Chapter 75. Surrounded Outside

“Look! It’s the entrance!” Nicole exclaimed, taking a few quick steps to the red veil that stood at the edge of the Tainted Land. “We’re finally back! Yay!”

It took a while to go back from the place where we last fought with the centipede-like Unholy Dark Beast; mostly because it was much deeper than the spot where the first one would be.

Luckily, the first Unholy Dark Beast hadn’t reformed by the time we went past its spot, so we had a relatively calm return to the entrance, only being bothered by a handful of Dark Beasts that Nicole easily took down.

“Wait,” Asteora said, causing Nicole to stop and turn to look at Asteora before the girl took a step into the veil. “I should be the first one to step outside.”

“Eh? Why is that? isn’t it supposed to be safe once we leave the Magic Red Zone?” Nicole asked, her hand slowly lowering away from the veil.

I was also curious about the reason why she couldn’t just step outside, but then I remembered what happened the last time I was here, where Igladith was waiting for me with a small platoon of armed people, and I understood why Asteora didn’t want to let the girl go first.

However, I waited for Asteora to give her reasoning.

“There might be people waiting for me outside, and it would cause quite the commotion if they see you come out and not me.”

Saying that, Asteora finally touched the ground with her feet after not doing so over the last few days, creating a dry tapping sound from the soles of the elegant shoes she was wearing. Those sounds repeated themselves as she walked to the veil, where Nicole stood aside with a confused expression that she then shot at me.

I also didn’t know how to react to this, so I spoke up before Asteora left the place. “What about us? Should we wait a while longer to leave? Or do we follow right after?”

“You should follow right after me. It wouldn’t do any good to anyone if people saw you walk in with me, only to see me come out alone,” Asteora said, a step away from the red veil. “Be prepared… it’s going to get… annoying.”

I frowned deeply from her answer. If someone like her said that something was going to be annoying, it could only mean that there’s trouble on the way. I reached for the Darkness and Hellfire within me, and had it ready with the sword at hand to protect myself and Nicole.

Asteora noticed what I was doing and half-turned her face to look at the dark mist that was gathering in my closed fist. She chuckled and shook her head. “Don’t do that. It would only make things more annoying.”

I raised my eyebrows slightly. “What do you mean?”

“You’ll understand once you step outside,” she said, turning to face the red veil.

Without elaborating more on what exactly she meant, Asteora took a step outside the Tainted Land, leaving both me and Nicole confused about what to do next.

“U-um, so… Do we leave right now, or…?” Nicole asked.

“She did say to follow right after, so we shouldn’t wait for too long,” I said, turning to the girl and gesturing her to follow. “Come on.”

It wouldn’t do any good to have her fall under danger if I simply trusted what Asteora said. So it was better if I kept her as close as I could to face whatever was waiting for us outside.

She looked at me for a moment, before taking a deep breath and grabbing my arm. “Alright.”

Without wasting any more time, we stepped outside, and were immediately inundated by the sounds of people shouting, artifacts making sounds, and a wave of people that gathered around my old master, keeping her stuck just a handful of steps away with her face half-turned to look at us.

“Took you long enough,” she said, turning to face the people that stood in every direction.

I was left stunned. It looked similar to the way that believers and followers of mine would do to me back in our world, but there were some differences. In this case, the people didn’t appear to be there hoping to find some form of salvation or peace in their lives—no, to the contrary, it looked more like they were desperate to get something out of Asteora, as they pushed and barged each other with an artifact in their hands; all of them shouting things over each other.

“Lady Asteora! Why did you come to this Magic Red Zone?! Are we in danger of—”

“SSS Rank Mage! Over here! Channel One! If you could just share a few words—!”

“I’m from the Elementalists Corporation! A word, Lady Asteora!”

And so forth was what all of these people were shouting. Asteora seemed completely uninterested in interacting with these people—something that she carried from the old world, as she despised when the nobles tried to get closer to her—but in this case, she seemed to be ready to blow them all away.

