Zen looked at the girl who was next to him. She had long green hair that flowed in the wind and large green eyes that curiously stared at Zen. She was dressed sowhat casually in a regular top,jeans and sneakers. She carried on her back,a long bow and a quiver full of arrows which seed to be either low tier aether gear or just regular equipnt made with a strong materials.
Seeing as she had his attention, she pulled her hand out of the small portal after which both the one closer to her and the one closer to Zen disappeared
"You must be Zen, right? You’re one of my teammates?"
She asked in a strange tone. It was almost like she was afraid of him. Suddenly rembering Gary and his goons, He concluded that they had done the sa thing they had tried with him to her .
Looking to her wrist he could clearly see the two stars on it but was confused as she was still higher level than him.
While Zen was assessing her, Jade was already red in the face as she twiddled her fingers and kept her head down. She seed completely docile as she didn’t even bother to look at Zen and only peeked at him occasionally from the corner of her eyes. There was honestly sothing quite srizing about her actions and she didn’t even seem to realize it as she kept her head down and occasionally glanced at him with her big green eyes and even squird a little bit, almost as if he’d eat her if she looked at him directly.
"Hmmm, what’s he doing? Stop looking at !" She thought,a little bit akward, embarrassed and even panicked that he hadn’t replied her
"I-is he gonna yell at too? Please don’t be an to like those other guys, i know I’m weak but don’t bully because of it, I’m higher level than him, so he won’t try to hurt , right..... please?"
However she didn’t actually have the guts to say it out loud and just stood there unaware of what was going through Zen’s mind.... well, perhaps Zen’s and Freya’s minds was a better way to put it.
"oh my Goodness.... she’s adorable. If i still had a body I’d have already grabbed her in a tight hug. I wanna cuddle this little cutie pie so bad. Zen! Stop acting like that, you’re scaring her..... but sohow it just makes her even cuter! aaahhhh!!!"
Freya yelled as she looked into Jade’s puppy eyes she was just as childish as Zen rembered
Zen would have covered his ears if he didn’t know it would be useless to stop Freya’s shrieking and screaming which almost caused him a headache. Although this was the case, he couldn’t exactly say he disagreed with Freya there, this girl seed completely docile and appeared to have nearly zero confidence so much so you could almost mistake her for a kitten.
"Well don’t just stand there,say sothing to her" urged Freya.
"....Yes" said Zen blankly.
Flabbergasted but not at all confused, Freya reprimanded him
"is that the best you can do!!!? Co on,at least try to make a friend!"
Zen however ignored her and simply turned his gaze from Jade, paying her no mind.
Jade waited for a few seconds before she smiled and moved a little bit closer to Zen
"Can I ask you sothing?"
"..."
Jade had sohow translated his silence to affirmation and continued
"Why didn’t you take the ability?"
"..."
"Oh, well it’s okay if you don’t want-"
"..it would have been a waste"
Jade tilted her head, confused. She couldn’t understand what he ant by a waste. How could an ability of all things possibly be a waste? And if he ant it would be wasted on him,why?. she just couldn’t understand, and it didn’t help that Zen himself didn’t seem interested in explaining himself any further.
She was planning on asking him to explain but she looked at him and noticed that he was completely zoned out. Tapping him on the shoulder, she asked softly
"Hey,are you okay?"
He imdiately snapped out of it and simply replied her with a grunt.
"That’s great" said Jade with a big sunny smile
"Ummm....do you mind if i stick with you for a while? I....i promise i won’t bother you or anything like that "
Zen looked at Jade who had once again gotten akward, fiddling with her fingers and fidgeting like a scared cat as she kept her head down and her erald doe eyes constantly moving between Zen and the ground. At this point it wouldn’t take a lot of imagination to see a pair of drooping kitten or puppy ears on her head .
Zen couldn’t really give an answer and simply stayed quiet. Sohow Jade saw this as him agreeing and moved even closer to Zen, looking extrely happy while keeping her promise to be as silent as possible
A few minutes later, the female instructor that had called Zen up before began calling out nas of groups and allowing them entry into the dungeon. Although there was a ti limit for this test, the few seconds between one team’s entry and another didn’t seem very important.
