Linda Brown was a counsellor that had worked hard striving to achieve the position she holds today. Currently she is in the 3rd year of the 5 year course, who specialises in both athletics and combat. While this was all true, the best thing about Linda was her A-ranked Haste Mage System that focused primarily on any speed related abilities she had.
Currently, single and in search of a fake boyfriend that would allow her to escape the lies she had told to her best friend, Irene Leeway, the cousin sister of Bernette Leeway, she was slightly uneasy with the situation and lack of time she had.
She looked at the white-haired boy sitting a few seats ahead of her and sighed as she thought,'Just another poor soul that wants to get into Arcadia Academy using shortcuts.'
If she had the ability to let him in through the backdoor, she might have tried it but honestly, even if he had entered the Arcadia Academy, with the poor mana level he had, he won't even survive one month, forget about 5 years.
The atmosphere of the academy isn't forgiving to weak people with low mana potential. Someone like Zero would never survive that place.
-MMMMM!!
A strange vibratory sound began echoing throughout and turning to the window, Linda was dumbfounded as, through the window, she saw a massive private jet flying beside their flight.
'Are we getting hijacked?' She panicked as she thought of the events that might unfold and began thinking of ways by which she might survive. Besides her own survival, for some reason, she also thought about methods to save Zero as well (and not the other three girls).
Though before she could do something, in an instant the emergency door opened and a blackish-orange haired man entered the airplane and looking at him, his features couldn't be more expressive than anything to show the identity of that man.
'Mark Leeway,' tightening the grip on the handle of her seat, she stopped her breathing to make sure he did not notice her. Despite seeing him more than once, she was utterly terrified and scared of him. If she had the choice, she would never get even 100s of kilometres closer to him, but alas, making Irene Leeway angry wasn't the solution to it either.
Much to her surprise, the white-haired kid, Zero, stood up without any trace of hesitation or fear on his face and began walking towards Mark Leeway.
Linda wanted to stop Zero, but the fear that had rendered her motionless stopped her from speaking, moving, or perhaps even thinking properly. Though…
"It is an honour to meet the SS-Class Ranked, Mark Leeway."
Spoke Zero confidently as he looked at Mark Leeway and it made almost everyone on the flight gasp at the bravery of that boy. Mark Leeway, however, returned the greeting with a smile,"I thought you might get impatient waiting, so I came to pick you up."
If it were possible, Linda's eyes might have fallen down after jumping out of her sockets. Her mouth was already opened wide enough to fit a couple of eggs into them.
It wasn't just her but everyone else in the flight making the same expression. Even Lucia, Eliza and Cristine weren't an exception to it. They had the expression of 'wasn't it just a trip to purify Eliza? Why did nobody tell me about Mark Leeway?' written all over their faces.
"Is it me, or are you the one who's getting impatient? Well.. I have brought some friends over. Hope you have some snacks over there," spoke Zero as he turned around and then said,"come with me. We are changing flights and, yeah, don't tell anyone about this, will ya?"
He had a wide smirk on his face and many of the flight attendants were tempted to punch that smirk off his face, but the presence of Mark Leeway didn't allow them to do so.
The first one to stand was Rheo… then William, Eliza, Cristine, and finally Lucia followed. As he saw all of them walking, his gaze turned to Linda, who was observing him like the other passengers. And he smiled before speaking,"Come with us. No point in wasting time, is there?"
'But there is that guy!!!' she wanted to scream, but she just kept quiet after she snapped out of her thoughts and then slowly stood up before following Zero and the others. Though, from the point she stood up, her gaze never left Zero as she tried her best to understand who Zero was, though despite trying very hard, she can't seem to remember if she had seen anyone like him.
Once all of them collected near the emergency gate, Zero turned around to face the passengers and moved a few steps ahead as put his hands in his pocket.
His eyes soon turn red as he mutters,'Charm of the Deep Sea: Transitional Memory Blank' and then everyone focuses into his deep red eyes and soon falls asleep. Looking at his spell, Linda was shocked while the rest of them were smiling at his act. Though… Lucia had a complicated look on her face… after all, it was one of her spells, which she had in her arsenal for special situations.
Then everyone moved out of the flight, to the private jet of Mark Leeway. There Zero moves forward, even ahead of Mark, and steps into the private jet only to find a face that he had seen only in files, in his previous life.
Red-haired, with two ponytails, a pale white face and dark black eyes that looked more of a demon's than that of a human. Wearing a black one piece over her thin frail body, she was sitting there sipping something as she turned to the guests. Her eyes traced the guy who was supposed to save her and she pointed at the empty seat in front of her, asking him to sit there.
Zero began walking as he spoke,"enjoy yourselves in the plane. I will be entertaining her for the time being along with Mark Leeway." Hearing his words, everyone peeked at Mark to see his reaction. However, he seemed to be calm about it as he nodded before walking behind Zero and sitting right beside Bernette.
Even though everyone was curious and wanted to hear what they were going to talk about, either out of fear or respecting their privacy, they let the trio talk all by themselves.
Zero then looked at Bernette before speaking,"whatever I am going to tell you today. You must not tell anyone, no matter who it is or what it is, is that all right?" Bernette looked at her father, who nodded and in turn she, too, nodded at Zero.
"All right, first thing first. Your disease isn't a curse but a parasitic disease," he spoke and the duo simply looked at him as if waiting for him to finish his words and he looking at them turned a bit serious before he continued,
"This parasite, in general, is from space. It honestly should not exist in this place, not yet at least… but still it does somehow. I have a way to extract the parasite out of her but once it is out, I will need you to kill that parasite and when I tell you to kill," Zero gazed deeply into the eyes of Mark Leeway and continued in a serious voice,
"I mean, use everything in your arsenal to kill it. That parasite will almost be around an SS-class grade monster type enemy. You will need William's help too, along with your family's. I won't be able to join the fight for the first 5 minutes or so, because I will be curing the remnants of the damage that parasite had left inside your daughter."
Zero stopped a bit, then filled the glass in front of him with water before gulping down a big chunk of it and then speaking again.
"The whole process will take about a week. I will need the materials you have collected along with a wide open space to draw a massive circle. Though, don't worry, I will be using my own power to charge it… can you do that?"
Hearing his words, Mark looked at Zero for a few moments before he sighs as he spoke,"All right. I will do it." Surprised at her father's words, a smile blossoms on Bernette's face as she looks at her father.
"You are using a truth identifier, aren't you?" asked Zero without any surprise in his voice and Mark nodded. Though they are rare and costly, every high-class person has one or other way of identifying the truth. It makes things easy in various ways…
'Though there are ways to bypass everything in a way,' Zero thought as he recalled certain cases where people lost their ability to trust when someone lied and stole their everything as they bypassed the truth detector.
"Though before all of that happens, there is another thing that I need your help with. How about we make another deal?" Zero asked with slight seriousness in his voice as he looked at Mark.
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