Chapter 6

Marco and Rebecca were dumbfounded for a while, then Marco's cell phone suddenly rang. The name displayed on the screen was Jack. When he pressed the call button,

"Yo, Mark, still in the infirmary?"

He could hear a bright voice through the phone near his ear. When Marco replied with "Yeah",

"Really? The broadcast called for Miss Charlotte, but are you guys fine?"

"No problem. She lent us the key." Marco replied.

"I see. Good then… Ah, don't worry about the homeroom teacher request. Yuhiko and I will do it."

"Oh, finally taking your chance, huh." Marco said with a teasing voice.

"S-Shut up, it's not like that." Hearing this, Marco laughed.

"Alright then, can I ask you to do it?."

"--Eh." While hearing a voice filled with surprise behind him, Marco told Jack over the phone.

"Thanks… I'll treat you to whatever you want next time." To the positive reply,

"Thanks a bunch. Tell Yuhiko and the teacher my apologies too…. Yeah, thanks," Marco said and hung up.

"Are you sure?"

"What else can I do. You said you're still in pain so I'll stay with you until you're all better."

"…Really?" Rebecca asked worried

"Yeah. The nurse lent us the key, so take the chance to get a good rest. So don't worry about it."

"O-Okay." shortly after, she laid down on the bed while pulling the blanket over her.

***

The atmosphere in the infirmary was unique. A soft, pleasant and most comfortable atmosphere in the school. Next to Rebecca sleeping on the bed, Marco dozed off too at some point.

….Mm." When Marco suddenly woke up, the sun had already set and it was night. When he checked the time,

"8 o'clock… I slept quite a while." He scratched his cheek. However, on a look, Rebecca was still sleeping soundly on the bed.

…A bit longer shouldn't hurt.

Charlotte said she would tell the teachers about it. Seeing as no teacher came to look for them so far, it wasn't a problem that they still stayed on the school grounds.Thus, Marco quietly left the infirmary as not to wake up Rebecca.

Marco twisted his neck that was stiff from the sleep, then slowly walked down the hallway.

The school building at a summer night--- Amidst the tepid atmosphere, he headed for the school store. A human's body consumed water even when just sleeping. Specially in this season, it was easy to get a heatstroke or dehydration. Marco got thirsty, so he decided to buy some drinks, including for Rebecca for when she woke up.

When he arrived at the store, it had already closed long ago. Needless to say, there was no one around. But the lights were on. The lights of the vending machines in the corner faintly illuminated the dark store.

"That works…"

They must have been set up for the teachers that stayed behind until late in the night. Marco bought two sport drinks at the operational vending machines. At the moment he tried to drink his own.

"Oh? That you, Mark?" Suddenly his nickname was called from behind. There was only one person who called Marco like that.

"huh, Jack... You're still here." when Marco turned around, Jack entered the store by saying "Right back at you".

"I was doing the task from the teacher. We finished just a moment ago."

"It took you till now?"

If that was true, it occupied him for more than four hours. Though the teacher said they would finish before it got dark with two people.

"No, the work itself was done pretty quick. After all, Yuhiko worked without saying a single word. The silence was so awkward that I regret offering my help a bit." Jack said.

Marco sighed, disappointed with his friends progress.

"But when we finished the work, The teacher said he would treat us to some food, so we ordered without reservation, but it was unexpectedly much. So then, I took digestion nap."

So that how it was. Marco made a wry smile.

"Sorry, Jack. You really helped me out."

"No prob, what are friends are. Was Naruse fine afterwards?"

"Well, kind of… She's still sleeping in the infirmary, but she's completely calmed down now."

"Glad to hear. It really surprised me that she suddenly collapsed."

"Anyway, thank you. Like promised, I'll treat you next time."

"I will take you up on that." Jack said with a wry smile.

Then Jack suddenly asked

"That reminds me, have you seen Yuki?"

"Yuki…? No, I haven't." Marco replied with a raised eyebrow.

That's strange, Jack stayed at school at until now because he ate too much. Yuki had no reason for staying. So why would she want to see him.

Huh? Strange… She said she was going to check up on you guys."

"Really?" At least while Marco was in the infirmary, Yuki didn't come by… probably.

There was a possibility that she left without calling out to them out of consideration to their sleep, but--- No, even when Marco was sleeping, he wasn't so insensitive that he would keep sleeping soundly when someone entered the room. If so, then they missed each other on his way here?

Suddenly Marco's cell power rang in his pocket. The name displayed on the screen was Jin. When he pressed the call button,

"Yo, What's up?" Jin said so, nonchalantly.

"Why did you call?" Marco asked, getting straight to the point.

"So I can't ask about the well being of my beloved son, how sad." Jin said freely without any sign of shame.

"Alright then I'll get straight to the point." Jin voice suddenly turned cold. Marco, hearing the state of Jin's voice, walked away from Jack. He figured, it will something important.

"It's about what I recently found out."

"Found out? What do you mean…?"

