Aethernea Episode 64 – An Innovative Method of Torture

Previously:

After acing the first part of her Multicasting exam, Elaru placed all 50 cubes under her control and charged into melee range of the pink cactus. She kept avoiding its tentacles and popping bubbles. At the end of her exam, the last batch of bubbles appeared at the edge of the cactus’s range.

When her cubes slipped past the edge, the Light spell went out of control and damaged one of the enchantment spells on one of the cubes. The cube went out of control and shattered a hole in the middle of a glass tank filled with healing potion. Deora acted quickly and tried to stop the potion from flowing out, he asked Zerel to help him Morph the glass to shut the hole, however, Elaru was the first one to arrive and help him.

Only when the precious potion stopped leaking out of the tank did Deora come back to his senses. Like a raging dragon, he grabbed towards Elaru as if he wanted to pull her up by the neck, but she reflexively jumped a few steps back out of his range.

“You! You!!” Deora’s shaking finger pointed towards Elaru, steam was almost coming out of his bright red ears, and his eyebrow was violently twitching the entire time. Finally, he couldn’t hold it in, and flames suddenly enveloped his body.

Just as he was about to throw a fireball in Elaru’s direction, an image of headmaster Eruan flashed in his mind. He gritted his teeth and put out the fire.

Instead of using flames, which had a high chance of causing more damage, his gaze landed on the remnant glass shards littered over the floor.

His eyes flashed with fury and the largest pieces of glass floated up into the air. Their sharp edges glittered dangerously towards Elaru.

Almost tangible killing intent swept over her, and her body subconsciously and instantaneously reacted. She pulled out two daggers strapped around her waist and cast a Protection spell on her own body.

Protection spell was a wide-spread dual spell (dual spell is a spell that had both an augmentation and transmutation based variant). The augmentation variant of Protection was based on Velocity while transmutation based variant was based on Morph.

Protection created a barrier around the body made out of particles of air (or anything else at hand) woven into a protective suit around the body.

After the suit of air is created, it would be enveloped by a Piercing spell which was also a dual spell.

The augmentation variant of Piercing is based on Velocity, and its purpose is to prevent the change of velocity from external sources. Which is to say that if an object, be it an arrow or a sword, collided with those particles, the Piercing spell would raise the velocity of the particles in the opposite direction of the attacking object, in an attempt to negate the outside force.

If the force behind the Piercing was higher than the attacking power, the foreign object would not be able to proceed further and would stop before making contact with the skin.

The transmutation variant of Piercing would do the same thing, albeit in a roundabout, slightly less efficient way. It would control the shape of the protective suit, making it so that it wouldn’t allow the attacking object to bend it out of shape.

The sparks were flying in the air, both literally and figuratively, as Deora was trying hard to suppress his flames while glaring daggers at Elaru.

“You two…there is no need for such hostilities. It’s only a few liters of healing potion and a single cube. It’s really not worth getting upset about.” The mischievous voice of Zerel cut through the tense atmosphere.

His voice reminded Deora that there was one extra person in the room that he hated very much. The floating glass shards turned towards Zerel, followed by Deora’s murderous yell: “Wasn’t it you who claimed she wouldn’t break anything else?!? That it was all just an accident?!”

Zerel raised his hands in surrender and smiled softly. “I stand corrected.”

Deora’s homicidal gaze almost caused Zerel’s clothes to spontaneously combust.

Zerel shook his head dejectedly and somewhat helplessly. Elaru’s eyebrow twitched. That expression… is so obviously fake! Can’t you resist provoking the firecracker even once? Can’t you even attempt to disguise that gleeful glint in your eyes?!

“It must be her entrance number. That number is really unlucky.”

Elaru’s jaw almost dropped down. Seriously?? You are going to blame it on my entrance number?

Deora’s eyebrow twitched, and he glared at the exam pass in Zerel’s hand. “You call that unlucky?!?”

Elaru internally shook her head. There you go. Even Deora wouldn’t be gullible enough to attribute this to an unlucky number.

“It’s not just unlucky! Cursed! It is clearly cursed!”

Elaru’s head snapped towards Deora, her eyes wide in shock. This guy! How has natural selection not yet killed you off??

Her eyes landed on fire that was desperately trying to combust on Deora’s body.

Ah. So, that’s how. He might be st…gullible, but he has some firepower.

Elaru shook her head and looked at the number written on her exam pass.

A few months back, she had intentionally waited for a while before entering the line. She had wanted to get this number. She wanted to prove that there was really no such thing as fate. Or at least, that she could overturn it. Also, she thought it would be fun to see the faces of everyone when they see that number on top of the leaderboards.

Don’t tell me that this number is really, actually, unlucky? Don’t tell me that my efforts backfired? Did I shoot myself in the foot? Is it really impossible for mortals to change fate?

Elaru shook her head again. For the love of Origin, these two can really switch topics fast.

She looked at Deora who was busy staring holes into her exam pass, looking at it as if it was his mortal enemy that he wanted to vanquish no matter what.

She should probably interfere before Deora actually ended up doing something stupid that would increase her chances of getting kicked out of Muni.

Deora’s red face was contorted into pure and simple fury, and Zerel seemed to be blissfully enjoying the previously mentioned fury.

An involuntary smirk made its way on Elaru’s face. “Cursed or not, it doesn’t really matter. As prof. Zerel said, the damages this time aren’t that great. The windows and the floor are easily fixed with Morph. I am sure that prof. Zerel would even gladly help out shoulder some of the responsibility as your partner in this difficult time.”

