Blood Queen Reborn

Chapter 160: Heard A Rumor

After examining the bow’s capabilities, Erin handed it back to Layla, satisfied.

"That bow will do you some good," Erin said.

[The Replicatibow]

[King tier]

[Agility +15]

[Active Skill: Duplicate]

[When an arrow is placed into the notch of the bow, it will fire a copy of the arrow at 60% strength, leaving the original in the user’s hand. The user can choose to not fire a duplicated arrow]

[To choose between the two options, fire the arrow on the left side to not duplicate the arrow (Mediterranean draw), and fire the arrow on the right side to duplicate it (Asiatic draw)]

The bow was pretty strong, and was the highest tier weapon that any of Erin’s team had up to that point. It made Erin realize that she could use some upgrades of her own as she only had an intermediate sword.

"Ohhh! I can’t wait to use this in the next—" Layla beamed, only for her excited face to drop into disappointment.

Erin raised an eyebrow, "What’s wrong?"

Layla turned to face Erin, hugging the bow tightly, "I’m still using the starlingshot to help fake my..." then said in a low voice, "... Ability."

Despite no longer having an ability, her old bow was perfect for hiding this fact. Still, it meant that while she was in public around other students or teachers who might’ve known about her old ability, she would need to use the starlingshot’s active skill to keep up the lie.

"Argh, damn it," Layla groaned, "I really wanted to use it."

Erin paused, thinking about the best way to still use the weapon.

"How about I place it in my dimensional storage for the time being. When we’re away from prying eyes, that’s when you can use it," Erin said.

A light blush appeared on Layla’s face and she smiled bashfully, "Yeah, that sounds good."

Erin glanced around the student market place, using the inspect skill on any beast gear nearby. She walked down the stalls with Layla following closely behind, wondering what she was up to.

"What are you looking for?" Layla asked.

"A sword. Something stronger than my current one," Erin replied.

"Ah, that might be an issue," Layla said, "Since its the beginning of the school year, most people don’t have access to a lot of strong crystals. In fact, I think it might be worse compared to previous years since, you know... The green portal expedition was..." Her voice trailed off.

"I’ve come to realize that," Erin deadpanned, "I hoped I’d get lucky like you did."

Layla clapped her hands together, "Just give it some time, I bet any day now you’ll find the sword of your dreams."

Suddenly, Erin got a notification from the system tab, and immediately opened it.

{Quinn} I don’t think me and Vorden are going to make it today. Something came up.

"What’s wrong?" Layla asked, tilting her head.

"I got a message from Quinn. Apparently he and Vorden can’t make it," Erin responded.

"Oh, should we still meet up with Fex then?"

Erin shook her head, "No, there wouldn’t be much of a point."

Thinking about it, she wondered what could’ve gotten Quinn and Vorden to get into some sort of situation together, but it seemed like it needed his full attention. Sending messages about what happened now would only distract him, she could ask him about the details later.

"Let’s find you some arrows to go along with that bow," Erin said, and the two continued their shopping spree for the rest of the day.

—

Inside the cafeteria of a different military building, a burly, rectangular man with a square shaped head, shoved a spoonful of cereal in his mouth. The food gulped down his thick neck that was as wide as his head, and glanced over to his friend in frustration.

"I can’t believe it, she appears randomly like a magical angel, and the beauty never shows up again like a ghost," he sobbed.

His friend sitting next to him rolled his eyes, and smiled.

"She could’ve just gotten very busy, you know, Nate," Sam stated, "I heard first years are going through orange portal planets now."

Nate sighed, and closed his eyes, "No, this is it for me, I’ve experienced too much heartbreak. I’m giving up on love forever."

Sam just stared at him, ’I’ll give it 10 minutes.’

The two headed to their class, and after a few minutes of silence, Nate started talking again.

"You know, the interbase tournament is coming up in a month, I bet I could find her there if I get enough time to figure it out," Nate said with a smile.

"6 minutes."

"What was that?" Nate asked.

Sam waved his hands, "Nothing, by the way, how do you even plan on finding her? The only thing you know about her is that she’s a girl and uses a sword. There’s hundreds of girls who use swords."

Nate smirked, as if he was expecting Sam to say that, and wiggled his finger, "Well you see, we also know she has a level 5 ice ability, and she’s bound to be a beauty. That will narrow the search down considerably."

"How do you plan on finding her in a crowd based on that information!" Sam pointed out, "Are you just going to watch the crowd for beautiful girls with swords and wait for one of them to use ice powers?"

Sam then glanced up at Nate’s hair, which was sculpted to match the rest of his appearance. Blocky.

"Also, no offense, but your appearance isn’t the most... inviting."

Nate smirked, pinching his chin, "My blocky head makes me look distinguished."

Sam just wanted to roll his eyes. He loved his friend, and he was amazing at hand to hand combat, but he was a blockhead when it came to women.

The two arrived at their homeroom class. However, as they were going through their usual lessons, they kept hearing whisperings of two new people at their school.

"Did you see them?"

"Who? Is this about those teachers?"

"Yeah, did you see how gorgeous they were?"

"Seriously dude, don’t you know one of them is a man?"

"So? What if I like the taste of both purple and green grapes?"

"Forget that, what about how strong they are? I heard they were part of a club for martial arts. The military doesn’t hire just about anyone."

"Martial arts?" Now Nate was intrigued.

He was always striving to improve his own skill in fighting, so to hear that the new teachers were apparently experts in fighting made him want to immediately sign up for the club.

The moment classes ended, he dragged Sam along in search of these mysterious new teachers.

—

Elsewhere, in a wide open classroom, a pair of nearly identical blonde twins were preparing the room for their first lesson. One was placing mats on the ground for cushioning, while the other was shadow boxing in the front.

"So, he doesn’t seem to be here," Pai stated calmly, dusting off his hands.

"So it seems, but," Vicky flashed a smirk, licking her lips, "It’s about time I get to try out the new meat, don’t you think? The ones back at the island were getting a little boring for my tastes."