Chapter 23: The Scent of Her Perfume Lingers on You
Shaya was astonished.
“I know there might be her perfume lingering on me, but how exactly did you identify it as Diris’s scent?”
“Is this the legendary sixth sense unique to women?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t possess such an ability. As far as I know, divination-type skills are extremely rare, even among time-element familiars.”
Aerora’s expression remained unchanged as she reached out and straightened Shaya’s slightly askew collar.
“I simply believe that if there were an opponent at Saint Roland Academy who had even a one percent chance of posing a threat to me, it could only be President Diris.”
“The confidence of Saint Roland Academy’s number one beauty!”
Shaya gave a thumbs-up but noticed that the surrounding air did not seem to have eased at all with his compliment.
“Actually, it was the President who found me on the train and wanted to drag me to make up for a missed exam and attend some noble social dinner. But I cleverly slipped away.”
“I’m telling the truth, Little Ai, you have to believe me.”
“Of course, I believe you.” Aerora tilted her head, her golden hair cascading to one side. “Classmate Shaya, what are you explaining on your own?”
Shaya hadn’t felt this flustered in a long time.
He decided to pull out his ultimate trump card.
“Ying ying ying! (Big sis! Long time no see!)”
“Jiji… jiji! (Big sis… biig sis, long time no see!)”
As contracted partners with souls intertwined with Shaya’s, the little golden monkey and the little mink that appeared on his shoulders, one on each side, immediately put on a cute act upon their arrival.
This tactic proved to be exceptionally effective.
Although Aerora’s plain white face remained calm, the air around them clearly relaxed a bit.
“Long time no see, Yin.”
She reached out and rubbed the little mink’s head, then looked at Sparkle beside it.
“Have you finally completed your gestation?”
“Jiji!”
Sparkle nodded excitedly.
Although, strictly speaking, it had only been born just over a week ago, it had followed Shaya in its “Sealed Stone” form for several years.
In its Sealed Stone form, the Sealed Stone Monkey had almost no mobility, but it still retained its perception of the outside world.
Therefore, Sparkle was not unfamiliar with Aerora.
If anything, she was the true boss.
The one who reigned above Big Sister Yin, the ultimate boss.
After teasing Yin and Sparkle for a while, Aerora’s sky-blue beautiful eyes turned back to Shaya.
She leaned down and whispered in Shaya’s ear, “I’ve found some clues about what happened back then.”
“According to the intelligence provided by the Shadow Council—”
“Eight years ago, a letter was secretly dispatched from a noble’s residence within the Imperial Capital.”
“It passed through the Holy See and finally reached a lost kingdom in the Barren Lands.”
“Seven days after receiving that letter, Ceylon fell.”
Ceylon was a place name.
At least, it used to be.
It was a border city located in the Empire’s Northern Territory, situated on a permanent frozen tundra.
Although not particularly prosperous, it was the home where hundreds of thousands of northern residents lived and worked in peace.
But eight years ago, a catastrophe, still shrouded in layers of mystery even to this day, turned Ceylon into a thing of the past.
Shaya, Aerora, and Yin—
Perhaps they were the last survivors of that ice field.
Shaya gazed at the dormitory ceiling before him. “What rating did the Shadow Council give this intelligence?”
“‘Saint’s Requiem Message’.”
Shaya nodded.
The Shadow Council was the most renowned secret organization on the Western Continent. It started with intelligence trading and was involved in various grey industries such as mercenary missions and the black market.
Its status in the hidden world was no less than that of the Church or the Freista Empire in the visible world, a genuine behemoth in the underworld.
‘Saint’s Requiem Message’ was the second-highest tier in the Shadow Council’s intelligence classification.
This signified that the intelligence content directly or indirectly involved a Legend, or a lost king of equivalent combat power.
It was second only to the highest tier, ‘Angel of Death,’ which indicated involvement of demigod-level power.
Shaya fell silent for a moment.
Then, he sat up from the bedding and waved his hand dismissively, “Regardless, at least we have a clue and a direction now.”
“As for whether it’s Angel of Death or Saint’s Requiem Message, it doesn’t matter much to us right now.”
