The Third Party - Chapter 35

Ken’s POV (12 yrs. and 8 months old)

Something’s amiss, why is it so quiet in the morning? Don’t tell me. ‘Wind Magic: Surveillance Sweep’, a calm wind swept across my room and unto our small house, hmm, someone set up a barrier on my parents room, and it feels to be a sound cancellation barrier?

Don’t ask me how, I just felt it with my magic. Great, someone’s here again. When will this ever end? I don’t know who they are, or where they come from but someone, should I even call them someone when they look to be many?

Who are these people? They even went as far as encircling our house, seriously? Nope wait, I know them, haven’t I given enough beating to their friends already?

‘Looks like they came for more.’ -White-

‘Seems so.’ Ugh, then I guess I’ll just take care of this then. I stepped out of my room still wearing thin clothes and casted a combined element and moon barrier on the house and the room of my parents, did they notice I casted a barrier? Hmmm, probably.

I went on to make breakfast, while cutting some meat I spoke. “Please come out whom-ever you are, I can sense you.” double thuds echoed from the floor, I turned around and was again met with the same clothing this person is wearing.

They look like ninja clothing since its all black, even the belt is black, you could even add the black color to their skin so they would be called black men, just kidding, I can’t see their face nor their skin since it’s all covered in black clothing gloves and boots.

“Who are you and what do you want?” I said now chopping some vegetables, Oh look at this round green thing, it’s like a lettuce.

“We want the artifact.” they said, whomever said it, I think it was the one on the right once I took a peak since he -or she- moved slightly.

“I’ve already told you I don’t have any artifact, why can’t you bonk heads understand that?” I finished chopping and began to cook the ingredients on a bowl by the fire, now to control the fire so the stew won’t burn later.

I look at the two intruders, they raised their weapons emitting killing intent, I’m just a kid, who does that? Thankfully they are not doing this to my friends or we would really have problems.

“Excuse me, you people have the audacity to barge into my home and dare to raise your weapons against me? Get out, now!” I said. The two just laughed at me, let’s see who’ll be laughing later.

“What are you gonna do Kid?” said the one of the left.

“This, Arcane Magic: Telekinesis.” Purple energy latched unto their form choking them but not killing them as the magic circle formed at the tip of my right forefinger. I walked outside with the two following me on mid-air.

“Here are your friends, take them and leave.” with a flick of my finger, the two bodies flung towards whom I assume is their leader making them collide one another, with enough force that made them all stumble over.

*Fwish*

An arrow… seriously?! Do this people not have respect at all?! I stared hard. ‘Protection Magic: Mix Body Barrier’, an enhanced version of the spell ‘Mix Barriers’ covering my body in layers of barriers.

“You guys really want it that bad? Then come and take it.” I said and side stepped another arrow, stopped it with my magic and said…

”Enchant Magic: Multiple copies.” the arrow multiplied itself into thirty pieces with the same length and substances made out from the first arrow.

‘Enchant Magic: Haste.’ I flicked my wrist causing the arrow to fly itself towards the targets in twice the speed as earlier, hitting most of the group that surrounded our house even those that are at the back were hit.

“Oh, those are normal arrows? Meh.” I shrugged as the group rose to their feet from being caught off guard by the speed the arrow flew.

“Fire Magic: Fire Blitz.” another area of effect spells on my fire category, only this one allows me to use it more times than the pyrokinetic spell, the downside is that I’ll have to channel the spell, not to worry they won’t be able to come near me.

I made the space near each individual explode in a chain causing them to cry out in pain, as quick successions of magic circles appeared and disappeared, *chuckle* I’ve gotten used to using area of effects spells without directly casting it out on my hands or anywhere on my body specifically and just detonate it on an area.

I cancelled the spell and walked two steps and side-stepped another weapon flung at me, I took a glance and saw that it’s a dagger as it stuck on our doorframe.

“Good you lot are still alive, it would be a pity if you were decimated at once.” I said as I scanned the area, seeing all of them rising to their feet, with a wave of my hand I dispersed the smoke and said…

“Wind Magic: Breathless Zone.” I will not let them have the upper hand on me. The spell created cylinder zones on each enemies restricting their breathing -have a taste of torture-. All of them struggled to breath as they ran frantically everywhere. Haha the magic circles following them are so funny to look at.

