บท 13: Hunger
"Well...it was a pleasure to meet you, Neo, and welcome to Gwindor." April said with a polite smile.
"It was a pleasure, April Scientia." Neo extended his hand.
April glanced at the hand and hesitated for a second before reluctantly decided to shake hands with Neo.
She glared in surprise as her hand was enveloped by Neo's hand.
It wasn't as cold as before, it was rather warm now, like it belonged to a normal person.
She looked up and saw that Neo was staring at her with a gentle smile hanging on his lips.
But she was still able to see something else.
A dark and malicious light in his eyes, filled with nothing more than the desire to destroy, the desire to corrupt, just like...a demon.
"You like what you see?" He asked in a joking matter. His eyes also darkened slightly more as they fixated at April.
"Yes." She answered back without flushing and lightly chuckled. "You are very handsome, unfortunately you are underage."
"Age isn't a problem when talking about love." Neo inclined his head closer to April. His eyes started to slightly change color, from a golden to a cyan.
Neo's grasp on her hand also tightened, don't letting it go.
"Oh..." April slightly exclaimed as she effortlessly broke from Neo's grasp and stepped back, creating some distance between them. "We have a prince charming here. Daring even to flirt with his principal." Her lips moved, forming a charming smile but her eyes narrowed, glinting with a dangerous light.
Neo tried to take a step forward, but he soon discovered that he was locked on place by an invisible pressure coming from April.
He was about to force his way, when his eyes returned to the usual golden coloration.
His expression froze for a split second before returning to a gentle and normal face.
"Then I'll be taking my leave." He left those words behind while he unceremoniously left the room.
"You brought a troublemaker, huh." April threw a side glance at Elana.
"At least he's better than Ed Gain." Elana shrugged her shoulders.
"Ah..." April helplessly sighed. "Don't even remind me. That guy...he's on another level..."
"I need to go now. Show the place to Neo."
Elana said goodbye and April just waved to send her off.
April waited a few seconds after the door was closed before reaching for the phone in her desk.
"Hello, it's me." She said in the phone. "I want all the information you have about a certain someone."
"..." The other side said something that made April slightly frown, but she could only sigh inwardly.
"Yes, yes. I know the price. I'm going to pay you when I return to Ancardia."
"..."
"The name of the person is...Neo Lumine."
...
"Did you fall in love?" Elana asked right away after she met with Neo in the hallway.
They were now walking down the corridor, going for the exit of the edifice.
"Why are you asking?" Neo became expressionless once again while he glanced at Elana. "Jealous?"
"Jealous? Me?" Elana laughed, "I'm sorry, but I'm not into the crazy and heartless type."
"Then why you ask?"
"I just want to warn you that she already have a fiancee, a rather not kind at all type, and very, very jealous." Elana smirked and wanted to gloat at Neo's misfortune in love, but when she saw the indifferent expression on his face, she started to question if Neo was really in love with April.
"You shouldn't think too much about it..." Neo said dismissively. "That happened because I lost control over myself for a small window of time."
"What this mean?"
"I'm living always on the brink of insanity because of the darkness that's constantly influencing my mindset. While normally I'm able to control certain destructive and random impulses, sometimes my sanity slips and I do certain unexplainable actions." Neo calmly explained the situation. "Every single minute, every second, every moment, I'm fighting against the darkness that want to consume my mind and transform me in a monster that only have destructive and corrupting tendencies, in short, a demon."
Elana could feel the eerie lack of emotions as Neo spoke of his grim situation that he have to face every single day.
"Nothing comes for free in this world. If you want power, you have to pay an equal value of that power." Neo closed his eyes and spoke on a deep tone, "Always living in the brink of complete Insanity, having to remember an experience my sins from time to time. Living has become a torture for me. I'm only able to retain the very little of sanity left in me because of my desire, my goal, that I have yet to achieve."
Elana kept her mouth shut and only spoke when Neo finished, but she asked him with a gentle reminder and light tone, "Why are you explaining your situation to me?"
"To let you know that if I start to act strange you shouldn't worry too much, I will be back to normal soon enough."
"Okay..."
"Also, you should just drop your fake facade while next to me, I can see through you. You're a Equalist spy inside the Feuer family, inside Ancardia's Big Five, and also a spy inside the Gwindor School. Looks like me guess was right, you are a field agent, not an intelectual or recruiter, so to speak. It's easy to hide your identity to April and other less experienced people with this level of acting skills, but not me."
Elana's expression instantly fell but she kept moving forward with Neo by her side.
