The Necromancer and the Priestess (19)

After a several minutes, the members of the two groups seemed to regain their bearings. "I will be going to the church to report this. In the meantime, we'll be a leaving a few of our members here to control the situation. As for you all...?" Kai said, looking toward Yin Mei.

"Good question," Yin Mei said, but didn't answer Kai's question. She was instead thinking.

She wanted to stay here and wait for El, but it might also be better to go back to the guild to relay information. In the first place, even if she waited for him here, she didn't know how long she would need to wait... to top it off, there were those pests... Her eyes were cold as she glanced at the church group but quickly returned to normal.

"Leader... it might be better to go back to the capital. We have the princess with us too..." Ryan leaned in to speak with a quiet voice, his eyes glancing toward the silver haired girl being held by Lang.

Yin Mei closed her eyes. "You're right," she finally said. "We'll be returning to the capital." She threw one last reluctant glance at the demon bridge, but in the end, still walked away. No matter. No matter where El was, she would still be able to find him.

The group used a special teleport scroll made by Leon to quickly return to the capital, which was still calm, not yet having received news of the demon bridge.

"... Is she even still alive?" Leon had to ask, when the group appeared suddenly in his office, Lang carrying the princess like she was a bag of rice or something over his shoulder.

"Should be?" Yin Mei said. She couldn't attest to her state of mind though. She had been able to extract the seed of evil without killing the girl, but this was a first. There were no records of such a thing happening that she had read about, so she really didn't know what the after affects would be.

"Should be you say..." He massaged his forehead. No, this was okay. They had predicted that she would most likely be dead anyways, and the request of the kingdom was to find her - it had no mention concerning her life or death. So, in other words, even if she was dead, it would still count as completing the mission. After comforting himself thus, Leon felt much better.

"Oh right, and we also have something to report..." Yin Mei said, as Lang tossed the princess onto a nearby sofa.

"What is it?" Though Leon wanted to say something about this rough treatment of the princess, his attention was drawn back to Yin Mei.

"Well, the demon bridge opened." She said.

"Huh?"

"The demon bridge opened." Yin Mei repeated.

"... I'm sorry, what did you just say?" Leon felt there was something wrong with his ears. After all, it wasn't possible that she would say something like the demon bridge had opened or anything, right?

"The demon bridge. It opened." Yin Mei patiently repeated herself one more time, and Leon could no longer continue denying the truth.

He held his head in his hands, not knowing what to think about this information bomb that Yin Mei had thrown at him. "What in the world even... no, never mind. Don't say anything. I don't want to know."

Leon has cast escapism!

"For now, let's first deliver the girl. Anything else can wait." He continued. Escapism was successful!

"Leon, we'll have to post a guild notice. We can't have out guild members going into Gloom Forest anymore." Yin Mei said, blocking off his path to retreat.

"Kuh...!" Leon grimaced in frustration. "You're right." And was promptly defeated.

"Have the employees post a notice about the opening of the demon bridge. From now on, we'll be rejecting any mission requests in the area around and in Gloom Forest. Take down any quests that are pinned up on the board as well." He ordered.

Yin Mei nodded. "I'll do that. You guys go ahead and deliver the girl." She said, and Ryan nodded. Rosella frowned reluctantly, but also nodded.

That day, the continent erupted into chaos. The people already had a low morale due to what had happened a year ago, and then they were hit with news of the demon bridge opening. Suicide rates were at an all time high, as people lamented that the world was going to end.

Meanwhile, in the demon world, El was ecstatic. "Someone destroyed the seed of evil? Who would have expected that that could trigger the demon bridge opening. How interesting. I'll have to look into this. No, but for now... I can finally see you again, my Celes." He smiled so sweetly, as he called for his attendant to bring him his cape.

"Azazel!" The sound of an annoying voice reached his ears, and El immediately felt a strong feeling of annoyance creeping up inside his heart. He was in such a good mood now, and this girl had to come over and destroy it.

He took in a deep breath, allowing his expression to return to normal before turning around. "What is it?" He asked coolly, looking at Eve's teary eyed expression.

"You're going back to the human world?" She asked, as El brushed past her, taking a hat that was offered to him by his butler, along with a pair of black leather gloves.

"Of course I am," El answered, briefly stopping in front of a mirror to look at his appearance. The pair of black horns and dark skin... it wouldn't scare Celes right? He frowned, and with a wave, returned back to his appearance before he had fused with Azazel. He tightened his tie, looking satisfied.

"C-can you not go?" Eve said nervously. It was after he had gone to the human world the first time that he had changed so much. Her gut feeling told her that if he went again, he may never come back.

El looked at her so coldly that she flinched, backing away by half a step. "Don't say something so stupid." He said, and left her standing there trembling.

"... Then I'll come with you." Eve grit her teeth, speaking even though there was no one to hear her. Hmph! Just you wait, El. As long as she asked her father, there was no way that El could disobey! Even if it made him hate her, she would still force him to bring her along.

Back in the human world, the church had quickly negotiated with all the countries on the continent, setting up a "volunteer" army at the border of Gloom Forest. Several priests worked day and night to continuously purify the strong miasma, while keeping a barrier working to isolate Gloom Forest from the rest of the world.

Yin Mei joined, along with Leon and several other members of the Guild, though Yin Mei's ultimate goal was different from theirs. In fact, she was seriously contemplating ways that she could sabotage the army, for no other reason but to allow El to succeed in his dream of world domination.

