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Price of a smile. Vigilante
🕑 Added 2022-08-29 15:21:38 +0000 UTC“How did you know?” asked Hollie after a long period of silence on their way back to the academy.
“What do you mean?” asked Seth back.
Hollie moved in front of him and her eyes reddened again as she asked: “How did you know? You owe me an answer, don’t you?”
Seth nodded with a serious expression before saying: “I looked into your past and also searched for someone suffering from the same poison your mother did. I figured if you could help someone suffering from the same poison that took away your mother, you could ease some of the guilt that has been plaguing you ever since.”
Hollie closed her eyes and fell to her knees while crying silently in the middle of the street. Bending down, Seth grabbed her hand and said: “You were just a curious little girl. How do you think your mother would feel if she saw you tormenting yourself over it for so long? It’s been more than a century, Hollie…”
Hollie continued crying for over ten minutes in which Seth did his best to console her. Once she had no more tears to cry, she looked up and said: “Where did you find out? No one knows I was the one who brought that spider home.”
“You already used your question, but I can tell you that there’s little I don’t know in this world.” Said Seth with a smile as he helped her up and asked: “Are you feeling better?”
Hollie nodded and said: “I will in a minute.”
Seth didn’t understand what she meant when he was hit by a gust of wind that sent him rolling over 30 feet away.
“Ouch.” Exclaimed Seth as he slowly stood up only to see Hollie already standing in front of him.
“That was for looking into my past.”, said Hollie before sending him rolling again.
This time he didn’t stand up again and looked at Hollie, wondering if she would attack again.
“And that was everything you put me through today.”, exclaimed Hollie as she extended a hand to help him up.
Seth winced in pain as he took her hand, only to feel something soft and wet touching his cheek.
Hollie gave him a peck on the cheek and said: “That was because I know you did it for me.”
Seeing Hollie with her eyes still red from crying earlier smiling towards him, Seth froze in place. He knew what that smile meant.
Just as he feared, her smile quickly disappeared, and she said: “The date is not over. You now owe me one more question.”
Seth laughed and nodded. “Fine. It was still worth it. Ask your question.”
“How many sources do you have?”
Seth’s laughter stopped abruptly, and he just stared into her eyes in silence for a moment. Seeing her unflinching look, he asked in a serious tone: “What makes you think I have more than one?”
Hollie shook her head and looked at him with the same serious look, waiting for his answer.
“Six.” Seth didn’t go back on his words and answered honestly, causing Hollie’s face to change into one of complete shock.
“Are you telling the truth?” she couldn’t even name six types of energy. She figured that might be a possibility since there were a lot of energies out there that no one identified, but she never would have imagined Seth had created six sources.
“Yes. I don’t intend to break my word. Can you tell me how you figured it out?”
Hollie took a moment to calm her troubled thoughts before nodding. “When I woke up with no injuries on my hands, I already suspected something, but after healing that woman, I was sure. One of them is related to healing, no?”
Seth shook his head and said: “No. I also won’t answer any more questions. Consider the date over.”
Hollie nodded and didn’t press further as they started walking toward the academy in silence.
Hollie, not being able to take the awkward silence, finally said: “Don’t worry. I don’t know why you want to keep it a secret, but I don’t plan on telling anyone.”
“I wasn’t worrying. I was just thinking it would have been better to not heal your wounds.” Said Seth in a joking manner.
Hollie hang her head and started feeling quite bad at having taken advantage of him. It was just that she was too curious. She always loved knowledge and Seth was a mountain of knowledge sitting in right in front of her. How was she supposed to resist that temptation?
They both reached the academy and split up when Seth reached his room after a quick goodbye. Opening his door, he let out a sigh when he found Maya waiting in his bed again.
“Why did they even bother giving you a room if you are going to sleep in mine every day?” said Seth after locking the door behind him.
Maya looked at his battered clothes and cranky mood and said with a chuckle: “Who beat you up like this?”
Seth started removing his shirt, not minding Maya too much as he said: “Hollie.”
“Haha, you pissed off that bookwork until she beat you up? What did you do? Steal her books?”
Moving to remove his pants, he said: “We went on a date in town and… well, stuff happened.”
Maya licked her lips as she looked at Seth’s naked body and asked: “I’m waiting for you here and you’re going on dates with other women? How do you plan on making it up to me?”
Seth ignored her taunts and started dressing into a set of nightwear he took from the closet.
“Isn’t letting you live here rent-free enough?”
“You’re no fun.” Said Maya as she pouted and lay back down.
Seth also lay down next to her and closed his eyes to sleep. Maya, seeing that he seemed to be in a bad mood, placed her head on his chest and asked in a gentle tone: “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. It’s quite embarrassing that Hollie pulled one over me. It’s been so long since someone has tricked me.”
“Well, she’s been alive for a lot longer than you, so it’s only natural. What did she do?” asked Maya.
“Doesn’t matter. Let’s sleep.” Said Seth as he rubbed her back and closed his eyes. Maya’s last comment only served to further rub it in.
Maya nodded and closed her eyes as well. She was feeling a little horny, but she knew he was not in the mood, so she didn’t push it.
On the morning of the next day, Seth woke up once more completely covered by Maya’s body. He moved out from under her slowly and went back to class without waking her up. He couldn’t decide if her sleeping habits were cute or annoying.
His life in the academy slowly fell into a routine. For the next month, he spent most of his time teaching his students in the mornings while cultivating in the afternoon and spending the nights with Maya. They haven’t had sex yet, but they made out or simply cuddled in bed almost every single night. The students Seth stole from her also chose to officially change classes at the end of the trial month.
