Chapter 57

  Forming The Team

  Just walking onto the lands, I can tell that the earth has been disturbed in some way. It’s almost as if the ground itself is letting me know that it has been defiled.

  Which is odd as my first few times here, I did not get such a reception. This time however, I could almost feel the moment that I entered Bloom Park. I could almost feel the geographic boundary that separates Bloom Park from the street and made it its own entity.

  Perhaps seeing something in my face, my mentor chose that moment to talk, “did you feel that?”

  I nod, not quite trusting my voice to betray me. As my mind is going through a number of alien sensations.

  “That’s good, it means that the lands have started to accept you,” Madame Bloom continued.

  “The lands?” I ask, not quite knowing what exactly she meant. At my question, I could see Madame Bloom stiffen for a moment, almost as if trying to figure out exactly how much she wanted to tell me.

  Seeing her hesitation, I too paused as I wondered exactly what she was debating. Clearly it had something to do with the condition of what was happening here, but I couldn’t quite figure out why she would hesitate.

  “Yes,” she began and once again scanned me using her intrusive search. The one that felt like I was having my soul searched, exposed, and laid bare before the world. Which in a way was exactly what was happening. “I think part of it is due to your wild and untapped affinity with Earth magic. Your affinity along with your distinct class that is showing your body and more importantly your mind how magic works, could be causing your body to try to find uses for your just as large, but mostly untapped affinity for Earth Magic.”

  There was a slight pause as we both thought over that development, before she continued, “it could also be a sign that these sacred lands have also accepted you.”

  “Accepted me?” Again, I find myself parroting her words back to her, but I haven’t heard of such a thing.

  “Yes, there is a reason these lands are sacred to not just me, but the Bloom family in general,” Madame Bloom began. “But come on, we don’t want to leave our guests waiting.”

  I almost found myself echoing back her comments to her for a third straight time, but I stopped myself. Especially as I saw the slight smirk forming on Madame Bloom’s porcelain like face. Seeing the needling twinkle in her eyes, I could see that she was getting a lot of satisfaction about leading me on in such a way. A game that mentors apparently choose to play with their mentees, I guess.

  Pout. Madame Bloom actually pouts, but even that look causes her face to still be youthful and pretty. Does she practice that? It has to be hard to get a pout to look like that, at least I assume so, which is why I don’t pout, even coquettishly. Still, if I could look like that while pouting, I might try.

  “You’re no fun,” Madame Bloom finally gives in, and it is at this point that I think I am finally seeing the real Madame Bloom. Not the polished aristocratic family head, but the real too tired to put on airs, so she instead chooses to show her true personality. I am just getting used to this semi-playful side of her when her mask slips back on, and she declares, “fine then, come on let’s meet up with the rest of our unit.”

  “Unit?” I shoot back, not even catching myself for repeating her yet again. Hearing my third repeat, Madame Bloom smiles brightly as if she just won some type of event.

  “Haha, yes!” Madame Bloom states, and then turns to Markan. “Told you I could get her.”

  Markan who still looks as tired as I feel just shoots back, “it is still early in the morning for these types of games.”

  Hearing the two speak, I can almost see a sort of deep personal connection. Not just that of a house master and servant, but of something deeper. It is only after watching their odd byplay for a moment that I feel I’ve gained something.

  “Did you used to be her Apprentice as well?” I ask Markan.

  At the comment both Markan and Madame Bloom look shocked for a moment, but then their faces quickly shift to a more disgusted expression. They look like they are about to open their mouths in protest, but are quickly halted by the most unlikely of reasons.

  Chuckle.

  The deep mischievous laugh of Mr. Yi cuts in, keeping the two from saying whatever it was that they both seemed to be thinking about at that time. Seeing Mr. Yi laugh, I can’t help but stare at the normally stoic mentor for a moment.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Finally, after a long minute of us walking and me not taking my gaze away from Mr. Yi, he finally gets annoyed enough to speak.

  “What?”

  Hearing his words, I pause and then just reply honestly, “nothing. I just didn’t know you could laugh.”

  With that, Mr. Yi just stares at me with a serious expression, then before he can say anything both Markan and Madame Bloom burst into raucous laughter causing a faint shade of crimson to appear on his already darkened features.

  “Oh, and she made the unflappable yaoguai slayer blush! Look at him!” Markan shot back.

  Hearing the word yaoguai, I paused. While I had heard it in my past life, it was a term that relates to supernatural creatures that are more often than not malevolent. However, this was the first time that I had heard such a word used here. Not wanting to add to Markan’s tally of repeats for the day, I just turn to Mr. Yi and ask, “is that your class, yaoguai Slayer?”

  For his part, Mr. Yi paused and seemed to stare at me for a moment but then shook his head.

  “No, not a slayer, I am a Yaoguai Qūmóshī,” just hearing him speak in his native language made me want to again parrot his word as it was one, I had never heard of before. Fortunately, Mr. Yi was not into the repetition game that Madame Bloom and Markan seemed to partake in, as he quickly let me out of my questioning misery. “It is what would loosely translate to my being a Supernatural Exorcist.”

  Hearing his class title and seeing how skilled he was with a sword and other weapons, I was fairly certain that he wasn’t the pray and come to Jesus kind of exorcist. Not that Jesus was a figure here, at least not that I have found thus far. Despite the fact that the cross still exists in this world as a symbol of healing. However, the cross has been altered slightly as it is almost always depicted in green, as stylized by the silver medallion that Master gave me last night. I assume once I go through the official rites and get my real seal, I will get my own silver medallion, but that might come later. Still the medallion had both a green jade outline and a cross that was also seemingly made of jade as well, I assume the choice in coloration comes from the color of healing mana when it is observed in the wild. At least, that is the best reason I can come up with at the moment. I am going over these thoughts and more as my mind is becoming more and more alive with each step I take.