“People die when they are killed, and roads are walked step by step.”
“Little Ai, you aren’t far from the Third Ring, are you?”
“Mhm.”
Aerora nodded, her ice-blue eyes calmly meeting Shaya’s gaze. “Perhaps within these two months.”
“I’m almost there too, so let’s make breaking through to the Third Ring our primary goal.”
Shaya propped the pillow against the headboard of the bed and stretched comfortably, casually picking up the little mink to use as a pillow. “Also, I need to find a way to save enough money to buy some better fire-element Extraordinary Materials to use as a fire source and complete that damned Amaterasu.”
“Money is needed everywhere… I should have known better than to rush creating Amaterasu. This feeling of being able to see it but not use it is too painful, reminding me of those darn pay-to-win mobile games.”
“Ying~”
The little mink, held in his arms as a pillow, protested.
But upon thinking that the Amaterasu he longed for would require emptying his Master’s little treasury to complete, Yin’s protest became weak and listless.
Boom—
A deafening explosion suddenly resounded from the sky, followed by towering flames in the distance.
The dormitory window was shattered by the massive shockwave, and glass shards rained down mixed with dust.
This was immediately followed by countless panicked screams and hurried footsteps.
“Run! Run!”
“Help, I’m on fire, someone help me put it out… I asked you to put out the fire! Not for your Squirtle to use Water Gun on me!”
“Senior, your Blue-winged Giant Eagle knows Fly, right? Hurry and take me with you!”
“Women first, men fend for themselves. You’re male, so get lost. I’m rushing to the girls’ dormitory area to save my junior.”
“Don’t push me! My slime bra paddings are about to fall off!”
…
Clearly, Saint Roland Academy was as peaceful as ever today.
Shaya covered his ears with the little mink as makeshift noise-canceling headphones, continuing to ponder his money-making endeavors.
It seemed he needed to plagiarize another work from his previous life and sell it to the Royal Publishing House for some cash.
Which one should he choose: “The Revenge of Prince Hamlet” or “A Million Ceylon Gold Coins”?
“So, aren’t you going to run?”
Aerora’s clear and cold voice carried a hint of imperceptible helplessness.
“Run from what?”
“It’s either one of the deans’ monarch familiars going berserk, or some Artificial Familiar project from the Mechanical Department getting corrupted by Astral Realm pollution, or perhaps the Alchemy Department’s magical furnace heart exploding again.”
“Or, some illegal organization is acting out again, wanting to make their presence known.”
Shaya stroked the tuft of hair on Yin’s head and shifted into a more comfortable sleeping position. “In short, I’m tired from sitting on the train for three days.”
“Let me lie here a bit longer and escape our poor reality through dreams.”
Having stepped into the extraordinary world, one must be prepared for the possibility of being constantly disturbed by extraordinary events. Being able to fall asleep amidst noisy interference was a mandatory skill for any Beast Tamer.
Just then, the dormitory door was violently kicked open.
A thug, entirely shrouded in a black robe and wielding steel sickles in both hands, clearly bearing the label of an outlaw, barged in.
He looked at Shaya, collapsed on the bed as if his strength had been drained, and Aerora, sitting on the bedside cabinet.
As if conjuring something, the thug’s gaze narrowed slightly. “Two students who haven’t even fully grown have the audacity to engage in such illicit acts between a man and a woman…”
“The Empire today is truly declining in morals and integrity, having rotted to a point of utter ugliness.”
“Such wickedness shall be purified by the Blackflame Divine Punishment bestowed by my Lord—the God of Ash…”
Before the thug could finish speaking.
He suddenly saw the formerly listless, go-with-the-flow youth stand up abruptly.
Like a dying man rising from his sickbed.
Then, the youth stared at him with an expression the thug found difficult to understand.
“You said… you are from the Ash Cult?”
A smile curved Shaya’s lips.
The faint green light flickering in his pitch-black eyes reminded the thug of a pack of hungry wolves in the wilderness.
“The Ash Cult that worships the Lord of Ashes and Blackflame, whose doctrine is to burn all heretics in the world with divine flames?”
