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The Dark Cloud Again
Do you know how it feels when you are needing something and it appears in front of you?
Well, that happened to me just now.
When I extended my senses towards the mana fluctuation I just felt, I discovered a student just about to kill another.
Without hesitation, I stepped across space towards the location of the incident.
When I appeared there, I saw a girl lying on a pool of blood on the ground with an injury on her abdomen.
“Jein, what are you doing!?”
But the young man in front of her did not reply. He was staring at her with dazed eyes while holding a knife on his hand.
I could see a brief expression of struggle in his eyes, however, that struggle disappeared at the next instant.
And the young man jumped towards the girl on the ground.
“!!!”
The girl’s face turned pale. She tried to stop the knife, but the injury on her abdomen plus the fact that she was weaker than the young man made her struggle useless.
In the end, she could only watch while the knife cut towards her neck.
Fortunately for the girl, I was there.
“Stop.”
With a sigh, I appeared in front of the young man, grabbing his wrist and stopped the knife.
My sudden appearance surprised the girl, but the young man did not show any reaction. Instead, he looked at me like an emotionless machine and used his other hand to claw towards my neck
I frowned. Raising my other hand, I stopped his attack and hit him on the belly.
“Gah…!”
That attack was enough to make him faint.
I looked at the young man and sighed happily. “How lucky of me. I was just needing a guinea pig.”
I then looked back towards the girl. Maybe due to the fright she just experienced, she had fainted.
Well, there is no time to lose.
I did not hesitate to invade the young man’s soul. My soul attacked like an incisive spike, digging into his soul and searching for the abnormality I knew was there.
Fortunately, I already knew where to search, so the young man did not suffer much during this process.
At that moment, though, I felt two presences appear behind me.
It was the headmistress and Samuel Barstool, the old man guarding the place where the space-time tunnel is located and the headmistress’s master.
“Claus, what happened?” Evelyn asked with a frown, but I did not have the leisure to reply to her. Instead, I closed my eyes and put on all my focus on the young man in my hands.
Fortunately, the headmistress and the old man only needed to look at the young man in my hands and the injured girl on the ground to get an idea of the situation.
Quickly, they got the gist of what happened.
“… Another murder?”
The headmistress asked.
I simply nodded without bothering with anything else. Meanwhile, I finally found the thing I was searching for.
“… Here you are.” I curved my lips up.
The dark cloud detected my intrusion and started to fight against me. However, I was able to overpower it once, so I can easily defeat it again.
Just like the last time, the dark cloud soon realized that it did not have any chance against me. It then initiated the process of self-destruction.
But–
“Do you think that will work again?” I sneered.
Even if the dark cloud was the work of an immortal, it’s not under his control right now and I have already seen its tricks once. How can I fall for the same trick twice?
As soon as I noticed the first sign of self-destruction, I grunted.
“Hmph!”
Instantly, time stopped.
I’m not very good at using time laws, so the effects of this time stop were rather small. I only managed to stop time for one second in an area of one kilometer around me.
But that was enough.
During that second, my will charged towards the dark cloud, overwhelming all its defenses and stopping the process of self-destruction.
Then, I wrapped the dark cloud using my consciousness and extracted it from the young man’s soul.
When time returned to normal, a small dark orb was hovering on my hand.
“Done.” I smiled happily.
Evelyn and the old man saw the orb on my hand and were surprised.
“Claus, what happened? And what is that in your hand?”
“… Well, this young man was about to kill that girl when I appeared, knocked him out, and extracted the brainwashing seed from his mind.”
The pair of master and student were startled.
“… You can do that!?” Evelyn was surprised.
I smiled. “You see, I was investigating ways to get rid of brainwashing and stumbled with this method. I tried it just now and it looks it worked.”
Evelyn and the old man could not hide their astonishment.
In the end, Evelyn sighed and shook her head.
“As expected of a monster that surpassed the twelfth layer in his eighteens.”
… Man, I tried this excuse that reincarnators and regresors always use in stories, but to think it would work.
Even Evelyn, a thirteenth-layer practitioner believed it.
The old man looked at the two unconscious students and sighed.
“I’m sorry. I was supposed to keep my senses spread in the academy, but I felt a disturbance in the space-time tunnel and was forced to put my focus there. Fortunately, you noticed the situation in time or something could have happened.”
Evelyn nodded. Confirming the old man’s words. “Are they alright?”
“The girl is injured, but I checked and it’s not serious. As for the guy, he probably will suffer from headaches for a few months, but it’s nothing serious.”
The old man sighed in relief. “Thanks to god. By the way, boy, what are you going to do with that thing?” The old man pointed to the seed on my hand.
I shrugged. “Obviously, I’m going to study it. I need to know the reason behind the murders.”
The old man frowned. He then hesitated for a moment before opening his mouth.
“… Do you think you can give it to us? I think that with the people in the institute, we have a better chance of studying it.”
“The old man is right, Claus. Even although you are in the thirteenth-layer, you are a swordsman. I’m a mage, so I think it’s better if I do it.”
I looked at the pair and shook my head. “I’m sorry, but I think I will take it with me.”
Both Evelyn and the old man frowned. But although they seemed a bit dissatisfied, they knew it was my right to choose what to do with my spoils of war.
I smiled when I saw it. “Don’t worry, if we caught another, I will pass it to you.”
Evelyn and the old man could only accept my proposal.
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