Scarlet

I walk over to join her at the window before looking up at the blood moon high in the sky. The thing is incredibly beautiful despite all the horror that comes with it. And I can’t help but feel even more attracted to it than the regular full moon, likely because I’m a blood lycan.

“Scar?” the girl asks, surprising me with her use of the nickname Tar gave me before. And I think Belle has called me that a few times as well, but not often.

“What’s up?” I ask, not taking my eyes away from the moon.

She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, making me glance at her to find her fidgeting a little with her hands before eventually asking, “Why do you do it?”

“Hmm?” I ask, not really understanding what she means.

The girl looks up at me, her incredibly blue eyes – which I’m only now realizing look a little bit unrealistically blue – directly meeting my own crimson ones as she asks, “Why do you fight?”

My first instinct upon hearing that question is to immediately answer it with ‘To hunt,’ but I snuff that instinct and instead answer with my second biggest reason for fighting the demons, “To get stronger.” I look out the window again as I continue, “Strong enough that I will never have to worry about someone else looking down on me again. Never have to worry about being forced into situations I don’t want to be in.”

I clench my fist and look down at it, finishing my answer with, “To be able to control my own future.”

The girl looks at my fist as well for a few seconds before a light smile appears on her face and she turns to look out the window.

I smile as well, focusing on the moon myself.

A few minutes pass by in silence with neither of us saying a word. But eventually, I break it by muttering, “Oh, right.” Then turning to the girl and asking, “By the way, what’s your name?”

I kind of forgot to ask.

She turns to look at me, her eyes widening slightly before she actually giggles rather quietly once and answers, “It’s Aria Knight.”

I blink at that name.

Knight… Knight… where do I remember that name from? Because I swear I remember that name from somewhere…

“Maybe it’s just because the name is from a famous Class V Guardian?” Tar suggests.

Hmm, yeah, I guess so. It’s just that the name is for some reason ringing alarm bells in my head. But I have no idea why.

Well, anyways.

“Pleasure to meet you, miss Knight,” I say with a smile, and she lightly smiles back while saying rather politely, “You too, miss Asger.”

My terminal suddenly buzzes, making me look down at it to find a message from Sage.

[The first Class IV Fracture has been cleared by Lady White. She is now heading towards the other one to support the Class IV Guardians there, but as it is on the other side of the city from the first, it will take a while for her to reach it. Expect backup to arrive for your location in approximately two hours. Please hold out till then.]

I just show Aria the message instead of repeating it to her, since the girl is clearly smart enough to understand for herself. And right after she reads it, I see her begin shivering slightly, so I pat her on the head and say, “Don’t worry. As long as the only demons who enter this floor are fomorians, then I can handle them, okay?”

She stiffly nods her head, but I get the feeling that she doesn’t truly believe that only fomorians will enter this floor within the next two hours.

And I can’t help but agree with her on that.

Then, as if in response to our current conversation, I hear something entering the floor. Something that isn’t a fomorian considering the lack of any tail dragging on the ground. But as if meant to make things worse, four more sets of footsteps echo from the stairs behind the first. And these are fomorians.

“Shit…” I mutter, making Aria jerk her head up to stare at me with her eyes wide open.

Double shit. I said that out loud!

“Looks like we have some company, so stay here, alright?” I tell Aria with a pat on the girl’s head, and she just stares at me with the slightest bit of sadness and fear in her eyes. So I begin walking away without another word with her eyes drilling a hole in my back.

Well, this isn’t good.

Sounds like a demon acolyte entered the floor, and I have no idea how to deal with that.

Demon acolytes are the weakest demon that is capable of using magic skills. They have a very basic and limited amount of intelligence, but intelligence, nonetheless. Which means this will likely be the very first demon I ever meet that has enough intelligence and sapience to actually speak. Even if they can only speak in like two or three word sentences.

The creatures aren’t very strong physically compared to other demons of their own level, but they make up for it in their leadership of the four fomorians they drag around with them, along with their use of magic. Meaning that unless I can separate it from the fomorians, I won’t be able to stand even the slightest chance against it. Not unless I want to pit myself against four fomorians and an acolyte who is at the very least fifty levels above me.

I glance at Aria again from the door to find her still staring at me.

But what am I going to do about her? I can’t split them up unless I want one of them running into and killing Aria…

Of course, I could try bringing Aria up or down the stairs, but judging by what I’m hearing, both floors have even more demons on them than this floor has. Meaning I’d only be leading her into more danger doing that.

And if we just stay here, the fomorians will eventually just sniff us out, not even mentioning the acolyte who will probably be able to sense my mana from the hallway.

So the only solution is to fight them, since running will just bring us to something even stronger, and staying here will just leave us as sitting ducks.

“You’re going to go with that solution again, aren’t you?” Tar asks. And I nod my head, because why not? If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.

And the bunker shields have worked splendidly for me so far after all.