Zevien and Vernisia came out from the star door at the bottom of the abyss and fell flat on their faces.
After they stood up and looked around, their bodies involuntarily shivered. They were in a garden, and the borders of the garden had four blood crystals that shone brightly and lit up the place in red.
A path led out from the garden towards a giant palace with black clouds looming over it. The path also had red crystals to light up the way toward the castle.
"What should we do now?" Vernisia asked as she locked her arms with Zevien's arms. The atmosphere in this place was too creepy and cold, making her shiver uncontrollably.
Zevien's expression was also somber as he felt the same thing. The danger of this place was not something that he could bear, that was for sure. "Let's just stay in this garden until we are kicked out of the labyrinth," he said.
Zevien created an Omni-Barrier around them as both of them sat down on the red grassy ground of the garden.
After thirty minutes of staying extra cautious and tense, Zevien and Vernisia loosened up because, aside from the creepy atmosphere and place, there was nothing that seemed dangerous.
"It seems that there are no living beings here," Vernisia said before she looked at the flowers. "Those blood rose flowers looked really mystical. I've never seen such red roses with shining silver patterns."
"I'll go check," Zevien said as he stood up.
"Wait! I'll come with you," Vernisia said as she also stood up, and both of them walked towards the nearest blood rose flowers.
Zevien crouched down and plucked out a blood rose flower. "Hmm, it looks like a high-quality ingredient, but I don't know what tier it is."
"Let's wait before we pluck the rest of the flowers," Vernisia said as she looked around. "There's no real danger so far, but my anxiousness is not going away."
"Yeah," Zevien nodded as he also felt the same.
Both of them cautiously sat down as Zevien cast Omni-Barrier around them. This time, he covered the entire garden by consuming more mana to increase the barrier size.
ραпdα nᴏνɐ| сom After waiting another thirty minutes, they finally started plucking all the blood roses from the garden.
…
In Starlight City, Black Star underground area…
Inside a warehouse belonging to a gang in the underground area, four people were brought here just a minute ago. Black Hawk kidnapped them.
"What do you want? Why did you kidnap us?" Amon asked with a frown. "For your information, we are government employees, so if we are missing, they will soon start searching, even if nobody told our disappearance to the police."
"Release us without doing anything stupid, and we can reduce your punishment," Susan said with a somber expression.
"W-why did you kidnap us?" the other middle-aged man with short blond hair said with fear in his eyes, unlike Amon and Susan, who were headstrong. This man was Erica's father, Martin.
The middle-aged woman beside him was Erica's mother, Bella. She had long hair, and they were red, just like Erica's. All four of them were 3rd class magicians.
All four of them were bound by a rope and sat on different chairs. Erica's mother tried to remove the rope using her magic, but her face changed as the rope tightened when she tried to use her mana.
"Don't try to escape by using magic on that rope. It will backfire and tighten you more," said Black Hawk as he sat on the chair leisurely.
"What do you want from us?" Amon grunted.
Suddenly, a man entered the warehouse by opening the door. "Hey, boss. They are some big fish s-"
Before the man could finish his sentence, a dark gold knife appeared in front of his neck. "I told you to stay out!" Black Hawk said under his breath, with a cold glint flashing in his eyes.
"You're not a 2nd class magician?" Bella was startled, and so were Amon and others. They thought the kidnapper was a 2nd class magician when they were on their way from here, but he turned out to be a 1st class magician!
"Get out! I'm sealing the door now. If anyone touches it, they will die," Black Hawk snorted before he spared the man.
"Y-yes, s..sir."
After the man left, Black Hawk indeed used a Curse-type enchantment spell that affected the warehouse. Now, whoever touched the warehouse from outside will instantly die as long as they were weaker than 2nd class magicians.
"Alright, so where were we? Ah yes, what do I want from you…," Black Hawk smiled behind his black mask with white patterns. "Well, I did kidnap you today despite having made the plans just yesterday. Because today was a day off for you, and it was too good to pass on this opportunity. I haven't had a wink for the past 48 hours for this, you know?"
Leaning back on the chair and swinging it on two legs, Black Hawk laughed. "I doubt the government will notice your disappearance until someone reports it to the police. Even if they did report, it would take time for them to reach here, and by the time they do, I will have achieved my goal. So, let's start."
'Goal?' Amon noticed something and had a bad feeling regarding this kidnapping.
"What I want from you is a person called Alucard," Black Hawk smiled. "Now you may know him, but not personally. However, your daughter's friend knows Alucard very personally. That friend is Zevien."
"Zevien? Why would he know about Alucard?" Amon frowned.
"Because Alucard gave his Admission Medallion to Zevien so he could enroll into Skyward Academy."
"What does this have to do with my daughter?" Bella asked as she creased her brows.
"Well, your daughter is Zevien's buddy as well, hahaha." Black Hawk laughed. "I wanted to kidnap the parents of Zevien's one more buddy. But I couldn't find their information on such short notice. Though I think you four are enough, haha."
"Call your daughters and tell them that if Alucard didn't enter the Black Star underground area in the next two hours, I will kill four of you," Black Hawk said with a cold glint with killing intent clearly visible in his eyes.
Amon, Susan, Bella, and Martin were shaken as they felt this masked guy…was not joking at all!
'Tight security around the orphanage, secret agents, and even such high protection. Hehe, either Zevien or Alucard are closely connected to the government that they are providing such high treatment to an orphanage. They likely won't hand over the X-Door crystal even if I threaten these four, but I can still try that before killing Alucard,' Black Hawk thought as he cooked his plan.
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