Volume 6 - CH 1

After the short break ended, I returned to school.

The school was surprisingly quiet these two days. Not many students could be seen, let alone things causing trouble. This allowed me to enjoy a short and rare leisurely time.

During noon, due to wanting to buy some backup tools, I went out of the school, and was stunned in front of the school gate.

Wait a minute, I didn’t go to the wrong place, right? Why was it I felt the outside of the school was a little different from the usual… Alright, it’s not a little, but a lot.

“Yang Yang, why are you standing here in a daze?” Suddenly, someone patted my back, due to always being frightened this way, I was already very used to the way they appeared behind my back without any sound and greeting me. As soon as I turned my head around, I saw Chifuyu stretching out a hand towards me, “Hi.”

Hi yourself!

Speaking of it, I haven’t met up much with Miao Miao and Chifuyu lately, and I don’t even have to mention Ryan. Due to him participating in the competition, in addition to him having no presence, he became someone who disappeared from the surface of this world.

Alright, let’s get back to the topic. I opened my eyes wide, looking at the school’s front gate. The original white Elves and large arched door was completely different. The appearance of those Elves completely changed. All of them were wearing armors and were onto weapons, looking completely murderous. All around the white school walls were filled with unknown totems and texts, and the surrounding had similar eudemons sculptures.

I guess, people who didn’t know better would probably think this was an amusement park that spent a lot on decoration.

“No, I just thought our school gate has become really gorgeous…” So gorgeous that it was shining and sparkling, causing me to have an I had an illusion of exiting from the wrong gate. To have this kind of suspicion was very reasonable, because our school was too weird, and if there really was a day where I exited from the wrong gate, I wouldn’t be too surprised.

Chifuyu looked at me with puzzlement, “Of course. Today, the representatives of ten schools participating in the sports competition would all arrive in our school. Since the battlefields our school could provide were overwhelmingly better than all the other special abilities schools, this year is already the seventh time our school was used for the finals of the sports competition. From today onwards, for a period of time until the champion is decided, all the teams of the representatives would be staying in our school, so having a grander style is something taken for granted.” Pushing at his glasses, the mini library started to clear my doubts.

At this time, having a friend who knows everything is really great, you can just ask him anything you don’t know. Although senior is also a member of someone-who-knows-everything, I didn’t have the guts to ask him.

Before I knew it, the preliminaries had ended. But thinking about it, only a few dozen teams participated, with each preliminary being held in different schools, finishing the preliminaries in just a few short days should be considered normal.

Out of all the matches, I’ve only watched two of them, which was senior’s and Alis Academy’s matches. In the end, due to certain reasons, I didn’t get to watch the other matches. I wonder, if I would be able to borrow videos of the matches after the competition, just like the other day when senior played the video inside a ball.

“Oh right, which ten schools made it to the finals?” I guess I’m definitely the most irresponsible audience ever, since I didn’t even know who teams were. The most I knew was Giya, Alis, and Evil Spirit Academy. Although senior Gasai did give me a book introducing the representatives, but the words inside was something I didn’t recognize, yet alone read.

Chifuyu lifted his fingers, and very seriously started to count for me, “Our school is headed by our seniors. Including senior Randal, there we have two teams. Alis Academy with Yido as the leader, Evil Spirit Academy with Jason as the leader, Giya Academy with Nairadel as the leader, Clear Wind Academy with Mohander as the leader, which also includes Leinola as the second team leader, Barblis Academy with Tenli as the leader, Tiya Academy with Jess as the leader, and the last one is Seven Hills Academy with Warren as the leader. The above are the eight schools and ten teams, all of them are this round’s talented experts.”

… You remember so clearly.

In fact, I asked without expecting anything, but I never thought he would really give me a full introduction. He certainly deserves to have the title “Humanoid library.”

But having said that, looks like there are other schools with two teams who also won, I thought only our seniors would be able to accomplish it, “Clear Wind Academy is…?” Sounds like a very common name, so common that it doesn’t sound like a name of a special ability school; it sounds more like a name of the high school beside my house.

“They are a fighting-based school, proficient in a variety of combat skills and tactical skills. This time, the two leaders are similar to ours, both are Black Robes, and are considered to be very strong opponents.” Pushing his glasses back up, Chifuyu very seriously told me an approximation.

