Chapter 226 - Moving Forward (7)

Despite knowing that Basil had basically left them behind, Iliana wasn't blaming him—she was still mad at him though. She knew from the way he was no longer helping them, Basil was telling her, and the others, to leave the civilians behind.

Like she said, she didn't care towards the civilians at all, however now that it had turned out like this, she didn't want to leave the civilians behind. Her thought regarding them still didn't change, but she wanted to prove that Basil was wrong.

Just like how she had proven herself as a commoner who could become a better Mage than all young Nobles in Braxtein Kingdom, she would prove to Basil that she could get out of there even without sacrificing all of the civilians.

"Let me show you why you shouldn't test me, Basil." Channeling Mana to her spear, Iliana thrust it forward. "[Hill Piercer]!" Her Art was utilized, killing the tens of Demons in front of her in one thrust.

Dashing towards another Demon, she arced her spear widely, bisecting it cleanly. She then stopped abruptly, spun on her heels, then pierced the chest of the Demon sneaking behind her.

The Demon died instantly, but Iliana didn't give it any second glance towards it as she retracted her spear and thrust it towards another Demon coming at her. Her move was gracious and effective—a combination one could rarely see.

A few meters away behind Iliana, Jocelyn was constantly sending her Spells towards the Demons that were far away from Iliana or those that were about to attack Iliana when she was busy fighting.

No different than the others, Jocelyn was also tired as her Magic Circles were already overworked. Added by the fact that she had a very low stamina due to her lack of physical training, she was close to collapsing.

"[Firestorm]!"

Despite so, she still forced herself to move as she didn't want her friends to get hurt.

A trail of fire could be seen in the air heading towards the crowd of Demons as a gale was produced by the Magic Circle on the ground below the feet of the Demons.

The moment the two element met, the gale was enveloped by fire, burning every Demons close to it to crisp. The fire gale also didn't stay idle as it moved around, burning Demons here and there.

"Hah..hah..hah..." Jocelyn was gasping for air. Maintaining the fire gale naturally used Mana, and she couldn't bear the burden any longer. "I can't give up here ... Everyone—I can't let everyone down."

She forced herself to remain standing straight, but her vision became blurry, and her head became hurt due to overworking her Magic Circles. As she fell down the ground due to her fatigue, she subconsciously stopped supplying Mana to the fire gale.

The fire gale dispersed, allowing the Demons to not worry about getting burned. Jocelyn only realized that she was already staring at the ground while supporting her body with her hands after a few seconds.

Drip. Drip.

Her beads of sweat fell to the ground profusely, showing how much she had overworked herself. She tried to stand herself up, but found she had no energy to do so.

"Oh, no. I have to get up. Everyone—they will die if I—"

"We won't."

At the familiar voice, Jocelyn looked up and met Cray's face. He had a grin on his face, and a Demon's head in his hand.

"C-Cray?"

"My, my, Jocelyn. You look like crap." Cray chuckled humorously, before clearing his throat. "Kuhum! Anyway, you should rest. Join the civilians, and toy with them when you feel bored." Giving Jocelyn a wink, he said, "I'll protect your arse."

Much to Cray's surprise however, Jocelyn gasped in shock instead. "Are they exposed—my arse?!" She looked at Cray with pleading eyes as if telling him to say otherwise.

In response to that, Cray laughed loudly. "Hahahaha! You are quite energetic, aren't you?" Shaking his head in amusement, he looked at Jocelyn tenderly. "I hate your stupidity, but now I understand that you are not an interesting person."

Turning his back on her, Cray threw away the head of the Demon he was holding, and dashed towards the Demons that managed to pass Iliana. He killed them all, before joining her to fight the Demons side by side—he had rested his Magic Circles enough.

Jocelyn looked at Cray's back with a smile, and muttered, "As I expected, Cray is cool ... And crazy, like everyone from Rehearsal Class."

On the other side of the battlefield, Whitney was trying his best to keep his concentration. Like Jocelyn, he also couldn't think straight due to the fatigue his body was enduring.

The only saving grace was, Whitney had a stronger physique than Jocelyn—he had done some physical training. Despite so however, due to the different amount of Mana his Magic Circles could store, he felt more pain than Jocelyn.

Casting a simple Low Grade Spell was actually already painful for him, but he still forced himself to cast many Middle Grade Spells to support Thompson and Steven, who were already fighting solely with their pure physical prowess.

