Infinitum Crystals - The Deadly Maidens [3]

Side Story 3.3 - Blanc - Surrounded

I raised my Devourer, which was the name of my huge mechanical sword, up to the sky and rested it to my shoulder. Zero on the other hand, unsheathes a rapier and began reciting something on the rapier.

"What the hell are you doing, Zero?"

He finishes his recitation as a symbol started to engrave on the rapier.

He then turned to me and told me, "It's just my unique magic. Nothing much."

"What is your unique magic?"

"We've been told by our lecturer not to tell it to anyone but since we're partners right now, I guess I have to let you know."

"I guess so..."

Zero then placed back his rapier into its scabbard. He then told me about his unique magic which he calls, Flower Curse. Basically it's an ability where he is able to place an engraving of a symbol on anything. The symbol will usually be a type of flower. The types of flower engraved varies according to its usage.

"In this case, observe my rapier." Zero took out his rapier and showed to me.

The symbol from the engraving was a valerian flower.

Zero then told me, "The valerian means readiness. To put into perspective, this symbol of flower heighten my awareness of the surrounding. It's also the perfect flower for me to use whenever I decided to sleep in the wild."

"Wait. You sleep in the wild?"

"Sometimes..." Zero bragged.

I try to forget it as I asked him, "In any case, have you got anything?"

"So far, nothing interesting. How about you use your own ability?"

"What do you mean?" I don't really know what he meant.

He sighed and said, "I'm talking about your instinct, of course. Aren't you supposed to be a special species now?"

Oh, that's what he meant. Well...at least he didn't call me a monster. I can appreciate that at least. With that have been said, I finally understood what Zero meant by my own ability. Since I'm technically not a wizard. I don't really have any sort of Infinitum manipulation inside of my body. What I do have are monsters ability. The one that Zero was asking me for was the ability to smell the scent of a target. I can do that.

"There's one problem though, Zero."

"What is it?" He asked.

I replied to him, "I need a source if I want to find those monsters. In fact, we don't even know what kind of monster are we hunting for."

"You're right. Our only details was that it was large."

Then I suggested to him, "Do you feel anything large nearby?"

"No...but there's a lot of Infinitum movement inside this forest."

I told him, "That's probably the fairies. Those guys are magical beings."

"Of course. But there is also a case where a monster could be a magical being themselves."

"What do you mean by that, Zero?"

"I'm not quite sure myself as I never seen one. But White had told me about it."

"White? Cyclone White? What does he know about monsters with Infinitum?"

Zero explained as we walked around the forest, "Well, he told me that he have come across a couple of them for the past few months. I'm not sure if I can believe him or not but he didn't even call them a monster. He simply called it a beast of some sort. Something related to chaos."

"I mean monsters does brings in chaos. Isn't it just another word for monster?"

"I guess he only meant that because those beast he faced are dangerous than any other monsters. Perhaps I should hang out with him more so that I could get to know about these beast he encounters."

"You? Hanging out with others? That doesn't sound a lot like you, Zero. I heard you were a loner." I tried to joke around Zero

But then Zero strikes me harder, "And what about you? Aren't you an outcast at your home facility?"

"Hey, let's not make this personal..."

"You started it, Blanc."

After walking for half an hour, we stumble upon a dumping of what might be from a large animal.

Zero then wondered, "This could be the piece of shit we're looking for."

"Did you meant that literally or figuratively?" I asked.

"I don't know. Maybe both?" Come on, check it out."

"Sure, whatever." I got near the...in Zero's word 'piece of shit' and analyzed the smell of the dump.

It definitely smelled bad but I'm not here to fool around that's for sure. And so I focused myself to make sure if I could be able to track down this monsters that the higher ups have been talking about.

"This way." I told Zero.

And as expected, after 10 minutes of following the scent, we finally saw a huge monster sleeping near a tall tree. It had a lot of fur on its body. It's apparently a four legged fellow.

"What is that?" I asked Zero.

"Let's see..." Zero observed the large monster, "It has fangs, and also a blade on its tail. Some parts of its body seemed to have no fur at all and that part all seemed to look like it was artificially made."

"Artificially made?"

"This is it." He ignored my question. "This is the monster that we need to take out." Zero slowly made his way to the monster while leaving me behind.

What does he meant by artificially made? And how does he know that was what we've been looking for? This has got to be one of the most confusing moments for me. I hope I get some answers after all of this...

TO BE CONTINUED