“Talk or all of you will die.” I said as I stared at their quivering form. “In the past I’d had let you all go unscathed as I flung your men -or friends- far away so that I won’t have to hurt them, but now I’m thoroughly pissed off that a lot of you came just to try and steal one of my stuff? What is it even anyway?!”

The guy who I presume to be their leader reached out his hand in what seems to be a desperate move to be freed from the spell. I’ll give them this chance, if they try anything stupid so tell me god -or any god who is out there- I will slit this person’s throat.

I snapped my fingers to lift the spell.

“Now talk.” The leader rose to his feet and- (dash) Ugh! I jumped back due to the force of the tackle and prepared my spells as I jumped away from the leader.

“I thought you were going to talk?” I stopped in silence awaiting his answer, the person does look like a he, with a huge build and tall height.

“We don’t reveal classified information.” He said, now I can guarantee that it’s a guy, with the deep voice.

“Then what about the chance I gave you lot to redeem yourself?” I said, feeling my face contorting.

“The moment you let down your guard to the enemy, costs you your life.” He dashed towards me again brandishing his double daggers, too late.

“Ice and Water Grand Magic: Frozen World.” a magic circle formed below me as everything around me in a twenty meter radius turned frozen except for my house while water submerged everyone and froze in an instant.

“I may not know what you people know but I know for sure that you’re a hard opponent to deal with so why don’t I freeze you first.” I walked around at the frozen figure of the leader, the only one out of all the assailants who I didn’t submerge in water and froze over. With the exception of his head from freezing, how about we have a good conversation.

“You think you can contain me?!” he said as he struggled to break free.

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be confident in doing so?” he struggled more, I sighed loudly at his effort, I mean look at him, it’s not going to work.

“Give up struggling and just submit.” I said to which he just growled at me angrily, why in the hell would this guy growl?

“What did you do to me?!” Ugh, will he ever stop shouting?

“Aside from me freezing your body and your mana, your other strengths are frozen too, hence why you can’t do anything asides talk, did that answer your question.” I smirked at the guy *yawn*, man I’m still sleepy.

*Grunt*

*Grunt*

*Grunt!*

This is giving me a headache. “Will you stop? You’re just tiring yourself out.” The guy didn’t listen to me and continued moving.

“If you tell me who sent you I will set you all free.” That got his attention. “Will you talk? He looked motionless but I know he’s shivering from the biting cold.

A minute passed by and I can see the shiver intensify, maybe this time he’ll talk.

-One hour later-

“Ken, are you out here?” I hear mama say, I look at the door and back to the frozen person still shivering on his position, *sigh* why won’t this person just talk. I hear the door open and I turn towards mama who came out followed by papa and inspected the surroundings.

Still in their sleeping attire.

“What happened here?” said papa, as he took in the frozen surroundings.

“Another intruder, and this time they came as a group.” the two looked at me wide eyed as I nodded, they know that we’ve been having ‘guests’ here and there and probably they didn’t expect a group, heck even I didn’t expect they were this many, approximately 35 of them.

Yup, I scanned the area again and I counted 35 of them. Sad to say they just became experiments for my spells. Mama and Papa approached the person frozen behind me and used their magic to inspect the said person.

“This person seems to be strong, how did you manage to beat the guy?” asked papa.

“I froze all his assets over, including his mana.” I explained while walking towards them too, seeing as this person isn’t much of a threat now that he’s freezing.

“Is that even possible?” asked mama.

“Yeah, if you put your mind and soul to it.” actually I just used concept to enhance my ice and water grand magic to target specifically the mana inside every individual to freeze, but not killing them.

I know this spell was supposed to be a defensive spell, but with a little tweak here and there, voila, the spell became a freezing spell, without the set of wings of course.

“Have you asked who they are yet?” said papa, retracting his hand and cancelling his magic.

“Nope, they are too tight in sharing any information.” I said and looked at papa. “Found anything?” I asked, for since the time that I told them about all these assaults they’ve been helping me figure out who these people are.

“Yeah actually, and it’s that they are not human obviously due to the fact that this valley isn’t traversable by the mountains, and these ones right here is actually one of the magical beasts.” Papa said, the person suddenly shook violently in place.

“Ice Magic: Cold Calm.” I said and pointed my finger on the person’s head as a magic circle formed, the spell lulled him to sleep as this are one of my disengage spells that lasts for fifteen minutes, since more than that can freeze the brain of my target.

