Chapter 14 - The Aftermath

[ Quest : Exterminate the Reaper (1/0) ]

"I-I can't."

"This guy's a monster."

Yin said to himself as the System gave him the quest.

[ Exterminate the Reaper, Thanatos. ]

"Are you crazy? I mean have you seen this man in combat?"

[ He knows too much. ]

That was the last message the System was going to give him today.

"You're Yin, I presume."

"Y-Yes."

He was soft spoken and surprisingly pleasant to talk to.

Adam glanced in the direction of the Angel's corpse.

Or what remained of it, anyway.

"You can turn your enemies into ashes by decaying them, huh? I'll have to admit, I wasn't aware someone who had such abilities existed."

Yin and Suna were silent.

"A-Adam…Get away from them!"

Luken said as he covered his mouth.

The Commander was still clearly in pain from earlier.

"I'm not going to hurt them, Luken."

"Besides, if I wanted to, these two would be bathing in their own blood right about now."

The pair gulped and exhaled in relief.

"And you…"

His attention turned towards Suna.

"No wonder I can't sense your Anima. You have none, don't you?"

Suna nodded hesitantly.

"And yet you still fought an A-ranked Angel marvelously with pure physicality. That's impressive."

Why was Adam seemingly complimenting them?

Yin mustered all his remaining strength in his hands.

He tried to get up and strike a blow at Adam, but his instincts told him not to.

Suna also stopped him from doing anything reckless.

"Y-You'll pay for what you did to Luci and the others. I swear on my grave, Adam. One of these days, I'll be the one to kill you."

Luken said while on his knees.

"I see. Then I'll respect your resolve, Luken."

He turned his back towards everyone and held his head up, facing the sky above.

"I came here to see the vessel of Thanatos in action. You're strong, Yin. In fact, you're stronger than every single one who died here. This tainted battlefield is filled with the remains of weaklings. They couldn't win, so they died. That's just how it is."

"Don't you dare disrespect their deaths. Or I'll be the one to end you."

Yin was now on his feet gritting his teeth.

"I wasn't disrespecting them. I'm just being honest. As much as I admire your resolves, I'm just going to be blunt. If all of you were to take me on at the same time, even throw in that emissary on the watch tower and that Earth Slayer with those kids hiding over there, I could still kill you all in under a minute."

Adam was now in Yin's face.

Staring dead-eyed into him.

"And I never miscalculate. Never."

A shiver went down everyone's spine.

Cosette hugged the twins.

"H-how does he know we're here?"

Adam got back on his feet and walked towards Luken and Gavin.

"You have recruited strong and special Slayers into the Six Blades. That's good. In two years, I will lead an attack at Niflheim. Show me your resolves then."

"I'll be taking my leave now. Farewell."

He was still smiling.

Adam effortlessly flapped out wings out of his back.

The same wings the Angels had, except it was pitch-black.

Adam Rosa flew high up the sky, seemingly piercing the clouds upwards.

"S-Suna… why does a human have wings?"

"I-I don't know as well."

Cosette saw it was safe to approach them already.

So, she slid down the slope whilst carrying the twins with both arms.

The emissary also did the same.

"I would like you all to refrain from disclosing information to the public, or to anyone as to the Reaper's sudden reappearance today. Any acts that disobey that will be seen as treason and treated as insubordination. Got it?"

"Y-yes ma'am."

Yin, Suna, Cosette, and the twins agreed in unison.

Luken slammed the ground in frustration.

"Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit! He was right in front of us, Gavin! And we still could not do a damn thing!"

The Commander bit his lips until they bled.

"Apply first aid to your wounds or injuries, let's meet at the watch tower in an hour."

Ordered the emissary.

Suna and Cosette both ran towards Gavin to treat his badly kicked face.

Yin limped to where Luken was.

Yin's wounds were exhuming vapor.

They were already healing thanks to his passive skill which was regeneration.

"C-Commander, are you alright?"

