Cornering A Rat

While Jack was putting his plans on motion his students were relentlessly practicing. He had already told them that they would be left to themselves and have order to follows during the battle and they understood the gravity of the situation. Yet, his last visit made them realize that the time was flying while their progress slowed down. Evelyn had finally understood how to maintain her barrier but also discovered how taxing it was mentally and physically to keep it up.

On the other side, Laena was struggling to control the volatile and slippery gravity mana. She had managed to increase some item's weight but couldn't make it weight enough to be troublesome. Every time she fed mana into her training dagger it dissipated itself so fast that felt like she was feeding a bottomless black hole.

They both worked like madmen as they remembered their teacher's last sentence before he left them with the meeting' scheduled time : "You will be left to yourselves and will have tasks to complete. If you fail them, we will probably all die. Train as much as you can during those remaining days. Hope for the best, prepare for the worse."

Another reason for their relentless training was that it allowed them to ignore their moral compass which was filling their mind with doubts. Ignoring the murder of innocent was one thing and actively slaughtering righteous men when they fought evil forces was another one.

Yet, they also trusted their teacher and understood that the world wasn't only white and black. These different thoughts roamed in their minds and only distraction stopped them from overthinking so they gave everything they had while practicing.

During this time Zoe and her friends continued their activities as they had planned. Trying to find the A rank adventurers who were coming for the crusade and evaluate their abilities took them most of their time and they completed their schedules with some individual training.

This was quite taxing for the thunder mage as her body was still recovering while her mind was a painful mess. Regret, guilt and fear occupied her thoughts every seconds and the fact that she couldn't even tell her companions about it made her feel isolated.

Then finally came the time to meet Jack's party at the adventurer's guild. Moringar grumbled quite a lot on their way toward the building while Andrew had put on his serious face. He wanted some answers and Jack was his last hope. Zoe on the other side looked even worse than a death row inmate as she walked with her head down. In the end, she hadn't managed to find the courage to tell her companions about the danger that this weird man in black clothing represented.

Her heart was as heavy as lead when they opened the door and she couldn't muster the strength necessary to lift her head in order to look around to find where the others were. Thus, she simply followed Andrew and Moringar as they went toward a corner of the room while waving at it.

"Uh? Where's Jack? He calls us then he's late. What an idiot." The old archer grumpily scowled under his breath. Yet, Zoe heard him and light reappeared in her eyes as she gazed toward the other party. There were only Laena and Evelyn standing there, leaning against the wall. The elf had a frustrated expression on her face as she felt many lecherous gazes on her while the young girl simply looked at the incoming party with a gentle smile on her face.

They saluted each other quite nicely and a pained expression appeared on Jack's team members as they saw the consequences of his actions on Zoe. He hadn't explained them exactly how he had managed to get them cooperating but they both understood when they saw the despair on her face. Surprisingly, they both noticed that he had used magic on her thanks to different reasons.

Laena had seen the runic formation in the mage's eyes after focusing on them since the change of color had interrogated her. She didn't know what was it supposed to do but thought that since she looked quite down it was probably something negative. On the other side, Evelyn had felt her teacher's presence in Zoe's aura. She didn't know how to describe it but she felt the tingle on her senses that she had when Jack cast a spell. In reality, her sensitivity to mana was quite high for an human and she had gotten used to feel her teacher's rather unique one.

They passed time by doing some pep talk but avoided to touch the sensitive subjects like their quest since it was not the right place nor the right time to talk about it. After they found nothing else to talk about they started to discussed out a rumor which was currently hot in city.

Apparently, the slums were haunted and people disappeared while leaving only bones behind them. The guards were quite happy with this since it cleansed these places without soiling their reputations while the adventurers simply thought that there was a strong gang who took over the control of the city's dark side.

Overall, this fueled the debates and rumors since it was the hottest topic in the city. People also linked this to the Phantom Reaper and some joked about the Daberon household pitiful reaction about the attack as they put a price over the Reaper's head.

Thus, many were and were said to be him since no one knew what he looked like. The poor guards and officials had a rough time to deal with this and in the end no one got the money, so they all spat on the house's name behind their back.

The girls noticed how down and quiet Zoe had become compared to her usual self. The discussion about the slums had made her face turn white. Thus, they did their best to cheer her up, managing to bring a weak smile on her face after a hug from Evelyn.

However, her bliss ended soon after that since Jack appeared, making Moringar grumble about how late he was. His wolfish smile made the thunder mage's face crumble and Andrew frowned as he noticed it.

