Chapter 124: Trouble Always Comes Knocking At A Troublemaker's Door (1)

Axel's PoV:

As I was enjoying eating the water wyvern meat barbecue with my teammates and the junior heroes, I noticed a concentrated mana fluctuation in the surroundings.

I checked to see where the mana fluctuations were and found out that it came from the mythical rank 3-D printer that Alex was currently using.

I found a lot of food scattered near Alex and it seemed that it was the product of the mythical rank 3-D printer.

After a few minutes had passed, Alex finished using the mythical rank 3-D printer, and all of a sudden, the food that was previously piled up and scattered on the ground disappeared into thin air.

As I had speculated before, Alex somehow had a mysterious power that was different from the powers that I had seen before.

I had also noticed that Alex seemed to have used an ability that was similar to my system inventory to store the food.

For some reason, I had the urge to dissect Alex and discover what his ability was.

All I know about Alex was only a few things. Alex had the same ability as mine so it's safe to assume that he had a system.

Also, I felt a sense of familiarity with Alex as if he was my family member.

I don't know if the Gods were allowed to summon more than one hero but if the Gods were allowed, then it was likely that Alex was blessed by the God Of Worldly Systems.

I might be able to find out more of the system's secret after the system level up to level 4 was finished.

I checked up on Alex and I saw him using wind magic to levitate the mythical rank 3-D printer and was heading towards Grace.

Alex returned the mythical rank 3-D printer to Grace and Grace thanked Alex for returning it safely.

Alex replied to Grace by saying welcome and went to the tall tree to rest.

I focused on eating the water wyvern meat barbecue and chatted with my teammates and the junior heroes.

"Did you obtain the artifacts that you have given to the junior heroes from Mathew Miles?"

Satomi asked me and I replied to him by nodding my head.

"By the way, when will we leave the Monster's Abode? I want to go back to the Holy Church and take a lot of rest.", Zale asked me.

"We will go back to the Holy Church tomorrow. The junior heroes still needed some camping experience about sleeping outdoors.", I replied to Zale's question.

After I answered some of the questions of my teammates and the junior heroes, we continued eating the water wyvern meat barbecue.

Alex also joined us and sat beside us while roasting water wyvern meat barbecue in the campfire.

"The two of us haven't introduced ourselves that much. Your Alex Eternalsoul, right?"

I started a conversation with Alex by asking him a question first.

"Yes. What can I do for you, Mentor Axel?"

Alex replied immediately after I asked him a question.

"There is something that is bugging me lately. Isn't it odd that your name is Alex while my name is Axel? Isn't our name almost the same? I don't think it's a mere coincidence."

After I told Alex my concern, he didn't avert his gaze from me but remained his eye contact with me.

If I'm not wrong, then Alex was trying to be composed as possible while trying to remain calm.

"You must be overthinking. It might just be a mere coincidence."

Alex replied with a calm voice but I knew that he was just putting up a facade.

Even though Alex didn't perform any suspicious acts that would prove he's lying, my gut feeling still believes that he was lying.

"You might be right. Anyways, care to introduce yourself?", I said and asked Alex.

I might as well just go along with his act. It would be an unwise decision to let the cat out of the bag without substantial evidence.

"I'm just your average teenage student without any significant accomplishment in his life. What do you want me to talk about?"

Alex might be right about that. After all, I haven't heard of any famous person named Alex Eternalsoul despite my wide connection.

I even have military access to confidential information because of being a two-star general.

I once made a huge contribution to my country including the military so I was granted a high rank but I only accepted it as a title.

Only the military knew about my rank because I didn't want it to be disclosed to the public.

My reason was that I don't want to get tangled with the government since I only wanted to focus on the research field.

I should focus on interrogating Alex so that I would be able to pry about his secret.

"Tell me about your background."

"I'm an orphan and I was sold to a human trafficker. After I was sold, I was brought to a laboratory where they used human children as test subjects."

I asked Alex and he replied to me sincerely. I knew that he wasn't lying about what he had told me.

"What did the researchers of the laboratory did to the children including you?"

"Nothing much. Just conducted some simple research studies and surveys."

Alex was lying. The research center where he was sold to must had committed unethical research studies so he doesn't want to talk about it.

It might be possible that Alex had suffered at the hands of the research center where he was sold.

That must be the reason why he lied to me about the purpose of the research center.

I'm also a researcher myself so I knew about some of the research centers in the world back on Earth that had used humans as test subjects.

Of course, some of those research centers weren't illegal since the humans who had participated in that research agreed to take part in it and weren't forced to do so.

But there were still numerous research centers that were illegal and some of them manufactured biological weapons and conducted inhumane researches and the research center where Alex was sold to should be one of them.

I'll just feign ignorance that I didn't know about Alex lying to me since it would alert him and cause him to bring back the memories of his past.

"I see. So what's your job or hobby in your past life?"

"I'm only a high school student so I don't have any job yet. I love reading novels and I play mobile and computer games whenever I have free time."

"So the two of us have the same hobby! If only the two of us were brothers then you wouldn't have suffered in being an orphan."

Alex and I exchanged conversations with each other while often laughing and the two of us enjoyed our conversation.

As Alex and I were having fun talking with each other, the ground suddenly shook and the earth started to split apart, creating a fault line.

I had felt that my protective array was being attacked by a high-level beast that should be at least level 20,000 or above.

I had even used some of my mana to restore the damaged part of the protective array but the protective array still wasn't able to withstand the impact of the high-level monster's attack.

At this rate, it would take at least several days before my protective array would be destroyed due to me deleting my mana because of repairing the protective array.

Even though the protective array was being attacked by a powerful monster, the heroes and I didn't panic since the monster was incapable of destroying the protective array.

The high-level monster was only able to send vibrations of its attack inside the protective array so it wasn't that much of a threat.

I used my mana to increase my perception of the surroundings and to judge how strong the monster was by its mana.

After using mana sense, the surroundings around me were voided of colors and I could only see a hue of light blue in the surroundings.

I also saw purple color and pure white color in the surroundings and it seemed that the colored mana came from Ferros and Grace respectively.

I increased my perception around the surroundings and as I increased its range, I was able to see a deep blue color in the surroundings outside the protective array.

It must be the high-level beast that attacked my protective array.

I was able to discern the figure of the monster and it was standing on four legs. It possessed the same build as a lion so it should be related to that.

I also found out that there was a much darker shade in the high-level monster's body and it seemed that it was its mana core.

I withdraw my mana which caused my mana sense to be canceled.

"I'll be going away for now. Rest assured that I'm going to take care of that monster."

I told my teammates and the junior heroes while calming them.