It was while doing this that the people surrounding her finally took notice of both me and Nicole. The few of them that weren’t able to get close to Asteora quickly turned on their heels to come over to me.

Nicole grabbed my arm harder and got as close to me as she could, even holding my arm with her other free hand.

“Excuse me! How are you related to Lady Asteora?” one of them asked, and the others followed suit, shouting and repeating similar things to what the others were trying to shout at Asteora.

“What is the meaning of this?” I said, as I pulled Nicole along to get closer to Asteora.

She sighed and shook her head. “Just a common mob, trying to get something out of me for their best interests…”

The loud shouting of people that tried to get something out of Asteora kept coming for a while, and everywhere I looked, I just saw people who were desperately trying to get our attention, so I wasn’t sure how we were going to get out of this situation without getting violent.

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As I was thinking about that, I saw a large figure approaching from the back of the hall.

“Alright people! I’m sure that they’re very tired after coming out of such a dangerous place! As Director of the Magic Red Zone, I ask you to please clear the way!” Bo’guth shouted, causing the people to look back at him.

But most people didn’t move from their spots. Because of that, Bo’guth began lightly pushing them aside—even carefully picking a couple of them up and lightly putting them to the side as he made his way to us.

Once he was in front of Asteora, he widely smiled, before turning to face the mob of people who seemed rather annoyed by his appearance.

“We’ll be moving to the VIP resting zone now! If they want to answer your questions, you’ll have to wait a little longer!” he shouted with his arms spread open as if covering us. He turned his face to us and said in a voice that would be audible mostly only to us. “Come, I’ll guide you out of here.”

Without thinking anything about it, we all walked after him. But even despite moving away, the people with the artifacts and the different kinds of organizations that they belonged to would still shout and beg for a word from either Asteora or both me and Nicole—but it was mostly out of Asteora.

“Wait!” someone shouted, but like every one of them, we ignored him. “I’ve seen that girl! She’s the Hero of the Holy Gods!”

It was then that the people quieted down slightly, with a few of them turning to face me. However, most of them turned to look at the person that shouted that as if he was just an idiot.

Bo’guth, however, half-turned to look at me as we kept walking. “Don’t answer anything, and don’t pay attention to it.”

I nodded and turned my attention away from them as I focused on Bo’guth wide back.

“Hey! You cannot deny her the right to speak!” someone shouted, and a few other people followed suit, to the point where some of them were booing at Bo’guth for what he was doing.

I worried that perhaps the people here would do something that I would’ve done in the past, where they would go out of their way to attack a demon for simply being a demon, but the few of them just kept their annoying attitude without taking a step forward. If I were to guess why they wouldn’t do anything, it would most likely be because almost none of them had the magic power to stand up to Bo’guth, much less Asteora.

After a while of slowly moving behind Bo’guth, we were finally out of the mob of people, who were still closely following after us, just as loud and noisy as they were from the start.

Instead of leading us to the entrance of the building, Bo’guth turned to the stairs that led to his office, and quickly moved to take us there. Behind us, a group of people dressed in armor and carrying the kind of weapons that I was used to seeing, stood in the way to make sure that none of the people in the mob could go past them.

I worried that with how much they were shouting, that things would turn violent, but they all just stood a few steps away, still trying to get a word out of us.

“U-um… is your office the VIP resting area?” Nicole asked, now holding on to my arm slightly and not quite as hard as before.

Bo’guth loudly laughed while shaking his head. “No, of course not. But I couldn’t take you there, as some of the most powerful people are using it, and I think you don’t want to be surrounded by an even more powerful mob asking the same questions.

“Ah, I see. But is your office any better? I mean… it has that large window that overlooks the lobby… wouldn’t they be easily able to see us from down there?” Nicole pointed out with her question, and I got a strange feeling from the knowledge that people were going to be looking at us from the window.

Bo’guth chuckled this time, raising a finger up in the air and waving it in denial. “Oh you’ll see. Mine’s a pretty nice office.”