Zerel’s face froze, and his eyebrow imperceptibly twitched as he saw the calculating smirk on Elaru’s face. She continued. “You can forget the cube, no one will need it in the exam anyway. It’s not every day an examinee appears that can reach the full score. As for few liters of healing potion… if you don’t say anything, who will know that it got spilled on your watch?”

Deora’s eyebrow twitched. It sounded good in theory, but if headmaster Eruan found out about it… Deora involuntarily shivered. It would be better to just be honest about it.

If he was honest about it, Eruan would punish him but wouldn’t get a… wait! Why would he get punished? He didn’t do anything wrong! It was this blasted redhead that broke stuff! He didn’t spontaneously combust this time!

As long as he continues keeping his temper in check and doesn’t break anything, there was a high chance that he wouldn’t get punished for this. Deora forced a smile. “Right, right. It’s not that big of a deal.”

He then glared at Zerel. “Zerel, my partner.” He squeezed the word partner through his teeth as if it was the vilest thing he couldn’t bear to voice. “I hear you would gladly help shoulder the responsibility by cleaning up this mess. Chop-chop! We have no time to waste. Headmaster Eruan would be absolutely furious if we didn’t finish our exams in time for the written exam.”

Zerel frowned and almost… pouted? Then he glared at Elaru. His gaze clearly conveyed: “I blame you! If it weren’t for your nasty meddling, Deora wouldn’t have realized that I can actually clean this up!”

If it were any other time, he might have argued and refused to do it. But he had to admit that Deora was right. There weren’t many things that could provoke Eri into losing his cool. Unfortunately, causing their examinees to be late for the written exam, was one of the things that could, indeed, turn him into a demon incarnate.

Even he, who loved seeing the world burn, was careful to not provoke Eri’s wrath.

Seeing Deora fly the glass shards towards the window, and Zerel, grudgingly envelop them with his Morph as soon as Deora released his Acceleration, Morphing them back into a whole, Elaru finally sighed a breath of relief.

She twirled her daggers and intended to put them back into their sheaths when she noticed that they were dripping with healing potion. When she was helping Deora fix the glass tank, the potion splattered all over her, and apparently, even reached her weapons.

Since healing potion was a magical potion, she couldn’t remove the stains by utilizing magic. Since the density of mana inside the potion was high, she couldn’t target it with her magic. She would need to clean this mess up the old-fashioned way – with soap and water.

Elaru started cleaning her dagger with the edge of her shirt, but her shirt was also dripping red, and just as she managed to wipe it off, a few more drops of red would land on the dagger.

Elaru “tsk”-ed and instead opted to lick the remainder of the drops off of her dagger.

Such a high-grade healing potion was actually quite beneficial to the body, even if one wasn’t injured.

The red potion reminded her of honey, it was viscous and sweet, though not as much as honey. It carried more of a medicinal taste to it.

She sheathed the freshly cleaned dagger, took her exam pass from the teacher’s desk and pocketed it. She turned to leave when she heard Deora call out to her. “Oi, jinx. Tell the next examinee to get his ass in here to be tested.”

Elaru didn’t stop in her steps and just murmured a “Sure.”.

She brought the second dagger to her mouth to lick off the healing potion and opened the door to exit the classroom.

As the medicinal liquid touched her tongue, her eyes suddenly started glittering with amusement.

What would happen if I actually cut someone with a dagger dipped into healing potion? Wouldn’t the wound heal right away?

What a perfect way to torture someone without leaving any evidence!

Elaru let out a soft chuckle. This method might actually be useful for me in the future. I should remember it.

Her eyes landed on the numerous faces in front of her, which displayed no small amount of shock. Oh right.Deora told her to tell the next examinee to come in to take the test.

She pointed her thumb backward towards the room and smiled encouragingly. “Who’s next?”

* * *

Elaru stood stoned and speechless with a blank face, still with her dagger in hand, and thumb pointing backward. After several seconds of staring dumbfoundedly at the escaping crowd, a voice could be heard from within the room. “Next? Oi, jinx! Why is no one coming in?”

Elaru didn’t know how to respond.

After waiting for several seconds without a response, a head full of bright red hair peeked out of the room. “Where is everyone?? What did you do?!” Deora Thayn stared daggers at Elaru, pointing his finger straight at her face.

Elaru sighed dejectedly. “Why do you assume I did something? I just passed the message as you told me.”

Deora’s eyes narrowed. It was awfully noisy out there. What’s with the commotion?

He looked around and noticed a horde of people running out of the building. “What’s happening? Why are people leaving in such a hurry? Is there a fire somewhere?” His frown deepened. “But I didn’t start a fire this time.”

After a few seconds, an additional head full of dark purple hair poked out into the hallway. After noticing that the hallways was completely devoid of all examinees, Zerel smiled happily. “Good news little Dei! It seems that our work is done for today.”

Both Elaru and Deora stared at Zerel speechlessly.

Coming up in the next episode:

Elaru smiled brightly. “I am fine. Thanks for asking.” Kiel’s eyebrow twitched. He barely suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. “Of course you are fine. I am worried about the other guy.”

He didn’t know why, but suddenly he felt that today was a very nice day. It was almost… as if… he was actually… happy?

Elaru ignored his protest and gazed at him with a strangely affectionate gaze. It was as if she was looking at someone dear to her. It made Kiel feel strangely uncomfortable.

“ELARU!!!!”

This painful, suffocating feeling in his chest had to disappear.

Elaru burst into her designated classroom with glee.

Chapter end