Novel Full Chapter 187: The Hunt Ends
Chapter 187: The Hunt Ends
"Welcome back," the short woman welcomed them back with a frown on her face, the moment they exited the forest.
"But I believe I warned you lot not to go beyond the eastern markers," she looked at them one at a time.
Though she never explained what was beyond the markers, that was only because she thought the mystery would deter them from going there.
And she had been extremely lazy to.
She let out a sigh before adding, "Since none of you died, I’ll let you off the hook for now."
"Besides, you lot’s daddies are Grand Dukes, so I can’t exactly bully you while they’re looking," she muttered to herself.
Unfortunately for her, the representatives still heard every word.
An awkward silence followed her muttering.
"We can pretend we didn’t hear that," Cedric offered.
"You’ll pretend you didn’t hear that," she corrected, pointing at him specifically, "or I’ll find a reason to deduct your points."
Cedric closed his mouth, though it was because he was holding in a chuckle.
She then turned towards the recording magic tools hovering above the group and clapped her hands twice.
The tools immediately dispersed, the broadcast ending.
"Results will be announced at tonight’s banquet," she said, her tone moving back to something resembling professionalism, "clean yourselves up, you all smell like a volcano."
With that, she turned around and left, and so did most of the representatives.
"I think I need to sleep," Darius suddenly said.
"What about your arms?" Orion asked as he looked at his little brother.
"Oh, right," Darius muttered, looking down at his charred arms.
He truly wasn’t completely used to the flames yet, as it didn’t completely belong to Bob, but he could now use it for much longer.
Speaking of which,
"Bob, how long do you think it’ll take to heal?" He suddenly asked, confusing Orion a bit.
But the next second, a Dragon suddenly revealed itself above his little brother’s head, causing his eyes to go wide.
"You named your dragon, Bob!" Orion didn’t know whether to be angry or to facepalm.
He knew his little brother was an idiot, but not this big of an idiot.
"What’s wrong with Bob?" Darius asked in confusion, "I think it’s a great name."
{No, it’s not,} the dragon responded, {and it’s not my name either, my name is Inanis.}
"Too hard to remember," Darius said, "I prefer Bob."
Orion watched their interaction in shock, as far as he knew, dragons were creatures of pride, so there was no way one would allow itself to be named something as mundane as Bob.
And yet, he was standing witness to just that.
His little brother argued with the dragon for a while before the creature gave up and finally answered his initial question.
{A month,} Inanis said, {it’ll take a month to naturally heal.}
"Is it possible to heal it in a few hours?" Darius asked, "I can’t wait a month just to fight again."
{Light’s healing properties,} it answered, {but even that won’t completely heal it.}
The dragon then went silent before suggesting, Perhaps you could use the void flames again to burn the wound away?}
Burning a burn, what a great idea.
....
Orion finally understood why the dragon chose his idiot of a brother. The two were just the same.
With a sigh, he said, "Come with me, father might have something in the vault that’ll help."
With that, the two left.
"I’ll go see Isla," Conan muttered and also left with them, leaving just Cedric, Adrian, Renelle, the prince, and Saintess.
"If you’ll excuse us," Lucian said as he also left with the Saintess, the three soon following behind them.
***
Back in the stadium where the people were gathered, they watched the candidates exit the forest with a sigh of relief.
They had been quite on edge during the beast horde and had only managed to let out a sigh of relief after it was over.
At least, the other regions anyway.
The South only saw that as peak entertainment, after all, what was better than fighting a beast?
Fighting multiple beasts!
Most were surprised to see the grand duke’s youngest son use black flames, something which they had never seen before, only to immediately start cheering when they saw their effects.
Even Grand Duke Ignis was quite surprised at the flames.
Of course, having gone through the awakening trial, he had seen flames of different colors from dragons.
Each has a specific effect.
But black flames were ones he had never seen before.
"It seems my useless children are finally becoming useful," he muttered, only to be rewarded with an elbow to his stomach.
"Stop calling out children useless," his wife, Orion’s mother, said with a frown on her face.
Darius’s mother nodded in agreement, causing Ignis to go silent and continue watching the happenings until the broadcast ended.
The Archbishop glanced at the screen showing the church’s representatives for a while, when suddenly the screen seemed to freeze.
The next second, it completely blacked out, and for a few seconds, unseen to none, his eyes seemed to start glowing.
For some reason, none paid mind to the magic tool that just got destroyed.
Well, almost none, save for a certain someone.
The headmistress glanced at the screen and then at the Archbishop before muttering, "It seems time’s running out."
It seems she could interfere, but anything she tried right now would just speed up what was to come.
Hence, the reason she remained so passive right now despite being one of Avera’s strongest.
Some strings have clearly been tangled, but untangling them had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the butler and his lady.
So for now, she was nothing more than an observer.
"Conan was so cool," Isla, sitting with the headmistress, suddenly spoke up.
"He was, wasn’t he?" Evelina said with a smile.
"And Renelle too," Isla added before pausing, "but I didn’t get to see Adrian much."
"Hmm," the headmistress nodded as she looked towards the screen, "I guess he was dealing with something else."