From the start, I realised that Chifuyu kept pushing his glasses, “Is your glasses’ size not suitable?”

Probably because the topic was too random, Chifuyu was completely stunned.

After a long while, he coughed twice, “This is a personal habit.”

Oh, I understand, this is a common habit of most glasses guys, “That’s right, is your myopia very bad?” To be honest, one’s first impression would be that Chifuyu is a glasses guy, but in fact, at a closer look, other than the black rim giving an inherent impression, his lenses were actually not that thick. Everything was an illusion caused by the black rim.

Chifuyu shook his head, “Not very bad.”

“Have you ever thought of wearing contact lenses for more convenience?” This is my sincere suggestion, other than that I believe there would definitely be a lot of people who were as curious as I am about how his face would look like under the black rim glasses?

“Nope, anyway if it’s necessary I don’t need to wear my glasses.”

When he said that, I became even more curious.

* * *

“Why are the two of you standing at the main gate?”

Just as we were about to end our dialogue, a very faint and familiar voice called out from behind us. I was almost able to guess who it was.

“Restua?” Turning around, I was rather surprised to see him here; especially when Zachary, whom I’ve not met for a long time, appeared beside him. The both of them really looked like brothers from the same clan. However, I remember senior saying that Zachary was not of the Elfin clan.

Then what clan is he from?

“We are the representatives who in charge of greeting the arriving teams, later we would need to guide them to the welcoming room to rest.” Restua, who has always been in charge of the dormitory affairs, smiled and said, “It’s almost time, do you guys want to come along to welcome them?”

Us? Passer-by B?

Aren’t you guys too casual about this? Just finding passer-by B to increase the amount of welcoming people… generally shouldn’t you have whatchamacallit red carpets, a hundred gun salvos, plus a long line of people forming a team to welcome the guests?

“Tomorrow morning would be the official opening. Our school’s board of directors will be coming out to preside over it. At that time, all the teams would be officially introduced. You guys would be considered the first to meet them.” Zachary curved up a smile.

I can still accept Restua coming to welcome them, but why are you, someone from the accounting department, welcoming them, too?

Are you already getting ready to get the payments for the accommodations, boss?

Before I could say I wanted to buy something, Chifuyu had immediately promised to stay.

“Considering the time,… they’re here.” Just as Restua was saying, I felt the surrounding air immediately turned cold, mist appeared beside my legs, and felt like it turned into ice.

An ice sphere about the size of half a classroom immediately appeared in front of our eyes. After half a second, a crisp sound could be heard, and the ice sphere burst open, turning into something like falling snow, dreamy and beautiful. After a long while, only did the temperature gradually increase.

There were four people standing at the place where the ice sphere was originally at. The leader was wearing a Purple Robe, and the other three people were wearing a snowy white long-coat-like uniform, but not the same clothing White Robes wear, it was more like their school’s representative clothing, since there was a school badge on their chest. The coat’s collar was a long fluffy white fur; it looked like very warm clothing.

The main point was there were three girls, including the Purple Robe, and only one boy; the standard weak looking kind.

“Barblis Academy’s representatives from the Snow Country’s curse-offering school, Purple Robed fairy, Tenli, and her partner, Felicia, and also two back up players.” A booklet appearing in his hands, Zachary drew a dash on top.

At the same time, I heard a very heavy sound. Once again, the invincible Ironman team with a teleportation array instantly appeared in front of me, but it was not the same few people I just saw. It was a completely new team.

Giya’s players, their appearance this time was similar, three steel robots, each and every model was indescribably wonderful, no matter how many times I saw this, it still felt very amazing, “Giya’s representatives, white robe Nairadel and his partner, no back up players.”

“Tiya’s Academy, Black Robe Jess, and also my cute partner Matthew Rui.” Someone called out, and when I realized it, there were five figures appearing in mid-air in front of the school’s main gate, the leader was a Black Robe, “The Valley’s Eudemon school’s representatives, nice to meet you, everyone.”

The one who snatched the opportunity to speak was the Black Robe leader, amongst the four people behind, there was a Purple Robe, and the other two are White Robes, an extremely unified and balanced team. It’s only now then I realized it was not only our school who had a bunch of Black Robes; other schools also have them.

But what caused me to completely freak out was the last one… I saw the legendary…

ET alien.

