Chapter 18: Lucky
News spread quickly all over the castle, and it was soon relayed that one of the persons who was supposed to have died in the labyrinth over a month ago had returned. The gates opened with an audible creak, and Vritra stepped through, still feeling all the gazes focused on him.
As he walked into the castle, a few of the guards were following behind him as if they were still suspicious; ignoring them, he decided to first go and meet the Goddess. He had already made up a story for her and everyone else.
Until he knew who was behind the event which almost resulted in his death, he had to stay vigilant; even the king and goddess might be part of this whole thing, and despite the hike in his strength, Vritra didn't believe he could defeat the entire kingdom's army just yet.
"First I will test out Diana's intentions. I wonder how strong she is," Vritra thought while heading towards the large temple.
He felt the king and the goddess were in cahoots, but he could only make his move after making sure of his opponent's strength.
While walking towards the castle, he passed by the castle grounds, and as he did, he saw a group of teenagers—his classmates—gathered in the field, though there were just a few of them. The moment they spotted him, the murmurs began. All of them stared at him in disbelief; after all, from the commander of the fourth team, they had heard that he had fallen into a trap and died.
His eyes scanned the crowd, his focus narrowing as he searched for someone familiar, but there wasn't anyone he was searching for. Neither his mother nor Max's group was there, so Vritra just glanced at the few students and then headed straight.
"H-He isn't dead? And what happened to him? His clothes are so ragged and his hair is so long. Just what has he been through?" one among the boys exclaimed. None of them were close with Vritra, but in this new world, he still felt familiar.
"But about his mother... we all thought he died, she uh..." a girl murmured, her brows knitted with a little concern, but since none of them had any good impressions of Vritra so they didn't try to talk to him.
It had already been a month since they arrived in this world. All this time they had either been training their skills or getting used to hunting demons. They had even gained a few levels by working so hard and killing those dangerous creatures levels as high as 6 to 10.
Though only the strongest of the group could deal with demons of level around 10, only Vanessa had been absent from all this ever since she heard the news of his death. The few teenagers sighed as they thought about the pitiful woman.