Ch. 11 - A Black And White Dream

With a snap of a finger, the door to the dean's bedroom was covered with a thick layer of ice. The door was kicked hard until it broke and scattered all over the floor. Without hesitation, Nasura stepped over the scattered ice on the ground and walked in with a stern expression and his long blue hair flowing behind him like water.

"Uh… I'm too late. You're so cunning, Ryan." When Nasura entered the room, the first thing he saw was Ryan, the dean, hanging from the beam. He said it like a nagging mother who was a little upset. It was barely visible, but a guard's frozen corpse lay on the floor behind Nasura, outside the broken door. Nasura seemed to have killed everyone he encountered on his way up.

"Who are you...? Don't move! What is your purpose in pretending to be a tutor and killing the dean?!"

Right at that moment, Adele and the group of tutors arrived on the top floor. They saw some guards frozen into ice on the way here. So, they took some precautions. One of them had gone down to inform the guards stationed below. Adele and the other three tutors approached the door together with extreme caution.. Then, Adele happened to see Nasura, who was standing still inside the room.

Nasura turned his head slightly and saw three men and a woman dressed in teacher's robes standing behind him. He immediately put on an innocent face and said, "Calm down! When I arrived, the dean had already hanged himself. I am innocent!"

"Turn around!" The male tutor who led the group was being extra cautious. While speaking, he pulled out a small crossbow from his sleeve. The floating runes around it proved that the weapon was a magic item.

"Don't blame me for shooting if you asked for death!" he continued.

Nasura's eyes hardened in an instant. He abruptly turned around and waved his hands at the male mentor. Cold air immediately rushed towards Adele and the others. Adele's terrified expression abruptly changed 180 degrees. She excitedly brandished two knives. Her eyes were gleaming with bloodlust.

This branch's situation was messy and there was a big turmoil brewing.Paladin continued to flee into the dense woods. He discovered a clean bear cave without piles of waste, but full of healthy green grasses. He decided to pick this cave as a place to take a rest.

Paladin, who was now lying down in the cave, was secretly glad that he was a slave who was looked down upon. They let him do all the dirty work. The chefs in the branch were usually the ones responsible for traveling dozens of miles to purchase ingredients. This purchase could earn them more profits as oil and water were two of the most expensive commodities in that era. As a result, it was considered to be the better dirty work. But, no one wanted to run back and forth for tens of miles on the road. Naturally, this menial work fell to the humble and uncaring slave, Paladin. Thanks to this, Paladin was familiar with the route and able to escape safely.

More or less, he knew that there was a branch of the Freemasons' Association located at the border of the Duchy of Kasmi, the Kingdom of Aixinzhe, and the Kingdom of Nubia. Logically speaking, there should've been numerous disputes that could’ve led to war at the border shared by those three countries. But, the branch was located in a remote place. A thousand-year-old forest, complex hills, and broken barriers surrounded it. That, plus the monsters lurking in the woods. Marching and fighting? Even wanting to pass through the forest safely was out of reach for ordinary people.

Paladin smiled as he patted the muddy soil around his body. He'd made up his mind. He'd go to the Duchy of Kasmi once there was no danger anymore. The Duchy of Kasmi was different from a kingdom. It had no king, only a grand duke who bestowed the title of duke upon someone in each region of the country to govern territories that had been divided by the grand duke.

Each duke ruled and owned the land that had been passed down through their bloodline. Their ancestors had actually cooperated before the country's land was divided and distributed to each of them. The cooperation and the division of land were contradictory. As a result, the law was riddled with flaws. Furthermore, there were no such idiots who cared to fix those flawed laws.

The Duchy of Kasmi was a small country with a population of less than five million people. As far as Paladin knew, although the Duchy of Kasmi had no law enforcement, their army was notoriously tough and heroic. Paladin still remembered the tall mercenary he was introduced to, the one who admired the army of the Duchy of Kasmi. If only the Duchy of Kasmi had enough gold coins to arm and pay the army, Aixinzhe and Nubia, Kasmi's neighboring kingdoms, couldn't be considered as Kasmi's opponents! One could only imagine how powerful this duchy was.

Paladin, who had a lot of thoughts racing through his mind, felt exhaustion wash over him. Today, he had stayed up all night, had killed for the first time, had suffered from fusing with the Philosopher's Stone, and had fled for a long time. Now, it was already past his limit. He was still plotting how to make money in the duchy and live a happy life. However, before he knew it, his eyes had closed and his mind had fallen into a deep sleep.

He had no idea how long he had slept. He felt as if his entire body was stuffed into an hourglass that was still functioning. Paladin slowly opened his eyes. A blank white space. Paladin couldn't see anything with his eyes because nothing existed. There was nothing left in this world. Surprisingly, Paladin didn't seem to be shocked in the slightest.

Confused, he sat up and touched the invisible ground, which was also white. The confusion in his eyes became more and more intense.

"Who am I?"

At this moment, Paladin was as clueless as a newborn baby. He was looking at his naked body without any surprise nor shame.

"Wahh, wah… uwaah, wah, wah.."

The sound of a baby crying could be heard continuously in this quiet and frightening blank space. The voice came from behind Paladin. Perplexed, he turned around. The next thing he saw was a completely pitch-black baby lying on the ground. The baby's delicate hands and feet flailed as the irritating crying sound came from its mouth. The baby looked completely out of place in this blank space.

Right now, Paladin didn't feel afraid at all. No, it would be more accurate to say that he had no idea what it meant to be afraid. He proceeded to look at his hands and feet in confusion. And then, he slowly crawled towards the crying baby. Looking at the baby, who had no other color except pitch-black, Paladin slowly said with a neutral tone, "What… are you?"

The baby refused to communicate with Paladin. It continued to cry very loudly. Paladin couldn't help but ask again, "What are you?"

There was still no response. This blank space was starting to get annoying to him. The same could be said for the sound of the baby crying. Paladin gradually raised his hand. The baby's crying abruptly stopped as he was about to touch the baby's black skin.

There was nothing but silence. The silence was devoid of any indication of life. The space seemed even more lifeless now that the baby's crying had stopped. Paladin suddenly missed the noisy sound of the baby crying. He didn't want to bother the baby any longer and hoped the baby would continue to cry.

The baby, who had stopped crying, sat up and opened its eyes, revealing the same black eyeballs and pupils beneath. Something strange happened. The little guy, who was less than three inches away from Paladin, suddenly opened its mouth. With a rough adult voice, a mixture of a male and a female's voice that was definitely not a child's voice, it said, "I'm hungry! Feed me!"

Whoosh! Paladin abruptly opened his eyes and jumped up. But, he hit the stone ceiling of the cave above his head.

"Haah, hahh, haa..."

Fear. Paladin felt unprecedented fear all over his body. Not because there was something he was afraid of, but because of the embodiment of fear itself. Paladin's eyes were wide open. The smell of earth and grass tickled the tip of his nose. It felt nostalgic, as if he hadn’t been able to experience these for a thousand years. His hands touched the soil and stones on the ground.

After confirming that he was no longer in the blank space, he breathed a sigh of relief, patted his head, and muttered to himself, "So it was merely a dream..."

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