The two Knights had contributed the biggest in protecting the civilians, since they had to fight hundreds of Demons by themselves while Iliana was breaking through the rank of Demons for the past hour.

Knights or not, their fatigue must be unfathomable—Whitney couldn't let them fight by themselves without any support. Just having used up all of the Qi ini their Core must be painful already, and he wasn't selfish enough to disregard it.

Thud!

"Huh? I'm on the ground? How?"

Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried, Whitney eventually succumbed to the fatigue his body was enduring. He gritted his teeth as he tried to stand up, but someone's hand immediately forced his body to stay down.

"Leave it to us." Thompson looked at Whitney with a small, tired smile. "We have recovered enough Qi to fight for, at least, another 15 minutes. You can rest here, and leave the rest to us."

"No, you must be—"

"Yup! We are tired as hell," Steven chimed in with a grin. "But thanks to your support, we can last this long. So, take a rest and leave the rest to us, Whitney."

Whitney looked at Thompson, and couldn't help closing his eyes in guilt when Thompson nodded his head gladly. He then could feel the two Knights took off just a second after he closed his eyes.

As he bit his lower lip, he thought to himself. 'The only way to get out of this situation is leaving the civilians behind. However, if we did so, Iliana would also stay behind with them...'

—This is really Death Howl Dungeon.

There was a time, albeit very brief, where the Demons didn't manage to catch up to them, and that was the time when Whitney had a small talk with Cray. He recalled about the thing said to him, and couldn't help thinking about Basil.

'Are you in a situation where you can't help us or are you purposely doing this, Basil?' Whitney couldn't help thinking so, as Basil—their friend—had full control over Death Howl Dungeon, the place they were currently in.

The Demons they were fighting were by no means strong, but their amount was simply overwhelming. Added by the fact that they were fighting to protect, not to kill, facing them was pretty troublesome.

As much as he couldn't blame Basil for not helping them—protecting the civilians was their choice after all—he really wanted Basil to have an initiative to do it. 'We are, after all, his friends ... Or that's what I think he thinks of us.'

Whitney shook his head bitterly the moment he noticed he had just planted a seed of doubt in his mind. 'I can't doubt Basil again. There is always this uncomfortable feeling whenever I am around him, but he really doesn't have any bad intention towards us.'

Opening his eyes, he could see the smooth ceiling of the dark tunnel. His eyes quickly widened in the next moment as he noticed that the surrounding was only filled with people's murmurs of confusion.

"What happened?" Whitney quickly sat himself up, and looked around. He was sure he had been lying parallel to the tunnel's way, but he found that he was currently facing the wall of the tunnel. "This is... Where are the Monsters?"

"This part of the tunnel suddenly flipped around, separating us from the rest of them."

"Thompson?" Whitney tried to stand up, and Thompson supported him with his body. "Thank you."

"No problem." Thompson merely smiled.

"Where is Iliana?"

"She is there."

Looking at the direction Thompson pointed his finger to, Whitney found Iliana inspecting the wall on the other side.

"Can you...?"

"Of course, I want to clarify about something too."

Whitney nodded his head, then both of them with Steven in tow walked towards Iliana. They found Cray sitting on the ground not far away from Iliana, and he merely gave them a simple grin as a greeting.

"You look like crap, Steve."

"You smell like crap, Cray."

Steven joined Cray by sitting on the ground beside him, and they both laughed while talking about how crazy the battle had been. Whitney and Thompson shook their head at the two, before turning to Iliana.

"Yes, this is Basil's doing," Iliana confirmed even before Whitney opened his mouth. "Though why he did it just now, I don't know." She frowned her forehead lightly, then turned away from the wall. "Do you find the place now familiar?"

Receiving Iliana's gaze, Whitney and Thompson looked at each other before turning to the new way the tunnel was leading to. They stared at the dark passage for a quite some time, then turned their head back at her.

"I think none of us know where it leads to, but the passage does feel familiar."

"Well," Iliana quirked her eyebrow then pointed towards the passage, "lead the way. I will be guarding the civilians from behind this time."

"Let's rest for a moment here." Glancing at Whitney, Thompson said, "Basil said that the whole tunnel is decorated with [Shadow Entrapment] Runes. Since we are exhausted, none of us will be able to look where we are walking."

Thompson expected Iliana to decline, but she accepted easily. "Very well, take your time."

The group rested peacefully for half an hour, and walked through the tunnel right after.. They luckily didn't encounter any Demon in their way, but the place the tunnel led to conpletely caught them off guard.