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Chapter 1.2

"...Stop standing there and state your business already."

The girl, seeming to have patiently waited for some time— with a voice like the murmuring of a clear stream, she spoke to me. Her brows furrowed from displeasure and her eyes glared at me, following with a cold sigh afterwards.

"…H-Huh? Oh, yeah. Sorry." I apologized.

It was probably I was staring at her for too long.

…I almost lost myself there. What is she?! It`s like I`m getting sucked in to some sort of abyss. This girl is dangerous, really, really, dangerous. I need to be careful not to get suck in again.

"Erm… I just transferred here today and I got lost somehow, can you show me the way to the Student Council President`s building…?" I asked with a smile.

For how eerie and awkward my smile is, I guess anyone would be able to tell just from her reaction.

"…this— again."

She murmured as she hung her head low, seeming to have gotten herself a headache as she placed her hand on her temple. Then she glares at me with an upward gaze, with quite the scornful look on her face, as though as she was glaring at a mere bug.

Nevertheless, my gaze never shifted away from her one bit. Eventually, our eyes met…

"...!"

…and her eyes visibly widens, adjusting her head up back so she could look at me directly.

"(…that can`t be…!)"

She then whispers very softly, with her voice being as quiet as possible, so quiet that was not meant to be heard, and she even covers her mouth to hide it from me. But my hearing is unexceptionally good, so I`m able to hear it.

Then again, she seems overly surprised for some reason, but I can`t tell.

Her expression immediately changed afterwards. Looking extremely complexed.

Her face looks slightly tensed up, as if she was angry, yet at the same time her smile looks somewhat delighted. Her eyes were slightly soaked with tears, as if she were sad; her hands were hidden from my line of sight and I saw her shoulders trembling, as if she`s in fear.

I find myself dumbfounded. How should I even react to this?

After she clenched her right hand on her skirt, the expression she made earlier had disappeared in an instant, with nothing but a firm expression on her eyes now. From the look of it, it seems like she`s going to ask for something…

"…duel with me, now."

Such a frightening thing to demand!

"Wha— no way!"

I was trying to avoid this at all cost!

And it`d be troublesome to cause a huge ruckus on the first day, on top of that, I`m even duelling against a girl. She doesn`t intend to put her things aside either, is she so confident that she`s able to fight one-handed? Quite the character.

Seeming to have already anticipated my answer, the girl then held out her right hand on her chest.

"…I, Kuroyuki Shiroha hereby challenge you, Lucifer Vermillion, to a forced duel."

A duel, by its definition, is a contest with deadly weapons arranged between two people in order to settle a point of honour. But now in the modern era, a duel nowadays is a contest between two parties, and for what the contest is, it`s to fight till either one of the parties were knocked out or surrender. However, a duel must require both of the party's permission in order to execute it. If you were to forced it, the opponent will be forced to participate the duel, then both parties must fight till either one was knocked out, surrendering is not allowed.

To go to such lengths… are you nuts?! Can`t you even see? My blazer is white colour— Huh?

—the heck? Hers too is—!

I wanted to quickly run away from the activation range, but it`s too late. The system already detected her request, with a screen popped up in front of us, making its arrangement.

'ERROR. OPPONENT 'LUCIFER VERMILLION' DOES NOT EXIST.'

Lucifer— Vermillion? Although it had the exact same first name as mine, but Vermillion is not my family name.

As I heaved a sigh of enlightenment, that girl`s murmurs caught my attention.

"...so it`s not you…"

She said with an extremely tired voice as she adverted her eyes, looking so fully filled with disappointment and sadness, making a face which seemed like tears might burst out at any moment.

Her expression made my heart oddly tensed up— as if it`s being squeezed tightly to the verge on getting a cardiac arrest.

That girl wiped her eyes with her right hand, for the purpose to calm herself down. She then raised her head and gave me a quick once-over cold look.

She then rose her right hand, pointing diagonally downwards to her 10 o`clock direction with an irritated expression.

"…there."

My head turned to where she pointed.

I`m surprised she`s able to tell the direction from up here. Is she even pointing at the right direction?

"..."

With that, uninterested in my response, the girl turned her heels and began walking towards the edge of the branch. Before I could even face her again to ask for anything clearer or saying my thanks to her, she jumped down and vanished from sight.

