Life Hunter

"The real problem is with the body. There"s a lot of people thinking it"s a good idea to imagine their bodies as the separate storage. But they don"t know how it works. When they store things in their bodies, the objects will literally appear in their bodies, with a miniature form"

"In then end, when there"s too much" Arima spread his arms "Boom" He said and the students paled. Arima laughed lightly "If some of you are using that, you really should abandon it. Unless you want some objects to lock your veins or arteries, damage your organs until you die, and then recover their original size and destroy your body from the inside"

Arima said and everyone shook their head madly. The ones who used this type of storage once were already sweating and taking out everything they could have stored.

"Don"t make a mess please" Arima said quickly "Well, I won"t go speak further about s.p.a.ce, I pretty much talked about almost everything" He stood up "That"s the end of this period anyway" He said and the students nodded. Except the twenty or so students Arima had gathered until now, the forty others left.

While the people were leaving and, in the time between the next cla.s.s, a cat-girl from Arima"s group raised her hand "Do you have a question Melody?" Arima looked at her and asked. She was one of the talents Arima had picked up. An expert with Earth magic and a gentle kid.

"Well, to be exact I wanted to talk with teacher about something" She answered with an awkward tone.

Arima peered at her "What is it?"

"I wanted to ask if teacher had heard about the latest rumors?" She said with a solemn expression.

"Rumors?" Arima frowned and tilted his head "What is it? I"m sorry but I didn"t pay attention to the news these days"

"Oh, are you talking about those rumors with the "deviants"?" Arister exclaimed and asked. Arima turned to look at him. Karma, Lanya and Night also started listening.

"Yes" Melody responded "The rumor says that lately, there are apparitions of strange creatures in the night that attack innocent people. People started to call them deviants" She explained and the other students nodded, they had heard the same thing.

"One of the knights under my father reported us the same thing. But we have no proof at all" Ofia also said.

Arima circled his desk and sat down on the chair, which he rarely did "Are you sure it isn"t a prank or a farce that went out of control?" He asked.

It was Lena who shook her head first "No, I don"t think so" Arima was surprised and looked at her "For a simple rumor to spread like this, even to the extent where the King hears it, it"s not something that should be ignored" She said with a grave tone. She seemed to possess a strong sense of justice.

"But if it"s like that, then the royal family should have sent people to investigate it, right?" Isla asked and Ofia nodded.

"We did, but for now, there"s no result, as I said, we never found a proof that this rumor is true" She said then looked at Arima "Teacher, what are your thoughts?" She said and everyone concentrated on Arima.

The latter sighed "Well, from what I just heard, I can deduce three things" He said and raised one finger "One, this rumor has apparently a high chance of being true, as it already spread that much, as you said. We can also consider that there"s actually a lot of victims already. For a rumor to spread, you need the foundations to be solid, meaning that there"s enough disappearances for a rumor that big to appear"

He raised another finger "Two, if it"s true, then they are not acting mindlessly. Spreading a rumor this much, but not finding a single hint about the source is very strange. Meaning that someone is erasing every trace and eliminating any witnesses. And apparently, they also have the intelligence to avoid soldiers"

Arima raised another finger "Three, if this whole thing is true and the previous point is indeed valid, then that means there"s a motive. It would mean that there is someone behind the curtains to which the killing of innocents has any sort of benefit. If it"s to create panic, it would be completely stupid to erase their traces, so it"s not that"

Up to this point, the twenty students were already astounded by Arima"s a.n.a.lysis.

"The second thing we could consider would be some madman who just wants to kill people. Although it"s not like people like that don"t exist, but it"s very unlikely. Then the last idea I can come up with is that there is some reason, an advantage or a profit, to killing these people. Maybe it"s a also way to do something"

"You said strange monsters. It can"t be actual "monsters", since it"s very hard to control them, even if you do it with Mind magic, it"s impossible to not leave any trace like this. So, let"s call them, as you said, deviants. There"re different ways to create this kind of creatures, darkness magic, death magic, life magic and soul magic. These are mostly things I still didn"t teach you about, but I can tell you that it"s possible to create creatures like that with it"

"With Death magic, it"s possible to curse a body to make him transform into something else, not really an undead though. With Life magic, you can directly change the composition of a body, even create a new one. With soul magic, you can create any kind of personality and transfer them into a corpse or a doll. With darkness magic, you can use the theory of, what people like to call, h.e.l.l" Arima said.

The students breathed in cold air. And Arister"s eyes narrowed "h.e.l.l?" He muttered.

"Yeah" Arima answered "I don"t know if the place we call h.e.l.l actually exists, but if Heaven is a thing, then the opposite is not impossible at all. And either Darkness magic and Death magic, or both, could maybe form a path between here and there. And the problem is not if h.e.l.l really exists or not, with this kind of theory, you could very well summon imaginary monsters" Arima stood up.

