Chrites stood perfectly still, looking at the terrified expression on Linease’s face.
Her hands were held up in the air, and her eyes were wide with genuine panic.
She was completely convinced that he was going to kill her and hide her body right there behind the old history building.
The air around them was heavy and silent.
Then, suddenly, Chrites dropped his cold stare.
He let out a loud, normal laugh and took a step back.
“Relax,” Chrites said, his voice completely changing back to the average, lazy student she saw in the hallway.
“I was just kidding.
I am not going to kill you right here.
I was just joking to see how you would react.”
Linease let out a huge breath of air.
Her shoulders dropped, and she leaned heavily against the red brick wall of the school building.
She looked at him with an angry expression.
“Are you crazy?” Linease shouted in a loud whisper.
“That was not a funny joke at all!
I literally thought I was going to die today!
You cannot make jokes like that after what I saw you do last night!”
Chrites stopped laughing and looked at her seriously.
“I had to know if you were a threat to me.
But listen to me very carefully.
You cannot tell anyone about this.
You absolutely cannot tell your friends, your family, or the teachers.
This is a really big secret.
If the wrong people find out who I am, it can cause many massive problems.
People will get hurt.
Do you understand me?”
Linease nodded her head quickly.
“I understand.
I am not going to tell anyone.
I promise you.” She paused for a moment, looking at his bandaged hand.
“But I need to tell you something about me, too.
I am actually new to this academy.
I just transferred here a few days ago.”
“Okay,” Chrites said, leaning against the wall next to her.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It matters because I am not just some weak, normal student,” Linease explained, crossing her arms proudly.
“During my entrance evaluation, I scored the rank of Elite Slayer Tier 3.”
Chrites actually raised his eyebrows in surprise.
Elite Slayer Tier 3 was an incredibly high rank.
It was actually the highest rank any student could possibly get in the entire school.
Not counting the teachers or the military staff, she was probably the strongest student on the entire campus.
Most adult soldiers in the regular army never even reached the rank of Slayer, let alone an Elite Slayer.
“That is a very high rank,” Chrites admitted.
“You must be very strong.”
“I am,” Linease said confidently.
“And because I am strong, I want to do something useful with my power.
I saw how easily you defeated that wild gang last night.
Your group is incredibly powerful.
I want to know more about you.
What is the main work of your organization?”
Chrites looked around the back of the building to make sure nobody was listening to them.
The campus was completely quiet.
The other students were all still sitting inside their classrooms.
“The name of my group is The Obsidian Syndicate,” Chrites said in a quiet, serious voice.
“And our main purpose is to eradicate the monsters.”
Linease looked confused.
“Monsters?
What do you mean?
Like wild beasts in the woods?”
“I am talking about human monsters.
I am talking about psychopathic people who use mages and magic as their own personal weapons.
These people are trying to literally build a massive army of monsters to destroy the country.
They want to kill innocent people, take over the land, steal all the money, and eventually rule the entire world.”
Linease’s eyes went wide.
“Are you serious?
But why doesn’t the regular military stop them?
Why doesn’t the government do something about it?”
“Because the government is broken,” Chrites replied, his voice getting a little angry.
“Some of the top officers in the government are totally corrupt.
They are actually working together with the leaders of the other continents to make this evil army.
They are getting paid to look the other way.
That is exactly why my organization has to work in the shadows.
We cannot trust the police or the military.
We have to crush these bad guys ourselves.”
“That sounds incredibly dangerous,” Linease said, looking down at the ground.
“Crushing them is not an easy task that you can just do in one day,” Chrites told her.
“To destroy them completely, we are building great forces.
We are collecting smart and strong people.
Right now, we have a really big force and powerful allies.
Some of our members are in the Master ranks, and some of them are Elite Slayers, just like you.”
Linease looked back up at him.
“Are there a lot of bad organizations working against you?”
“Yes, there are many of them across the different continents,” Chrites explained.
“There is not just a single organization.
But the greatest threat to us right now, the one that is the nearest to us inside this country, is an organization named DTN.”
“DTN?” Linease repeated the name slowly.
“I have never heard of them before.”
“They keep their name a secret from the public,” Chrites said.
“But this organization, DTN, is not a weak group at all.
