With the precedent set by Zhang Wen’s utterly ungraceful act of collapsing flat on his back, Murra and Ironface, who had stubbornly held out until now, exchanged bitter smiles and almost simultaneously dropped down onto the ground. Only Reim still stood upright, his face once again wearing that chilling smile.
“Agh! That was rough—really rough! I swear I won’t take on such a life-draining mission ever again!” Murra, panting heavily while sitting on the ground, grumbled to Reim, “Still, although it was dangerous, at least we came out with something. What do you think, Smiling Tiger?”
“Hmm… gains, huh…” Reim smiled, his gaze suddenly shifting as he addressed someone behind Zhang Wen, “Miss Lynora, the King has long gone. There’s no need to keep pretending anymore.”
“Hehe! You’ve seen through me, as always.” Lynora replied with a faint smile, rising gracefully to her feet. Seeing Lynora stand, Isaiya, who had been standing beside her, was instantly startled and hastily jumped aside.
“Miss Hunji, you flatter me. It wasn’t that I sensed your psychic energy; I just happened to notice you taking out that vial of Zero—Ancient Elixir and injecting it into yourself earlier. That must’ve been one of the two doses the Consortium recovered from planet K for this mission, right?”
“Correct.” Lynora smiled seductively, “However, the first dose was already used by me long ago. The one I just injected was the last dose the Consortium had. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have waited until the last moment to use it in a desperate move.”
“What? You used both doses of the Zero Elixir?!” Murra couldn’t help but leap up furiously.
“Hmph! In a situation like that, if I didn’t use the elixir, would I just wait around for the King to kill me and let you retrieve it from my corpse?” Lynora coldly swept Murra with a look that said ‘what an idiot.’
“Cough… damn woman, your mouth is sharper than a blade.” Murra was left speechless by Lynora’s retort.
“Captain Reim, after injecting the Zero Elixir, technically speaking, I’m now a High-tier Nen user. Surely you still want to fight me and try to stop me, right?” Having provoked Murra, Lynora turned to Reim with a calm smile.
“Hehe… That’s true. Right now, I don’t have the strength to fight another High-tier nenshul, so I have no intention of fighting you,” Reim said unexpectedly, smiling as he spread his hands wide, clearly showing no intention of confronting Lynora.
“Captain Reim!” Isaiya shouted at Reim and drew her nensteel from her waist, preparing to confront Lynora.
“Forget it!” Murra, surprisingly siding with Reim, reached out to stop Isaiya, “Let her go. Don’t you remember? We must act according to our capabilities. That’s the Chief Commander’s catchphrase.”
“But…” Isaiya clenched her fists, glaring angrily at Lynora.
“Hehe! Isaiya, don’t rush. Even if we let her go today, we’ll surely meet again someday.” Reim narrowed his eyes slightly, his gaze carrying an unfathomable smile.
“Fine.” Isaiya finally relaxed her fists and lowered her head, stepping back behind Reim.
“Then, I’ll be on my way. Farewell, Captain Reim.” Smiling, Lynora waved her hand and walked away lightly, passing by Zhang Wen.
“Damn it, I originally planned to help you block the King and repay my life debt to you, but even heaven wouldn’t give me the chance.” Lynora’s self-muttered words clearly reached Zhang Wen’s ears.
At the moment the two passed each other, a small piece of paper, folded several times, was silently slipped into Zhang Wen’s palm.
“Hey! Smiling Tiger, you didn’t stop her because you weren’t interested in fighting her, right?” Watching Lynora’s figure disappear into the depths of Sandara Forest, Murra suddenly looked up suspiciously at Reim.
“Hehe… Who knows?” Reim smiled his eternal smile, then turned and waved to Isaiya, “Isaiya, let’s go!”
“Go? Captain, what about them?” Isaiya asked, frowning.
“They’re unrelated to our mission. Even if we bring those unrelated to the Consortium back, the Emperor won’t be satisfied.” Reim shook his head with a smile.
