Warlock Apprentice

Angor quickly descended toward the depth of the sea while Luna stayed close to him by hanging on his clothes.

They saw the black vortex again. Angor tried to stay really far this time so that he could observe it. He could see nothing. Both the vortex itself and the area around it were hidden in total darkness.

“The signals came from inside that thing…” Angor couldn’t make up his mind about whether or not he should enter the vortex since it might be too dangerous.

Luna saw Angor having trouble with a decision and went for the vortex on its own.

Angor watched as the kitten disappeared into blackness.

A moment later, it poked its head out and meowed at Angor.

So we can get back out again?

“Never mind then. Fifty minutes left and we gotta move!” Angor asked them to stand up so that they could get away ASAP. There was no time for them to explore this strange place.

Nausica had been keeping her head lowered. She hesitated and finally decided to speak, “My Meriad’s Sword is gone.”

When her words attracted their attention, Shan suddenly yelled out, “What happened to your face, Nausica??”

Nobody saw her face earlier. Now that they had time to check, they all saw a large, bloody scar starting from Nausica’s forehead and reaching all the way to her right cheek.

Nausica looked up as she could no longer hide it. “I don’t know. The wound is here when I woke up. It’s pretty shallow, I already treated it with Heal.”

“That woman did this?” Angor mumbled.

“Which woman?!” Shan quickly grew furious. “She ruined Nausica’s face! I’m going to kill her!”

Angor described the unknown woman he saw earlier. “That’s probably the culprit who hurt Nausica AND took her sword.”

“I gotta find her!!” Shan spoke and quickly grew confused. “But my sword is here… why only Nausica? Did an old enemy of hers come to the garden too?”

“Old enemy?” Nausica went over her memories and shook her head. “I don’t think I offended any woman ever since I came to the wizarding world.”

“There is one. The large rain hat, remember? She even attacked you before,” said Shan.

Nausica widened her eyes as she remembered something.

Yes, there was a strange female who openly showed hatred toward her even before entering the garden. And when they were exploring the fish-infested garden world, the same woman came and wounded her.

“But… I don’t know who she is at all.”

“Well, like I said, I’ll skin her alive the next time I see her!” Shan stomped her foot.

“It’s fine though. Luna still has one gray scale, same for Nausica. We can still get another Meraid’s Sword,” said Angor as he let out a sigh. “Whoever that was, we don’t have time to catch her. We have to move.”

The others nodded to agree, while Nausica gave them an apologetic look. “Sorry for the trouble… again.”

“Well, it’s not you to blame.” Angor smiled at her. “Easy, we understand. We still have enough swords for each of us.”

They prepared to move back to the surface.

“I think I went through some kind of barrier to get here. We can get out again by going up. In case you all get affected by the sleeping effect out there, I’ll drag you away using gravity power.”

With that, Angor ejected his soul and began to fly upward.

But instead of reaching the said barrier, he found himself trapped in mist.

“Oops. Where’s the exit?” Angor grew puzzled and checked on the others, only to see that no one was following.

The way back took way less time than he expected. When reaching the ground, he saw everyone looking around with their own puzzled looks.

“Something confused me and I found myself back at square one,” said Keely.

“It’s the illusion…” Angor realized that this new trick could now affect his soul form as well.