Chapter 194 Subject Of Elimination
Step. Step. Step. Another step.
With each step, the tension within Northern's chest grew thick. His hands were slowly opened, ready to hold out either the Mortal Blade or Soul Taker.
Either of the two were deadly weapons capable of striking down their enemies with little to no effort.
Since it was most likely a human, Mortal Blade was a more suited choice.
That thing was obviously created to kill humans... there's no mistaking it.
'To think, I'll finally have to kill someone...'
It wasn't a nice thought. In fact, in just a couple of seconds that the thought crossed his mind, Northern's taste buds were already bitter and disgusted.
But what had to be done had to be done.
The steps finally stopped, and slowly, the silhouette appeared out of the darkness, with both hands folded upon their chest.
When Northern saw who it was, his eyes widened for a second, then creased back later.
He sighed and dropped his hand, however, he questioned with tightly furrowed brows:
"Seriously, Instructor Anne? What the fuck are you doing here?"
One of Annette's brows drifted up.
"You know, I'm not too conversant with languages, but I can tell that thing that came out of your mouth is vulgar. You should apply respect when talking to me. Aside from being your instructor, I'm probably about ten years older than you."
"Yeah. So what?" Northern returned with a nonchalant tone.
Annette, as much as she wanted to just move closer and smack the shit out of him, held back and just face-palmed herself.
Not even with what she had just seen, smacking the shit out of him was asking for trouble.
She let out a deep exhale and then opened her mouth, showing some hesitation before her words came out.
"You... I always knew you had it in you, but not to this extent. You defeated an apex level monster without a weapon." Annette's voice was low, almost hoarse, in fact.
That way, she was suppressing the turmoil that ran amok within her. Left to her, she would scream at the tip of her tongue because what she had just experienced was insane!
None of the party leaders could pull it off!
And one thing she was sure about was that Northern didn't even use the Cloning ability!
She figured that if he did, the battle would have gone more smoothly. But he didn't; he fought without armor, without a weapon too...
It was crazy! It was insane! It made absolutely no sense!
She stood there, like it was no big deal, but she was doing a great ton of work to suppress the bewilderment piling within her.
She stared at Northern for a couple of minutes.
His eyes on her were... full of alertness and scorn.
"Okay, look. This wasn't intentional. After what happened with Gilbert, I was worried about you, so I came around... then I discovered there was a monster in here. At first, I thought it was the same monster that we've been having issues with. I was suspicious of you because what would the monster be doing at your place, so I decided to hide myself and just observe..."
She paused, looking at the immoral corpse of the monster. Then she spoke, tasting a tang of bitterness.
"I... wasn't expecting this..."
Now that it had come to this, Northern was greatly conflicted about what to do.
'Should I just kill?'
It was a wild idea, but it wasn't impossible.
'If I take on the soul of Koll, my abilities should be boosted, then with Dark Terror and some other clones, it should be possible... or I could just use my Chaos skill...'
He stared at her intensively. He was seriously considering it!
"I'm sorry... you are looking at me so intensely, I feel like I'm trapped in between dying and not dying by your hands."
Northern continued to stare... blankly.
"But it'd be impossible for you to kill me."
He raised his head a little bit.
"How sure are you?"
Annette chuckled, "Well, not because of my ability or anything. But you are not so stupid as to kill the only person that could be on your side in this desolation."
"Exactly, that means you could be the only person in the meaning of the word... capable of BETRAYING me. If I kill you right now, the possibility of that is taken away."
Annette froze for a moment, her face was a little pale.
"Calm, holy Tach! I was joking, but you were actually thinking of killing me?"
Northern shrugged, "I was considering it..."
"You love to hide your abilities that badly?"
Northern stared distantly, then shrugged.
"I'm not particularly hiding them. I'm just not showing them. Should the need arise to do so, I will. I'm only being this careful because I believe I don't know much about the party leaders. I don't want them knowing anything about me when I don't know anything about them."
Annette nodded, she lingered before saying:
"I see..."
Then an awkward silence hung in the dark air between the two before she cut through with her strong voice.
"Well, I have ample time... thanks to the monster killing other monsters around, things are beginning to crumble around here. If you want, I can tell you everything about the party leaders you want to know and also other things."
Northern bent down and picked the soul cores but said as he did:
"Crumble? What is crumbling?"
Annette folded her arms again, looking down at him as he reached for the last black orb that was a bit far from the rest.
"What else? The structure of fear that Gilbert built."
"Oh, that? What's wrong?"
"Since the monsters are dying, the people are beginning to feel like they can go out on their own to source for meat. Since the party leaders are refusing to go out, the only thing stopping them is the actual monster itself. Since no one knows what it is, everyone is skeptical about going..."
'That is true... even though all monsters are dead and the people feel like they can fend for themselves now, Dark Terror has become the next object of fear, and it's very much possible for them to build another structure around that.'
Northern caressed the orb in his hand, lost in his thoughts.
'But that'll also be risky for them. Because this time it's not a fear that they can control... Gilbert wouldn't want to build a structure around such fear, since it affects both them and the people. Eliminating it is a better choice...'
He looked at Annette, "Is it that they are scared? Can't the party leaders all come out to fight this monster?"
Annette shrugged, "Gilbert is a lot of things. I don't understand the way he thinks sometimes, but yes, the party leaders are already coming together to challenge it. The strange thing, however, is that Raven dropped out."
"She did?"
Annette continued, "She didn't just drop out; she disbanded her party and is no more a party leader."
Northern's mouth fell open.
"Eh? Why?"