Chapter 26: Beginning the Act

On that very same day, Sophie arrived in the infirmary along with Miss Zaria to heal Azaroth.

Zaria was quite an impressive healer, and she had a rare skill named Heal Touch. Just by using this skill, Azaroth's flesh and bones were healing at a rapid rate.

After nearly 15 or so minutes, Sophie spoke to Miss Zaria, "This is alright, Miss Zaria."

Azaroth was nearly healed, so Sophie thought there was no point in troubling Miss Zaria any longer.

Sophie and Miss Zaria left the infirmary. A guard was stationed outside the infirmary by Sophie, and she ordered the guard, "Once he wakes up, immediately bring me here."

"Yes, young miss." The guard gave his response immediately.

Azaroth was already awake at this time. He used a slight bit of Holy Ardor to entirely heal himself.

"If I go out right now, I will need to meet that woman," Azaroth whispered to himself.

Since he knew what would happen if he went out of the infirmary, he laid his back against the bed and lazed around.

Since his Heavenly Demon Meditation Technique had broken through the second level, he no longer needed to consciously revolve his Ardor. It was automatic from now on…

Azaroth used this time to reorganize his thoughts.

'The situation is wildly different from my initial plans. The presence of this woman Sophie and that Abyssal Hound was entirely outside my expectations. Fortunately, the Demon King probably won't take any action for one or two months. That should be enough time for me to prepare for that situation and take some benefits for myself.'

'Also, it appears that my guess was right. That woman is truly protected by a 5 Star Warrior. It was indeed the right decision to spread the information about the two 5 Star Beasts in the enemy forces. Though I think they will certainly be surprised when they fight that Golden Ape. In terms of pure physical strength and its aura, it can certainly match a 5 Star Beast…'

'How do I deal with that woman? Do I scare her? Bribe her? Or maybe act like Edwin?' Azaroth wondered the best way to deal with Sophie.

All of the possibilities he explored had advantages and disadvantages. And after some consideration, he determined that if he scared or bribed her, the disadvantages would outweigh the benefits.

He wouldn't be able to take maximum advantage of the situation that way.

"Let's see how it goes." Azaroth dryly spoke since he was more or less confident in dealing with this situation.

At most, he just wouldn't be able to glean maximum benefits from this situation. That was fine as well…

~~

After nearly 3 hours, Azaroth walked out of the infirmary.

The guard stationed outside by Sophie was standing still with an emotionless look over his face.

"You are finally awake, Edwin Rhodes. Wait here, I will bring young miss here. She wanted to meet you." The guard spoke to Azaroth with an emotionless tone.

Azaroth showed a surprised look and asked curiously, "Who is this young miss you are talking about?"

The guard didn't find this question strange and replied, "It's young miss Sophie Russel."

"What?! It's Sophie who wants to meet me?!" Azaroth showed an astonished look and then said, "I can't have her come here to meet me. I am well enough to walk around. How about you take me to her?"

The guard thought for some moments and found it better to take this guy to Sophie's cabin rather than make Sophie walk here.

"Are you absolutely alright? Young miss might blame me and hold me responsible if something happened to you." The guard asked, just for confirmation. He wasn't really that worried about Azaroth's health.

"Yeah. It's okay. I will take full responsibility for this. So lead me to Sophie." Azaroth dryly said and managed to convince the guard.

The guard gave a nod of agreement and began walking towards Sophie's cabin. Azaroth followed the guard until they both reached Sophie's cabin.

The cabin was quite well guarded. Azaroth noticed that the guards ahead of this cabin were only 3 Star Warriors, but he also sensed few 4 Star Warriors hiding near this cabin.

'Such a difference in the heirs of the Noble Family and a doting father. The Noble Family heirs haven't brought any 4 Star Warriors along with them while this woman's father has sent Royal Guards to protect his daughter.'

Azaroth could only sigh at this. He wasn't jealous or mentally affected. He would rather have the freedom provided by the Noble Family than the protection it could offer.

Many of his ideas wouldn't come to fruition if he was monitored by some guards.

It was that guard who talked to the other guards and informed them of the situation. The other guards remained stone cold and let him go inside.

Azaroth waited for some time, keeping his gaze at the door. He didn't want those guards hiding near this cabin to know that he was aware of their positions.

Suddenly, the door to the cabin opened, and he laid his eyes upon a young lady in her late teenage years. She was wearing a pink Chinese dress and looked quite surprised to see Azaroth here.

"It's nice to see you, Sophie," Azaroth spoke to her as if they were familiar with each other. Currently, his ruby eyes were staring right into her ocean blue eyes.

Sophie had a frown over her face, though. She sternly spoke, "Miss Zaria mentioned that she had healed all your flesh injuries, but your internal injuries would still take some time to heal completely. She also recommended that he should take rest for one more day and not get up."

"Miss Zaria? Who's she?" Azaroth was quite confused by this name.

Sophie then realized Azaroth had just woken up and wasn't quite aware of Miss Zaria or anything else.

She said, "Let's talk inside."

To Sophie's surprise, Azaroth calmly replied, "Okay."

It was natural for Sophie to be quite surprised. Because most of the time, when Edwin used to talk to her, he was pretty nervous in her presence. Moreover, he would take some time before responding to her words.

'He has changed.'

This was her conclusion after those words from Azaroth. But it wasn't that unbelievable that Azaroth had changed.

Azaroth entered Sophie's cabin. He was somewhat surprised that he sensed some arrays drawn beneath this floor.

'Interesting… One of probably suppression array that would suppress the energy of whoever the enemy. The other is Absorption Array, and the last one is the barrier which would keep the enemy in the cabin.'

