Under the Veil of Night

Inside

When Kevin jumped into the floor, he crashed into Kanae, who was trying to climb up. Instinctively, he reached out his hand to the girl and wrapped her in his embrace tightly. The two of them crashed on the floor with Kevin bore most of the impact because he was covering her.

"Kevin?" Kanae's voice sounded worried. "What's happening outside?"

The sound of rubbles and the shaking earth made Kanae worried. They were fighting against Ferdinand just now, so it was highly possible that there was something that happened just now.

"The entire building collapsed," Kevin replied.

"Will we die?"

"No, we'll be fine, but we might have to stay here for quite some time as the rubbles block the entrance."

Kanae nodded her head. She stayed still in Kevin's arm as her eyes adapted to the dark room. In mere seconds, she could see the surroundings very well.

As Kanae was busy scanning the room, Kevin rummaged his pocket and noticed that his phone was broken. He sighed internally. It seemed that the fight just now had broken his phone beyond repair.

"This place is rather small," Kanae frowned. If Ferdinand wanted to use this place as the way out, there should be more roads, but what she saw was nothing but walls blocking the area.

"Let's check it out," Kevin moved his body away. He could feel the pain from the fight just now, but he ignored them. There was no medicine in this place, so he better just stayed quiet rather than making Kanae worried about him.

The two of them stood up slowly to inspect the place. The wall was uneven, but it was clearly man-made. There were some ventilation small windows, which headed out of this place, but the size was too small for them to get out. Kanae might be able to get out with her small build, but she was not in the mood to crawl in the darkness.

The two of them decided to sit down and leaned to one of the walls.

"The destruction of the building makes part of this place collapse," Kevin pointed to one of the walls. "I'm not sure where it'll go, but do you want to try exploring the place?"

"I'm not that interested in travelling in some unknown place. Besides, I'm tired."

She didn't feel it before, but now that she rested her body, she sensed how tired she was. The struggle against the device, the fight with Kevin, and the brutal fight against Ferdinand had taken the toll in her body. She was so tired that she knew that she would surely fall asleep if she didn't try to keep her focus.

"Me too," Kevin placed his hand on Kanae's shoulder and pulled her closer. "Do you want to talk now?"

"About?"

"How you shouldn't let the thoughts of dying enter into your head anymore," Kevin's eyes glinted when he recalled how Kanae tried to let herself die. "Even if it's hard, I don't want to see you die."

"I don't know how I should tell you about the truth," Kanae replied. "I only have a few hours left from that time, so I know that I have to make my move fast. I can only give you one chance, and at the same time, I can't tell you the truth."

Kevin caressed the girl's head. "I want to protect you, and not let you lost your mind. But rather than living alone without you, I'll prefer to spend the rest of my time with you even if it's only for a short period of time."

Previously, he has always tried to put Kanae away from danger, which was himself. He didn't tell her the truth about his background and acted rather normal around her. After he found out about her real identity, he became bolder in his action because he knew that she had some skills and was capable of protecting herself.

But it was not enough.

Even though she is powerful, she still needed other people. He shouldn't get careless anymore because what he wanted was to spend his life with her and not letting her die before him. There might be more people in the future who aimed for their head.

"I won't do that again," Kanae promised.

"That's good."

"In exchange, I want you to promise me the same thing. I don't want to see you die too," Kanae looked back at the man's eyes with a hopeful expression. Even though the vision in this dark place was unclear, she knew that he was staring back to her with his dark iris.

Kevin nodded his head. "I promise."

"Pinky promise?"

He wanted to laugh when he heard her childish request. His lips curled up into a smirk. "I know something better than that."

He pulled her head closer and kissed her forehead lightly. Kanae was stunned when she felt his lips on her forehead. She could feel heat coming to her face. Right now, she was thankful that they were inside a dark cave or he might have realized that her face had turned red.

"T-that's what you call better?"

"Why? Don't you like it?

"I…" she wanted to say that she didn't, but it would mean that she didn't like his touch. On the other hand, she wanted to say that she liked it, but it felt embarrassing. In the end, she didn't answer and merely leaned her head on his shoulder.

Kevin also didn't press Kanae any further as he calmed his breath. His body was still hurt, so it would be better if he didn't move around so much.

Time passed as the two of them stayed quiet like that before Kanae spoke up suddenly.

"Kevin, do you think this is the end of our fight with Ferdinand?"

Kevin's eyes glinted when he heard that name. He shook his head lightly. "I'm afraid, it's not that simple. He's very powerful that it's not easy to defeat him at all."

To be honest, Kanae didn't want to fight against Ferdinand anymore. The strength that the man showed to her made her rather terrified. After all, he slammed her countless times that it was painful to even move her body a little bit. If she had to fight against him again, she was not sure that she could get away unscathed.

"He's buried by the rubbles, right?"

"Yeah, but it's uncertain whether he's still alive or not."

"Oh," Kanae murmured. If it was either Kevin or her who was buried, they would have been dead a long time ago. Their skill didn't allow them to escape unscathed from the destroyed building.

"There are also two people who are missing from his lineup," Kevin's eyes turned cold. He had seen most of them during the fight so far, so he could guess that there were several people missing.

"Megara and Jon, right?" Kanae raised her head.

"How do you know?"

"Vena mentioned something regarding her brother before, so I guess Jon disappeared," Kanae replied. "As for Megara, it's impossible to forget about that man, but I didn't meet with him at all."

"Yes," Kevin nodded his head.

If it was someone else, these two would have long been forgotten. After all, both of them didn't possess any important skill that would place them in the wanted section. If anything, Jon's skill was rather unknown to most of the people, so they would not try to search for this 'useless' ex-young master. As for Megara, only people who had clashed with him head on would remember him, especially Kevin.

"We'll need to confirm with the others too," Kanae yawned. She almost didn't have sleep at all yesterday because she was busy fighting with the controlling device.

"I'll ask them for confirmation once we get out," Kevin pulled Kanae to his lap and let her head rested on his chest. "For now, you should have some sleep."

Kanae arranged her position a bit to make herself comfortable. Even though the position was somewhat embarrassing, it was warm with Kevin near her. "What about you?"

"I'll sleep later."

"Ok, just wake me up if you want to sleep…"

Kevin chuckled when he noticed that Kanae had fallen asleep. Her face was so cute that he wanted to give her another kiss.. It was only because he didn't want to attack her when she was resting that he didn't make any move.