Under Our Juridiction

Lotus smirked with a wide smile and responded, "Yup! The moisture level in the air has already changed."

"Huh?" Raaji raised a brow to her in confusion when he heard this.

Seeing the lack of response that she was hoping to predict, Lotus hummed curiously in thought, "You probably don't notice it. The Rose Kingdom don't really have dry deserts or a dry climate. It's probably strange to have to notice any strange climate or temperature change before knowing what's happening around you when the weather in the Rose Kingdom is a lot more stable than most areas."

"Wha-?!" Raaji looked to her in bewilderment, "I-I don't remember telling him that I'm from the Rose Kingdom..."

"I've been to the Rose Kingdom before when I was a kid." Willow responded bluntly, "So, I'm familiar with the air from there. It lingers around you from time to time. So, my guess is that you're from the Rose Kingdom. Not to mention, the place has many good floral shops in the country. It wouldn't be strange to find a floral shop that sells poisonous herbs in the area."

Hearing this, he muttered in bewilderment, "What he said wasn't incorrect, per se, but it's still a little frightening in a sense."

He didn't realize that he had let his thoughts leak out of his mouth as he suddenly covered his mouth like one of those women that realized that said something they shouldn't have, which was rather funny seeing a young boy, like Raaji, do so before her. Lotus laughed, "What's there to be worried about? Of course, hearing something so accurate spoken out loud by someone who have never known or experienced it seems more frightening to others who live in a truth. Anyway, let's get going!"

The more Raaji listened to this guy, the more he felt that he had met some crazy guy. Whatever he said sometimes either makes sense vaguely or hardly any sense at all. However as this was a part of his task assigned to him to avoid trouble with the other students, it was seemingly better than what could be in store for him in the dorms, but now he wasn't too sure anymore. Rather, he had already started contemplating rather or not he should be contacting with the Vice-dormleader for a good while now. Yet, he couldn't bring himself to push the button. If it was nothing, then wouldn't this just become a false alarm?

"I mean, what if there was another oasis out here?" Raaji muttered quietly to himself nervously.

Lotus, however, paid no mind to Raaji's thoughts anymore as she continued hiking around the sand dunes. She was confident that there was going to be an oasis around this place. Less than five minutes have passed when they could feel the ground shake a little. Surprised, Raaji jumped horrified, "A-An earthquake?! Don't tell me!"

The movement of the ground caused the sand around them to slowly sink as Lotus looked around with a frown on her face. Someone had entered the dorm with them!

Realizing the type of situation, she had little time to react when something hurled itself towards Raaji's back. With a flick of the wrist, she sent that thing out amidst the mist of sand that got swept up into the air. A shadow appeared in the peripheral of her vision as she was forced to be on her guard once more. It was then that she realized that this was definitely not what she was looking for.

Realizing that this may require her full attention, she was about to whip out her medicine from her ring when the ground below her gave way. She grabbed a hold of Raaji who was screaming his head off from the feeling of his feet sinking into the sand and she was ready to jump out of the area when something from above jumped on them. Lotus had little time as she knocked away the attacker. She grabbed Raaji by the waist and jumped out of the quick sand.

Her sheer strength shocked Raaji who strucked to look up from the ground as he had been picked up effortlessly from their position. Lotus landed onto the more stable ground away from the whirlpool of sand as began to make a dash for it. Raaji was left dangling on the crook of her arm as he was left in bewilderment.

Just what is with this inhumane strength?! She was just a lean and short boy who seemed rather weak willed and plain compared to the small and authoritize dormleader of Heartslabyul or that one freshman from Pomefiore said to have this innocent femine image despite his male gender. However, this guy has neither of those quality including magic, but his raw strength is mind boggling. Did Mister Vargas personally trained this guy?!

Realizing this, he soon came upon a realization that rather than sending him to be a hawk for the vice-dormleader, he became a mouse sent into the jaws of a tiger to be an offering!

Wait! But, this guy doesn't have magic! Since he doesn't have magic, there was no way he can rise over him without physically immobilizing him!

Just as he thought this, he noticed a dark shadow come at him and his jaws were agape at the sight of a large hound coming at them! The hound was completely white against the mist of sand behind them. It was a large dog that was running at them on top speed.

"I-Is that a dog?!" Raaji exclaimed in confusion.

Since when did the dorm get a dog and why is there a pet that large on campus?!

The dog growled when he noticed that the guy leaping around had used energy attacks at him. He realized that something was off and was about to retreat when the next step it took triggered many orbs of light to be released into the air. However, he did not realize this and was about to sprint forward when chains launched into the air clapsing the largelarge beast by each of the four limbs. With a thud, the beast was brought to the ground followed by another not too far away. Lotus was surprised to have caught something else along by using this trap, but she didn't have the time to react when she felt something reach out from below. She tried to evade it, but their movement was fast as she was grabbed around the ankle and pulled deep into the sand.

Realizing that she could not escape from this strange whip, she only took out a silk handkerchief and covered Raaji's mouth with it. Raaji's reaction was slow and, despite being suspicious enough to try not to breathe through it, the floral scent had already entered into his system a moment too late as he quickly lost consciousness.

Lotus couldn't see what had caught her ankle, but she could already feel that it was definitely no hand that had tightly wrapped around her ankle. Without thinking twice, she held back from using her eyes and enhanced the senses she had been training all this time. The force of the pull was powerful and the sinking of the sand only served to help to speed it up as she was pulled down into the depth of the sand.

Without her sight, everything around her was pitch black. the sound shuffled around her ears and even tried to enter it. However, knowing that these senses no longer would help her sense her surroundings under the sands of the desert. She also had little use to focus solely on them. Instead, she could feel the smallest vibrations in the sand and the smallest of shuffle of sand surrounded them. A foreboding feeling in her chest told her that something was off and she would be in dangre by the strange change of air tingling her sixth sense.

She was already certain that the thing wants to hunt her down.

This aura of killing intent.

She struggled to keep Raaji under her grasp as she waited.

.....

Having waited under the pile of sand sprinkling down from the hourglass, a large figure grumbled, "Those fools dare to cause a scene..."

"It's fine, A-Cong..." The slender feminine figure in white with a snake tail responded with a wide smile soothing the large figure's anger with her calm voice.

However, the bulky figure did not comply to this effort to calm himself and only folded his arms with quiet grumbles as he stared where the woman's snake tail entered the hourglass to pull down the kids.

"Have you managed to catch them?" Another figure spoke out from the shadows.

"Oh? So you finally decided to show yourself, mister." The snake woman in white hushed with a calm and alluring smile, "To answer your question, of course. However, I'm afraid that they have broken the rules so they fall under our jurisdiction."

The man in white thought for a bit before nodded his head patiently, "This, I understand... I will not lay a hand on them."