  Yet, despite my moving, I can’t seem to get fully warm. While it is still an early fall morning, I can feel a bitter chill in the air. As if an unnatural frost seems to cover parts of my left shoulder, my forearms and my shins. With a shock, I realize the chills I am feeling coincide directly with the areas that were burned off here, a few days ago. My mind instantly goes into necromancy and the idea that blood and viscera are important in this world. This was part of why Madame Bloom made me remove all traces of myself from the DiVoratore estate. At the time, I thought it was to see my unique Skill in action, but now I wonder if there was something more to the act.

  “Fancy meeting you two strangers out here,” Markan’s loud and excited voice calls out pulling me from my inner thoughts. For a moment, I don’t register how odd the call is by the sheer familiarity that Markan seems to have with whomever he is talking to, and striding forward to apparently meet that I realize how odd the comment is, for here.

  We are after all in an abandoned park that has been condemned and has been largely treated as a public dumping ground of sorts. It isn’t until I see two fully grown adults resting on one of the cleared metal benches that I realize how out of place people are here in general, ourselves included.

  “Weell hello there comrade,” the large and unmistakably deep baritone of Mr. Karl echoes back, as his large form jumps up from beside his apparent date on the bench and runs over to greet Markan with a full-on hug.

  Slam.

  Like a controlled freight train Mr. Karl slams into Markan and gives him a huge bear hug. Again, for the second time I get to see the more jovial side of the giant man known as the dean of discipline at the school. Once again, I am reminded at just how different people can be when you catch them during their personal time.

  “Oh, and even Yokai Yi,” Mr. Karl added.

  “It’s oof—” Mr. Yi began to protest but was cut off by Mr. Karl rapidly switching targets and going to bear hug Mr. Yi so hard that any protests he had was quickly squashed, along with his lungs.

  Then turning to face Madame Bloom, he hesitated for a moment but then stopped himself and quickly rendered a half salute, “General.”

  Madame Bloom gave her own perfunctory wave, letting Mr. Karl turn his attention to me, then seeing me he charged forward and I squinted my eyes expecting a very tight bear hug, but paused when after a second, I just felt a calming pat on my head.

  Taking a chance I open my eyes to see the big frame of Mr. Karl suddenly looking even larger than life.

  “Have you bulked up?” I asked.

  “Shh, don’t tell the misses, but yes I have put on a few holiday pounds,” Mr. Karl stage whispered, making his voice purposefully loud enough for the female sitting on the bench with him to hear. Hearing his antics, the female with a giant organ type instrument just shook her head as she got up from the bench.

  The misses of course was none other than Madame Voyou, aka Death Machine, aka my music teacher. Seeing us together, waved and then hopped up, using her left leg and only stopped once she balanced herself on her skinny metal pole of a prosthetic that served as her right leg. That said, she seemed to make it a point to show off her intense blue eyes to the world, as normally in such conditions she would wear shades. At least, I had seen her wearing shades as she came into school when the sun was still rising. Now though, now she again looked like she was in her element.

  Seeing Mr. Karl and Madame Voyou join our little group, I couldn’t help but ask, “how did you know to be here?”

  “What? Us, no, I was just taking the misses here on a romantic stroll where we first met,” Mr. Karl began. As he spoke, I just looked around at the mostly gloomy place and wondered if they had actually met here, as I swear I could tell that not all of what he said was a complete lie, as there did seem to be some truth to his words.

  Rib-jab.

  Madame Voyou gave a quick poke of her elbow to Mr. Karl’s ribs, causing the big guy to wince in an overly dramatic fashion.

  “It was part of what we worked out last night, and why I had your master drive me home. So, the big lug here could see who our healer would be.” Madame Voyou stated, as she did, I could almost hear her choke on the word master, but she managed to get it out.

  Hearing that, I just nodded, but then a bigger question hit me, “wait, shouldn’t he already know who the General is?” I pressed.

  Chuckle.

  “It’s Lieutenant General, and I am too old to be going where you all will be going,” Madame Bloom responded. “No, today, I will do what I do best.”

  I just stared at her, but Mr. Karl cut in, “eat donuts and fill out supply requests for coffee?”

  At that comment, Madame Voyou glared at Mr. Karl where she responded almost spitefully, “providing overwatch.”

  “Exactly, eating donuts and filling out supply requests for coffee,” Mr. Karl replied. Hearing his banter, it was clear that these people had all worked together in the past, I’m assuming in a military role as no one objected to calling Madame Bloom a General, or Lieutenant General in this case.

  With an exasperated sigh, Madame Bloom turned to me and stated, “today we are going to scan the area looking for traces of a Death Eater, and possible summoning materials, then if time permits, you all will conduct a quick view of the Spirit rift and see if we can find any traces of what keeps it centered here.”

  Now that we had the orders, everyone seemed to immediately prepare.

  “Diamond formation around my Apprentice and me,” Madame Bloom commanded and like clockwork everyone moved into positions. Mr. Yi to the front, Markan to the left, Madame Voyou to the right, and the large and I swear still growing Mr. Karl to the rear.

  I didn’t quite understand the rationale for this formation, at least not until Mr. Yi’s eyes glowed a bright yellow with the faint golden glow, which I assumed was an odd Bloodline Skill.

  Hiss.

  A fact that was proven a moment later, when the normally cultured Mr. Yi let out a long angered hiss as his tongue seemed to have grown and now also glowed golden as it too flickered in the brisk morning air.

  “You found something?” Markan called out.

  Mr. Yi just nodded, and like that I was both wide awake, and somehow still felt that I was caught in a bad dream, one that I likely wouldn’t be waking from anytime soon.

  per day, until our reign on the top 50 stops.

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