“Pfft!” Obviously Chifuyu was amused, because he suddenly leaned on my shoulder suspiciously and secretly laughing.

It really was an alien, and I suspect he was a Martian because he looked exactly like the aliens in an alien invasion movie! He held out an octopus-like hand and greeted us.

Why would an alien appear in our school?!

“Ah, this is our school’s contact person.” Jess very naturally patted the alien beside her, and said in a forthright manner.

I saw the other schools’ representatives using an I-saw-a-ghost kind of expression to stare at the alien.

“Tiya’s Eudemon College often has strange creatures appearing there, so you don’t need to be too surprised.” Someone beside me patted my shoulder, and after I got a better look, it was actually an acquaintance.

So aliens are actually Eudemons in your eyes?

“Alis’s Astronomy School’s representatives, White Robes, Yido and his two brothers.” Zachary continued calling out the newcomers’ names.

“Why was our introduction so short!” Leido immediately exploded in anger. Yado, at one side, snorted and turned his head to the side, ignoring him.

“Stop fooling around.” Yido said faintly, immediately suppressing his brothers’ rioting.

I felt like I looked too much and began to feel dizzy. A bunch of experts appearing all at once really felt like I was being knocked unconscious and was lying at the front of the school gate, dreaming… Wait a minute; can be that I was really dreaming?

“Dear children, you are Atlantis Academy’s students?” Tiya Academy’s Black Robe walked towards us, and was still as cheerful as the time when she introduced herself.

“Nn, hello.” Chifuyu represented us and replied.

“We will be staying here for a period of time, nice to meet you.” Jess held out her hand, and said generously.

“I hope our school would be able to make you feel at home.” Chifuyu, who was probably used to pleasantries, held out his hand for a handshake.

Looking at the several people gathering around to talk, I very sensibly stepped back. Since when they talked, I sometimes didn’t understand them, so in order to not feel awkward, I stood on one side and just looked on.

After a long while, no one else came.

“That’s strange. People from Clear Wind Academy, Evil Spirit Academy, and Seven Hills Academy still aren’t here yet?” Flipping the name list he had in his hands, Zachary looked at the group of people in front of him, making sure there were no more newcomers, “Could something have happened to cause a delay?”

At the same time, the person in charge of our school’s communication suddenly appeared beside Zachary. I recognise him; it was the Asian schoolmate I’ve met once, Lin. He hurriedly walked towards Zachary and Restua seemingly discussing about something, and hurriedly disappeared in just a moment.

Zachary put away the name list in his hands, “Looks like our guests really were delayed because of something; please come with us first. Atlantis Academy had already prepared a perfect resting room for all of you. Please relieve your fatigue, be at ease, and rest.” While explaining, Zachary and Restua, one in front and the other behind, brought the teams into the school.

I don’t know why, but I felt what Lin said wasn’t anything good, because there was one second where I saw Zachary’s expression changing slightly, although it wasn’t very obvious.

This had something to do with the late teams?

* * *

“Yang Yang!”

Leido, who was supposed to follow the others appeared beside me for some reason, stared at Chifuyu, and held out his hand, “I recognize you, met you once during the singing party. Hello, I’m Leido from Alis Academy.” He very quickly extended a friendly greeting.

Chifuyu narrowed his eyes and looked at him.

Uh… please boss, you better not say that the juvenile delinquent’s friend is also a juvenile delinquent and decline being friends with him. Otherwise, I can guarantee Leido would hundred percent start a fight.

Unexpectedly, Chifuyu actually also held out his hand for a handshake, “Hello, I also recognize you; the very famous Alis three men team.

“Hey, hey.” Finishing the brief greeting, Leido immediately turned his attention back to me, “Why are you here alone? Where’s Ziray?”

I knew it, in his eyes, there’s only that damn hair!

“Don’t know, probably got caught by senior to be trained. He’s is a backup member, have you forgotten?” I guess if the five-colored rooster head was really caught, and would probably be put to an extreme hard work. But then again, is he someone who would obediently sit through the hard work?

“Is that so?” Leido’s excited tone obviously had a certain degree of declination, “I don’t want to go to the dorm so early, let’s go for a walk, alright?” He looked at Chifuyu, but the latter didn’t express his opinion.

Let me think… Ryan and the five-colored rooster head are earthshakingly busy because of their participation in the competition. Miao Miao, who is in the Medical Team, had to be at a certain location. So it looks like the ones who have the most free-time would be me and Chifuyu?

