The whole underground cave was in disarray. The students were startled and had no clue what to do. Those who had failed to take out Simyon and Safa had returned, holding onto parts of their bodies, dragging their feet across the ground.
In the attack, they had used a considerable amount of Qi, and with their lack of food and water, they had only hastened the worsening of their condition.
Tinson had returned, and when he saw the head on the ground, he took a deep gulp. It was what he had expected, but now he was just thankful that Raze hadn't done that to him.
"Tinson, you're... you're alive!" One of the female students with dark reddish hair ran over, by the name of Violet, which was quite an odd name considering her features. It wasn't just her; a frailer boy had come rushing by his side as well.
"Joe, Violet, it's good to see you both as well," Tinson replied as he continued to hold his arm and placed his hand against his chest. A strong thud was felt. "I still can't believe that I'm alive myself, and I'm happy to see nothing happened to you two. When I was attacked, I was worried that the two of you would jump in."
Both Joe and Violet were part of the fourth group that he had mentioned. They were three friends who weren't from the same clan but were from the same town and knew each other from a young age.
They had stayed together even in this assessment but had come to the realization that all the other groups were much larger than theirs. That's why he was willing to do anything, even attack the frightening Raze.
"So how did you manage to get away from that monster? From the looks of things, he already dealt with the others. If I were to guess, I don't think Alfred is alive either," Violet commented.
All three of them looked at the head on the ground. Not a single person had gone to pick it up. Where would they put it, even? They usually would place it in the seclusion rooms, but doing so would mean there was a chance they could run into the White Dragon.
Tinson continued to stare at the head. "You know, I'm not sure if Raze is really that much of a bad guy."
His two friends' eyes nearly popped out of their heads. Violet even touched the top of her forehead, wondering if he had gone mad. The person who had just killed three people and dragged a human head into the room, not bad.
"Alright, maybe 'not bad' is the wrong word to use, but I think the way he acts is actually very fair. I think we might have been going about this whole thing the wrong way, and there might be another way to survive this assessment."
Raze had taken Safa over to the seclusion room. After his little act, he didn't think any others would be acting soon, and Dame along with the other two boys seemed to know that he wanted to speak to his sister alone at this moment.
There were quite a lot of questions on his mind.
"So, you managed to use the restore skill. Were you able to use it without having to draw the circle?" Raze asked.
"Yes, I did," Safa answered, her soft, gentle voice still reaching his ears and giving a sense of calmness to him. He imagined it was the type of voice that would be used to speak poems in a manner to send one to sleep.
"And I want to thank you," Safa replied. "I honestly thought I would never get my voice back, and now I have thanks to you. I know you feel bad for not being my real brother, but I wish to still create a family bond with you."
After finishing her words, she gave a polite bow and sat on the ground, as Raze did the same opposite her. If there was one thing that he was sure of, it was that she had more manners than anyone else and knew how to show how thankful she was.
"How did you lose your voice? Since you were able to get it back, it was unlikely to be a medical condition, or something that you were born with. The restore skill, although it would work on medical conditions, would mostly only come back as well," Raze asked.
Safa smiled. "The fact that you're asking this means you have some interest in me. Unfortunately, the tale is a bit harsher than you think. At one point and time, none of our family could eat. We were starving, you could say the situation is similar to what it is now. In the end, our father and mother... sorry," Safa corrected herself. "My father and mother had decided to hand me over to a physician for a short while. He was experimenting with a few new techniques, and during the procedure, I had lost my voice.
"Since I don't know much of the details myself, I don't know what he did that caused it. It was just very painful. We got the coins that we needed to allow us to survive for a while."
Raze remembered the scene he pictured in the house when he had first arrived in the world. It wasn't the best place, and they were already in a run-down town compared to other places they had been in.
However, he knew that Safa used sign language to communicate, and just like with writing and reading of the Pagna script, he could understand the sign language as well, so he imagined it had to be some time ago.
'The things parents do when they're in need of money. Bringing life into this world is no simple matter. Yet they chose to have a life, so it's their responsibility to look after them, yet there are many that fail to do even that,' Raze felt a flicker of magic in his heart.
"I wanted to ask you about the day you were cultivating in the demonic continent. At the time, did you see a red blooded hand and hear a woman's voice?" Raze asked.
Safa nodded, and sweat started to run down her side. Right now, she wasn't using her skill god eyes she had received. When near Raze, she didn't want to ever use it.
"I... actually saw a lot more than that. I can see almost an outline of the whole woman herself. That day, I could see her long, stretching, cold blooded hands normally, but when I used the skill you called god eyes, I could see it, I could see her body wrapping around you."
"When you look at me?" Raze pointed to himself. "Is it constantly surrounding me?"
Safa shook her head this time. "I've used the god eyes around you once in a while. I can see this strange dark shadow creeping toward me when I use my powers. It feels like if I continue to stare at you, the power will suffocate me, so I can't use it for long.
"At times, if I stare long enough at you, that's when the image will appear. I can't see a face, but just the outline of a human figure."
Even for Raze, who had been through quite a lot, the image in his head that someone was hovering around him, watching him even now, was sending shivers down his entire spine.
'I wonder what that thing wants, and is it the same thing after Safa, or do we just both have the same thing. There's a chance it could be related to that as well.'
The reason why Raze had asked this question was all to lead up to his final question. Something he had been curious about for a while.
"What happened that day that our partners died?" Raze asked. "The Red Brigade Clan said that you were hiding in one of the cupboards the entire time. Did you manage to see anything, or do you have any idea as to why our parents were killed at that time?"
Raze didn't like the fact that Alter was looking into this, and that he and Safa had a target on their back. If he could at least find out the reason, he was more likely to continue surviving in this world.
And now he was going to learn if he was right to put his trust into Safa.
"I didn't see much," Safa answered. "I could only look through a small gap. I was too scared to open the door further in case it made any type of noise. It could have been someone that Dad had borrowed money from.
"People like that had come around regularly, but they would never kill. It made no sense to kill since they needed every penny they could from our family."
Raze was inclined to agree with this line of thought, which was part of the reason he was struggling to think. Unless it was a weapon belonging to Alter.
"The people that attacked seemed to be far too skilled as well to just be normal debt collectors, and to go as far as to kill the children after they had already escaped, it has to be something else," Raze said. "How did you know to even hide in the closet in the first place? Wouldn't they have seen you enter?"
Safa shook her head once again. "No, because you were the one that asked me to head inside the cupboard. Before the attack even happened. I thought it was strange, but moments after, several men had entered, and then you started to speak to them, saying some words.
"It was as if you knew them. Honestly, I don't want to admit it, but I think my brother, my past brother, has something to do with why our parents died and why someone is after us."
