Cassius simply stood there and counted all the heads in his vicinity. His eyes appeared devoid of emotion, with him seemingly not even registering the danger he found himself in.
"Is he stunned silent, Captain!? Ha!" A Vice Captain haughtily laughed. "What a joke! And here I thought he'd turn out to be sothing special because he placed 1st in the Nightmare Slayer Trials!"
"Turns out he's just trash!" a 7th Stage 3rd Class Slayer added, his raucous voice ringing out in everyone's ears, causing many to smile or laugh.
"Soone wants to kill ?" Cassius finally asked, prompting the hearty response of the Captain:
"At least you're smart enough to figure that out," he said. "I must say, though, for soone so ignorant, you sure know how to make so powerful enemies. If it were on the other side of 'their' blade, then I might just keel over without resistance. Bahaha!"
"Soone powerful…" Cassius repeated, his expression thoughtful. "Do you mind divulging who wants to kill ?"
"Of course I mind!" the Captain spat back. "Do you believe an idiot!? Even if I were on death's door, I still wouldn't tell you who wants you dead! My fate would be far worse than death if I did!"
"I see," Cassius said as he nonchalantly looked around, only to find that he had been surrounded. 'It appears my Vampiric mind suggestion skills don't work on the inhabitants of these two worlds. A good thing to note.'
His power surged a little as he readied himself to move for the kill on a mont's notice. However, before following through with that intent, he had one more question to ask:
"Answer this before my fate is left to your hands—have we really even co to save the 15th Princess? Or was that all a lie?"
The Captain scoffed, saying, "I'll do you a favor and tell you that we have indeed co for the 15th Princess, but not for the reason that you were led to believe. And, in fact, we're going to take you to her right now; you can join her in relishing the fates that await you both!"
"Tie him up, boys!" he ordered.
"Yes, Captain, sir!"
Even the mbers of Platoon 49 who hadn't previously glared at Cassius now looked at him the sa as the others. Greed. All their eyes were filled with greed. And likely their hearts as well.
'Seems the pursuit of sothing greater gets to us all,' Cassius thought as he cald his growing power, letting himself get tied up. 'I was originally just going to kill the lot of them and absorb their mories, but sotis, the mory absorption doesn't work on the people of these worlds. And seeing as I really am quite curious about the situation of this 15th Princess, I have to stop myself from taking the risk of losing their mories forever. Being tied up is a temporary and useless asure in my eyes—far less risky.'
In his nature, Cassius was a man of hard iron balls. But there was a difference between being stupid, being reckless, and being courageous. In tis like these, the cautious approach was always the best approach.
Therefore, he allowed himself to be restrained by so sort of magic ropes and carried by one of the Slayers. But seeing as how the description of the ropes said they were only capable of fully restraining those with power below the 2nd Class Slayer Rank, they naturally didn't faze him.
And just like that, he experienced an unusual journey in a certain direction north—still within the bounds of the Shallow Crater. As they pressed forward, however, more and more Nightwalkers began showing up, turning the scene into sothing akin to the Walking Dead.
After a couple of hours, even the more powerful and intelligent Nightwalkers started to appear. They lood over the other, inferior Nightwalkers—being over double their height—and moved like the sort of quick zombies that everyone hated most of all. They gave Platoon 49 a lot of trouble, even killing one of their weaker mbers.
But finally, after roughly six hours of travel by foot, Platoon 49 made it to their destination. A large, spooky manor that had a highly advanced warding spell placed around it to keep any Nightwalker below the 4th Rank at bay.
The manor itself looked oddly placed and a bit suspicious—seeing as there was nothing around it for miles—but that didn't stop Platoon 49 from approaching it.
After walking up a dozen creaky steps and unlocking the old wooden front doors, Platoon 49's Captain and the rest of the Slayers entered inside the manor. Most of them made themselves at ho once inside, lounging on unusually spotless furniture and whatnot.
Cassius, however, was heaved off one of the Vice Captain's shoulders and thrown down a long flight of old stairs.
"Don't go crazy in there, you cowardly weakling!"
With the Vice Captain's snarky voice to accompany him, Cassius uncontrollably crashed against the stairs and narrow stairway walls, creating dents all over the place. By the ti he finished his tumble, the sound of a door closing with a few locking clangs echoed. What little light that had been in the space he was in further dwindled.
He had been locked in the manor's basent, surrounded by an ominous darkness. Only the moonlight seeping in from a far-off window was there to guide him.
That was when he saw her—a girl sitting under the moonlight—a beautiful, white-haired, sheepishly charming girl. Her crystal-clear blue eyes shimred underneath the moonlight. And with her skin as fair as it ca, she looked akin to a lost ghost, one who dread of returning ho. There was also a sadness about her that sucked one in, unwilling to let go.
However, beyond her unearthly level of beauty, what attracted most of Cassius's attention were the two fluffy ears cutely twitching atop her head. There also seed to be a long, snow-white tail hypnotically swinging around behind her.
"A cat-girl…" Cassius accidentally voice transmitted.
"!??"
The girl's cat ears imdiately perked up at the ntion of those two words. That was when she realized the existence of soone other than herself inside the basent. She beca a bit frightened when she saw that it was a man.
But when she noticed the ropes that hogtied him, she sighed in relief.
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