“But… What about Zhang Wen?”
“Alright, alright! Isaiya. No more ‘but’s. We’re the Imperial Hawks. Let the useless police department deal with such trivial matters like assassinating a governor. We shouldn’t meddle. Besides, Temiso’s idiot didn’t die, right? Anyway, we managed to catch a big fish this time, so the Chief Commander won’t nag us endlessly.” Murra sighed deeply, stood up, and threw the unconscious Agate onto his shoulder.
“Farewell, Teacher Zhang.” With a strange smile at Zhang Wen, the three members of the Hawks quickly vanished into the forest.
“I should head back too. If you have time, after returning to Casares, come visit the arena. I have something to discuss with you.” Then, Ironface also bid farewell to Zhang Wen.
Soon, the massive crater “artificially” created by the King was left with only Zhang Wen. He glanced in the direction Lynora had left, then unfolded the note she had finally slipped into his hand.
Clearly written in Lynora’s elegant handwriting on the note was a prophetic poem whose format was very familiar to Zhang Wen.
The proud princess,
Loves adventure and excitement.
Venturing deep into the devil’s jungle,
Surely she will encounter danger.
Hate and love,
Always so entangled.
Her life’s destination,
Comes with the greatest crisis of her fate.
One step back leads to hell,
One step forward leads to heaven.
“The proud princess…” Zhang Wen smiled faintly, a flame-like blue battle energy igniting in his hand, reducing the small piece of paper to ashes.
Without further delay, Zhang Wen leaped out of the massive “crater” and returned to the temporary tent camp of the Almishius Academy at the fastest speed.
When Zhang Wen returned to the camp, Zax and his team had already returned earlier and distributed the tents for sleeping. Zax and Cloud occupied Lynora’s tent while Lynora and the young girl Xi naturally moved into Zhang Wen’s tent.
However, as soon as Zhang Wen opened the door to his tent, the red-haired girl Xi jumped up like an angry little cat and rushed straight to him.
“Pervert! Big pervert! What did you and that shameless woman do to me while I was unconscious?” Xi waved her little fists, aiming straight at Zhang Wen’s face.
Zhang Wen hastily caught Xi’s fists but was surprised to find that, besides anger, the girl’s pretty face also bore a hint of lingering embarrassment.
“Do something to you? I didn’t do anything at all.” Facing Xi’s angry and embarrassed accusations, Zhang Wen felt utterly baffled.
“You dare to lie to me!” Xi glared at Zhang Wen furiously.
If her hands had been free, she would have punched him again without hesitation. Even though her hands were tightly held by Zhang Wen, the angry little beauty still thought of a way to vent her anger. Taking advantage of Zhang Wen’s inattention, the wild little beauty suddenly opened her mouth and angrily bit down hard on his arm.
“Ah! Are you a dog? You actually bite people!” Caught off guard, Zhang Wen, whose battle energy was already exhausted, couldn’t dodge Xi’s “attack.” After hastily shaking off the red-haired girl’s head, Zhang Wen couldn’t help but laugh bitterly when he saw the clear tooth marks left on his arm.
“Hmph!” Xi raised her head triumphantly and stared at Zhang Wen, angrily asking, “Quick, tell me! What did you do to me?”
“I told you, I didn’t do anything! In your current state, why would I lie to you? If I had wanted to do something to you, you wouldn’t have had any chance to resist, right?” Zhang Wen glared fiercely back at the savage red-haired beauty.
“Hah! So you did have ulterior motives for me! You perverted, lecherous creep!” Completely disregarding the logic in Zhang Wen’s words, Xi only seized upon the few words she wanted to hear and shouted at the top of her lungs.
Xi’s unreasonable attitude made Zhang Wen furious enough to grab the little girl and give her a good spanking on her little butt. Unfortunately, Zhang Wen soon helplessly realized that Xi’s loud shouting had woken up Garyt inside the tent.