“That’s right, Yang Yang, you actually wanted to go out, right?” Finally remembering I wanted to go out of school, Chifuyu hit his palm, “Where were you planning to go?”

Where did I want to go? Because of you guys stopping me, I almost forgot where I had originally wanted to go, bastards!

“I actually wanted to go to the left shopping street to buy some paper charms, because I’ve already used up the ones I had for practice.” The removable paper charms were really nice to use, but the consume rate was too high. As soon as I wrote something wrongly, I wanted to crumple it, and as soon as I crumpled it, I wanted to pull out a new one. In some ways, it wasn’t environmentally friendly, but fortunately the spoiled paper charms would self-destruct over time. Once, I was shocked to see it catching on fire, and in the end, Andy told me it was a normal phenomenon.

And so, I finally understood why the normal tissue papers’ consumption rate is lower than the removable ones; because it was too difficult to take it out, making one lose his wish to use it.

“Ah, just going to buy some stuff?” Leido lazily hung onto my body, his tone was complaining about it being boring, “Just now we also received a message from the contact person, he said there are schools that were attacked on their way here, don’t you guys have any interest in going there to take a look?”

Attacked? Suddenly, my right eyelid twitched.

“Yang Yang, are you thinking of the same thing as I am?” Leido curved up a very cold smile.

I guess we were probably thinking the same thing. Because not too long ago, we overheard a secret conspiracy, which I thought was associated. After all, in the last match, Yido and the others really did get attacked.

I looked towards Chifuyu.

Not knowing where the location was and the method of going there, I feel he was currently the more reliable one.

“You guys are really too bored.” Chifuyu snorted coldly, but still took out a white triangular paper from his pocket, “If we get scolded, you guys are responsible for it.”

“Ah, ah, just say we were passing-by.” The obvious recidivist, Leido, suggested a rather lame excuse.

I personally thought the person in charge would definitely think we weren’t just passing-by, but taking a special trip there to watch a good show, and you actually had the nerve to say we’re passing-by!?

Squatting down and putting the triangular paper charm on the floor, Chifuyu drew out a pattern I didn’t recognise in mid-air, it was probably some kind of incantation, totem, or the like, “I think you guys better not go there to interfere with someone else’s actions, just allow the magical messenger to send the message back.”

“Tsk!” Leido snorted, indicating it was a real pity.

“Wind for your body, lightning for your speed, light as your eyesight, shadow for your protection, the road familiar worshiped in the name of Yukino clan, tracking information, go!” With a shout, the triangular paper charm on the ground suddenly flipped over, and I didn’t even get to see what it turned into. The black shadow that appeared before the triangle speedily disappeared in front of our eyes, looking like it integrated with the shadows and couldn’t be seen anymore, “Wait for about a few minutes and it’ll send the information and images back.” Chifuyu stood up and patted the dust off his hands.

I noticed Chifuyu’s paper charms were different from the others, for example senior’s charms were of the zombie paper charm shape, whereas Chifuyu’s were always triangular. Damn, I forgot to ask Andy if this had any differences!

“Yukino’s familiar?” Leido doubtfully asked.

“Nn, we have special intelligence gathering familiars, which are so much better compared to the norm of forming a contract with Flying Winds.” Looking rather proud, Chifuyu pushed back his glasses and said, “Since Yukino clan is using this to earn our living, if we use the normal Flying Winds, we definitely would become a laughing stock.”

Flying wind? What?

“That’s right, Yang Yang haven’t seen Flying Winds before.” Leido suddenly clapped, someone finally remembered I am completely a hundred percent layman, “It is a top-class intelligence gathering demon beast. There’s a certain degree of difficulty in controlling it, but it’s fast and accurate in gathering intelligence. Thus, many experts like to use it.”

Speaking of gathering intelligence, I would only think of one thing, called after-being-washed-and-becoming-bleached-insect, and it was said to be an old model. From the time I got that stuff until now, I’ve never used it. According to what senior said, from time to time, I would feed it a few slices of bread, and it looked like the bleached insect would be spending the rest of its life in a slowly-growing-old condition.