"Excuse me for my delay, I was... Busy." The immortal said with wry grin. "Where do you want to go for the training?"

"Can't we do it here...?" Zoe asked, trying to protect her friends from this devil by staying near a crowd and in town.

"The testing room is too small for all of us you know." Moringar grunted. "But if we can go somewhere close it would be great, I don't want to walk too much."

"Well then, we can go to a plain on the city's outskirts. It's not that far and we'll have all the space we need." Jack proposed.

"Yeaaah but isn't that a bit too far away..?" Zoe continued, trying to save her friends without triggering her curse.

"It would be perfect. After all, we've got some things to talk about." Andrew said while gripping tightly his sword's hilt. A hint of anger and jealousy could be seen dancing in his eyes.

'There's definitely something fishy between them. I don't know what it is but I'll get my answers, one way or another.'

"I-If you need to talk then you can do it here no..?" The poor mage asked with a hint of despair in her voice.

"What wrong with you Zoe dammit?" The knight angrily asked as his curiosity spiked to new heights. He had agreed to trust her and said beautiful things but in the end these were also valid for him as he had to convince himself too.

"N-nothing.." The girl said while looking at the ground. During this time, Moringar was simply looking at them as he waited for the right occasion to ask his questions. He knew that throwing a tantrum was useless and decided to play it carefully. His instinct screamed him that trying to force Jack's hand would be a bad idea and he always listened to it.

Yet, he was also curious to know what the hell was happening and had happened to her. Thus, he decided to put the last nail in the coffin and urged the group to move toward the said plain. Jack happily guided them while the heavy mood made the trip feel like an eternity. Moringar was thinking deeply about how to get the best out of this situation while Zoe was fighting her tears back as she felt the heavy gaze of her friend on her.

Laena and Evelyn stood silent as simply watched the ambient chaos with confusion in their eyes. They didn't really know what had happened but easily put two and two together and understood that it was thanks to their teacher that this adventurer's party was on the verge of breaking. The doubt and tension made the atmosphere unwelcoming and shut their mouths until they finally arrived.

Unsurprisingly, the only one with a smile was Jack as he happily noticed how easy his manipulations were thanks to Andrew's raging curiosity. Checking that there was no one around, he then turned and said to them :

"We've arrived. Now then, you wanted to talk to me ?" A playful grin rose on his lips as he saw the knight's face darken a little.

'Someone guided by his emotions is someone blind to reality, only seeing it through his own prism. Well, I'm the worst guy to talk about it but at least I have the presence of mind to avoid running into a trap like this. He'll make a fine pawn if he's always this simple to use.' He thought while checking his body's condition in case he had to make him submit with more than words.

His muscles were still sore and painful but it was way better than before and they would probably hold on if he was rough with them. On his mana circuits' side they were still in a wounded state as he used them constantly during the last two days.

However, he thought that he would still be able to make them surrender with a few level 0 spells so his confidence didn't waver. His mind was also quite tired as he kept an iron grip on many undead's will at the same time but this was merely a Monday compared to his former tasks. Andrew's angry voice brought him back to reality as the knight asked quite bluntly :

"Do you know what has happened to Zoe?"

"Why would I?" Jack replied with a small smile as the mage's face fell.

'It's happening. It's too late... We're doomed...' She thought as she turned her head to hide the tears falling down her cheeks.

"You were the only one to have interacted with her when she disappeared and her answers have been rather illogical. If there's someone who know something it's you !" Andrew declared with passion like he had cornered a bandit.

"My, my. I simply talked with her and arranged this meeting. However, she told me about some of your... Rather shady plans and I have an offer for you." Jack announced as he watched the two men turn toward their companion with sadness, betrayal and surprise written on their faces.

Laena and Evelyn stepped back from them as their hostility could be felt while Zoe crouched, hiding her face out of shame.

"What do you mean?" Moringar asked while grabbing his bow and glaring at Jack.

'Fuck this is even worse than I thought. We're neck deep into troubles... I'll probably need to silence them. They are in contact with the Church too... Dammit we're probably already done ! What the hell have you done Zoe ! Let's get a hold of this first and interrogate this idiotic mage later. Why did she told him about it?'

"Well, we have a common objective it seems. You want to stop this crusade while I want the holy knights dead so let's cooperate shall we?" The immortal replied with a radiant smile while he prepared a few shadow spells. If Moringar dared to draw his bow he would be skewered in an instant.

"What ?" The archer replied a bit stunned as he expected everything but this development.