Chapter 131: Meeting With Duke
Glancing Logan up and down, he really didn’t appear to look like a forger, but maybe tailor forgers looked different compared to blacksmith ones. After all, blacksmith forgers had to be muscular to hammer metal into place, but tailoring required precision, not strength.
"Just drop your...." Logan yawned, "Drop your crystals off here, I’ll send it to you tomorrow."
Suddenly, a bunch of tiny robotic spiders crawled out of the crevasses, bringing a medium metallic box along with them. The spiders then coalesced into a table to lift the box up to waist level.
Erin took a good look at the box. Initially, she was skeptical, but with nothing else to do with the crystals, she opened up her shadow space, and dropped them inside.
The box then automatically closed, and the spiders took it away somewhere inside of the messy room. Satisfied, Logan nodded approvingly, before promptly plopping onto bed. The moment he was horizontal, he was already snoring.
"He’s quite trusting to be able to sleep in a room while you two are still here," The system said, "If only he knew that he was sleeping in the same room as a vampire and a ghoul, I wonder if he would feel so safe."
’If you think Layla is going to snap and eat someone, I’ll make sure she doesn’t,’ Erin retorted.
"Raw animal meat can only keep her satiated for so long. It’s like eating sweets," The system reminded, "It may keep her full for the time being, but she will want actual human meat at some point."
Deciding not to respond back to the system, Erin returned to the screen with Layla, and saw she was able to get halfway through the obstacle course. There was a pit she had to go down, and, remembering what had happened with the arrows, placed the shadow on herself. Then she jumped off the platform she was on, and fell down the hole slowly.
It seemed that Layla was figuring out how to use the shadow ability in new ways Erin hadn’t expected before, which made her rethink the way she used it herself. Before, Erin thought of it as a really good shielding ability that had some utility skills attached to it, but she could try using the ability in unique ways outside of the built in skills.
Not wanting to spend all day just staring at Layla, Erin decided to try to activate her ability, and level up one of her shadow skills.
—
"This is General Duke. Peter Chuck, you are required to come to my office in the second year building immediately. I have some important things to discuss with you."
Peter looked up from his watch, an apologetic look to him.
"I’m sorry, but I need to go—"
"It’s okay!" Cia interrupted, "I totally understand, there’s no way you could ignore the call of General Duke."
Peter awkwardly chuckled, and got up from his seat, but then a look of realization dawned on him.
"Wait, I don’t want to make you pay everything yourself—"
"It’s fine, remember what I said? I was planning on paying for both of our meals anyways," Cia returned, then gestured to the exit with her head.
Not wanting to be late, Peter quickly grabbed his things, and ran outside, leaving Cia at the table.
"... It’s good I was able to meet up with him."
—
Sprinting towards the second year campus, Peter made it to the perimeter, and was let past the wall. Then, he was accompanied by a random second year, one he hadn’t seen before.
’Strange, doesn’t Earl usually go with me?’ Peter thought, ’No, he must be waiting for me inside.’
The thought of Earl made him shiver. He really didn’t want to see him again.
Arriving right before Duke’s office, Peter nervously gulped, wondering what exactly would’ve caused the Head General to want to personally talk with him. A million possibilities ran through his mind, the likes of which were not pleasant.
As he waited outside of Duke’s office, he was looking around at the other second year students, searching for a specific one.
’Why isn’t he here? Did Duke not call for him?’ Peter wondered.
After a few agonizing minutes, Duke called for Peter to come in.
Sitting inside of his office, sweat formed on the back of his neck. The last time he was here, he was told to push one of his teammates into a red portal planet, so what did Duke want with him now?
"How is the earth ability treating you?" Duke asked with a grin.
"Um..." Peter quietly responded, taken aback, "I’ve made it to level 2."
"Good, good," Duke calmly nodded, his hands placed together on the desk, "Be sure to make it up to level 4 as soon as possible, and I’ll give you the books for the higher levels. Of course, I’ll need you to do something for me in return when the time comes. In a few days, come back and report to me. You are dismissed."
Peter stood up from his chair, and bowed before leaving the room.
’That was... strangely easy,’ Peter thought, ’But I’m worried about the future. I don’t want to be a pawn for Duke again.’
On his way out of Duke’s office, Earl remained missing from the second years there. It was particularly strange as the boy was very often called along to these meetings.
’Is this a sign of good luck? A day without Earl bothering me?’ Peter wondered.
Just before his hopes could get up, a large boy wrapped his arm around Peter’s shoulders, and leaned his head towards his. Upon initial inspection, Peter thought this might’ve been one of the second years with his bulky arms and bald head, but he was missing the arm band that they wore.
"Hey, Peter, how about we meet up behind the school later, and we can discuss a little bit about... training our ability together," The large boy spoke in a low voice.
Peter nervously gulped, "Ah, yeah, sure, I’ll meet you there."
The large boy slowly nodded, then forcefully patted Peter’s back, causing him to stumble a little.
"Good, make sure not to be late."
The large boy left the hallway, no doubt to meet up behind the school, and a pit formed in Peter’s stomach.
’Just when I thought things were getting better...’