I know she carried a Tupperware on her left hand, wrapped with a pink cloth decorated with cherry blossom petals. Though it looks like I spoiled her mood for breakfast. But if she asks me to leave, I would`ve leave. She`s leaving so soon, too soon.

Speaking of leave, what time is it?

8.24am.

Lucky, still have time. I should get going.

"…Stay back..."

Seconds before I am going to jump down from this height, I heard a familiar icy voice.

It`s her.

She's still here? Sounds like she's in trouble… That`s impossible right? I know she's strong, not a weak girl that needs to be rescued like a princess.

...But I better check on it just in case.

"Hup…!"

Ignoring my height and landing spot, I jumped.

I might crash land on her, but I couldn't care less about it now, it's too late to stop.

Brushing across the last line of flowers, the view below shocked me through and through.

"...Whoa? What's with this thick fog…!?"

Now I can't even measure when should I prepare a landing posture.

…Hope this works.

I immediately swing my fist as hard as I could, aiming the ground. It's hard to actually punch on mid-air, so it only thinned a little around my area below, revealing a small green spot.

'Better than nothing.' I thought.

I entered the fog area— Brrr… It's freakishly cold! It's not fog, but mist? I thought it's summer!

I landed safely. It didn`t take long for the mist thicken back again.

Damn... I can`t see anything here with this thick mist around. I can't even see my own five fingers in front of my eyes. The atmosphere is so chillingly cold. Even someone like myself, who's adapted to extreme temperature change is shivering.

Thanks to my clothing`s function, it starts to heat up, warming my body.

At the same time, a strong wind suddenly blows. By strong, it's actually strong enough to make a normal person trip if not careful.

First heat, then cold, now wind? What's wrong with the weather here?!

But thanks to it, it scatters the thick mists in an instant— unveiling the view right in front of me.

"...Huh?"

I was dumbfounded.

In front of my eyes, stood five supposedly cool-looking guys, their blazers are dark brown in colour and their tie are light blue (the very same tie like mine, so they are first years like me). Strangely, their hands wrapped on each other on their waist, and their bodies were sticking together— their blazers are brown, so they look like sticks, a bundle of sticks. Like those classic stories that I heard a lot, 'a stick can break easily, but not a bundle of them' and the moral of the story is teamwork, to work together. Something like that.

As you can see, I live on an island, and for your information of the fairly damaged helicopter and not being able to cast magic nor being casted on, I had my difficulties to travel off the area on the island. Ironically, more or less you can say— I'm stranded.

If you compare me to a monk who lives on mountains, isolated from the society, not knowing how the world works, and say that I'm 'same' as them, then you are completely off the mark— I'm not like them.

First off, I'm not bald. I had my hair kept slightly longer than what most guys would do.

Second, Restia and Ruby are able to teleport off the island with magic, so they are, in a way, connected to society. With their daily stories they brought back, this somehow becomes the wire for me to stay connected to society. In addition, they are able to teleport the stuffs they brought back to the island, I'm able to enjoy the luxury of using wireless connection (it's shabby though), technologies, especially the one I had in my pocket.

My memory is bad, you could even say I had a memory loss— as far as I can remember, I've been living on the island for 8 years already. Just as I was wondering, though I'm barely, but still catchable to society, I was thinking, perhaps— I was wrong.

I had my reason to add 'supposedly cool looking'. Well, perhaps their face were those cool types, but their actions nor their expression aren't. The colour on their faces had been drained white, they are drowned with fear— they would probably faint if they didn't see me. Now they are even pleading me for help. How uncool.

The touchy feeling that applies between girls where Restia and Ruby are excellent examples, and sometimes I even worried whether are they lesbians for a few brief moments, have now been completely smashed to pieces. Have gay became an important part of society now instead of lesbian? The era seems to have changed— or should I blame it to culture instead? Yeah, perhaps I should, the culture shock is truly shocking indeed. Well, in the end, society or culture— none of that matter... It's gross, and I don't feel like looking at it again for a second time. I sincerely hope I was hallucinating.

Actually, I think I am— you know, hallucinating. Around those 'gayish' dudes, there are traces of ice loitering around them, on those rods— are those spears? Okay... Now that I observe carefully, there are lots of spears made from ice, some stabbed on the ground, some laying on the grass, and icicles are actually sprouting from those spears under the hot weather. This can't be happening, right? Though anyone is able to create ice with magic, but I sense no mana.