What? El's dream wasn't world domination? Bah! What villain didn't dream of world domination. Yin Mei knew that deep down El's greatest desire must be world domination. After all, he wouldn't be able to become a cliche villain without having this life long dream of conquering the world!

It wasn't just because Yin Mei felt it would be interesting at all.

"You're..." Kai spoke, when he encountered Yin Mei, Leon, and Rosella at one of the encampments at the Gloom Forest border one day. Yin Mei looked between Rosella and Kai, and wondered if this was the so called red string of fate pulling these two lovers together. After all, there were so many camps, so how was it that they coincidentally were able to meet Kai at one of them?

"Leon, you knew these two?" Kai said, but then shook his head at his own question. Of course he did, after all, those two girls were the member of the famed White Bird party, while Leon was the guild master. It would be more strange if Leon didn't know them.

Actually, now that he thought about it, he didn't even know the name of the two girls. They had never been properly introduced to each other.

"Oh? You guys have met?" Leon said, looking at between the three with a very odd gaze, not knowing what to say.

"Yes, in Gloom Forest, when the bridge opened," Kai said.

Rosella was looking away, her expression dark, while Yin Mei had on a face of cool indifference.

Leon didn't really quite know what to say. "Then, you probably don't need me to introduce them..." He said, struggling to put on an indifferent expression himself. He just felt that this was such an awkward situation.

"No, no, please do. We didn't have the chance to do so before. My name is Kai," Kai said, reaching his hand out to shake Yin Mei's hand, but was ignored. He awkwardly withdrew his hand back, but didn't think too much into it. After all, from their interactions, he already felt he had a general grasp of this person's personality. He felt that this girl was the slightly cold and calculating type, and for some reason, did not appear to like him very much.

"This is the leader of the White Bird party," Leon said, seeing that Kai was looking at Yin Mei.

"? What's your name?" Kai asked, finding it odd that Leon didn't say Yin Mei's name, as he looked toward the brown haired woman.

There was a pause of silence between the group. Actually, Yin Mei had never come up with an alias. For some reason, they had just silently acknowledged never to say her name, and had somehow gotten away with that for the past year. "... I don't have one." She said coolly. If she came up with a name on the spot, she felt like she would be guaranteed to forget it... so she just decided to do it like this instead.

"You... don't have one?" Kai looked toward Leon in confusion, who just shrugged. Whatever, this works as well. It's not like anyone called Yin Mei by her name since then anyways. It was always just saying leader these days.

"Leader is leader," Rosella added in, making sure to back up Yin Mei.

"Huh..." Kai still looked slightly doubtful, but also didn't ask any further. Thinking about it, he felt like she must have some reason behind not having a name, and his thoughts immediately turned to coming up with all sorts of tragic backstories, imagination on par with those priestesses that always had too much free time.

Kai chatted with Leon for a bit, catching up on things that had happened since they had last seen each other. Yin Mei could see that Rosella was fidgeting a bit, seeming to want to talk to Kai, but also restraining herself. The relationship between Kai and Leon, though it had gotten slightly lukewarm, was still pretty good. But as for Kai and Rosella, because of that event from half a year ago, they hadn't talked at all since then. Actually, already from a year ago, their relationship was already on the verge of collapsing.

But, it was also clear to Yin Mei that Rosella didn't want to let things end like this.

"Leon," Yin Mei said, interrupting the two. She had on a serious expression, causing Leon to immediately react. Yin Mei rarely put on an expression like this.

"What is it?" He asked, and Yin Mei pulled him closer.

She paused for a second, thinking. "... I have something to tell you. Not here. Let's go over to the border."

Leon didn't think much of it, feeling that it must be something important considering how serious her expression was, so he nodded. He told Kai to excuse them for a moment. Rosella looked like she wanted to come with them, but Yin Mei made her forcefully stay, and she had on a slightly lost and confused expression as they left the two behind.

"So what did you want to talk to me about?" Leon asked as they walked right up next to the edge of the barrier, the faint gold shimmering light separating them from the darkness that seeped out of Gloom Forest.

"Huh? Did I say something like that?" Yin Mei replied, and Leon felt speechless.

"What in the world was the point of you dragging me out here then?" He asked, and Yin Mei turned around, looking in the direction that they had left Rosella and Kai in.

"Well, I wanted to leave them alone together. They need to sort out their issues. Ever since we saw Kai the other day, Rosella has been absent minded," Yin Mei said with an annoyed sigh.

Leon raised an eyebrow. Huh. Although it had seemed that her personality had gotten colder after what happened last year, but on the inside, she was still the same old Celes. He couldn't help but smile a little inwardly. After all, although it looked like she didn't care, in reality, she did.

"... Let's go," Yin Mei said, walking up to the barrier, placing her hand on the shimmering gold veil.

"... Where?" Leon had a bad feeling about what Yin Mei was going to say.

"Where else?" She answered, and walked through, black miasma swirling around her. "Come on. Don't be slow about it." She looked up. She could tell. The demons would be arriving soon.

Leon groaned, but also couldn't say no to her. He followed her into the forest, feeling like this was a terrible idea. He could never tell what was going on through this girl's head. It couldn't be that she was expecting them to go scout out the demon army themselves, or something along those lines? Or perhaps there was something that she wanted in the forest? Either way, why was it that she always had to drag him along into it? Damn, if it wasn't for Rosella and Kai, he would've definitely run back the other way!

He sighed. No matter! After all, someone would have to clean up her mess one way or another!