Warlock Apprentice

“Mister Angor, is it? I see you truly deserve your position as Mister Sunders’ disciple. Keely was right, you saved all of us.”

Angor looked back and saw a young man, who was beside the giant rhino creature, spoke to him.

Usually, he wouldn’t respond to a total stranger in such a situation. However, when he noticed that Alan was also with them, he chose to address the speaker with a smile.

“It’s only a coincidence. Besides, I probably would die there if Mister Lawson didn’t come.”

“Nevertheless, you helped greatly,” the young man said politely. “I’m Hermes, from Moxa Westland.”

Loki, the naughty kid who had been poking the rhino’s horn, chipped in, “I’m Loki, from Moxa Westland too!”

“… That’s my junior. We study from the same teacher,” Hermes explained with a frustrated look.

Angor didn’t remember anything regarding “Moxa Westland” in his memory, but he didn’t really care. Before he could ask what was going on with Alan, Loki interrupted him by asking,

“So, Brother Angor, where did you attract so many fish monsters from? Did you go to the sky?”

The abrupt question drew a lot of attention. Since they all wanted to know the answer, everyone, including Freud and Shayaron, chose to follow each other’s example and looked at Angor. No one asked yet since they couldn’t find a good time to raise the subject.

Loki’s question just helped them, either intentionally or not.

Keely frowned a little. She didn’t ask Angor because she wanted to maintain the peaceful silence.

She gave Loki an unfriendly glare that scared the kid off. “It’s none of your business. Just hide behind your senior’s back and don’t be a nuisance. Your age gives you no privilege to act freely.”

Loki tried to protest, but both Tana and Hermes signaled him to stay put.

The boy lowered his head while sulking.

Angor was pretty surprised to find out that Keely actually assisted him. Personally, he wouldn’t keep his previous adventure a secret. However, he could no longer explain now since it would put Keely in an embarrassing position.

And when Angor chose not to speak, the others could only keep advancing while pretending that they didn’t care.

They moved forward for quite a while until they realized that the lava-covered land was dramatically expanding with no sign of stopping.

They could see red-hot lava pools everywhere; even the grassland began to burn. Soon, there would be no grass left in this area.

The general mood among people began to worsen. If they didn’t find the exit soon, they would no longer have anything to stand on. And there was no way they could stay afloat since both the monster fishes and their mana reserves were huge problems.

They killed a good number of fishes along their way, which also helped Angor witness the true strength of these people. Angor now knew that he had little hope of defeating any of them in head-on fights.

Hermes was particularly strong due to his sand-manipulation abilities. In his hands, the sandstorms he unleashed did quick work by draining all life energy from any trapped fish.

Unlike Angor’s “smart moves”, Hermes could wipe out monsters using his raw power.

Nobody could say which one was stronger without actually fighting each other, but at the very least, they couldn’t deny Hermes’ deadly abilities.

After a while, they managed to catch up with the edge of the expanding lava zone.

Shayaron stopped moving and said to the others, “Let’s split. I have other things to attend to.”

Shayaron and Freud looked at each other; they then exchanged looks with Yethew. Before the three of them left the group, Yethew said in his unpleasant voice, “Sinehowze, you brought the disaster on us, and I hope you can give us an explanation soon. Of course, you’ll do us a bigger favor if you drop dead inside the garden.”

He glanced at Angor next. His ant told him that Angor was the one eavesdropping on their conversation earlier, and he would like to condemn the boy. However, he had to admit that Angor did save his life earlier. Besides, there was no good reason to get on the bad side of Sunders’ student.

Thinking about this, Yethew only nodded to Angor as a courtesy and left with Shayaron and Freud.

What Yethew just said turned Sinehowze and Carveline into the center of attention again. But like always, they didn’t care about it in the least.

“We’ll go as well,” Chocolate scoffed. “I don’t want to be anywhere near these two. Otherwise, they will drag me into another one of their stupid plots again.”

