Shades of the New World

Chapter 109: Hearing

Hearing Evin's words everyone was shocked beyond belief.

"What?" Bardom asked with an unbelieving face and got closer. He saw something behind the boy and started gagging uncontrollably at the sight of something.

Rantz debated looking behind the boy herself, but something told her that she should probably refrain from doing so.

Koya and Arza went over one after another. Her twin sister looked shocked, but didn't really gag or shiver at the sight. 

Rantz could see that the red-haired boy was taking it the calmest. 

In the end, her curiosity got the better of her, and she took a glance at the instructor's body. Rantz could see something akin to a pole with countless holes around it, leaking blood unceasingly and painting the soil below with a dark red color. 

The hideous deformation somehow gave Rantz the impression that the man was squashed to death between two walls. There were also two giant holes in the instructor's skull, and some other smaller ones throughout his body, hinting that the walls had spikes or something on them.

Rantz stared blankly at the body for a few seconds, before her brain started working again.

'How am I not vomiting?' was her last thought before she fell unconscious.

An hour later, Evin was sitting inside Zorrik's office, explaining what had happened in the Beast's den alongside Rith and the three other children, excluding Rantz, since she passed out and was sent to the infirmary. In front of him sat Zorrik, Losha, and two other instructors that Evin had never seen before. But from the reverent expressions of Bardom and Koya, Evin could guess that they were pretty important people.

They were both elders, one male and one female. The male had a long white beard that went down to his chest, a pair of dark-purple and golden horns that were as long as the man's head. The man's hands moved constantly. When he was sitting down, it would caress the chair that he was sitting on, or his fingers would start rhythmically pounding on it.

The female, on the other hand, had a single blue horn on her head, with her white hair wrapped up in a braid. She wore thick clothes that were mostly made out of white fur, giving her a winter goddess type of feeling. 

Just like her exterior, her attitude was on the cold side as well.

"Why are we even holding this hearing for this child? From what I can understand, he had just come to the Tribe today and had already killed one of the instructors. Just put him in the dungeons and get a confession out of him," she said offhandedly.

"Lady Deminte," Zorrik whispered and said something to her ears. After hearing whatever it was, her expression turned sour and motioned Evin to continue.

"As I've explained, the instructor was actively healing the peak tier-3 ox-type Mana Beast. He himself declared it so, after I noticed that the ox's wounds were healing up much faster than normal and confronted him about it," Evin resumed explaining, but inside his head, he was thinking about something completely different.

'How did I end up killing the man?' 

"The instructor couldn't outright heal the beast, since it was covered by the mana that was leaking from it, but he could replace the mana in the air with the energy from the World of Life. Arza here is an excellent World of Life mage, so he could easily notice the difference in the air"

'I wasn't really lacking in options to deal with the Bull'

"I instructed Koya to prepare a big spell, so we could take out the Bull in a single attack, while Bardom, Arza and me were trying to buy time and create an opportunity for a perfect shot," Evin said and the three other kids nodded.

'I could simply wake up Karan and stab the ox with his special attribute of nullifying healing effects'

"We managed to succeed and the World of Water spell was about to her the bull's heart, but the instructor influenced the shot's trajectory which lead to the bull barely surviving the attack. But the spell was still quite effective, as the mana surrounding the bull died out entirely"

'But I didn't want to disturb the skinshifter's sleep, so I chose not to'

"But this allowed instructor Zakhlo to directly affect the bull and heal its body with much more efficiency. In a matter of seconds, our efforts were nullified, and the bull was even stronger. It had also learned that the Life energy was a good thing for him, and started actively receiving the instructor's healing spells," Evin said. Bardom and Koya were surprised at how many things they didn't notice during the fight. They could only tell that the Beast was healed, and they didn't know that it had begun to recognize healing spells.

'Instead, I chose the most violent method possible,' Evin thought.

"I tried to suffocate the bull with a World of Storms spell, since it didn't have the mana barrier around itself, but Zakhlo countered it. Then, five other tier-3 bird type Mana Beasts came near the area. At this point I pleaded for the instructor to stop, but he ignored me. Thankfully, I was able to suffocate and kill the new beasts with my spell, since they weren't protected by a mana barrier like the ox"

'I decided to engulf the man in darkness and maybe have the Blood's will bite off his leg or something'

"At this point I realized that I had to somehow take the instructor's attention off the bull, before attempting to kill it, so I instructed Koya to attack the beast after I distract Zakhlo. When the opportunity came, I engulfed the man in my shadows and used my personal Dark World spell against him. I don't wish to reveal the details of the attack, but I can assure you that the attack was never strong enough to kill a half-core in one hit like that," Evin concluded.

'Instead of the small bite at his legs that I expected, a huge maw, much bigger than the man himself, appeared from inside my shadows and snapped shut on the man,' Evin thought with wonder. 

He hoped that his wondering expression would be taken as shock from the sudden killing by the Tribe Leader as he finished his story. 

"Is this true?" Zorrik asked Bardom and Koya.

"Yes, that is what happened. I don't know why instructor Zakhlo decided to do this, and why Evin accidentally killed him, but what Evin had said is not a lie," Bardom said, to which Koya nodded as well. 

Hearing the story, the listeners had a difficult expression on their faces.

"We'll need to see your spell, boy," the male Elder said in a deep voice.

"Lord Nasst," Zorrik began, but was rebuked immediately.

"I don't care about the boy's background, Zorrik. If he wishes to prove his innocence, he needs to comply with the investigation. Else, we will not get anywhere with this whole ordeal"

Evin heard the elder's words and decided not to make things difficult for himself, as the longer this went on, the worse it would be for him. He was the one who killed the man, after all.

"I want you to swear on your Oaths that you will not indulge information about my spell, if I'm to explain it," Evin said.

"We can do that, but we may need to inform the higher-ranking people if this matter gets complicated," Zorrik said.

"Don't worry about that, you can direct them to me and I'll explain it to them myself," Evin said. This way, they couldn't do anything without Evin's knowledge.

Everyone in the room swore on their Oaths, and also made a written agreement with signatures and whatnot. Evin's backing was strong enough for such things to be effective. 

Evin then turned a part of the ground into his shadows and got the Blood's will out. Evin disabled the light absorbing feature of his shadows, so the people inside could clearly see the maw's shape. 

It was a weird sight, to say the least. A floating mouth of an animal; with no eyes, ears, or any other part of its face intact. Just a single maw filled to the brim with dark fangs. Some fog-like substance was being emitted from around it, giving it an illusory and apparitional feeling.

Unexpectedly, the maw was its normal size, the size of a normal fox. It happily floated near Evin, examining the others in the room with some wariness.

Evin took note of the expressions that the people in the room had. The children were astonished to see the spell, while the adults' eyes showed hints of greed.

"This is the normal size of my spell. I ordered the maw to bite at the man's feet, but when it actually attacked instructor Zakhlo, its size had increased almost tenfold, completely engulfing him. Before I could react, the maw snapped shut and killed the man. Trust me, I'm just as confused as you all," Evin said, but the elder named Nasst just scoffed and started explaining Evin's mistake.

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