Chương 42: Strange Island

"What do you mean by circumstance?" Mia asks.

"It's hard to practice suppressing emotions when you can hardly feel them. And when you do feel them, you're not aware enough for you to try and suppress them…"

"What was your circumstance?" Mia asks.

"James Write killed my mom… so of course, I wanted to take revenge. In the process, I learned how to use bloodlust and learned to suppress my emotions…"

Everybody was silent. It was dead silent but nobody felt bad for me. I didn't even want their pity. They asked a question and I answered it. Well… there was one person that had a slightly sad face.

"Stop making that face, it's disgusting how it's coming from the same type of person," I say, turning my head to Mia.

"A-ah sorry… A-anyway, it seems everybody has finished eating so give your trash to me and I'll burn it," Mia says, quickly changing her expression.

"You know that's bad for the environment?" Clio says.

"I can burn it into nothing so it doesn't matter as long as there is no ash," Mia replies.

"I guess," Clio shrugs.

After Mia finished burning all our trash, we continued to search for a perfect place to start building our base. Another 2 hours passed and the afternoon was starting to come to an end, thankfully none of us had anything to do, so we continued to search for a nice spot.

"This place is pretty nice. We could make the fake base engraved into the ground here," Mia says but her voice was slightly drowned out by splashing waves.

We were currently at the top of a massive cliff face, about 1500 feet between the bottom and the very top which is where we were at. At the very bottom was a beach made from black sand and massive waves the size of a school bus. There has been no sign of life so far but currently flying around us, were puffins.

A small bird, one that looked like it derived from penguins but can fly. It's my first time seeing them in real life and I could tell something had happened to them. They were on edge and spied on us like a pack of vultures…

"What did you say happened here again?" I ask Mia.

"I don't know much about it, all I know is that something started to corrode the island greatly. Thus creating this cold, windy, and rocky battlefield,"

"I see,"

I have the perfect thing to take care of these suspicious puffins but I'll use it later, once I'm out of the group's vision. For now, this should be good enough…

[Royal Ice Crown]

Everybody flinches at the swirling ice-cold wind but before there is any more panic within the group, I place the newly formed ice crown onto my head. My eyes grow cold as I focus on the puffins above us. I don't know why they are circling us, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

There might be some residual monsters on this island and the puffins could be one of them… though I'm doubtful, it's still a possibility.

Letting out a breath of icy mist, I lift my index finger, sending a blast of ice to quickly freeze the puffins above us. Everybody in Tolf looked at the beautiful spectacle presented to them. Icy shards looked like gems dancing around me and to put an end to the act, I took off my crown, the puffins shattering into dust upon hitting the ground.

"Alright, go ahead and do your work, bodyguard sir," I say, shooing him away from us.

The bodyguard glances at Mia, waiting for her confirmation. Mia nods and pulls out the 2 blueprints from her hoodie pocket. The bodyguard then receives the pieces of paper with a deep bow before looking at the blueprints and then moving the rocks in front of him.

"Okay girls, do you want to stay here a bit longer, or do you want to go home since there is school tomorrow," Mia asks the group.

"Can't we just stay here and explore this place, I'd rather be here than go to school tomorrow," Nuala says, hands supporting the back of her head.

"I won't allow that. Your grades are terrible now and granny is going to kill me if she finds out about it. I've been doing my best to cover for you but I think you should put in some effort," Ethel says, slapping Nuala in the back of the head.

"OW! What the hell!"

"Little shit. You either receive a beating from me or you study," Ethel says, gripping Nuala's head by the top like a vice claw.

"OW! OW! LET GO! I REFUSE TO STUDY!" Ethel shouts.

Ethel turned her head and a very fake smile was directed at Electra who tried to escape. Nuala was dragged with Ethel who also gripped Electra by the head. She waved us goodbye with Nuala in her hand before teleporting away.

"What just happened…"

"I forgot to tell her that the teleportation necklace takes you to my room…" Mia says.

"Why is it connected to your room?" I ask.

"Well I was too lazy to go to each house and set it there… so I set it in my room,"

"*sigh*... well I'm not going back yet,"

The rest of the girls decided to stay as we all mingle, using the last bit of sunlight we have. We also decided to have some spars amongst each other. Everybody was curious about my ice powers so of course, I accepted their challenges.

My first spar was with Aria. I have never seen her fight before so I was pretty intrigued at what her summons will do.

Her light knight and dark knight looked the same, besides their contradictory colors. About 6'5 in height, with shiny armor that could withstand any blow that I tried out. Their coordination with their greatswords made up for their slow moves.

When I thought I had escaped one of their attacks, another one would appear right in front of me. But when I took a few steps back and manipulated my ice perfectly, ending both summons was relatively easy.

My ice was able to infiltrate the gaps in their armor and freeze them from the inside out. Since the knights were just armor and nothing was inside, the first thing I had to do was locking down where the main joints would be. I froze the knees and elbows, causing the knights to collapse to the ground.

Just to make sure they couldn't break out, I froze a very thin layer of ice inside the armor, causing it to be as stiff as a board. Finally, all I had to do was knock the summoner to the ground which she tried to retaliate with a punch, but… it was weak. I ate the punch and kicked the back of her knee, causing her to kneel in front of me.

"I won," I say, looking for another opponent.

Charna was up next and I was looking forward to this spar as well. There were many shadows around us since the sky was extremely cloudy. Only a few rays of sunlight were able to peek through the clouds.

"Ready… START!" Mia shouts, signaling for us to begin our spar.

I take a few steps back this time as Charna bends her knees. I haven't deactivated my crown yet so I've been focusing on controlling my ice to a better extent. Before, I would just let it leak everywhere, freezing anything it touches. But now I was able to manipulate it to where it would only freeze within a few feet of me.

Charna dashes towards me and I send a blast of ice towards her. She suddenly disappears but it was too,

"Predictable," I mutter.

Charna reappears from a shadow beside me. She wasn't wielding a weapon but a roundhouse kick was sent flying towards my face. I easily read her and ducked, but before she could shift into another kick, I shoved the back of her leg upwards, sending her off balance.

BAM

Her head hits the rocks below. She was barely hanging onto a sliver of consciousness.

"*sigh* I won,"

Clio walks over to Charna and a golden light enveloped her head. She soon was snapped out of her dazed state and admitted defeat.

"If somebody knows what your power stone is, it makes you much easier to defeat. You need to change up your fighting style since I knew what you were going to do before the match even started," I say to Charna who is sipping from a water bottle that Clio gave her.

"What do you mean change it? What else can I do?" She responds.

"I don't know, do something about it. You're too predictable… Also, can you stop staring at me, it's making my skin crawl," I say, turning to Mia.

"That's cruel. I was just admiring the winner,"

"Then don't stare for so long,"

"Sure, sure,"

Mia walks towards me and to everybody's surprise, she asked,

"Want to go on a date?"

Huh-