In front of his student, Zhang Wen naturally couldn’t grab the wild red-haired girl and spank her little butt. Otherwise, if Garyt misunderstood him and thought he had some bad habits, Zhang Wen would be terribly wronged.
“Enough! If you keep shouting nonsense, I’ll strip your clothes and throw you outside the tent! Hmph! There are quite a few magical beasts out there who love to eat delicious little girls!” Taking advantage of Garyt still rubbing her eyes sleepily, Zhang Wen menacingly whispered into Xi’s ear.
“You…” The wild red-haired girl was indeed frightened. She glared angrily at Zhang Wen but, out of fear, swallowed back the curse that was about to spill out.
“Ah? Teacher Zhang, you’re back? I originally planned to wait for you but accidentally fell asleep.” Rubbing her eyes, Garyt apologized in a pitifully cute manner, looking like a beautiful girl straight out of a fantasy world!
Seeing this scene, Zhang Wen couldn’t help but sigh to the heavens. If Garyt went to Earth and starred in an advertisement, the men who saw her would probably all turn into “Lolicon” uncles.
“Huh? Xi? How come you’re sitting up? Did you recover from your injuries?” After apologizing to Zhang Wen, Garyt suddenly stared at Xi in surprise, her beautiful eyes wide open.
“Injuries? What’s going on here?” Zhang Wen was completely confused by the two chaotic beautiful girls, Garyt and Xi.
“Forget it! You explain!” Xi seemed to have a bit of self-awareness, realizing she wasn’t good with words, and simply pushed the explanation task to Garyt.
“Okay. The situation is like this…”
For Garyt, who had always served as student council president, explaining the situation was naturally her specialty. Therefore, without hesitation, Garyt slightly gathered her thoughts and began explaining in a clear and organized manner.
It turned out that after Zhang Wen left Garyt’s group and went to find Lynora, Zack and Cloud followed Zhang Wen’s previous instructions and woke up Garyt and Xi.
However, after Xi woke up, the wild red-haired girl was shocked to find that her body was limp and unable to exert any strength. Moreover, every time she tried to move slightly, the part she wanted to move would send her a wave of soreness and numbness so unbearable that it made her want to cry.
After trying to move a few times, the pain from the discomfort had made Xi dare not move anymore. Then, the originally active red-haired girl naturally assumed she had suffered some incurable strange injury and cried bitterly like a pear blossom in the rain.
Seeing Xi’s pitiful appearance, even Garyt, who had been teased by her for a while, couldn’t bear to retaliate anymore. So, after discussing with Zack and Cloud for a while, the three of them finally carefully carried Xi back to the camp. Then Garyt and Xi waited for Zhang Wen’s return in Zhang Wen’s tent.
Not long after, the tired Garyt accidentally fell asleep.
“Okay. I roughly understand the situation now. But how does this relate to what you just said?” After understanding the entire situation from Garyt, Zhang Wen asked Xi again.
“You… How can it not be related to you?” Xi glared at Zhang Wen angrily.
“If you didn’t do anything to me, why was I so weak and in unbearable pain every time I moved before you came back? But as soon as you returned, I immediately recovered!”
“Hmm? How do you know it’s because I came back that you recovered?” Zhang Wen looked at Xi in confusion.
“This…” Xi’s voice faltered, and her pretty face couldn’t help but flush red, “I don’t know why either, but I just felt it! When you came near the camp just now, I felt you come back, and my strength immediately returned!”
“Is that so?” Zhang Wen frowned in confusion, but a scene from his earlier battle with Lynora flashed through his mind.
At that time, Zhang Wen’s left hand was pierced by Lynora’s short sword, and Xi seemed to still be in his arms. Then, Zhang Wen felt a “current” that almost caused his battle energy to explode rush into his body.
Could it be because of that? If my guess is correct, that “current” that rushed into my body should have been the first dose of the Zero—Ancient Elixir that Lynora initially injected. Perhaps the Spring Water Technique and the Zero—Ancient Elixir had some strange interaction? Zhang Wen mused, suddenly standing up.
