Chapter 55: Sunken City (5) - Huge Problem

I froze completely in the presence of that demon. Well, at least I thought it was a demon. Its appearance screamed it.

Tom and Ethan were the same. Actually, Tom was the most scared of all. Not because he was the most cowardly, but because he knew that creature.

"That’s a demon!" he shouted. "A type of creature from a very rare, powerful, and evil family. They’re not easy to find, and usually you don’t want to find one..."

I believed in what Tom said. He was someone who read and researched a lot, so if he said that thing in front of us was a demon, then it was.

I looked again at Mary and Maison, sprawled on the ground, dead. It had all happened so fast, which left me even more on edge. Beating that creature might not even be possible.

"Well well, what do we have here? More humans trying their luck, looking for treasure?" the demon said, its voice cracking in a way that was downright terrifying.

We instinctively took a few steps back. None of us wanted to fight that thing, but what could we do? It wasn’t like we could just run away or anything like that.

The demon’s gaze fell on me, and it frowned. At least I think it did, since its horns seemed to move too. It was hard to tell, because the creature’s skin was completely dark, like staring into the emptiness of space.

It kept staring at me for a few seconds.

"Didn’t expect you to find something like this here," the demon said, still looking at me, "guess I’ll spare your lives today. As for the treasure room, there’s some stuff in there if you want to grab it."

The demon started walking and passed by us, dropped the key to the treasure room into my hand, and kept walking.

"Something’s coming your way," the demon said, "I’ll kill it for you. See you around. Thanks for setting me free."

Then the creature vanished completely, so fast we couldn’t even see it happen.

Only after a few seconds were we finally able to let out the breath we’d been holding.

"What the hell was that," Ethan said, cold sweat running down his face, "that thing was REALLY STRONG. And from the looks of it, it was trapped inside that room with the treasure..."

We didn’t know how to feel about it. Sure, the creature had let us live, given us the key to the treasure room, and even said it would kill that fucking octopus for us.

But it was still a demon, an evil entity we had just set free. Well, technically Mary set it free, but she had no idea a demon would be inside that place.

"This is really bad," I said. "Let’s grab the treasure, get out of this rift, and then report what happened to the principal. The Hunter Society will definitely want to know about this."

The mission we’d been given, clearing the rift, would have to wait. Wasting time on it now wasn’t a good idea.

So we rushed to the treasure room, right behind the altar. Inside, I spotted a bunch of monster crystals, some pretty rusty-looking weapons, and coins from another era that wouldn’t be of much use to us.

I ran around the treasure room, throwing everything into my pocket dimension.

"We can split all of this later," I said. "But let’s keep the treasure part a secret. We can just say there was nothing inside, only the demon."

I didn’t want to hand all these items over to the academy. Sharing some with Ethan and Tom was fine, but giving everything to the academy? No fucking way.

Especially the monster crystals. I really wanted those, and so did Bob. In fact, he wanted them so badly that he even ate them as I tossed them into the pocket dimension. The fact that he was eating in his sleep made it all the funnier.

After grabbing everything, we left, flying away as fast as we could. I spotted the dead octopus. The creature hadn’t even made it to the temple. It died on the staircase.

Of course, I landed next to it and grabbed its monster crystal, putting it inside my pocket dimension too. No reason to let that go to waste.

We took the same path we’d taken earlier, leaving the Sunken City and returning to the vast open ocean of the rift. Then we flew straight to the portal leading outside.

There wasn’t a single trace of that demon anywhere. It had vanished from the rift so quickly that we never even saw it.

I’d been anxiously thinking about that creature ever since it left. What the hell was that thing? Could it bring danger to the whole world? I had no idea.

Tom, the biggest nerd among us, had read a lot about demons, so he knew a thing or two.

"Hunters have spotted demons fairly often, but they’re mostly weaker ones. The one we just saw? That thing was fucking strong. And the fact that it was sealed makes things even worse. They usually only seal high-ranking demons from the Underworld."

"Underworld?" I asked him.

"Yeah. Researchers say there’s a rift that leads to a land of demons, and they call it the Underworld. But no one knows where this rift is. It’s just a theory, but I think it’s true."

I would certainly read more about demons when I got the chance. Knowing more about the enemy we’d just set free would help me sleep better at night.

There was already the vampire problem, and now a fucking demon...

I tried to push the bad thoughts aside and focus on the good things. I now had a LOT of monster crystals to use, and even more after Bob ate them and gave them back to me at 10x the amount.

With those, reaching the rank of B-rank hunter would be more than possible. Things were going better than I’d expected. Maybe exploring that new continent in a few months would actually be possible.

Anyway, we left the rift and I sent a message to the principal using my phone, explaining that something important had happened during the mission and that we needed to speak in private, urgently.

"The airplane will be waiting for you. Rush to the airport and get back here," the principal texted back.

There was no one to drive us back to the airport like before, so we just flew there with my cube. No problem.

The people in that small town were certainly wondering what had happened to Mary and Maison, waiting for updates from us, but they would have to wait.

Also, the police who had been protecting the rift’s exit were no longer under the octopus’s control. The mind control had stopped working when the octopus died.

But they were all lying on the ground when we left the rift. Not dead, just unconscious. The demon must have done that on its way out. Honestly, I was surprised it didn’t kill them.

Anyway, we flew back to the airport, got on a plane, and went straight to the academy. It didn’t take us long to get back.

We went straight to the principal’s office to speak with him in private, all three of us. He wanted to know exactly what had happened.

Once inside the office, Frederic locked the door and activated the magical defenses to make sure no one could hear what we were about to discuss. He was being so careful because I had said it was urgent in my message.

I didn’t trust him enough, but he was the only one with direct access to the Hunter Society, and the only one who might know how the Hunter Society should handle the situation.

"Vincent," he said, staring at me, "explain everything. You were the team leader, so you’re responsible for explaining WHY both missions had different outcomes than we expected."

"First of all, the two missing people were actually villains. Well, one of them was. Her name was Mary. She had an ability that allowed her to create ink creatures..."

"Maison stole the key to a treasure room inside the rift near the North Fork Viewpoint..."

I explained everything to him, leaving out only the part about the treasure we’d taken.

The moment I spoke about the creature we’d met, describing it to him, Frederic got up from his chair. The man looked like he was about to faint, sweat running down his forehead.

I even noticed his fingers were shaking. That was unusual. Frederic was quite a powerful hunter. Not an S-Rank, but close to it.

"Are you sure the creature you saw looked like that? All of you saw it?"

Tom and Ethan nodded.

"Yes, sir. We all saw the same creature. I believe it let us leave so we could deliver this message."

Frederic nodded. "I’m thinking the same. Demons have their own way of doing things."

"I’ll warn the Hunter Society about this, and we must lock down the academy. No one leaves for now. The demon could have followed you here," Frederic said.

An alarm sounded through the academy. Things were changing rapidly. The academy wasn’t looking so safe anymore.