"As for real reason I'm telling you all this is basically to discourage you, and the Equalists, to try to make people like me. Only a select number of people would survive the torture and not go insane, even a less number of those who survived would be able to learn how to control their power. Those who end up consumed by the darkness would undergo the complete demonification process that you Ancardians so much fear."
"..." Elana stopped in her tracks and said to Neo, "I can't say anything to you. As you have guessed, I'm not a very high member in the organization. But I can be sure to tell them about your warning, unfortunately I feel that it would fall in deaf ears. To achieve our goal, the Equalists are ready to make some sacrifices."
"Just like I thought..." Neo sighed and kept walking, albeit he slowed down a little. "I'll explore the school by myself and then go home. You already have an idea of my identity, so you should also know that I'm not just a beginner in magic. I don't need to watch this useless classes..."
She wanted to speak something, but Neo had already disappeared from her line of sight.
"Neo Lumine..." Elana frowned when she thought about the report her subordinate gave her. The personality of the one detailed in the report was somewhat similar to the one she met, but she wasn't able to see the arrogance and overly suspicious nature of the previous Neo.
The one she met had deep, mysterious eyes that gleamed with madness from time to time. He always have a lonely aura around him, and disliked the idea of interacting with people.
But the most important question in her mind was how he was able to fix his soul and mend his destroyed Mana Pool.
She could only imagine what types of trials and difficulties Neo had to go through to change so much in so little time.
...
Neo left building and walked towards a tree that was on the back of the edifice.
He stopped by the shadow of the small tree and took a pocket knife from his clothes.
*Puchi*
Without hesitation Neo skillfully handled the blade and pierced his own hand.
Even with a blade pierced across his hand and the non-stop bleeding, his face stayed ice cold and didn't even had a twitch of an eyebrow from the pain in his hand.
After a few seconds, Neo took the pocket knife back and stored it back from where he took out.
Neo stared at the bloody hole on his hand while he thought to himself, [My hunger is acting earlier than I thought. In the classroom my bloodthirst and destructive tendencies almost exploded, and then later my lust almost tried to take over when I was speaking with April...I have to feed myself urgently.]
Of course the hunger that he was talking about was different from the usual human's hunger. The hunger that he was feeling now was for souls and not usual foods.
Since he was always on the brink of going through demonification, he still had to suffer some effects due to this situation. The longer he stays without consuming a soul, the more influence his demonic, destructive, side start to spread over his conscious and make him do actions that he wouldn't do otherwise.
Pain was the only thing that was able to awake Neo from such states, but it was only a temporary measure, to suppress such evil urges, he had to consume souls.
Neo frowned as he tried to think of a way to feed myself.
He obviously couldn't take someone from the school. As he walked around the school to reach for his edifice with the receptionist, he was able to feel some hiding people with powerful souls.
With this he concluded that the best course of action is that he should hunt for food in a place far away from the school and apartament.
As for his target to consume soul? The darker the soul is, better for him.
To satiate his demonic side he needed lots of negative and dark energy that could only be found in certain places, things, and darker souls.
That's also one of the reasons demons corrupt humans beside for the sheer enjoyment, they like to consume black souls that once belonged to a human.
The injury was swiftly healed with his abnormal regeneration abilities.
He left the tree and walked around the school grounds, taking his time to understand the place where he would be spending some time.
Most of the people had already returned to their classes by the time Neo was striding at the club's building.
Neo was just about to continue forward when he thought of something.
He looked back at the room he had just went by.
Looking through the window from the outside, he was able to see that it belonged to a some kind of art club, most likely theater because of the high amount of clothes and masks.
He entered the building and looked for the room that he just saw from the outside.
With a single glance at the sign on top of the door, and Neo was right when he had guessed that it belonged to the Theatrical Club.
He easily used his dark element magic so open up the door and enter in the room.
He scanned around and finally saw what he was looking for.
It was a white, happy mask of classic theater.
[Perfect.] He commented inwardly as he toyed with the object.
He took it and left the room after erasing all evidences that he was once there.
The moment he left the building he came face to face with a middle-aged man wearing a stylish black suit and round glasses. He had a slim body, black hair and black eyes.
"You're are Neo Lumine, I suppose." The man said with a friendly smile of his face.
Neo had already hid the mask inside his clothes, so he wasn't too worried being caught leaving the building at a time where everybody else was in classes, but the mysteriousness and lack of any presence of the man caught Neo's attention more than him knowing his identity.
Neo was unable to read the person in front him, and neither have any estimation of his strength.
From his experience this type of person is the ones that are the most dangerous.
His guard instantly rose up, but he simply showed a friendly smile on the surface.
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