Chapter 320: Darkness
Chapter 320: Darkness
Adam, dragging his feet behind him, walked down a long hallway of the safe room. The exhaustion from the endless fights came crashing down.
He was also mentally exhausted.
The torturous training session with Alastor.
The marble match with the other warlords.
There was nothing that he would've liked more than to just lay down and sleep on a soft bed.
'Right, Rawkshawn? Is that bastard here?' Adam thought. 'I don't hear screams. Maybe everyone is already dead?'
With those thoughts, he finally stepped out of the hallway and arrived at the safe room's front lounge.
Instead of chaos and panic, he saw all the new tutorial-takers spending time with their friends in the nearby cafeteria, laughing and chatting.
It was quite late, so there weren't that many around as they had gone to sleep, but it didn't look like Rawkshawn had done anything.
'Everything is fine here?' Adam frowned and touched his injured waist as he made up the stairs to find out if anyone had seen Rawkshawn.
When he reached the top of the stairs, he accidentally tripped, and almost crashed into a wall. He barely managed to hold himself up, but the day's exhaustion was really getting to him.
"Are you alright, mister?"
A voice came.
It sounded very familiar!
Adam's eyes widened, and he turned around to see a sweet-looking Handler holding stacks of papers. She seemed to have also recognized him, even though he had changed quite a lot since the tutorial days.
"Muriel!" Adam exclaimed.
"A-Adam." Muriel whimpered in shock and looked at his sad state with a stunned look. "What happened to you?"
"Have you seen a gigantic man walk here?" Adam asked.
"N-no." Muriel shook her head and asked. "Do you need medical care? You don't look to be in good shape..."
At that moment, she noticed that he was bleeding black blood-the blood of the sickness.
"Oh no..." Muriel's eyes shook. "You caught the sickness?"
"That doesn't matter." Adam said with his teeth gritted. "Dakota, where is she?"
"Sleeping, I guess." Muriel said.
"Take me to her, please." Adam begged with urgency in his voice.
"Uhmn, alright, follow me!" Muriel said as she led Adam to Dakota's room.
It was outside the tutorial-takers quarters, on a separate floor where the Handlers, and the staff of the tutorial slept.
She knew where Dakota's room was and led him straight there.
Without caring about noise, Adam knocked loudly at the door.
Muriel looked around, worried that other people would wake up.
Slowly, the door opened, just barely ajar. Dakota peeked through the gap, as if she were afraid of someone.
However, as soon as she saw Adam, she almost teared up.
"Adam!"
Shockingly, she pulled him inside and did the same to Muriel before slamming the door shut.
"Dakota, what is going on?" Muriel asked in worry.
"Adam..." Dakota hugged him tightly and grabbed his shirt tight. "You made it..."
"What is going on?" Adam asked. "Have you seen a person named-"
"Yes!" Dakota knew exactly who he was talking about. "I did!"
"Where?" Adam's expression turned cold.
"He is here." Dakota whispered into his ear. "He is keeping everyone here hostage. I don't know where he is currently, but I can feel his presence everywhere!"
Muriel was stunned. She was quite out of loop, but she had never seen Dakota so scared before.
"He is still here?" Adam frowned. "Why?"
"You will be in danger!" Dakota shouted. "That guy can tell immediately that you're here. His Kiryoku is everywhere."
"No need to worry; he can't tell that I am here." Adam said. "After all, my Kiryoku is superior!"
Dakota's eyes shook, and as she tried to test him with her Kiryoku, she could tell that his Kiryoku was the strongest one she'd ever come across!
'How? Just in a short year...' Dakota gulped.
"Now, tell me everything!" Adam said.
"That guy is waiting..." Dakota gritted her teeth. "He will meet with King Moriarty!"
"With the King, why?" Adam asked with a frown and immediately remembered the thing that happened with Nerezza.
It sounded a lot like it was the King who put the hit on him.
"King Moriarty has betrayed humanity!" Dakota said in anger. "He is working with that
bastard!"
"W-what?!" Muriel's mind almost exploded.
She couldn't believe it.
Among the Originals, King Moriarty was a legendary figure-almost like a god in their eyes- and if anyone even suggested him of treason, everyone would have thought it was a joke.
"..." Adam's face turned pale. "That is not good."
With King Moriarty on their side, he thought that Rawkshawn could be beaten. However, if he
worked alongside him, humanity was doomed.
"T-that can't be..." Muriel collapsed on the ground.
"King Moriarty is coming to here." Dakota said. "He might already be here. Who knows!"
"I need proof..." Adam said. "Do you have Pearl of Recording?"
"Y-yes..." Dakota nodded. "It should be in the watch room."
"Get me it." Adam said. "I'll go watch their little meeting."
"What if they discover you?" Dakota asked. "They will kill you and everyone else!"
"They won't see me." Adam closed his eyes, and his presence vanished.
His aura, and everything between, was just gone.
Dakota and Muriel looked shocked. If they looked for a brief second away from Adam, they wouldn't even know that he was in the same room as them!
It was almost like he was completely invisible!
"A-alright, I'll get you the Pearl of Recording!" Dakota headed out of the room to get it asn/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
soon as possible.
She knew what Adam was planning, and she was completely on board with the plan. It could be their only chance of exposing King Moriarty for what he really was.
"H-how can you stay so calm?" Muriel asked. "You just found out that the man that everyone
loves is actually a traitor."
"Everyone has two sides to themselves." Adam said. "I always knew that King Moriarty couldn't be the hero everyone believed him to be. I was sure he had also his darkness, but this
did take me by surprise."
"Do you... also have darkness inside you?" Muriel asked.
"Of course," Adam said. "Everyone does."