Anyways, where is she?

PAK!

Just as I turn my head to the left and saw the girl, with her right hand lifted to her shoulder height pointing at us, she snapped her fingers with a shuddering, cold look.

On vague impulse, I took a giant leap backwards.

What happens afterwards was so abrupt, my movement was stunned froze while I was still on flight in my trajectory.

The spears, that scattered around those dudes— like seeds, spiked ice vines sprouted and grow larger and longer, coiling them in an instant. Ice roses then budded from the vines and blooms afterward, covering over any space that's left around them, as if they were trapped in a box. Lastly, the roses then transform to a large ice rose instead with a few vines at the base spreading outwards, like a work of art.

...They were frozen.

I landed the same time when they were frozen. Speaking of which, her ice nearly nicked my shoe.

I immediately understood where did her confidence came from. It's a dream to think she might lose. This girl— this very human girl right in front of me, she's...

...a frickin <Star-Revolution Generation>!

Should I blame this haphazard situation to luck or bad luck? One of her type can easily crush one hundred powerless humans in an instant. Not to mention those five, though they are armed with guns, but she crushed them easily.

Okay, I know many might be curious on what is a <Star-Revolution Generation>, so allow me to take some time to explain. Everything starts from 25 years ago, so I will cut it short.

25 years ago was known as the year of calamity. This was the very year where the worst death had ever occurred, because 20% of the world's population had died. The cause of death, was the mysterious 8 meteors that strikes on different places.

It went through three stages.

The first stage, is the impact it created when it strikes the ground. Though many had already avoided from it when the warning signal was on, but there are still some who's unable to escape from it. Though, that's not the main reason for the mass massacre.

It was the second stage, the cause of it was from the enormous amount of energy released by the meteors. Nearly 20%, also almost 32 billion people had died, but that only applies to every race except humans. Death by scorched from fire, death by suffocating from drowning, death by frost from extreme cold, death by malnutrition absorbed by parasite plant, death by electrocution by lightning, death by petrification, death by slaughtered by vicious winds and death by hallucinations.

From it, the meteors were likely predicted to contain the elements of fire, water, ice, wood, lightning, earth, wind and light.

Lastly, the third stage, the danger zone. Though compared to the first and second stage, the third stage is harmless, but yet— many killed themselves, and humans were mainly involved in it for the sake of research. After the impact from the first stage, craters were created. No matter who, including humans, who steps into the crater or attempted to enter from above— within a certain range of a radius, they will be immediately perished to dust nonetheless, not a single speck of cell remains.

After a year, miraculously— someone is able to step inside the radius and took the meteor, one person each. Unexpectedly, they were granted with supernatural powers— based on the meteors` elements, of course. If you were asking why do they know they were able to approach the meteor, and why wouldn`t they get perished to dust— that`s because they were guided by the 9th person, he`s also the first one to obtain the supernatural power.

He had the darkness element.

So in total, nine elements.

Except the ninth person, these guys that possessed the supernatural power is able to 'gift' others. In other words, they were able to transfer some of their energy into others, giving them the supernatural powers. Greediness is not allowed to them, or rather, there are rules set by the meteors. It was said that they had a will of their own, anyways, those who are greedy will be perished to dust, one person can only take one element.

Sooner or later, with their fame spreading throughout the world— and soon they were given a title, known as the <First Star-Revolution Generation> since meteors were commonly seen as stars, so it was named as such, and the revolution was for the name of the new supernatural power. Then those who was then 'gifted' by the <First Star-Revolution Generation> are known as the <Star-Revolution Generation>.

Then again, later then it was found out that the offspring of the <Star-Revolution Generation> inherited the supernatural power too. If it`s the offspring of <Star-Revolution Generation> with two different elements, only either one element will be inherited— though there are some who took their child to the <First Star-Revolution Generation> to attempt for a second element, but in the end, their child was perished to dust, and their parents suffered from eternal remorse and regrets that can never be repaired.

Perhaps.

Perhaps that`s why— all of the <First Star-Revolution Generation> vanished.

They disappeared after two years from the year of calamity, not leaving a single trace behind of their whereabouts. Till this very day, no one knows who and where were they. Though, there`s still quite a lot of <Star-Revolution Generation> remains— and they were everywhere. But still, they numbered around 20 thousand at most, and the chance of meeting them is even less than a percentage of 0.000000125.