“Please continue papa.” Papa nodded at me and explained…

“I found out that they’re from the magical beasts -even thought we cannot see their animal like features- through reading their mana flow, since our mana flow is different from theirs, and exudes a strong amount of energy,

I’m not sure why but the energy is still flowing strongly even thought you told us that you froze his mana.” I shrugged, well I didn’t really target that kind of aspect of mana so… meh.

“Anyways, that confirmed to me that they are magical beasts, although I haven’t found out what race they are, not to worry, we’ll eventually find out later.” said papa, oh I know that look, I glanced at my mother as she also glanced at me, we both nodded at each other and I said…

“We’re letting them go once we’ve got the information we need, didn’t we agree on that papa?” papa blinked at me innocently, I just narrowed my eyes at him causing him to sigh.

“But can’t we experiment on them since we consider them as enemies?” he said dejectedly.

“We do consider them as such honey, but we can’t subject them to torture when they haven’t done anything bad to us.” said mama as he approached papa.

“I know *sigh*, okay we’re not going to experiment on them.” said papa as the two embraced. I can’t help but think if my father had a cause in me having thoughts of wanting to experiment on people, remember my friends and companions? They would be the best example.

“Oh right, Ma, Pa, do you think we can use a mind spell on this guy and extract information on his head? I think we can do it now since I froze over their mana.” Mama and Papa appeared to consider it for a bit and they start to talk in hushed tones, really? You two are gonna act lovey dovey now?

“Let’s try it.” They said, I nodded and the three of us went on three sides kind of like similar to that of a triangle with a bit of distance from the sleeping person as we synced up our magic and a magic circle the color of white with a shade of purple appeared below our feet and the person as the center.

“Arcane Magic: Mind Domination.” The three of us said as we’re thrusted into the mind of this person. This spell can either be used individually or with companions, I mean any other types of spells can be used by one or many and have the chance to combine them,

But these are just one of those times where me and my parents combined our magic to make the spell more effective.

Anyway, contrary to its name, the mind domination spell allows us to control a target’s mind, and also gain access to information that is stored within their head, now let’s see what this person has in store for us.

-A Moment Later-

“Wow, I did not think that that person had the audacity to try and steal your scythe Ken.” said papa as the three of us sat at our table trying to eat while we slowly digested the information we got from going inside that person’s head, what was his name again?

I don’t remember, I do remember that’s he’s one of the captains of that blasted head researcher, Indur.

“I agree papa, but the truth still remains unknown, what could they want my scythe for, I get that they labeled it as an artifact but why?” I said voicing out my thoughts.

I finished my meal since I’ll still be going to the village today. I stood up and used water magic to clean my plate and changed to my attire for today and strapped my scythe to my back.

“Be careful Ken, I know that you may suspect Princess Lang for this, but… don’t do anything reckless.” said mama, worry evident on her voice, I smiled. I’ve been sharing so many of my thoughts to them.

“Yes mama, I will, I’ll be off now, my friends must be waiting for me by now.” I hugged them both and walked out of the house, right, these people are still here.

I dispelled the ice covering the area, excluding those covered in ice and covered the leader in a block of ice, while I used telekinesis to fling them out of our village, somewhere down south, nope wait let’s change it to east.

Sheesh early on to the day and that welcomed me in the morning? Ugh! And with the information we collected made this even more complicated, but thankfully I know the person behind this mess.

I walked to our meeting place beside Wilbert’s house where the two of them are waiting. I waved and rushed towards them so that the three of us could travel side by side.

“Great you’re here, so let’s go.” said Wilbert, I nodded and he proceeded to hold my hand as well as Celine’s.

“Wait, what are you doing?” I asked. The two chuckled at me.

“We’re teleporting.” said Celine. I looked at them in confusion.

“Aren’t I supposed to do that?” I ask.

“We’ll be doing that this time, don’t you remember?” said Wilbert, hmm…

“I think yeah? Oh right, I remember now, hehe.” I said and scratched my neck before holding their hand again. The two combined their magic and with a magic circle below our feet the color of purple created a portal that seemed to scan us as it teleported us to the entrance of the village.

We walked to the direction of the field to meet up with everyone, but found them at the town-square. Welp, time for another adventure, let’s just expect that things wouldn’t be bad for us, or maybe I shouldn’t have thought of that.

“Finally, you guys are here.” said Allen.

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