Chapter 265 Neither Human Neither Monster

"Were you able to get it?" Auciel asked as they walked toward the Harts.

"No, it was destroyed by the I pulled it out," Ryfin said with a sense of disappointment on his face. "How many times has it been already?"

"Including this, three," she stated. "It's getting harder to find them. They are able to blend within us quite well."

"I just want someone to tell me how the hell are they able to get the academy's uniforms," Ryfin blabbered.

What he was referring to was that the man he'd fought today was wearing the academy's uniform. But calling it a 'man' wouldn't be right. It was neither a human nor a monster, it was something entirely else. For now, the people of this world liked to call them…

"Those damn demons, they are becoming more troublesome," Ryfin said. "By the way, did make sure to close the portal?"

"Yeah. But that bastard had made it pretty wide already. It drained almost all of my mana to close it," Auciel stated.

Both of them walked in silence for a while. They knew what they were dealing with, and they knew that dwelling about it for no reason wouldn't solve anything.

"Do you think the prophecy will come true?" Auciel asked, hesitating was showing quite clearly on her face as she uttered those words.

"So they're calling it 'prophecy' now? Sigh…" Ryfin shook his head, as if disappointed. "Honestly, I don't know. And I don't care either. If it comes to that then we'll just have to deal with it. It's simple."

"We both know that's not possible. Even now there's only you who can stand them, and that's when there is only one of them. What will happen once they come in numbers?"

Ryfin didn't reply, instead he pulled a cigarette and matchsticks. He struck and lit the matchsticks and then light up the cigarette with it. He put the matches back in his pocket and put the cigarette in his mouth.

"This academy was built for that very purpose, remember?"  he said as he blew the smoke out of his mouth.

"No, that's not quite right. The goal was to create a hero, but we are still far away from reaching that goal," Auciel replied.

"Come on, don't worry too much. We'll see what we can do when the situations arrives. No use worrying over it now," Ryfin said.

Both of them entered the Harts. They moved in hallways, first they were filled with people and employees doing their work—this was the office building, after all—however as the two of them went further inside the building and descended some stairs, climbing down onto the underground floors. The strength of people around started decreasing.

Soon, the corridors were empty and their only companion was the sound of their own footsteps.

Though it didn't last long as they reached a door, opening it they stepped inside. It was quite a big room for an underground floor.

The ceiling was high and the overall area was spacious. There were many people working around. Among them two moved forward as they saw Ryfin and Auciel enter the room.

One was a woman wearing a heavy coat, she had sleek shoulder-length black hair and chestnut colored eyes. Her name was Steph Redcliff; class 1D's homeroom teacher.

"Were you able to get it this time?" she asked as she approached the two of them.

"Nah, no luck this time either," Ryfin replied in a disappointed voice.

"That's a pity. But at least you took care of the demon," said the man accompanying Steph.

With neat brown hair the man was wearing a pair of glasses. He was Robert Elistium; class 1C's new homeroom teacher who had been hired in place of Challes.

"Took care of it, huh? I sure did. But that bastard blasted off an entire island," Ryfin replied as he walked past Robert and toward the center of the room.

There in the middle was a cylindrical pillar which rose about the height of four feet. On top of it covered in a frame of glass was an orb. It was broken in half but was still glowing in a very dim, almost unnoticeable light.

It was similar of the core of the demon Ryfin had tried to take out but it had crumbled. But this hasn't, and was somehow still working.

However, it contained an enormous about of mana. So much that it was surrounded by a dozen high-tier magic circles that were continuously neutralizing its power. It was important to do that.

Since all the mana inside the orb was in form of energy and that energy had nowhere to go, the orb would explode if it was left out in open.

"Out of three demons we only managed to retrieve the core of one," Ryfin said as he looked at the orb. "Any explanation for that doctor?"

"I'm afraid I don't have that at the moment," a man who seemed to be in his late sixtes with a long beard said as he came and stood next to Ryfin. He was Gaden, the one in charge of the team researching the orb and its powers.

"The cores naturally crumble away after the demon that its inside dies, there shouldn't be any way to take them out without detroying them. But still, we have this here," Auciel said as she came next to Ryfin.

"No, that's not quite right," Gaden objected. "The cores crumble because we destroy them. And we destroy them because according to what we know so far, that's the only way to kill a demon. Whereas this core you see right here, came from a demon who died without us killing it. Thus its core was not destroyed and we retrieved it and stabilized it before it could lose the mana within it."

"And how did that demon died, I'd like to ask?" Ryfin said.

"I don't have an actual reason for it but I believe it was because of the sudden change in its surroundings, the density of mana in the atmosphere, etc. He was the first demon we caught, so I think his body didn't get much time to adapt to the conditions of this world," Gaden explained.

"Oh? I see, that's a letdown. I thought he did suicide or something," Ryfin mumbled quietly.