Chapter 43: Ch83. Test - 4 (Ties that bind - 2)
Kurt woke up to the strangely good taste of a liquid sliding down his throat as he coughed, sitting up.
"Easy, Kurt. Easy." Evellyn said. "Everything is okay now, I’m feeding you, so take it easy, and sit up slowly. Take in one gulp, and breathe."
Kurt gently took the bowl of what looked like soup from Evellyn’s hands and avidly drank from it.
After a few seconds, he gave a deep, satisfied sigh, and looked at Nikolai again.
"Did I pass out for too long, this time?"
"No, the vanguard is taking care of the cave entrance, everything is fine. You’ve been out long enough for me to finish the goulash."
Kurt didn’t know that Nikolai could cook.
To be honest, Kurt never new much more about Nikolai than what his previous versions learned about him in the streets and in the Black Market.
The other Kurt even only learned about his friend’s father being the boss of a mafia guild through his second life.
There were many things he didn’t know about the two people in front of him, and yet the feelings in the [MEMORY FRAGMENT] overflowed into him like an ocean that made Kurt feel like he knew them forever.
He smiled faintly and extended the bowl to Nikolai.
"Can I... Have some more?"
Nikolai burst out in laughter at Kurt’s plea.
"Wolf’s meat is good, right?"
Evellyn chuckled, which made Kurt’s tension go away more easily.
He smiled, but immediately remembered what the Russian Boy asked him a while ago.
"What... Happened to... To your parents?"
The mood became slightly dark, but Nikolai broke the silence to answer Kurt’s question.
"My mama was a regular, she was murdered by the New Dawn."
"Which are a bunch of cultists who go after regulars and kill them." Evellyn went on, as if following an inaudible cue. "They think that they’re better than the regulars, so they just go after them and kill them indiscriminately."
"Your dad..."
"He was killed by the New Dawn, too." Evellyn’s expression assumed a refrained rage that Kurt never seen in any of the moments in the [MEMORY FRAGMENT]. "We decided to become wielders so we can get revenge for my dad and Nikolai’s mom." She sipped some more of the goulash, looking at Kurt with a bit of uncertainty in her eyes.
Nikolai served Kurt some more of the goulash and they ate.
Kurt felt his strength coming back, and the silence little by little was filled by the unexpected murmur of the students supposed to be near the cave’s entrance.
"What’s up with the commotion?" Nikolai asked.
But Kurt immediately got up, his instincts shouting in his mind and making his skin crawl.
[THE NEST’S BOSS IS EXERTING ITS INFLUENCE INTO THE BEASTS]
’Influence...?’
"Shit, it doesn’t look good." Kurt said while one of the students from the vanguard, a girl with short hair and and the white shirt of her uniform with the sleeves ripped off arrived.
"Nikolai, I don’t know why you told us to warn you if anything went awry, but something just happened at the entrance, and..."
"And what?" Nikolai asked, while Kurt just looked at the unfolding of the situation.
His skin crawled like nothing, and while the two of them were talking, he decided to pay no attention to them anymore, turning around and walking silently towards the entrance.
"Where do you think you’re going?" He heard Evellyn’s voice behind him.
He stopped and looked at her.
"Stay here with Nikolai, I’ll go check what’s going on."
"You already know what’s going on, that’s why you’re going without us, right?"
Kurt thought that she was far quicker than a fifteen year-old teenager should be, but she wouldn’t become the Red Oracle if it weren’t for that.
"Somewhat, but no. I don’t know exactly what’s going on, other than that it’s something dangerous."
"We’re in a Nest after all, right?" She smiled faintly. "Let me go with you, I can help."
"With what? I don’t see any weapons with you." Kurt retorted. "I don’t mean to sound rude or anything, but if you don’t have a weapon, then it’s better that you stay here with Nikolai."
"But I have a weapon!" She hushed, pointing to her eyes. "Let’s go and I’ll show you, I promise I won’t be a burden."
Kurt sighed.
"Okay... But I won’t take responsibility over you, deal?"
"Deal."
And they began to move towards the entrance.
Right when the screaming began.
When Kurt and Evellyn arrived at the center of the commotion, it was a blood bath.
From the two hundred students that entered the Nest, Nikolai had told Kurt that only ninety survived, but after Kurt and Evellyn arrived at the cave’s entrance, he knew that he’d be able to count down the number of students who would clear the Nest with his two hands, if they were lucky.
There were limbs all around, blood splattered on the walls, and even students with their limbs torn, twisted in impossible angles, still breathing and screaming for their lives.
But what shocked him more than the bloody scene in front of him, was the beasts tearing the students apart, clawing at them.
They weren’t Direwolves.
The beasts still looked like wolves, but they were all humanoid, and all of them exceeded the height of a tall adult human.
Outside the cave there was a group of possibly fifteen surviving students, they were surrounded by the monsters while three of them had their arms stretched out, and the mana flowing from their fingers formed a barrier around the group, keeping the beasts from taking them out.
Evellyn looked like she was going to vomit, but she did her best to keep it together, when the beasts noticed their arrival.
"Grrrr!"
"Growl!"
One of the beasts howled loudly and all of their attention was drawn to the two new guests of that bloody feast, when suddenly.
Beep!
[AN EMERGENCY QUEST HAS ARRIVED!]
[EMERGENCY QUEST: Moon Hunt]
[DESCRIPTION: Your colleagues are facing the wrath of Groth, the Direwolf King, and need your aid!]
[CONDITIONS: Kill the 50 Diwerewolves without losing any more of your colleagues.]
[REWARDS: Double EXP for every wolf-type beast killed; Special Title; Stat points x15; Map to the Boss’s den]
[DIWEREWOLVES KILLED: 00/50]
[COLLEAGUES KILLED: 00/21]
"Evellyn...?" Kurt called, as soon as he saw the beasts looking at them.
"Yes?"
"I hope you do have something amazing up your sleeve, because I’m gonna need every possible drop of help, and I’m gonna have to do something REALLY crazy here."
She didn’t answer Kurt’s question.
Instead, her eyes glowed in an intense golden light. The next moment, she yelled.
"CHRISTINA, JOHAN, BOOST KURT’S SPEED AND STRENGTH! CALEB, BOOST MY SPEED!"
The three students casting the shield to protect the other twelve students looked at Evellyn, and without saying a word, nodded at her and looked at Kurt.
While one of their hands kept up to keep their barrier working, they pointed their free hands towards her and Kurt, who immediately felt his body incredibly lighter and his muscles felt like steel underneath his skin.
[YOUR STATS HAVE BEEN BUFFED DUE TO THE EXTERNAL ABILITY – INCREASE]
[STRENGTH HAS DOUBLED]
[AGILITY HAS DOUBLED]
[DEXTERITY HAS DOUBLED]
