The Third Party - Chapter 74

3rd Person’s POV (12 yrs., 8 months and 1 week old)

“Is this supposed to be normal?” asked Kara to her fellow masters, as she listened on the conversation carried on by the students.

“Hm? Yes.” replied Lana.

“But why does it feel like it isn’t.” said Kara, reluctant, and uncertain, for the conversation before her flowed like it was meant to be that way, which was creepy and suspicious in itself.

Not that they’re eavesdropping, their table was just near the table of the students, how can they not listen in on their conversation.

“Why do you say so?” asked Ulysses.

“Don’t you find it weird how the rest of the students agreed to Ken’s command like it was natural for them to do?” she faced Ulysses. “Like they didn’t have any room to open a discussion of other concerns and just blatantly closed it.”

The five were in deep thought, for it is true that throughout the times that the group of students are in a discussion with full members, it almost seems like Ken always had the conversation in the palm of his hands, which was indeed strange.

“I get your point Kara, and speculate that you suspect the students to be in some kind of enchantment spell put by Ken for them to always agree on Ken’s conversation.” said Ulysses, observing the bunch, eyes clad in a solemn light, but the coldness did not dissipate.

“Contrary to that dear, Ken is just a good conversation presider, especially when they are talking about objectives to do for the day, I assume that their conversation was objective for everyone thus it flowed like that.” seconded Lana.

“How can you justify? Forgive me if that was a bit rude, I’m just curious.” said Kara again.

“None taken. Well, their topic of conversation did sound objective for me.” replied Lana.

“But… their conversation tackled about the princess’ soldiers coming to disturb Ken, and that is in no way a good action to make especially when the victim could just think that his friend was targeting him.” reasoned Kara, for she finds it very absurd.

Think about it, who would send those assailants if not someone who has connections and the power to do so, don’t people in power do that quite often?

Despite being sealed away for twelve years, Kara still remembers some political function of a civilization consisting of the strong and the weak in many terms of position in power.

It’s to no surprise that she has the knowledge about dragons and their kingdom for it was already built long ago before she was born, of course she knows that that lavish looking girl with incredible features was of the Dragon race, and of noble origin.

Being addressed as ‘Princess’ gave more of a patch of disturbing essence for her taste.

“You’ll be surprised.” said Lana, catching her off guard.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well if there’s anything that I’ve learned from that student of ours is that not only is he careful and wild in terms of combat, he’s very non siding of any opposing manners, even if it was about him.” explained Lana.

This was even more ridiculous, how can a person, a child at that, be as what Lana described. Kara could only stare in disbelief at her friend, refusing to even acknowledge such… words.

“If you do not believe me, then experience it for yourself.” said Lana and smiled, before turning to observe again the students.

Mira, Harth, and Dawn listening at the side fell into thought of their friend’s explanation, on one side it was too good to be true if Ken was such a person, then again, there was never one who was neutral in both sides of the conversation.

Mira merely brushed the thought away, knowing to herself that those things did not matter as long as she could continue teaching the students of her ways.

Dawn did not know what do or say, so she just kept to herself.

Harth in some way or another felt uncomfortable entertaining such thought, but seeing as the moon god had blessed this child, then he’ll have to follow the orders of their god no matter the circumstances.

Right at that moment, everyone felt a fluctuation of magic in the air. A portal opened on the field before them and out came the masters that went out earlier, all battered up.

The group stared at them in wonder at what happened, and most of all in confusion. How did these guys get all messed up?

“What happened to you guys?” asked Lana, approaching them, and started casting healing magic. Even thought they mostly had bruises, but still. Look at all those tattered clothing, it seems like they battled a monster or a storm or something.

“We were ambushed by men in black at the beach.” said Klein, making the people’s eyes widen in shock, the question how and why was plastered on their faces.

One could imagine the turmoil it caused them, in both wonder and worry, who wouldn’t when you know that some of the strongest people you know suddenly were beaten silly. At least, tht’s what it looks like.

“Tell us what happened.” said Ulysses. To which the group of men complied, they narrated the part where they were suddenly ambushed by a hundred men in black just after arriving at the beach.

The assault caught them by surprise enabling the men to deal a substantial amount of damage to them, Klein got rudely punched to the side sending him flying, Ras got kicked on his left temple, Kilean got blasted with fire magic, Nazir got electrocuted, Abel got his arms sliced on the sides, and Oldin was sent flying sideways with a hammer.