Although he couldn't see the array diagrams and could only guess their power through the presence of Ardor, he was more or less sure that their power wasn't weak.

A solemn expression appeared on his face as he thought 'If these Arrays are actually drawn by this woman, then she has quite a bit of talent in array formations. She must have at least reached the Master Rank to be able to stack up 3 arrays on top of each other.'

Currently, Azaroth's accomplishments in the array could also be considered the same as alchemy. He was at the peak of grandmaster level in Array Formations as well.

'Fortunately, I have the Hell Flames that can break any formations around me.'

Azaroth soon took a seat on the sofa and sat comfortably.

Sophie took a seat in front of him and then began explaining who Miss Zaria was. Sometime later, Azaroth understood the whole situation.

"I see… I must thank Miss Zaria as well. I initially thought that it was a healer town lord had hired." Azaroth spoke to Sophie.

Sophie shook her head and then spoke, "I will convey your gratitude to Miss Zaria. I had something else I wanted to talk to you about."

There was a serious look on her face as Sophie asked Azaroth, "Were you the one who gave the five 5th Tier Elemental Crystals to the town lord?"

Once Sophie asked this question, Azaroth understood why she had wanted to talk to him.

Internally, he thought to himself 'That town lord… Don't tell me he came to her with those Elemental Crystals on that very same day?'

'If only he had waited for one or two days, they wouldn't have been able to connect it to me easily. Even if they did, they shouldn't have been sure of it.'

But there was no point in thinking of those things about what could be changed…

Azaroth quickly thought of a way to salvage this situation.

"Yes. I was the one who gave those elemental crystals to the town lord." Azaroth decided to admit it.

Once again, Sophie was slightly surprised that he admitted it so quickly. She was ready with all her plausible theories…

But now, she felt that she was silly to prepare all that much when it wasn't necessary.

"I see…" Sophie didn't ask Azaroth how he got these 5 Tier Elemental Crystals.

It was common sense to such information a secret.

However, she did speak up, "You have changed, Edwin…"

"Time does force a change. Some just experience it earlier while some a little later." Azaroth spoke with a small smile.

"True. I do agree with your statement." Sophie agreed with him and added, "However, your sudden rise to become a 4 Star Warrior is like that of a miracle. Congratulations."

Azaroth just shook his head but didn't reply.

"Alright… You can leave if you want to."

"Actually, I wanted to know, what formation are you working on?" Azaroth asked with a curious look.

"Hmm? Edwin? Did you study array formations in this one year?" Sophie asked him with a surprised gaze.

Azaroth, though, shook his head and replied, "Actually, I began studying it during the academy time. My skill with it was never good, so I never told anyone else about it. But this year, I think I made some progress. Also, I want to help you in any way I can."

After thinking for some time, Sophie nodded her head, "Alright. I will bring the blueprint of the formation I want to construct. If nothing else, you will only learn something."

Sophie got up from her sofa and went to her room. It didn't take her too much time to find the blueprint of the formation she wanted to construct.

Sophie soon returned to the living room with a large sheet of paper in her hand. She laid the blueprint on the table ahead of Azaroth.

Azaroth laid his eyes at the blueprint, and he was surprised to see that this was a blueprint of a 3 layered array.

Moreover, she had even included the Killing Array and the Illusionary Array, two of the most challenging branches within array formations.

Azaroth began to analyze the blueprint with a serious gaze.

He didn't think that this woman was actually going to construct a large array like this. If she really did create such an array, these people might kill one of the 5 Star Beast.

That would be troublesome for him.

'Overall, the blueprint appears to be okay. There are no obvious mistakes or any openings that the beasts can take advantage of.'

Sophie continued to stare at Azaroth's face as he looked at her blueprint. She couldn't help but think absentmindedly 'He looks quite handsome when he is thinking seriously.'

She shook off those thoughts from her head.

Soon, Azaroth spoke to Sophie with a troubled smile, "I don't perfectly know what this array is. But it's a combination of 2 or 3 arrays, right?"

Sophie had actually shown this blueprint to test Azaroth a little. She thought that he might at most be able to point out some basic stuff, but he actually found out that it was a multi-layered array.

However, Sophie calmly asked Azaroth, "How do you know that?"

"It's these two points." Azaroth pointed at the points and continued, "Usually, this can only be drawn on the left side and never on the right side. However, on this blueprint, it's on both sides. This means that this point is working for another array that's drawn inverted to the first one. So… This is definitely a two or more layered array, right?"

"You are right. This is a three-layered array. Do you know which types of arrays these are?" Sophie asked him with some interest.

Azaroth shook his head and replied, "I can only guess that since it's going to be laid around this encampment, then it should at least have a barrier array."

"I can at least give you full points in common sense." Sophie began chuckling as she said those words.

Azaroth said with a self-deprecating smile, "This array is a little too complicated for me."

Soon enough, Sophie had an idea and spoke, "Do you want to set up this array around the encampment along with me? I can teach you more about the array at the same time."

'Wouldn't I be able to get the work done without actually doing it? Since Edwin has studied arrays, he should at the least be good at basics. Besides, I will be right beside him, so I can easily keep watch over any mistakes he commits and correct it at that time. This will not only save my effort but also my time. Also, I will at least have a companion from the school with whom I can talk and curb my boredom.'

"Really? I will be really thankful to you, Sophie. I think I might learn a lot if you help me analyze this array." Azaroth looked really grateful to Sophie.

"Hehe… It's not a problem. Come on, let's start with the formation on the west side of the encampment." Sophie grabbed Azaroth's hand and took him out of her cabin.