Chapter 23 | It’s Time To Run

His hands twitched. From amidst the one-floor buildings, he felt it. That mana signature, he knew it. It was impossible to forget, but it was also somehow strange.

For some reason, it didn’t quite carry the signs of sentience it once did.

He gritted his teeth. Nicole was just like him, watching the mana signature with widened eyes. Whatever she had thought she would experience inside the tower, it didn’t include meeting The Eternal Night herself.

And one question remained amidst Theo’s awe.

Why is she here? What is her goal?

Though the main problem lay somewhere else. They needed to get the hell out of this tower as soon as possible. It seemed that the place spat out one problem after another at every turn.

“Where is Satou?” Theo asked.

“Yeah, about that…” Long Tian muttered before explaining. Theo nodded with a grim expression. He had seen the power discrepancy between Satou and those centipedes.

Let’s hope that he is fine.

“The exit was toward the Eastern Wall, right?” Theo asked. Long Tian nodded. “We should head there.”

They ran a quick jog across the outpost. The constant heat flow from the palisade walls climbed to the top of the dome and lowered itself into the hidden nexus room. It released a constant hum. It seemed that even with Satou’s and The Lieutenant’s diversion, not all of the centipedes could be distracted.

After climbing the parapet, they noted the increased number of people. It seemed that they weren’t the only ones intending to escape as soon as possible.

Among them, Theo spotted a couple of familiar faces. That adventurer party from before. His thoughts immediately darted to Miss Enk, whom he presumed to be Mister Cheas’s wife.

But the goblin woman was nowhere to be seen.

Theo decided to ask about it, having nothing else to do for the moment.

Let’s learn what really happened…

The centipedes scattered after witnessing her mana. Or maybe she was the one to order them. That, Satou didn’t know. He could feel her energy coiling into the reality around them. It dug its tendrils deep into the world.

He could feel it. Even the flux in the air was somehow changing. And that confirmed it. Affecting flux beyond simply moving it was something even Hero Klein couldn’t achieve.

What did that even mean? If she could stop him from taking in Flux, couldn’t she just starve them if she wanted? Was she actually stronger than Klein Bright?

“-ake. Mr. Jake!”

Satou broke from his daze with a slight twitch. He turned and looked at his temporary teammate, the Lieutenant.

“We have to go back to the outpost and help with the evacuation. Now that The Eternal Night is here, we don’t know what she will do,” he said. His breathing was becoming labored. They were quite close to that woman, after all. It was inevitable for the energies to strangle him.

Satou was the same, after all.

They dashed for the umpteenth time, jumping over the frozen centipedes. The Lieutenant didn’t forget to pick up the badges of his fallen brothers-in-arms.

It was the bitter reality of a soldier’s life: death. And with that woman now here, Satou doubted it would be the last death of the day.

The only thing he could do now was to make sure those kids weren’t the ones dying.

[Leave the Tower of Fracture in less than two weeks.]

[2:15:26:09]

He dismissed the notification. The end of the quest pulled closer, but he had a gut feeling that the problem wouldn’t be the time limit.

Theo tugged at his collar as the purple mana signature floated closer. It was a sluggish hover for Leila, not like those frantic dashes or her abrupt teleports from before. It made Theo wonder what the hell was up with her.

The centipedes had frozen slightly after her mana had reached their surroundings, causing them to cease their attacks.

“Mister Cheas was a good man. He has met a sad end,” the young adventurer with a sword hanging from his hip said. He simply called himself John Swordsman. Apparently, this was some part of his training, abandoning his previous name in the pursuit of the sword. He was a respectful one, which Theo liked to see.

“And Miss Enk disappeared right after, do you think something happened to her too?” the archer guy said while juggling a hand mirror between his fingers, a slight frown on his face. He had introduced himself too, but Theo couldn’t be bothered to listen. The man was in a constant state of either flirting with others or… flirting with himself. Which was creepy at best and eerie at worst.

Then they had a burly adventurer to their side, Mr. Stone. He had shining metallic gauntlets wrapped around his hands, probably some sort of pugilist. He hadn’t yet spoken once since Theo had asked about the goblin couple, which made him wonder something.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Since when have you three been traveling? And where did you meet Miss Enk? If I’m not being rude,” Theo asked. The one who decided to answer was the enthusiastic archer.

“We have been sworn brothers since childhood! From the same village, in fact. Even though we haven’t been adventuring together all the time, we do occasionally meet up to take a quest or two. And—” He ran out of breath, gulping a mouthful of air. “And we stumbled upon this place. We saw Miss Enk eating a lonesome meal by herself. How could I, The Great Bob, let a fair lady like herself eat alone? So I dragged my friends along and-“

…The Great Bob? Really?

“Wait, wait. So you didn’t know each other at all?” Theo asked. The archer frowned for a second before answering.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that. We were just getting to know each other.”

“Uh-huh.” Theo nodded along hesitantly. “And you guys have absolutely no idea where she is?”

“No, unfortunately. We are most concerned about her situation,” John Swordsman interrupted the conversation.

Then, an awkward silence settled, mostly consisting of them looking up at the figure of the slowly approaching Leila. Though Theo could sort of sense the underlying tension everyone had in their muscles. If she showed even a slight bit of aggression, they would dart into the forest in different directions.

However, Theo had no doubt that Leila could completely massacre each and every one of about half a thousand people here. Excluding maybe Satou. Which was a big maybe.

His thoughts were disturbed by a thump behind him. He had been facing away from the palisade wall, looking at the sky. The once-frozen centipedes were now starting to move again.