By now the groups had all moved closer to the dungeon gate to be able to move in as soon as possible. Zen, seeing this, attempted to do the sa and Jade followed behind before both were blocked by the other three mbers of the group.
"You two weaklings take orders from now,got it? Defy and you’ll know the true aning of suffering. The least you can do if I’m going to be grouped with so useless trash like you is to do as you’re told"
Zen,uninterested in his senseless ranting simply took a step to the side and started walking towards the dungeon gate. While doing this he couldn’t help rembering what Gary said about true suffering. At that mont,if he was currently capable of it, he actually might have laughed out loud but it just wasn’t the right fragnt for that
Clyde who seed to have had enough of Zen’s "arrogance" suddenly ran up to Zen who’s back was still turned as his hand suddenly burst into flas and attempted to grab Zen
Zen suddenly, without turning back,ducked, narrowly escaping Clyde’s grasp. He imdiately turned around and stared into Clyde’s eyes, his right eye which was covered by his hair seed to glow with a murderous violet light which seed to consu all other light around it
Clyde suddenly froze, his legs began to tremble and the urge to run and hide suddenly overca him. He was like a deer in headlights, frozen from fear, but not a rational fear, more like an instinctual one or a biological one. The sa kind of fear felt when prey was targeted by an apex predator, that was what he felt for that short number of seconds.
Almost in the exact sa second, Maximilian ca out of nowhere and landed a punch on Clyde’s shoulder causing him to stagger and fall backwards, and when he did it could be seen that Clyde was covered in sweat and breathing like he just ran a marathon.
The glow around Zen’s covered eye slowly disappeared,a change which nobody saw as his hair was still covering it, shielding it from the outside world.
People around who saw this imdiately began murmuring indiscernibly,at least to most people. Most of the buzz was questioning why a Hunter would save a piece of trash without an ability.
Hearing all this, Maximilian frowned. He himself clearly knew that he hadn’t saved Zen but Clyde. He had originally jumped in with the intention to help Zen but had noticed Clyde’s horrified expression which barely lasted a second, that plus the fact that he was pretty sure Zen was ruthless enough to take advantage of that short period of hesitation had convinced him that Clyde was the one that needed saving because if Zen’s stare didn’t cause him to black out then Zen himself would probably kill or gravely injure him using that split second of hesitation. Although he wasn’t sure if Zen could do that in such a short amount of ti, he wasn’t willing to wait and find out.
Zen looked at Clyde on the ground and then at Maximilian. Seeing this Maximilian replied a bit impatiently
"I know,i know. Unnecessary. Got it"
Zen took another glance at Clyde who wasn’t moving and turned to leave. Feeling the wind in his hair he realized that his hood had fallen off and looking at the fabric he noticed a small area that was burned and realized that he had escaped by a hair’s breadth, luckily he hadn’t underestimated Clyde.
He was about to keep going when Maximilian’s voice from behind stopped him
"Hey wait"
He turned around and quickly extended his hand to catch sothing in mid-air that had been thrown to him.
Looking at what was in his hand, he realized it was a dagger. Confused, he looked at Maximilian who simply waved it off
"It’s nothing much, I don’t even think it counts as aether gear as it’s made of over ninety percent precious materials, minerals and tals,but you can think of it as a loan. Keep it for as long as you want and if you ever feel like it,you can return it. Oh and one more thing" Maximilian’s expression suddenly turned slightly sour as he said blankly
"Don’t kill any people,jeez!"
Zen gave him a grunt of acknowledgent and although Maximilian wasn’t quite satisfied, he knew that was about the best he would get from Zen and simply let it go.
Making his way towards the dungeon, Zen ignored all the glances and blatant stares being directed at him. Although his group hadn’t been called up, he had sothing he wanted to confirm with the instructor.
As he reached the front, Zen saw another group go inside, each holding hands. This was mandatory as just like portals to unexplored, undiscovered or even partially explored planets outside the solar system, it was completely random , spitting people into different random locations and in order to ensure that each group would end up in the sa place they had to maintain so form of physical contact.
Heading straight towards the instructor, Zen called her attention to him.