He didn’t really spend any more time with Hollie besides when she came looking for him from time to time to ask some questions about air energy. Neither of them brought up the subject of his sources anymore.
Rebecca created her source and was given two choices. She could either graduate or keep it a secret and remain in Seth’s class. She choose the second option and now there was one more hidden ascended in class 27 besides Leora.
The other two girls were making slower progress, but that was understandable since they had to study from scratch for the other sources.
One morning, Seth was playing around with a ball of destruction energy in his class while reading through more information from the records when the door to his classroom swung open.
Looking over, he noticed it was the headmistress, and she seemed to be in a cranky mood. Sitting up properly, Seth asked: “Headmistress, how can I help you?”
“Come outside.” Said Iris as she closed the door and walked out.
Seth sighed and walked out, only to see Iris extending a bag toward him. “Your monthly pay.”
Seth took it and didn’t check the coins inside. He knew the pay was 1 gold coin per month per student. He was more curious about why she appeared to be mad.
He didn’t have to wait long before she said: “Where is my bed?”
Smiling wryly, Seth said: “I was busy and didn’t have time to leave the academy to put an order to have it made.”
“What are you so busy about? I know you only fool around with Maya while your students study on their own.”, asked Iris, not buying his bullshit. “If I don’t hear from you by tonight, I’m confiscating your bed.” Said Iris before walking away.
“This brat.”, muttered Seth under his breath as he opened the door and peeked inside his class. “Girls, I’m going into the city for a while.”
After letting his class know he would be gone, he started walking towards the exit of the building.
‘System, if we’re going in the city, find me some ways to gain some perception energy.’
<Host, disrupting Underground guild activity would rend you both negative perception from the guilds themselves and positive from the common people. However, you must do it publicly, at least at the start, for the energy to have a target.>
‘Playing vigilante? Hmm, not bad. I might as well clean some of the trash. Give me some targets, but let the big guilds off. No need to stir the hornets yet.’
Looking through the list, Seth smiled as he walked out of the academy’s gate and entered a dark corner. Out of the same corner, two minutes later, a heroic-looking blonde-haired young man walked out.
‘I wish I could have made myself a suit of knight armor.’
Muttered Seth as he looked at the simple blue jeans and white shirt clothes he was wearing.
Since there was nothing he could do about that, he walked past a weapons store in the marketplace and stole a simple sword using space magic.
<Three small gangs made their territory in the marketplace. They extort protection money from most of the shops that have no backer. They would be a decent starting target. >
‘Less talk, more directions.’
A map of the city with red dots, some flashing, some not, appeared in the corner of his vision.
<Please head for any of the flashing dots first. They are in the middle of extorting protection money. >
Seth did as he was told, heading to the closest incident, and saw three people, all of them wearing black cloaks, arguing with a heavily sweating merchant. There was even a royal guard not that far, but it showed no reaction to the situation.
Smiling softly, he headed straight to the merchant. The cloaked men noticed him and one of them said: “This stall is closed for now. Walk away.”
Seth ignored the man completely and moved to look over the items displayed on the stall. He had no need for them but wanted the thugs to start the fight so he acted like a customer to annoy them.
“Hey are you deaf?” asked the cloaked man, enraged, before moving to grab Seth’s shoulder. As his hand was about to come in contact with his shoulder, Seth disappeared from the place he was in and appeared right behind the man, piercing his sword through his chest from the back.
Without giving the two others the chance to react, he disappeared again and cut their necks in less than two seconds. There was nothing they could do against an ascended anyway.
The sudden bloodbath cause a scream to escape the merchant’s mouth, a scream that was followed by many others as more people looked over to see what the commotion was about.
“Murder.”
“Guards.”
As different yells resounded through the marketplace, the guard from before unsheathed his sword and rushed toward Seth as well. Seth smirked at the guard and disappeared from where he stood, leaving the guard to look around confused.
Seth was watching the commotion from the roof of a nearby building. Looking at the five gold coins in his hand, she smiled and disappeared again.
For the next hour, complete chaos descended on the marketplace with stories of a blonde-haired young man killing members of the extortion gangs spreading through the common people and merchants alike.
Seth finished his space energy quite a while ago using it mostly to kill people in public. The other gang members, he killed using destruction energy from the shadows. By the time he finished, the place was full of royal guards and even some members of the academy, but none could find a single trace of the culprit. The descriptions of a blonde man appearing like magic and people falling dead on their own also didn’t help.
How could they even hope to find Seth? He was walking around, looking nothing like he did at the start.
At the beginning of his little vigilante play, he only received negative energy, but as people noticed he was only targeting the guild, it started balancing pretty quickly. Happy with his share of perception energy and the 126 gold coins he got, Seth changed into his normal look and outfit before approaching the academy people that came to investigate.
Iris saw him and asked: “What are you doing here?”
“I was doing what I spoke to you about and heard the commotion. How are things?” replied Seth.
“Someone from one of the surrounding kingdoms is creating chaos around the marketplace.” Said one of the other teachers from the academy.
‘Were you guys dropped in the head when you were infants? Why would a spy kill the scum of the kingdom?’ screamed Seth in his mind, but his face remained unchanged.
Iris frowned at the other teacher’s words but said nothing. It made sense since there was no ascended in their kingdom who could do that, but it also felt somewhat fishy to her.
“Do what you came here to do.” Said Iris towards Seth as she led the others to continue investigating.
Seth shrugged and started heading for the brothel. He still had some time to burn until the deadline of his deal with the headmistress.