Rumours says that if you ever met one in your life, this means you will be blessed with extreme luck. But rumours are just rumours— who knows?

By the way, don`t you find it strange to have nine <First Star-Revolution Generation> instead of eight? In the first place, there are only eight meteors— so where did the ninth one came from?

That remains a mystery.

But there`s one thing for sure.

There`s only one person in this world who`s a darkness element <First Star-Revolution Generation>.

Now then, back to the current situation.

"…Another one…" The girl mumbles.

As if not a single memory of me remains in her, she made an annoyed look and swayed her right hand upwards with her first three fingers— the thumb, fore, and middle finger as if it was the most natural thing to do.

"Whoa!?"

Just like that— a simple movement.

She summons waves of snow, like a tsunami— at least 4 metres high, hurling towards my direction.

So— this is a <Star-Revolution Generation>. They played their unique element as they please.

I was so shocked that my feet rooted to the ground, refusing to move.

But it only lasted for a second.

I had to move, I need to.

There`s no need to defend, this height and mass is more than enough to bury me twice, and jumping would`ve give her an opening to freeze me to a popsicle.

Then…

"Hah…!"

I stomped the ground with my right foot, turning my waist and shoulder with the perfect timing to launch my right arm— punching straight with a power like a catapult. No, compare to such would`ve downgraded my power. Let`s just say… 10 times the power of a catapult.

POW!

A roaring voice generated from my blow.

I made myself a large hole on the centre of her snow-wave, and make my way through it safely, standing on the snow.

It may be powerful, but I forgot the cost of punching through her snow bare-handed.

"Ow…!"

Argh…! It`s even colder than zero degree Celsius…!

My fist stings in pain and trembles from the coldness. It actually shivers so much that I can`t even move my hand properly. There`s ice sticking to it, and it`s grows and spreads out— slowly covering my hand. Though I`ve never deal with this before, but on first instinct— the best way to deal with this is to get rid of the ice first.

Thus, I quickly slap away the ice on my hand with my left, constantly tighten and relax my hand to warm it up.

The girl let out a cold sigh. It sounds like a fed-up sigh.

Flinched by it, I immediately raise my head to look at her.

"…Aren`t you persistent…?"

"Persistent? What do you mean? You are the one attacking me all of the sudden!"

For some reason, her face twitched a little— she immediately narrowed her eyes.

"…so this is what you wanted…" She murmured coldly.

Then—

—she extends her right hand forth, pointing her three fingers at me. In that instant— cold air starts to gather around us, swirling, with both of us in between. Our surrounding temperature immediately dropped drastically in less than a second.

Looks like this is a special gesture for her to use her powers. I better be on guard whenever she does this. But still… why is she attacking me all of the sudden? Even if she`s in a bad mood, there`s no way she would attack a bystander that`s just passing through. Let`s calm down and think…

She was already attacking even before I jumped down, but even far before that— I don`t think I did anything offensive to her. All I did was spoiling her mood, making her to jump down, and perhaps that`s when those five dudes arrived and she needs to deal with them. Then I jumped down, those guys look at me with pathetic pleading look— oh.

So that was the reason?!

I raised both of my hands and yelled.

"H-Hold it! I`m not one of them!"

"…who cares." She said arbitrarily with a cold look, then snaps her fingers.

Spears made from ice suddenly forms around her, randomly floating in mid-air. Judging from it, there`s exactly 20 of it.

This girl— she intended to take me down since the beginning…! She`s still interested in our duel and she`s making this to her own advantage!

Among those twenty of it, three random spears slowly move to next to her head, about her right shoulder. Its tip is pointing to my direction.

"…Pierce." She whispers, and sways her hand in her special gesture.

"Urk…!"

The moment she swayed— the three spears earlier launched to me with a speed so fast that it`s near to that of the speed of a bullet, as if she`s shooting a target. But if it`s like this then why? Why did those guys earlier gather together? Won`t that will only make them a bigger target?

On first instinct, I tried to run to my left— but her first spear suddenly shifted its trajectory to my left, stabbing on the ground, preventing me to run away. As for her second spear, it stabbed onto the ground on my right just as I was about to move.