“Whether it’s really because of me or not, let’s do an experiment,” Zhang Wen said to Xi and Garyt, then turned and left the tent. He walked out of the camp again, advancing about a thousand meters into the jungle, then returned to the tent.
“Indeed, it’s you!” As soon as Zhang Wen opened the tent door, he saw the furious Xi pouncing at him with claws bared.
Zhang Wen hastily dodged Xi’s flailing hands but noticed that the wild red-haired girl’s eyes were actually glistening with tears.
“Waaah… You perverted, lecherous creep! My body has been defiled by a perverted, lecherous creep! No one will want me anymore! Waaah!” Soon, the red-haired girl was sobbing uncontrollably.
Hearing Xi’s heartbroken cries, even Garyt couldn’t help but glance at Zhang Wen. Although Garyt quickly averted her gaze, the hint of suspicion in it still made Zhang Wen feel a surge of frustration.
“Alright! I didn’t do anything to you! Besides, I’m not even interested in a little girl like you! The problem you’re experiencing now is because you were poisoned by a certain drug! My battle energy just happens to be able to counteract or neutralize this toxin. So when I’m around you, you naturally recover!”
“Hmph…” Before Xi could react to Zhang Wen’s words, it was actually Garyt who responded first. The cute angel-like girl covered her chest and sighed deeply. But soon, she couldn’t help but glance down at her chest, which was far from full, and sighed in frustration.
It must be said that a girl’s thoughts are indeed subtle and complex to the point of being incomprehensible. However, there are always exceptions. For example, the thoughts of the other red-haired girl in the tent seemed to be…
“Really?” After hearing Zhang Wen’s explanation, Xi also tearfully looked up.
“Of course it’s true!” Zhang Wen nodded affirmatively.
“Waaah! Good! I won’t be unwanted anymore!” The red-haired girl cried again. Unable to bear it any longer, Zhang Wen finally delivered a palm strike to knock the pitiful Xi unconscious.
“Oh! Right! Teacher Zhang…” The beautiful student council president, who had been depressed due to Zhang Wen’s words, remained silent for a while. After Zhang Wen knocked out Xi, she suddenly seemed to remember something and hurriedly looked at Zhang Wen.
“Hmm?” Zhang Wen unceremoniously stuffed Xi into the depths of the tent and smiled as he turned around.
“Teacher Zhang, I heard from Teacher Lynora earlier… Are you… Are you the Mithril Hunter Andrei Stein?” After hesitating several times, Garyt finally made up her mind to ask.
“Mithril Hunter Andrei Stein… Hehe!” Zhang Wen’s lips curled into an amused smile, “There’s a lot of misunderstanding here. But that guy has nothing to do with me.”
“Ah! Really? That’s great!” Garyt happily covered her heart.
“Oh? You don’t doubt a word I say at all?”
“No!” Garyt shook her head earnestly at Zhang Wen, “I believe Teacher Zhang; you wouldn’t lie to me.”
“Haha! Didn’t expect me to have such a good image in your mind.”
“It’s not just me who thinks so.” Garyt playfully stuck her tongue out at Zhang Wen, “Everyone who truly knows Teacher Zhang thinks he’s a very reliable person. Actually, even if Teacher Zhang really were Andrei Stein, I wouldn’t tell my father. I know that no matter what Teacher Zhang does, he would never intentionally hurt anyone.”
“Hehe!” Zhang Wen smiled and patted Garyt’s little head, “You’re really a simple little girl. Alright! Get some rest now. I estimate that before tomorrow morning, Governor Temiso will find out about the big incident in Sandara Forest and come looking for us with his guards.”
Indeed, as Zhang Wen predicted, Governor Temiso didn’t keep everyone waiting for long.
After hearing from Amelis and others who desperately fled back to the town that a large-scale beast attack had occurred in Sandara Forest and that his beloved daughter Garyt had been abducted by two mysterious figures, Governor Temiso immediately jumped up from the comfortable bed in Baysia Inn like he had been electrocuted.