As we were just a few steps away from it, I took notice of the woman standing by Bo’guth’s door. It was the same woman that we always met in this place, a ’Miss Gaos’ if I recall her name properly.

I hadn’t really paid attention to her, but she was an elegant woman, with a slightly brighter hair color to mine which almost made it seem blonde, cut short to be at neck height. She was shorter than me, at about the same height as Nicole, and her skin color was like that of pale wheat.

She was dressed similarly to Bo’guth, with elegant dark clothes, and carrying a soft smile that matched the clothes she was wearing. Somehow, she also gave me a different aura than the one she usually portrayed the last few times that I came here. It was as if she was a noble from my world.

“Welcome back, Director. I prepared a few things for your guests to rest in the office,” she said, opening the door to the office and gesturing for us to go in.

The office was slightly different from the last couple of times I was here, as the large space that was between Bo’guth desk and the door had now a smaller desk to the side with a computer, a couple of long couches, a small table in the middle of them, and a tray of food and drinks to the side.

“Huh? You didn’t have to do those things. It’s not part of your job description,” Bo’guth said while scratching a horn.

“Well, it’s not a normal situation, so I had to treat it differently,” Miss Gaos replied, “Besides, ours is a very important institution—of combat and danger—as such, we must be able to be as dynamic as our fighters are in combat.”

Bo’guth smiled widely, vigorously nodding as he did. “That’s right! That’s right! Good job Miss Gaos. Would you like to have something from the few things that you brought?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think I should. I get the feeling we’re going to have to deal with a few annoying things in a bit. I’ll be taking measures in the meantime so nobody comes to bother you.”

“Very well,” Bo’guth said with an acknowledgement nod. “Do remember to take your active pauses and to stay hydrated.”

Miss Gaos smiled and nodded. “Of course.”

Saying that, she left the room and closed the door behind her, leaving us alone in the office. Bo’guth walked over to his desk and the large window, where he pressed an engraving to the side of the wall, and the window suddenly changed to an opaque shade that would still allow light to come in, but kept anything from outside from being seen.

“Please, make yourselves comfortable,” Bo’guth said, sitting by his desk on the large chair.

Asteora didn’t hesitate, going over to the food tray and taking as many fruits as she could hold, and even lifting a few others with magic as she brought them over to the couch where she plopped, crossing her legs and cutting open a fruit I had never seen before with a swift flip of her finger.

It was a round, tough-looking fruit with a reddish exterior that had a few green folds all over it. Once Asteora opened it, I saw a white interior with black dots inside. Asteora didn’t seem to think too much about it as she ate it.

But I couldn’t help a frown. “What is that?”

“Pitahaya!” Nicole exclaimed.

“Dragon Fruit,” Bo’guth said at the same time as Nicole.

I had never heard of either of those things, as the only thing I ever knew from dragons was either, combat, magic, caves, or eggs, and the only thing that one could eat like that was the eggs—not that I’d ever even tried, as a dragon would first die and destroy its eggs with itself than let anyone near them.

“You should have some. It’s really sweet,” Asteora said, pointing at the few other fruits that were laying on the tray as she turned her eyes to Bo’guth. “I must say, that assistant of yours is quite competent; to even bring the sorts of things that I like.” She took another bite out of the fruit. “It’s quite nice to have these. They’re not easy to find in the Leyfallan Empire territories.”

Bo’guth laughed. “I can imagine, yes.”

As I was approaching the tray of food, there was quick knocking from the door. Before anyone inside could answer or ask who it was, Miss Gaos opened it.

“Director, there’s a few of people here that—”

Miss Gaos stopped herself when she noticed that Asteora had her hands full of fruits and was currently in the middle of taking a bite out of one.

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Nicole!” a woman shouted.

“Nicky!” another man followed up.

And like them, another couple of men followed up, moving aside from the wry-smiling Miss Gaos.

Nicole turned to look at the people who were rushing into the office with a surprised expression. “Mom? Dad?”