"It's about Rebecca." On Jin's words, Marco frowned

"What about her." Marco asked as he tried to stay calm, but anger resonated in his voice. Upon that,

"A while ago, I got some news that the [Hunters] were secretly on the move. It's been close to six years that we left the hunters fraction. It didn't seem like they were going to bother with us after all this time, so I just kept an eye on things for a while….but then the situation took a sudden change not long ago. It was relatively close by, so I decided to check out who it was, just in case."

"After all, the higher-ups gave her the surveillance rank S."

"WHAT." Marco shouted upon hearing Jin's words. The hunters rank demons based on their Mana and the threat they posed. The rank ranges from E-SS with E being the weakest and SS being the strongest, and can possess a wide range of abilities.

The demons usually lived in a different world from the human world--- called Hell or the underworld. Of course some of them came over to the human world and caused some trouble at times, but it had been only low-ranked demons.

The fight between the hunters and Demons in this world had gone on for so long that neither side knew how long exactly it had lasted. But that was a thing from before Marco's birth --- His father's generation had put an end to it.

So the devils that came to the human worlds were all low ranking devils with low surveillance ranks, like E or D, or termination targets.

"S Rank." Marco mumbled in disbelief. And then he looked at the palm of his right hand. He never thought he would meet a S rank in this city. But why would the hunters view Rebecca as a S rank surveillance target. As far he could remember, she was basically harmless, she couldn't even kill a cockroach.

However. Jin's voice through the phone overturned Marco's thoughts.

"Apparently she possesses a special kind of power since her birth which is called the Chaos Magic."

"Chaos Magic, I have never heard of it."

"Well according to the hunters, it is a powerful kind of dark magic that existed in ancient times. Basically, it gives the user the ability to alter reality. She must have received the curse of the Demon, Chaos"

"But I didn't feel anything from her for all this years. So How?" Marco asked shortly

"She must have been wearing a magic artifact that concealed her power. But even the most powerful sealing artifact s leave their power as the years passes."

It makes sense. Rebecca told him that her parents gave her a necklace and told her to never take it off. So the necklace must have been the artifact that concealed her power, but that was nine years ago. So obviously the artifact will slowly lose its power. And right now, the parents that raised her were gone. It wasn't hard to guess what tragedy had befallen Rebecca.

"I get the gist of things… But why didn't you tell me?" Marco asked

"If I had told you carelessly--- You would just have had that nightmare again." Jin answered Marco's question.

"That's…" Marco paused inadvertently. After all, he had that nightmare just the other day. He understood Jin's intentions. Marco sighed and shouted his words into the phone in the next moment.

"You damn imbecile--- Tell me this earlier!"

Then he could have helped. Even if Rebecca's power haven't awakened, powerful magic like the Chaos Magic would attract low ranking demons to her and he suspected a third party must be after her power as well.

Thinking so he started walking, At that time--- He suddenly couldn't see anything anymore due to the darkness of the night. The light of the vending machines had vanished all of the sudden.

"Uah? What, a blackout?"

Jack said with a bewildered voice, Marco darkened his expression. Don't tell me--- That feeling became reality. The faint emergency light showed Marco five shadows emerging from the darkness. Amongst them, one had a clearly non-human beast silhouette.

"A demon." To think the enemy would attack at school, Moreover,

"Wh- What are these…" Marco heard Jack dumbfounded voice. The enemy had exposed themselves to Jack, a normal human. But, Marco panicked over something else. If the enemy made a forceful move like this, it meant that the current situation was favorable to them.

After all--- Rebecca was sleeping peacefully in the infirmary right now.

"Now what!?

The enemy was undoubtedly after Rebecca. The enemies in front of him came to stall him. Showing themselves in front of Jack just meant that they had to kill him off later.

Of course if Marco summons his magic sword, Jack won't be able to see it. But if he defeated the enemy with it here, Jack would witness the moment the "shadows" disappeared. That would drag him into their circumstances. And Jack would surely ask him. ---What's this?

He could ask Yuki to erase his memory later. However, that would take time and he didn't know where she was. Right now he had to hurry over to Rebecca as fast as possible, but it was too dangerous to leave Jack alone with his confusion.

"Then, what do I do? Marco instantly came up with the answer to that.

"Sorry about this."

"Eh" Jack raised a raised a puzzled voice and Marco slammed his elbow into Jack's torso.

A blow to a vital point. It was a violent method, but most likely the least dangerous and fastest one.

Jack groaned a short "Ugh", then lost consciousness. Then Marco rested him on the floor.

At the same time, the five shadows dashed towards Marco with their weapons raised. But Marco didn't panic. He immediately materialized his magic sword, a large silver single-edged sword, in his hand. His right arm was covered in armor up to the elbow was mostly due to a contract with the sword. The power of a contracted weapon feed back even onto the user's body.

Like that, he preformed a vertical slash, cutting the foremost human "shadow" into half.

"Sorry, but I don't have time to play with you lots." At the same time he said so, he leaped forward at once.