But the group of men retaliated as they hastily gathered their bearings and counter-attacked, in the end the men weren’t able to suppress them and were defeated after a few minutes, no one was killed obviously, jus knocked out, they still needed answers from them.

Of course the group was exhausted but knowing that they had to investigate what happened in the area, but before they could, a huge metallic ball crashed down from the sky, and in a matter of seconds teleportation magic commenced, sending the ball and the men in black someplace far away.

The men looked at one another with blank expressions. The situation they are in was far from what they imagined, and it all happened within seconds causing feelings of frustration to emerge from their being.

Quite probably because they weren’t able to ask questions. Klein was deeply irritated, first some people was able to invade their southern territory without them knowing, second was that they have extraordinary strength making their job way harder to deal with.

Klein sighed in his heart and instructed his fellow masters to check the area and see if the barrier was not tampered or broken on these parts.

Turns out, the barrier wasn’t tampered or destroyed, it all looked just fine, which aroused Klein’s suspicion, for if that was the case, then which magical beasts were those people from earlier.

He came to this outcome since their barrier only recognizes their kind, un-enabling other trespassers from entering their valley, so who?

Klein talked about all of this to their fellow masters, immediately they could not help but glance guiltily at that girl who also happened to hear their conversation.

Ken in particular felt like he’ll have a lot of explaining to do since, he’s also involved in this mess. He wonders how their masters will react for the reveal of some important details to them.

He could only sigh inwardly knowing how much drama this will cause, but he knows that there will be no sudden outburst, that would be just rude in on itself…. right?

Meanwhile, the Dragon soldiers that were sent out to the valley appeared at a platform at a certain place on the Dragon Kingdom.

The platform looked a lot like an arena, stair-like chairs surrounded the circular platform at the center where all the Dragon soldiers in black appeared. Another thing to mention is that this area is an enclosed space, but has a semi-sphere like orb at the ceiling as a source of light.

The captain of the squad of soldiers hurriedly went out of the ball in a clumsy fashion, landing face first on the ground followed by his subordinates with a bit of a similar fashion of getting out the metallic sphere.

He quickly gathered himself up, anxiety creeping into his being, thinking to himself how big of a failure their operation was, they’ll be punished for sure. More than that, the princess knowing of their presence there spells even bigger trouble.

The possibility that that human would out them to the princess is highly likely to happen, he felt even more anxious if that were to be true.

This operation of them was top secret, only the King and the head researcher knew about it.

“Have you brought the artifact?” said a voice, the captain snapped out of his state and turned towards the voice in front of them.

Indur walked towards the captain with an unreadable expression, but his eyes were calculative, looking at the captain up and down, but it seems they may have disappointed him yet again seeing as the captain was not responding and avoiding his gaze by looking down.

“So you were still unable to collect it?” Indur could only sigh internally, that human is proving to be very difficult to handle, they have been trying to take the scythe countless times now, what are they missing? What are they lacking that they could just not take it?

“Excuse me, Head Researcher.” said the captain, Indur turned to him sharply.

“What?” he said, eyes narrowed into slits at the captain, the captain cold not help but gulp involuntarily.

“We bring grave news.” The captain said.

“Speak.” said Indur after a moment of silence.

The captain reluctantly glanced at the head, debating whether he should tell the head or not, it was a slip of the tongue when he said that there was something they needed to tell him, now he’s regretting ever speaking with that impulsive mouth of his.

It was also his fault that the princess found out who they were because he didn’t stop his subordinates in time before wounding that human.

He couldn’t believe how stupid he was for letting his feelings get the better of him as he watched the human get stabbed, oh how satisfying it was, yet regretful.

“Do not keep me waiting.” reprimanded Indur, the captain bowed, and went silent again.

His heart beating a mile per hour, feeling it’ll burst out from his chest, he gulped once again, and slowly raised his head.

“T-The princess knows sir.” He gazed down once again, waiting for another bout of scolding, but after waiting for what felt like minutes, the captain wanted to raise his head again but flinched when he heard a loud voice.

“SHE WHAT!?” the captain glanced at the fuming head researcher, and for once in his life, he felt like praying to the gods above.

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