He helped Luken up.

"You did well, Yin boy. Both you and Suna."

As he tapped his shoulder proudly.

"I-I'm sorry I couldn't do anything when you and Gavin fought Adam."

"It's fine, Yin. We'll talk about that later. For now, let's just focus on getting home, alright?"

Luken who was still obviously upset, did his best to crack a faint smile.

"Yes, sir."

Suna and Cosette gave Gavin some water to drink out of their own bottles.

To which he obliged.

"My thanks."

The pair helped Gavin stand up on his own.

He caressed his hands on his cheek and left lip which were still red and bleeding.

"He got me good that time."

The Water Slayer twins who were only twelve years of age were hiding behind Cosette.

Gavin walked towards them.

"I'm sorry you had to be here and see what you should not have meant to see."

The twins' eyes were empty, they were clearly traumatized.

All the blood that was shed today.

The lives lost.

This was no place for children.

Gavin removed his green scarf and covered it around the twins.

He then took out his grimoire and cast an incantation spell and summoned five small puppies.

They were not hostile. In fact, they even approached the twins and were licking their faces.

"Do you mind accompanying these guys? They really make my grimoire a lot heavier than it should be!"

"S-Sure."

The twins nodded their heads.

The puppies played with them, even making them run around the place away from where the bodies were.

Gavin smiled at the twins.

"They're going to have to grow up sooner or later, ya know?"

Cosette told the Serpent Summoner.

"Yes, but everything has a perfect place and time. They don't deserve to see this type of scenery. Children should just be children."

"Is your face okay, Gavin?"

Suna worriedly asked him.

"It's fine. It will heal soon enough, don't worry."

He was back to his cool calm and collected self.

Stench of death and rancid corpses slowly enveloped the area.

Luken shot Gavin a look of defeat and regret.

He responded back with a nod.

"Let's meet up at the watch tower."

The Commander ordered.

Everyone made their way up to the place except for one – Isabelle.

"The emissary's still down there."

Suna said while pointing towards her.

"Give her time. She needs it."

Luken retorted.

"W-Why Vinny? Why did you have to die?"

She let her strong façade crumbling down to grieve for the death of her younger brother.

Her cries were the painful enough that it made Yin and Suna cry as well.

Gavin approached them both and hugged them in his shoulders.

"There, there. Just let it all out."

They bawled their hearts out.

From their lack of abilities.

From their weakness.

From their inability to exterminate the Angel before it could kill ninety percent of the Slayers in their squadron.

"It's okay. There's no valor or strength in acting tough. Even heroes cry."

Gavin consoled them.

Cosette was trying to distract the twins from looking over below.

From seeing the lifeless bodies of the people who they came here with.

Luken was obviously still pissed off.

Even after two whole years, he was still no match for Adam.

"I'll check up on Isabelle. You guys should get ready to leave at any time once we're back up here."

Luken jumped down from the watch tower to the open field below.

"Why did the High Council do this?"

Luken asked her.

"They were willingly sending these children to their deaths. Why?"

"I-I'm just following orders. I don't question them, I obey."

"Is that why your brother's dead?"

His words were cut short by Isabelle slapping him.

Luken's right cheek was now red from the aftermath.

"I could have saved them. I could have saved them all and you know it, Isabelle."

"I know, Luken. I'm sorry. I know how painful it is to be able to do something and being prevented from doing it just because of orders from above. I'm really sorry."

She cried in his arms for a long time.

Both of them made their way up the tower and instructed everyone to get ready for the journey back to Niflheim.

"I'm going to repeat this once again. If anyone wishes to ask you about what happened today in the Outer Gates, we exterminated an Angel. That's it. Alright? Once rumors about the SSS ranked Slayer Adam becomes public, there will be an outcry. If you spread these rumors and we trace it back to you, it will be treated as an insubordination and violation of the Slayer Code. Are we clear on that?

"Yes, ma'am."

Everyone replied.