From that, I immediately understood why did those guys cuddled together. It`s not that they wanted to, it`s because they had no choice but to do so. They aren`t even allowed to run away.

All that`s left, is her third spear that`s aiming straight on me— more specifically, my chest. Then again, the rest of the seventeen spears then followed behind the third spear.

Shit…!

I took a side step and bent my waist, moving my upper body away to the right and flexes my right hand, catching her spear.

O— OW…! COLD…! IT`S FREEZING! JUST HOW COLD ARE THESE THINGS!?

Comparing to her snow-wave from earlier, her spear is at least, several degrees much colder. It`s so cold that my whole arm throbs from the sharp pain, it nearly takes my all just to prevent it from slipping off my hand. Enduring the pain, I overcame the power of her spear that`s like a power of a rocket— and give it a spin with both my hands, deflecting the rest of her spears.

If it`s just such a degree of pain… I can endure it.

However, I can`t get used to the coldness. I can`t feel anything from my arms. Fighting a long battle against her is a total disadvantage. I need to be careful.

Then, the girl lifted her hand.

I know this gesture. She`s going to restrain me with her vines. Fine. Come at me with all you`ve got. I will make sure to break every vine you have.

"…Burst."

She said coldly as she snaps her fingers.

"Huh— BUGARGH!!?"

An explosion.

The spear on my hands exploded, along with the others.

Forget about destroying it, I couldn`t even defend against it.

A moment later, my world turned white. Up and down, left and right, front and back, the world was completely white before I realized the intense cold. This is the mist. This is the mist I came across earlier.

It came from the explosions of her spears.

I learned what it might feel like for my entire body to be froze.

I felt like a tub of water getting freeze to ice in a second.

It hurt.

My body hurts from head to toe, but my hands most of all— is shaking like it never have shaken before in its life.

It`s frozen. I need to get rid of it.

I crushed it with a slam on my knee. Her ice crumbles.

If I stay here any longer— she would`ve send me a temporary trip to the north side. There`s no use to hesitate.

Thus, I took my hands up and charged out from the pool of white mist.

I lost sight of the girl.

There`s no sign of any attacks either.

"…annoying."

With those words, I immediately faced to the girl`s direction, where she`s suddenly standing way behind me. She must have approach from the left when I charged out from the right.

"…penetrate." She whispered, with her special gesture pointing down.

What is she going to do this time…?

There`s nothing around her. So I was stunned for a while.

My instincts kicked in.

Not even looking up, I took a small leap backwards. That`s when a spear drops in front of me with a similar bullet-like speed from earlier, stabbing on the ground.

T-THAT WAS CLOSE…!

Realizing it came from above, I immediately looked up.

"...!"

One, two, three… okay, I don`t know how many are there, but a lot of spears rained down. It wouldn`t be exaggerate to say it`s raining hails— but those are spears instead. There`s not even a small opening to let me escape unscathed.

Do you really need to go that far?

S-Stay calm. I need to stay calm.

There`s no time.

I pulled out the spear that was stabbed on the ground, enduring the cold and pain as I hold onto the spear, as if I`m clinging my life to it.

Though… I hope this spear is able to withstand my strength from breaking.

I then grabbed the tail of the spear.

"One Handed Spear Arts— Swing!"

It`s nothing, really. I merely swung the spear from left to right as I pointed it upwards, as hard as I could. As for how strong that one swing is, it generated more than enough force, enough shockwave to scatter most of the spears above me, her spears then falls everywhere.

Good. Her spear survived.

If she wants it, her spears now could explode anytime under her command, or even grows to a spike vines forest. I don`t what does she still have up in her sleeves, but I bet she still had tons of it. She`s just that dangerous.

As I thought that, I move away from most of her spear`s explosion range, as I keep up my guard.

"…Burst." She whispers.

Though she didn`t snap her fingers this time, but I played it safe and threw away the spear on my hand, tossing it aside.

Then— this time, every spears exploded, leaving ice roses behind on every spears. It`s like a garden of ice roses.

But yet— because I had the chance to throw back her spear back to her, but I didn`t. It stimulated her, causing to be even more furious than just now.

…Crap.

I`m already not a match for her. I knew that already.

At this rate, I would be late.


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
LuciferVermillion LuciferVermillion

1. Is the strong wind a natural cause, or man-made?

2. Why did Kuroyuki attacked them?

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