“Other than the Flying Wind, the one that could be compared with it is called the Willow Beast. It is rather on par, but the overall strength would be below the Flying Wind, if Yang Yang is interested, you can find more information at the shopping street. Sometimes domesticating some intelligence gathering demon beasts would be helpful in both your homework and missions.” Chifuyu smiled and said.

I don’t believe I’ve said I needed to use some strange demon beast, right? After all, I don’t really need to go on missions nor particularly want to find out something.

When I once again remembered I wanted to go out to buy some paper charms, Chifuyu made an action of asking us to keep quiet, “It’s here.” Then he signaled us to move to a relatively inconspicuous place. After finding a spot, he held out his left hand, “Now we are going to synchronise with the familiar to take a look at the things happening at the scene. Due to linking with the familiar over there, I would like to trouble the both of you to not make any movements that will cause the familiar to be found out. Thanks for your cooperation.”

I don’t know what kind of movements would cause the familiar to be found out, you are thinking too highly of me, boss.

A silverish-blue shining sphere opened up above Chifuyu’s palm and rotated.

In just a few seconds, the silver shining sphere landed on the ground, and then a three-dimensional image gradually appeared.

So Godly! I like this one! It’s too cool!

The three-dimensional image was probably about the size of a Barbie doll. A large group of people gathered together, and a strange landscape appeared.

“This place seemed to be the land of ruined hill, the place where Clear Wind Academy would definitely pass-by.” Recognizing the location with just a glance, Leido narrowed his eyes. The inside of the three-dimensional image was chaotic, very noisy, and there were a few people wearing blue robes. Because I’ve seen them before, I immediately knew they were people from the Medical Team.

Why did the Medical Team appear?

“Clear Wind Academy’s representatives were attacked on their way here.” Chifuyu, who was maintaining the three-dimensional image, had his eyes closed, but it felt like he could also see the images. It can’t be that there was a radar linking straight to his brain?

Yukino clan’s familiar is too amazing! The images could be seen internally or externally!

Just like what he had said, in the chaos, within the people undergoing the medical team’s emergency treatment, I saw the figure wearing a White Robe. There were also a few people, who were obviously his companions, waiting at one side.

“Looks like they were attacked as soon as they left the school; the opponent had clearly investigated Clear Wind Academy’s information in order to grab the opportunity to attack them the moment they left school.” Leido, who was squatting together with me and looking at the projection, stroked his chin and continued, “This time the spy can’t be underestimated …”

After he said that, I suddenly felt rather worried about senior and the others, I was afraid spies would also appear inside our school. After all the things that had happened at Giya and also the thing we saw in Alis Academy, amassing them together, we could form out a lot of possibilities.

“That’s strange, isn’t Clear Wind supposed to be a fighting-based school?” After looking for a while, I raised the question in my heart. In the small human projection area, the people who were lying on the floor were White Robes, why was there no Black Robes? I remember Chifuyu saying that Clear Wind’s teams were similar to our seniors, having Black Robes as leaders. It looks like they were so easily attacked, and to say that they were a fighting-based school.

Leido and Chifuyu suddenly turned around using very shocked expressions to look at me.

“That’s right. Clear Wind is a fighting-based school, so how could they easily be attacked?” Staring at the small human projections, Chifuyu issued a question; seemingly talking to himself. There was no one present could answer my question, so it temporary became a mystery with no solution.

“This is worth investigating…”

Leido, who was similarly talking to himself, was completely immersed in his own thoughts.

I squatted at one side, looking like a passer-by who had nothing to do with this.

Then, everything was just so natural. Just as the two of them were indulged in their fantasy world, I seemed to have my sight cross with a small human projection inside.

… Our sight… crossed? Did I see wrongly?

I slightly moved to one side, but this time I was very certain our sights crossed, because his eyes were staring at me as I moved, and then slowly… curved up a strange smile.

The hell! What the hell!

Goose bumps appeared all over my body. The small human projection became twisted, and many enigmatic colors started appearing.

The person gave me the same kind of feeling during the day we were in the Ghost King tomb… when the Ghost King resurrected… that kind of chilly feeling.

“We’re being linked onto!” Chifuyu issued a cry, causing me to snap out of my trance.

The small humanoid projection that originally became blurred suddenly became very clear, and the only difference was this time the picture was a person. A person, who was grabbing onto the familiar, was looking the three of us while revealing a kind of chilly smile.

“Hello, the people who are gathering intelligence.”