Under the Veil of Night

"Run, Rei!" Jason yelled anxiously.

Kanae ran as quickly as she could, but she could not reach the safe area in time. Her feet lost stable ground, and she felt gravity pulling her down.

"REI!" Jason screamed when he saw Kanae falling down. He anxiously ran towards the edge of the breach, hoping that the girl was still there.

"Stop yelling!"

The voice of a young girl immensely relieved Jason. He peeped over the edge of the hole, and saw Kanae looking back up at him.

"Captain, can you climb up?"

"Ouch," Kanae was hanging onto the edge with one hand. Thankfully, the fissure in the floor stopped in time as she managed to latch onto the edge. If not, she didn't know what would have happened to her.

"Little brat, climb up," Dean crouched down at the edge of the hole. His hand grasped Kanae's hand as he pulled her up slowly and carefully. He didn't want her to get hurt from the sharp fractures in the cement floor.

It took him several seconds before he managed to pull Kanae up and out of the hole successfully. Jason had also arrived and collected his breath, clearly relieved to see that Kanae was still alright.

"Captain, you're truly reckless," Jason smiled wryly.

Kanae grinned. "Isn't that the real reason I was made the leader?"

Dean swept his eyes at Jason and then Kanae. "You're the captain, little brat? You're not bad at all."

"Yes," Kanae smiled.

On the other side, Randy slowly made his way over to them. His face slightly contorted in pain because of the earlier impact from the monster. Although he was glad that the monster was defeated, he was annoyed that he didn't have the chance to deal the final blow.

"What's your name, little brat?"

"Rei," Kanae replied. "I'm Rei from Fiore Group."

"Rei huh," Randy scrutinized Kanae up and down. It was rather hard to discern her exact appearance because of the dirt and dust, but he could roughly guess that she should still be quite young. "I'll remember you."

Dean laughed. "You acknowledge this brat?"

"What? Don't you acknowledge him too?"

Dean paused for a moment when he heard how Randy addressed Kanae. It seemed that this man hadn't realized that this brat was actually a little girl. Well, there was no need to correct him either. It would be more fun this way.

"There's one more thing left to do. The vial is over there, do you want to take it, Randy?"

Randy glanced at the corner of the room, where the vial was protected inside a large glass cylinder. Although the vial itself was barely five centimeters long, the glass protecting it was more than two meters tall.

He returned his gaze to Dean. "Even if I want to take it, I doubt you're going to let me."

"You know me very well," Dean smirked. "Rei, take the vial."

"What?" Kanae was stunned by his instruction. She looked towards the leader of Lore Group in confusion. "Shouldn't you be the one taking it, Brother Dean?"

"It's MASTER Dean, little brat! Well, you deserve the vial because you defeated the last monster. Without your involvement, we wouldn't have succeeded."

Kanae turned to Randy. Seeing Randy nod his head, albeit with a dark expression, she knew that they approved of her taking the vial. With that, she walked slowly and carefully towards the cylinder. Assessing the cylinder, she noticed a small door.

Opening the door, she reached inside. Slowly, she took out the small vial of transparent liquid.

Behind the crowd, Jason watched Kanae retrieve the vial. No one protested and waited calmly. On the other hand, he was feeling deeply apprehensive. When they first entered this place, they were not much different from the bunch at the very bottom of the ranking. Aiming to survive was already hard enough. They would be dreaming if they also aimed to take the vial.

However, in only a matter of hours, they got the vial in the end. It was totally out of his imagination.

"She's getting farther and farther away, isn't she, Oro?" Shiro's voice came out of the communication device.

Jason snapped back to reality. He frowned. "What are you talking about, Shin?"

"You know what I'm talking about, Oro. You should forget about it, she sees you as nothing more than a big brother."

"I know," Jason murmured. His eyes were still locked on the young girl in the very front. "I know that very well."

"I'll introduce you to my friends later."

"I believe I know more people than you," Jason snorted.

Shiro didn't continue the conversation. He was still staring at the screen of the laptop that Jason lent to him. "The barrier is still there. Just retrieving the vial is not enough to leave the place."

"I see," Jason frowned. That meant, they still have to fight.

BAM! BAM!

A series of explosions sounded. Everyone's faces paled considerably when they noticed the ground shaking harder than the times before. A cursory glance was enough to see cracks appearing even on the walls as the shaking grew harder.

Kanae's eyes narrowed. "Head to the roof!"

"Let's go!"

They all sprinted towards the stairs towards the roof. Upon reaching the roof, they could see the dark sky above them. The building also still kept shaking extremely badly.

"Tom, are you safe?" Kanae asked amid the chaos.

"Yes, we retreated quite far away," Tommy answered. Because they saw cracks on the main building after crossing over to the shorter building, they decided to move away. Thankfully, this shorter building spanned quite a long distance, so they were located in a safe area.

Turning her head to confirm, Kanae could see the long building below her. Several people were standing on the roof quite far away from her.

BAM!

Another explosion reverberated and the main building started tilting.

"Hold on!" Dean instructed!

They held to whatever they could as the building they were on came crashing towards the long building next to it. The explosions triggered the collapse, and gravity did the rest. Within seconds, the building crashed into the roof of the long building, sending several of them falling onto the hard concrete.

"Rei! Oro!"

"Master Dean!"

"Master Randy!"

After the dust settled, the Lore Group members who had retreated first gathered around where the people fell down. Thankfully, they were all on the rooftop as the walls and floors below had most likely collapsed partially. Sounds of splashing liquid, followed by waves of screaming echoed out from the collapsed part of the building behind them.

"The acid is going to destroy everything soon enough," Randy patted his clothes as he stood up slowly.

Dean nodded. "We just have to avoid its path."

"Brat, are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Kanae smirked. "You need more than that to kill me.��

Even though she said so, her whole body felt the pain. After all, she was covered in numerous scratches and wounds. Furthermore, she did not make a smooth landing.

"Oro, are you alright?" Tommy approached them.

Jason waved his hand. "My condition isn't that bad."

"We need to get down now," Dean stood up. He prepared himself for battle once more. There was no time to waste as he knew that they were not out of danger yet. "Are there a lot of monsters here?"

"Master, there are a lot of them on the floor below and part of the stairs is destroyed."

Dean frowned. "This is not going to be easy."

"Even if it's hard, we still have to go down," Randy shrugged, bearing with the pain in his back.. "Let's go."