He sighed "Anyway, in the end, if that rumor is actually true" He looked at Ofia "You all have a really big problem. It would mean someone is planning to invoke a large-scale ritual or maybe attack this city from inside" He said and stared at Ofia in the eyes "Tell me, who were those people that attacked you last time?" He smiled and inquired.

Ofia trembled and instantly stood up "Please excuse me" She bowed and directly left the cla.s.sroom in haste. Lena followed just after.

Afterward, Melody along with every student, Lanya, Arister and Night stared at Arima. Only Karma was kind of laid back and didn"t care.

Arima laughed lightly and waved his hand "Don"t worry, I"m sure they will take care of it in time. Anyway, as long as I am a teacher, at least this school will never fall and none of my students will get hurt. Don"t mind" He said to calm them.

"Well it"s time for the next period" Arima declared and everyone listened to the next lesson with heavy hearts, but they quickly were appeased thanks to Arima.

********************************************

The same day, at the Inn.

"Arima, maybe I have to tell you. When I received Ares"s inheritance, I learned about h.e.l.l" Arister suddenly said.

Arima"s eyes widened "Are you serious?"

"Yes" Arister responded and everyone looked at him.

"Does h.e.l.l really exist then?" Lanya asked.

"Yes, Ares managed to leave an inheritance with some of his knowledge so I can say, it exists" Arister said "But it"s not as you may think. h.e.l.l is not really a place where the dead goes, nor it is a place for redemption" He paused "Well, actually, it"s closer to the latter" He smiled wryly.

"What do you mean?" Arima asked.

"The ones admitted in h.e.l.l are rare people that actually had some power while they were alive, and also were extremely lucky to be caught by h.e.l.l. That place is something like an afterlife. If one is lucky, well, or unlucky, enough to have his soul and mind saved by h.e.l.l, they have a chance to resurrect. But most of them become crazy because of h.e.l.l"s environment"

"It"s not called h.e.l.l for no reason. Apparently, it"s an infinite land of despair, the legend says that if you survive long enough there, you"ll have a chance to be revived" Arister explained.

"Did Ares go there?" Night inquired.

"No, he got that information by someone who claimed to have escaped h.e.l.l" He said "That person told that he was lucky, he hadn"t been in h.e.l.l for a long time but a portal formed not far from him one day, which allowed him to escape"

"I see" Arima exclaimed "So a portal to the underworld is really possible, huh?"

"Yes, it"s probably true" Arister nodded.

"Well, as long it"s a place existing somewhere in this plane, I"m confident in reaching it with the second white art" Arima shrugged and said.

"The second white art?" Lanya and Arister exclaimed together.

"It"s basically an ultrrange transfer magic. The places it can bring you to are only limited by your imagination. But still too dangerous for you to handle" Night explained.

"Well, I"ll just mobilize some familiars across the entire city. I"ll soon know what are those deviants" Arima said.

Karma laughed "As expected from you. Always so practical"

Arima frowned "Is that a compliment?" He shot a glance at her.

"Of course, it is" Karma smiled. Arima sighed and stood up.

"I"ll wander around the town for a moment. I"ll put around ten thousand familiars, it should be enough" Arima declared. Lanya and Arister almost fell from their seats when they heard that number.

"How do you plan to control that much familiars?" Arister asked with a twitching expression.

"I developed a parallel thought magic lately, although the created "Minds" don"t possess a big capacity, compared to the original one, it should be enough if I make many of them" Arima explained.

Arister listened wide eyes "Teach me that magic!" Lanya and Arister both shouted.

"Sure, next time" Arima said and teleported away.

For an hour after that, Arima visited the city really quickly while leaving magic familiars everywhere. He then created numerous parallel Minds and connected them to the familiars. They were all small animals or insets capable of camouflage. Cats, dogs, mice, rats, spiders, falcons flying above, and many others. Except some, particularly centipedes, each familiar was ordered to destroy them completely if they met one.

"Do you realize you"re bullying some insects that did nothing to you?" Night asked while he was on Arima"s shoulder.

The latter was looking at the city from the FDA"s roof in the night "...I don"t care" Arima retorted and Night sighed in helplessness.

"Should be enough" Arima muttered and sat down on the roof. He laid down and looked at the sky, admiring the stars. Night jumped on his chest and sat on it.

"What? You"re star-gazing now?" The latter asked and turned to look up too.

"Well, it was a hobby of mine when I was a kid" Arima answered and closed his eyes "I"ll sleep here for tonight" He added and Night hummed before laying down.