centuries or even millenniums of time passing, but they had been able to keep sane by living in a dungeon in the portal that had plenty of food, ie. monsters, whilst staying with their group so that they didn't go crazy from being alone.

Well, looking at how some of them were sticking to each other, it seemed like love played a big part in keeping them sane too.

Anyways, during this whole time, Ms. Krenshaw had been talking to another person with her watch, and now, it seemed like she had finished.

"Everyone, we'll be taking all of you to get mental treatment now, so please, follow me."

She turned around, and the other students started following her, but I just stood there, being bumped by the crowd as they walked past.

'It should be happening right around this much time after we left the portal.'

You see, the event where the 8th member of the hero's party was introduced was about to happen.

In the novel, this event had been situated in the timeline to be after the midterms during the middle of the winter, but it was only late fall now.

Turning back, I watched as the portal that we had all been stuck in was reopened again, and this time, it wasn't the color blue like a normal portal, but instead, it was black in color.

Let me explain the system to you.

Regularly, there were three types of portals.

First, blue portals that had regular dungeons inside the portal where you could find loot, and then the boss monster that you had to kill to close the portal.

Second was the red portals, where you had to defend a certain point or object against a certain amount of monsters and such in waves.

And finally, there were black portals, catastrophic entities that struck fear into the hearts of many.

This was because, black portals teleported a person to a whole new dimension or planet, where they would have to do certain (SS) ranked tasks or even higher to clear the portal and escape it.

If no one cleared it and it broke, then, the whole continent on the other side would invade Earth.

And this was something that no one wanted, as the race or species on the other side always posed a serious problem in one way or another.

This was why, when the last black portal appeared 200 years ago, on the border between the two countries, both the Empress and the Monarch of Darkness had to work together to clear it, even going to the point of holding hands with each other to completely obliterate the planet by sharing their opposing energies.

This just showed the seriousness of the issue of a black portal appearing.

But, I was about to walk into this portal myself, willingly at that.

So, I approached the portal and was about to touch my hand to it, but then, I heard a voice.

"Ashen! Don't touch that!"

But, it was too late, as I had already touched the portal.

Surprisingly though, I felt another hand grab mine at the last second, as we were both pulled in.

Outside, the class stared in shock as they saw their teacher and a student disappear into a black portal, that soon enough, winked out of existence.