Without even waiting for dawn, the teams participating in the survival competition received notice from the chief supervisor of the competition. Due to abnormal magical beast activities recently in Sandara Forest, this session’s survival competition was temporarily suspended.
Although the stern old man on the badge only said “temporarily suspended,” after the disaster of the previous night, the teachers and students from various academies all knew that this year’s survival competition would probably end here without further action.
At the same time the competition supervisors announced the suspension of the survival competition, the mining guards responsible for the competition’s safety also swiftly entered Sandara Forest under Governor Temiso’s strict orders to control the situation.
The next morning, Governor Temiso personally led his governor’s guards and appeared outside the camp of the Third Squad of Almishius Academy.
Seeing Governor Temiso’s dark expression upon his arrival, the Temis Academy delegation couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of schadenfreude in their hearts.
During their visit to Almishius over the past few days, Governor Temiso had made a complete fool of himself. First, there were consecutive terrorist attacks in Casares City, which he boasted had “perfect” security. Even the decade-old traditional rivalry match between two academies had to be canceled. Then, in the survival competition, which Governor Temiso had meticulously arranged and even mobilized the mining guards to protect, there was yet another large-scale beast attack.
By now, the Temis Academy people didn’t even need to ask the two Hawk Captains for inside information to know that Princess Sophia would no longer have any connection with Almishius Academy.
Perhaps unwilling to lose face in front of outsiders, Governor Temiso didn’t lash out at the battered Zhang Wen and others at the camp. He merely gave a grim order for the guards to “protect” all the participants in the camp and hurriedly left.
“Hey! Cloud, since this survival competition is completely ruined, do you think that old guy Temiso will take out his anger on Teacher Zhang?” As they followed the governor’s guards heading north towards the Dream River, Zack couldn’t help but uneasily whisper to Cloud.
“I don’t know. Maybe he will.” Cloud sighed lightly.
“What? That old man… How can he just find a scapegoat? This is all his fault! What did Teacher Zhang do wrong? After all, before this survival competition was canceled, Teacher Zhang’s team had collected the most badges!” As soon as Cloud finished speaking, Zack indignantly defended Zhang Wen.
“Alright, quiet down.” Cloud raised his finger, making a shushing gesture.
After a half-hour of forced march, the group finally arrived at the Dream River. Then, Governor Temiso, still silent, waved his hand, and everyone was ordered to board the two warships moored on the Dream River.
Among them, the students from Almishius Academy, including Garyt, and the Temis Academy group were assigned to the rear warship. Zhang Wen and Xi were taken aboard Governor Temiso’s flagship.
After boarding the ship, two female soldiers from the governor’s guard immediately appeared in front of Zhang Wen, each grabbing one of Xi’s arms.
“What are you doing?” Feeling that they were trying to forcibly separate her from Zhang Wen, Xi immediately bared her little tiger teeth, shouted, pushed the two female soldiers away, and assumed a stance ready to lash out at anyone who dared approach again.
“Hey! Little girl, you’re a prisoner now. If you start a fight here, watch out for trouble. Look at your surroundings,” Zhang Wen, however, smiled and patted Xi’s head.
“Waaah!” Xi tried to bite Zhang Wen’s finger in retaliation, but unfortunately, Zhang Wen was too quick, and she missed.
“Hmph! I don’t need you to interfere with my affairs! You should take care of yourself first!” After failing to bite Zhang Wen, Xi disdainfully glanced at him and whispered, “They didn’t keep you with the Almishius Academy people but brought you here with me, a prisoner. Your situation isn’t good either, right?”
“Oh! Didn’t expect you to be so perceptive sometimes!” Zhang Wen put on a surprised expression.
“Hmph! Of course! I’m a woman bearing the surname of Odysseus, the wise one!” Xi proudly lifted her pretty face but soon seemed to think of something and suddenly blushed, stammering, “But… But don’t misunderstand! I’m not… not caring about you or anything. I just… just don’t want you to die and leave me poisoned again!”
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