Dimensional Descent

Aina turned away from the corpse, not making any attempts to hide it. Rather, she walked away and shook Hallis awake.

Even though she didn't care much about killing, she knew that even in its current state, Valiant Heart Mountain had rules against murdering fellow students. Since she still needed Hallis and couldn't kill him as well, it was better if he didn't see anything, lest it be used against Leonel in the future.

Aina was well aware that she was Leonel's only weakness in this place. If she thought about it, maybe the way Leonel had handled things up until now would have been completely different had she not been there and maybe they wouldn't have been pushed into a corner.

If Leonel heard Aina's thoughts, he would probably laugh. He had terrible luck with organizations. In his opinion, this would happen regardless of whether she was here or not. After all, she hadn't even been with him during his adventures with the Slayer Legion or Camelot.

Thankfully Camelot was now a good ally of Leonel's, but the Slayer Legion remained in a gray zone while even Leonel didn't know whether he would be friends or enemies with Valiant Heart in the future.

Sometimes, Leonel felt that his falling out with organizations was inevitable. When someone as talented as him joined an organization seemingly from nowhere, without the same foundations as the geniuses that they home-grew, maybe his existence itself became contentious.

"… Hm? … Ah, ah!"

Hallis was shocked awake, feeling his throat being clamped down upon. He tried to gasp, but only managed to suck in half the air he would normally. The sudden change made him feel as though he was suffocating.

He looked down in horror, only to find that it was a petite young woman a half head shorter than him who held him up like this. The fact that she was a freshmen only made the feelings of humiliation all the worse.

choice but to swallow his pride. It only took Aina a single sentence

the Oryx are coming after us right now. So, if you don't lead well, I can

he might be willing to pull some tricks anyway to find a means to escape. But, cold shivers traveled up his spine every time he remembered that bloody ax. He could

a moment to catch up to the freshmen

might still stand a chance. If not, it had nothing to do with Aina. She wasn't 100% certain on Leonel's plan.

…

Despite seeing all the diverging paths, he didn't seem

moment, though, he came

left this here on

sent a blaze of fire downward,

Elements fused with his body. A happy by-product of this was the Fire Element Leonel could cast gaining a very small

like incinerating a Fourth Dimensional entity's body to ash like this would have been impossible for him in the past without

enough and his body became a better vessel for flames, he might even be able to make

'Hm?'

found a ring lying on the ground. By its placement, Leonel deduced that it had likely been hanging

of refined metal survived an incineration, but Leonel had purposely put enough strength into his flame that

the ring, rolling it between his fingers. Surprisingly, it didn't seem to be a spatial ring. At the very least, Leonel's probes didn't find