Likewise, Chocolate expressed her gratitude to Angor. She then glared at Carveline and Tana before disappearing into another direction covered by dense smoke.

Following them, most people left as well. In the end, only Keely and Angor, Sinehowze’s pair, and Hermes’ group remained.

Keely would like to be left alone as well, but she wasn’t the type to say goodbye to others. She simply steered her broomstick away and prepared to depart.

Angor released himself from the broomstick, took out his Gondola, and hopped on.

The exquisite design of the boat immediately attracted everyone. The door curtain decorated by shiny stars appeared extremely beautiful in the gloomy air.

Keely gave Angor another frown, not sure what he was up to.

Angor sat on his boat and shrugged. “Leave, if you want to. I’d like to stay with them a little longer.”

“Why would you do that?”

Angor didn’t answer her. He had been wondering what the barrier above the sky, as well as the strange hourglass, meant.

Is something going to happen two hours later?

When Lawson dealt with the Lord of Tentacles, the man mumbled something about “sacrifice was brought forward”. Did it mean that the real “sacrifice” had not started yet?

Maybe they could learn something by the time the hourglass finished its countdown.

Something told Angor that the barrier in the sky was the exit they had been looking for. However, since they could not penetrate the barrier yet, it meant that the time limit might have something to do with it.

While waiting, Angor planned to stick to Hermes’ group so that he could enjoy some peaceful time while Hermes dealt with any incoming enemies. Besides, he also needed some time to recover his mana.

More importantly, he didn’t want to accompany Keely. He never liked the girl’s attitude. Keely did fulfill her promise by coming to him, and even though he didn’t want to admit it, their teamwork earlier went pretty well.

“I promised my teacher that I’ll protect you,” Keely said in her cold voice.

Someone among the group chuckled. After witnessing how Angor fooled all those monsters, including the two wizard-level ones, what Keely said made little sense.

“Do you think I need your protection?” Angor decided to make this clear.

Keely didn’t answer. She just realized that Angor was far from being the coward and burden she assumed. Rather, judging from what he had shown until now, Angor was very likely to become a survivor in the end.

Still, she did not want to fail her professor’s order, so she chose to stay with the others as well.

In fact, the others were also wondering why Angor chose to stay. Hermes thought about continuing with his teammates only, but he found no reason to reject Angor’s decision. As for Sinehowze and Carveline… These two women had been acting shamelessly. Hermes wouldn’t want to waste his strength by forcing them to go away.

Also, Hermes got a strange feeling that both Angor and Sinehowze knew how to find the exit because they seemed so relaxed.

With different plans in mind, they all moved to one randomly-chosen direction. Nobody knew why they did so but no one provided another suggestion.

Sinehowze was giving Angor’s vehicle a lot of attention because she loved the design of it. But for some reason, she never moved to talk with Angor.

Angor, on the other hand, had been observing the man called Hermes.

Hermes had been using his flying spell all along, which probably cost a lot of mana, so Angor asked the man to join him on the boat.

When Hermes asked if he could bring Tana along, Tana gave Angor a friendly smile.

Angor felt a little dazed upon seeing Tana’s bikini-style getup, but since Hermes was obviously her partner, and the man had been taking care of their safety, Angor chose to agree.

Hermes and Tana took their rest on Gondola while the white rhino floated alongside.

While traveling, Angor secretly took a peek at Alan, who had been sleeping on the rhino’s back. Alan did not possess much strength, which made him the same level as Sailum. Angor couldn’t understand why Alan would come here at all.

Jon once told him about “the three merriest things in one life”, and one of which was to “meet an old friend in a distant land”.

Alan wasn’t really his best friend, but they did spend half a year together after leaving Old Earth. As someone who called the same place home, Angor would gladly regard Alan as a partner.

He noticed that Alan was unconscious but without any serious injuries. Alan was only knocked out by the great pressure unleashed by the Lord of Tentacles. Some rest would be good for him.

“By the way, Alan mentioned your name a lot…” Tana suddenly told Angor.