Seeing Zen in front of her again, she was quite surprised. Last ti he had managed to make quite an impression on her and she wouldn’t easily forget him
"What is it?" She asked
"I was wondering if there was any repercussions to splitting up within a group"
Hearing his question, she was quite surprised and thought that he was planning on ditching his team once he got inside. Perhaps they had been giving him so trouble? Anyway, she couldn’t exactly say that was a bad idea. She knew how people with low tier abilities were treated, not to ntion soone with none at all. Even worse was that there was no way almost no way to keep track of or control the happenings in the dungeons so she could actually see where Zen was coming from and decided to answer his question
"No" she answered briefly
Zen,having heard enough,walked away from the instructor and to everyone’s surprise started walking towards the dungeon gate directly and jumped towards it
Jade who was in the crowd and saw this, suddenly panicked and without thinking straight she used her ability to open a portal in front of her and another directly behind Zen.
Her level was still too low so the largest portal she could create wasn’t even the size of her waist but she could still fit both her arms through, and she did just that as she put her arms through the portal and grabbed Zen, trying to stop him but it was too late.
Zen had already touched the gate as he and,perhaps due to the nature of her ability, Jade disappeared from where they were standing while shocking everyone who had saw this happen.... well, almost everyone.
Maximilian simply smiled and slowly shook his head before releasing a sigh. All he could think was
"Poor girl"
Inside the dungeon two people suddenly materialised in what looked to be a a cave made entirely of ice.
Jade suddenly felt an imnse dizzying sensation and nauseaalmost loosing her footing. Suddenly noticing she had her arms around sothing, she grabbed it tighter in order to keep her footing until the dizzying feeling passed
Jade sighed but suddenly thought out loud.
"Wait a minute, what am i holding right now?"
Opening her eyes and looking up she suddenly realized that she had her arms tightly around Zen and was hugging him like her life depended on it, which,a few seconds ago it actually might have.
She imdiately squeaked and let go, freeing him and taking a few steps back out of panic
"I’m sorry, I’m sorry" she squeaked out shyly but Zen didn’t seem really bothered by it and looked around the cave or rather the cave tunnel made and covered entirely with ice and snow,with stalactites and stalagmites of ice filling the tunnel.
"Oh no, oh no, were inside the dungeon" said Jade who was panicking
"What are we gonna do! You don’t have an ability,and I’m just useless and...."
She suddenly stopped as she watched Zen pick up a small pebble which was made of ice and throw it in one direction where the cave tunnel split in front of them and after a few seconds repeating the sa thing with the other direction before imdiately going for the second at what to Jade seed like a random.
Seeing the only other person around leaving, Jade suddenly ran after him, quickly catching up
"How do you know where you’re going?"
"Echo"
Surprisingly, he answered her this ti and quite straightforwardly as well.
Jade nodded, accepting his reply without much thought
With nothing else to do,Jade started looking around the cave walls which resembled diamonds, quietly admiring them. She acted like a little kid as she looked at her reflection in the ice and couldn’t help but smile childishly at it and wave.
She suddenly got the idea to look at Zen’s reflection but was terrified by what she saw. For so reason, his reflection didn’t match Zen at all . Its hair style and eye color were completely different, but even more horrific was that it moved as if alive, staring at Zen with deep hatred in its eyes. she could see nothing but malice and killing intent in its eyes,or at least the eye she could see as a few small strands still managed to cover his right eye.
Fear began to overtake her as she almost stumbled and fell from the pure shock
Noticing this, Zen sighed and snapped her out of it and gave her a warning at the sa ti
"Don’t look at him"
Jade nodded and continued to follow behind Zen moving even closer to him as she decided to simply do as he said and not ask questions,at least not yet.
It was probably for the best that she hadn’t realized that Zen said ’him’ instead of ’it’ while referring to what to her knowledge was a reflection,a mirror image.
Jade exhaled and was able to see her own breath. That reminded her, she was freezing here, she just got temporarily distracted from the cold due to Zen’s reflection but now that she no longer was, she had to try and stay warm.
A few minutes later, they were still in the tunnel and hadn’t found anything, everyti had both been quiet throughout this ti, even Freya,but the difference was that Jade was putting all her effort into keeping warm whereas Zen didn’t seem very bothered by it and neither was Freya for obvious reasons.
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