To Safety (7)

"We should do this in partners," Alex argued.

"One person on the defense and another on offense," Luke was in sync with Alex.

"Does this mean each pair would have to destroy two teleportation gates?" Sienna seemed frightened.

The silence inside the room answered her question as Cillian lightly patted her back to comfort her. However, we all noticed how Cillian couldn't stop shuddering from facing all those monsters with only two people. Since it was our third time encountering the monsters, the rest of us were more resilient.

"How about we let Sienna and Cillian visit Ben and their own mansions since they're more familiar with it?" Shelly suggested.

Sienna hugged Shelly to thank her while Cillian threw an apologetic smile. This meant Luke and I would go to the mansions of Oili and Ethan since I was more familiar with them. I sighed as thankfully, both of them gave me the code to their teleportation gates and the layout of their mansions after the call.

All we had to do was the press the self-destruction button on their gates after using Luke's teleportation gate to get to the precise location. No one wanted to waste time searching for the gates when we could potentially catch the attention of the s-class monster. I entered the gate last as the amount of mana in my gauge went down after I charged the teleportation gate.

Maybe that was why I started to stumble towards the sharp rocks as I used too much mana at once. But Luke immediately pressed the self-destruction button as he teleported both us back to the mansion within a few seconds. It was surprisingly uneventful as I found all of us in front of Luke's teleportation gate. Could it really be this easy?

I covered my ears from the loud sound of the explosions going off at once. It was time to recharge the gate as Luke offered me his hand to go in. I accepted his hand as I soon found myself in Ethan's mansion. But, unexpectedly, the s-class monster was in front of the gate. How? Wasn't the s-class monster attacking the barrier?

"It had foresight!" Luke yelled in frustration.

Monsters had freaking foresight? This was very advanced level magic that was very hard to learn with extremely high mana consumption. Luke pushed me out of the way as a mana arrow came towards my direction. I reached out my arm to press the self-destruction button, hoping the explosion would distract the monster after getting pushed onto the ground.

I pulled Luke into a tight hug with me as I rolled us towards a safer place. There was no time to cover my ears this time as the smoke swarmed the air. The horrible smog burned my eyes as I coughed from the smoke. I needed to use teleportation immediately. But I couldn't get my mind to focus as the monster slowly walked towards us with a ferocious grin.

What was the monster's weakness? Every monster had to have a weakness. Think Rika! What did you notice about the monster while you looked at it from the window?

"I can't use teleportation, it's using a barrier," Luke coughed.

Time! Time was its weakness! Its attack couldn't get to us since time was slowed down inside the barrier. But how was I supposed to apply that here?

Before I could react, the monster pulled us apart as Luke desperately stretched his arms to prevent us from separating. However, it was clear that the monster's attention was only on me. Without any other thoughts, I frantically ran for my life since the monster had us inside an anti-mana barrier.

One of us had to survive from this. I had the second chance card while Luke didn't. Although I wasn't fond of Luke, he didn't deserve to die. I was sure his family would find a brilliant fiancée for him in the future.

I took one glance at Luke's horrified face before I led the monster away from him. I gasped for more air as I began taking myself to the limits with my poor stamina. I really should stop relying too much on mana. Without it, I was a miserable human being who was about to faint from sprinting for two minutes straight.

There was no point in continuing when I would get captured soon. I was far enough from Luke that I couldn't see his body anymore. I decided to fall onto the large flower garden as my deathbed. I wanted to die somewhere pretty rather than ruined buildings.

As I expected, the monster stared at me resting peacefully on the flowerbed. But instead of mumbling more spells as its final kill, the monster reached out his hand towards my face, "I'm here to save you."

What? To save me? From who? Wasn't that monster here to kill me? I took a closer look at the humanoid, wondering if I was hallucinating. Under that rotten dead smell was the appearance of a teenage boy with blood red eyes.

If not for his ash coloured skin, I would welcome him in my arms for preventing the other monsters from coming close to us. None of the lower monsters wanted to even come a few meters close to us, recognizing the order of hierarchy within their own society.

"You're another reincarnated person, aren't you?" the creature whispered inside my ear when I refused his hand.