Chapter 343: Pitiful Gloria

"!!!" They saw Ellia and Vera disappear.

Gloria hurriedly turned to Auric, finding that he and Katarina had started running. "Not good! They’re running! Ten of you, go after the other two. The rest will chase the main target!"

Gloria couldn’t afford to let Auric leave, considering that Auric was the main problem. As long as she kept an eye on him, Auric couldn’t use his usual trick.

However, this action was visible to everyone watching the livestream. They were quite surprised because it looked like Dermania’s students were hunting down Auric.

[Lol! They can’t beat him, and now they’re going to surround him or something?!]

[This is a joint training for all ranks. Sucks to be him!]

[Dermania, please play by the rules.]

[It looks like Gloria Schaff is the one leading them. Is this really what Dermania wants?]

[I remember her. She was responsible for the previous mistake, and now does she think that cheating her way to the top rank will make us forget her mistake?]

[This just makes me feel embarrassed. Can’t someone replace this woman already? Kick her out!]

[The official statement is that she is no longer the leader. Don’t tell me she’s ignoring it? Her ego lol!]

Obviously, Katarina had also asked people to act as trolls on the internet, making sure to paint Gloria in a bad way.

However, even without them doing anything, Dermania’s citizens had done it themselves.

Yes, Head Instructor Ryan had already begun making his move, while covering his tracks. By discrediting her, Gloria wouldn’t be able to discredit them. In a way, it worked perfectly for Katarina since she didn’t have to get her hands dirty anymore.

With this, her plan would succeed, and Dermania could only blame themselves in the future.

"This is disgusting." Maya gritted her teeth, but intentionally said it aloud.

"Hush." Supervisor Jacob raised his hand, gesturing for her to stop saying such a thing. It was obvious that Maya didn’t agree with this, but Supervisor Jacob acted as if he was warning her against doing anything that would harm the country’s reputation.

The actual truth was that Supervisor Jacob was cheering for Auric because he knew Auric had won this time.

The only thing he could do was to hope Auric’s plan succeeded.

"Whoa?! There are so many of them. It looks like half of them are chasing after you." Lindwurm looked back while following Auric.

’We will keep going for another three minutes. Then we will disappear entirely. They won’t have much time to hide after that.’

"Got it!" Lindwurm nodded. "I will support you."

"Are you ready, Katarina?" Auric smiled.

"Yeah. On you." Katarina nodded with a serious expression. Both of them started to speed up, trying to lose their pursuers.

A lot of people struggled to chase after them, considering their low strength. However, there were still 16 people who could keep up, including Gloria.

Gloria shouted, "Never mind those people. We will keep this up. Even if we’re found afterwards, it doesn’t matter. At least, this also means those two will also be found."

The students didn’t say much as they were more scared of Head Instructor Ryan than Gloria. They listened to her only because Head Instructor Ryan had chosen her.

"Ellia, what’s your situation?" Auric asked.

"Everything is fine. Some of them are still chasing us, but I haven’t used my Void Step to its full potential. I can disappear if I want to."

"Got it. In that case, I will begin my maneuver." Auric nodded before turning his head to Katarina. "Follow me."

As soon as he got the confirmation, Auric immediately leaped to the right.

"!!!" Gloria widened her eyes. She slid on the ground to kill her momentum before shouting, "They’re going to the right! Don’t lose them!"

"As expected from Dermania’s top prospects, it won’t be easy to lose them." Katarina glanced back.

"It’s fine. I will use that secret move." Auric smiled.

They started moving in an unpredictable way, making it look like they were doing their best to escape from them.

However, Gloria and the others still managed to keep up.

In this place, Auric and Ellia were probably the only ones who could escape from this situation.

"It’s already 2 minutes and thirty seconds. I think I’ve found a tree big enough to hide you guys." Lindwurm pointed to the left.

Auric extended his hand to Katarina, gesturing for her to take his hand.

As soon as Katarina took his hand, Auric changed his direction again.

Gloria saw the gesture and shouted, "Watch out! They might be trying something."

"He’s just holding hands with the girl. Why bother? He can do nothing."

"Are you perhaps jealous? Aren’t you good with that guy? You dislike that woman because she’s stealing him from you?"

Gloria was dumbfounded. How could they even have such perceptions about her?

However, she couldn’t snap at them, as it would just be pointless. Auric would get away, and she would be punished as well.

So, Gloria bit her lip quietly and kept observing their movements.

As soon as Auric reached the tree, he leaped behind it and pulled Katarina into his embrace. Then, he activated his Void Step and disappeared.

"Behind that tree!" Gloria pointed to the specific tree.