As you might think, it is a very big organization.
It consists of many dangerous members.
They have fighters at the Master level, and even at the rank of Legendary Master.
That means they are really, really strong.
They can destroy entire city blocks if they want to.”
Linease took a deep breath.
Hearing about enemies with Legendary Master ranks was terrifying.
Only a few people in the whole world were that strong.
She looked at Chrites closely.
“If the DTN organization has Legendary Masters, then how do you fight them?
You are also incredibly strong.
I saw the magic swords you created last night.
What is your real rank?”
Chrites looked at his bandaged hand for a second, then looked right into her eyes.
He decided to tell her the absolute truth.
“My real rank is Legendary Master Tier 3,” Chrites said calmly.
Linease gasped quietly.
Legendary Master Tier 3 was the highest peak of power anyone could ever imagine.
“And my magic is very different from normal people,” Chrites continued to explain.
“I possess the two variants of magic in the real world.
I can use Darkness and I can use Light.”
“But that is impossible,” Linease argued, shaking her head.
“Those two elements are complete opposites to each other.
If you try to use them together, they should explode and kill you.”
“They are opposites,” Chrites agreed.
“But I have really worked hard to possess them and control them.
I learned how to combine their strength to make completely new spells.
Combining new spells and making new attacks is really hard work.
But that power is why I am the head of my organization.
It is why I lead the group you saw last night.”
Linease stood quietly for a long minute.
She thought about the corrupt government, the evil DTN organization, and the amazing power that Chrites had.
She made her decision.
“I think you know the main motive of our organization now,” Chrites said.
“So you should not tell anyone about this.”
“If I want to join your organization, what do I have to do?” Linease asked firmly.
“Can I join?”
Chrites smiled a little bit.
“If you want to join us, we do not have any single problem with that.
You can join our organization today.
We do not have anything like an age criteria, and we do not care if you are a woman or a man.
Our organization contains every kind of people who want to join and fight the bad guys.”
“Are there any special rules?” she asked.
“There is only one major rule,” Chrites said, his voice turning very serious again.
“You must be completely loyal to the organization.
We can guarantee to protect your life, but you cannot betray us.
If you are joining our group, you cannot reveal any of our secrets to the public or the government.
If you betray the organization, it would not result in a good ending.
Not for us, and definitely not for you.”
“I am not going to betray you,” Linease promised.
“I want to help you fight the DTN.
Okay, I will join your organization.
Can you show me your base?
I really want to see where you operate from.”
“I cannot take you there right now,” Chrites said, shaking his head.
“It is the middle of the school day.”
“Then how do we talk to each other?” Linease asked.
She pulled her smartphone out of her uniform pocket.
“Can you give me your ID for an app?
We should use an app that the school does not monitor.”
“Do you have the Blake app?” Chrites asked.
“Yes, I use Blake all the time,” Linease said, opening the social media app on her phone.
Blake was a very popular messaging app that let people send secret, locked messages to each other.
“Can you give me your Blake ID so that I can message you?
You can tell me when to come and where your base is, and show me everything.”
Chrites took his own phone out of his pocket.
“Okay, okay, I will give it to you.”
He typed his secret Blake ID into her phone and handed it back to her.
Linease quickly saved the contact name as a simple dot, so nobody looking at her phone would know who it was.
“Got it,” she smiled.
Chrites checked the time on his phone screen and sighed.
“It is getting really late.
My friends are probably wondering where I am.
They are probably watching the hallways and thinking, what the hell is he doing in the bathroom for so long?
I really need to get going.”
“Okay,” Linease said.
“I will message you on Blake tonight.”
“Remember what I said,” Chrites warned her one last time.
“Do not dare to tell anyone.”
“My lips are sealed,” she promised.
Chrites turned around and ran off from the back of the history building.
He jogged across the green grass of the campus, trying to look like a completely normal, average student who was just late for his next class.
Linease watched him go for a few seconds, feeling very excited about her new secret life, before she turned and walked away in the opposite direction.
A few minutes later, Chrites quietly opened the door to his next classroom and slipped into his seat next to Rivb.
The teacher did not even notice him come in.
For now, his totally average disguise was still perfectly safe, and he had just gained a very powerful new ally.