All of them surrounded the area as they no longer saw Auric running. So, whatever he had done, Auric might have used his power to hide somewhere nearby.

As soon as they reached the tree, they found out Auric was gone.

"He’s gone!"

"What?"

"He’s disappeared."

"No way!"

The students were in disbelief. There were so many of them chasing after Auric, yet for some reason, Auric could escape from under their noses.

"What’s going on?"

"They might be hiding somewhere."

"Up?" One student leaped to the top of the tree, wondering if they had disappeared here.

Little did they know, Auric was already far away from them.

When he was Rank 1, his Void Step only allowed him to travel for about ten meters from his current location.

It expanded greatly once he reached Rank 2, as he upgraded his Void Step. The range had increased to 50 meters.

However, Ellia had once again upgraded this technique to Rank 3. The Rank 3 Void Step could travel up to 250 meters at once.

That was why Auric had completely disappeared from everyone’s vision. After all, Auric’s unique element had truly reached Rank 3 by the time the training program began.

Of course, traveling longer distances meant the disruption of energy would be greater, which prevented him from using the battle technique again for a longer period of time.

That was why Ellia used the Void Step with the same output as a Rank 1 Void Step instead of its full power. This way, people would think she couldn’t travel too far.

Now that Auric had begun to move, Ellia used that power to completely disappear from their sight. It would be close to impossible for them to figure out where she went with all the woods blocking their vision.

Auric took a bit of rest before using this power again. In the end, they reached the safe zone first.

Ellia arrived with Vera twenty seconds later.

Auric immediately scanned the entire area. Once he also received confirmation from Lindwurm, he signaled Ellia to come in.

"Yo! What should we do now?"

"Let’s just play the game again. What else? It’s not like we can do anything here." Vera shrugged.

"Right?" Ellia nodded in agreement.

"Yeah. Let’s do it. But before that, I have something to tell you." Katarina looked at Auric.

"Me? Sure."

Katarina grabbed his wrist and pulled him into the bathroom. "Can we talk here?"

Lindwurm gave a thumbs up, so Auric nodded.

Katarina then took out her phone and showed him the livestream. "The situation looks quite dire for Gloria."

"Hmm?" Auric frowned. He saw a lot of hate comments, especially targeting Gloria. "You manipulated the comments?"

"I just checked the message from my subordinate. His team didn’t do anything this time."

"Head Instructor Ryan?"

"Most likely. Gloria will become a scapegoat as well. I think we won’t have to wait too long to receive the news about her."

"Accepting the offer?"

"Yes."

"How are you going to proceed with her naturalization?"

Katarina raised three fingers. "There are three steps. First, we will have her escape the country first. Then, I will use my connections in the government to smooth everything over. Of course, I will end up putting your name as her guarantor. Lastly, I will settle her down somewhere near you."

"There won’t be any issues?"

"There should be none unless Dermania catches wind of it and is trying to stop her. When that happens, we will have no choice but to proceed more aggressively. You may end up receiving a lot of hate at that time. Maybe they’re going to slander you or something."

"It doesn’t really matter. Besides, I’m thinking about closing the Moon Store from there." Auric nodded.

"That’s also a good idea. Actually, there was a report about it. I haven’t been able to confirm it yet, which is why I haven’t reported it to you."

"Report?"

"Yeah. It looks like they’re going to use them as a weapon to expand their influence. They might claim it’s theirs. Still, this is just speculation based on their behavior."

"What will happen then?"

"They might use a copyright claim against you to take it down, but you can simply produce more and show that they’re the ones stealing. The problem is that they might be hounding you. In this case, I suggest we change the way in which you sell it. Rather than letting the online store handle it, you should proceed with creating your own website. We can create a system to prevent anyone with an IP address in Dermania or anyone using a VPN."

Auric thought for a moment. "Well, I’m not exactly sure about that. Maybe we can continue with the current form first. Then, once it gains some traction, we can proceed with that plan. I don’t plan to advertise it for the time being, so putting it on the online store will help reach more people."

"Fair enough, but that also means the online store will take a cut."

"It’s fine for now." Auric waved his hand. "Let’s just focus on Gloria for now."

"Got it. In that case, I will send you a few things for your approval as soon as Gloria reaches out to me. I will have to monitor her as well."

"Monitor her? Something like using this chance to kidnap her or maybe manipulate her into becoming a spy again?" Auric asked.

"No, I’m more worried about her health. Not many people can face this kind of hatred head-on, especially when she doesn’t have anyone supporting her. You know? There are a lot of cases of people committing suicide because of hate comments and death threats."

"I see. Okay, let’s proceed how you see fit."