Under The Veil of Night

"REI!" Jason screamed when he saw Kanae fell down. He anxiously ran towards the deep crack, hoping that the girl was still there.

"Stop yelling!"

The sound of a young girl caused Jason to feel immense relief. He looked to the crack, where he could see Kanae.

"Captain, can you climb up?"

"Ouch," Kanae was holding the edge of the floor. Thankfully, the cracks stopped in time as she still managed to hold on the edge. If not, she didn’t know what would happen to her.

"Little brat, climb up," Dean was crouching near the end. His hand was holding Kanae’s hand as he pulled her slowly and carefully. He wouldn’t want to hurt her from the sharp objects around.

It took him several seconds before he managed to pull Kanae successfully. Jason also arrived in time as he gathered his breath by the side, clearly relieved to see that Kanae was still alright.

"Captain, you’re truly reckless," Jason smiled wryly.

Kanae grinned. "It’s the real reason I get the position as the leader."

Dean looked at Jason and Kanae. "You’re the captain, little lass? You’re not bad at all."

"Yes," Kanae smiled.

Right now, Randy was walking over slowly towards them. His face slightly contorted in pain because of the impact from before. Although he was glad that the monster was defeated, but he was annoyed that he didn’t have the chance to deal the final blow.

"What’s your name, little brat?"

"Rei," Kanae replied. "I’m Rei from Fiore Group."

"Rei huh," Randy scrutinized Kanae up and down. Her appearance was rather unclear because of the dirt and all, but he could roughly guess that she should be still quite young. "I’ll remember you."

Dean laughed. "You acknowledge this brat?"

"What? Don’t you acknowledge him too?"

Dean paused for a moment when he heard how Randy addressed Kanae. It seemed that this man hadn’t realized that this brat was a little girl. Well, there was no need for him to correct him too. It would be more fun this way.

"There’s one more important matter. The vial is over there, do you want to take it, Randy?"

Randy looked towards the vial at the edge of the room, protected by a large cylinder. Although the vial itself was barely five centimeters height, the place protecting it was more than two meters.

He returned his gaze back to Dean. "Even if I want to take it, I doubt you’re going to let me."

"You know me very well," Dean smirked. "Rei, take the vial."

"What?" Kanae was stunned to hear the instruction. She looked towards the leader of Lore Group in confusion. "Shouldn’t it be you who take it, Brother Dean?"

"It’s MASTER Dean, little brat! You deserve to have the vial because you’re the one who defeat the last monster. Without your several attempts, we won’t succeed."

Kanae looked towards Randy. Seeing Randy nodded his head, albeit with a dark expression, she knew that they approved of her taking the vial. With that, she walked towards the cylinder slowly and carefully. Assessing the cylinder, she noticed a small door.

Opening it, she saw the small vial inside. There was a transparent liquid inside. Slowly, she took it out.

On the back, Jason was watching as Kanae took the vial. No one protested as they waited calmly. He felt deep apprehension right now. When they came to this place, they were not much different with the bunch at the very bottom of the ranking. Aiming to survive was already hard. If they aimed to be the one to take the vial, it would be akin to be saying that they were dreaming.

However, in the span of hours, they were the one who got the vial in the end. It was unexpected as he could never imagine this end for him.

"She’s getting farther and farther away, isn’t she, Oro?" Shiro’s voice sounded on the communication device.

Jason snapped back to reality. He frowned. "What are you talking about, Shin?"

"You know what I’m talking about, Oro. You should forget about it, she sees you nothing more than big brother."

"I know," Jason answered in a low tone. His eyes were still locked on the young girl at the very front. "I know that very well."

"I’ll introduce you to my friends later."

"I believe I know more people that you," Jason snorted.

Shiro didn’t continue the conversation. He was still looking towards the screen of the laptop that Jason borrowed to him before. "The barrier is still there. Just taking the vial is not enough to get out from there."

"I see," Jason frowned. It meant, they still have to fight for a longer time.

BAM! BAM!

Series of explosions’ sound appeared. Their face paled considerably when they noticed that the ground shook hard. Looking around, cracks started to appear on the wall as the shaking grew harder.

Kanae’s eyes narrowed. "Head to the roof!"

"Let’s go!"

They all sprinted towards the stairs towards the roof. Upon reaching the roof, they could see the dark sky above them and the fact that the building still shook extremely badly.

"Tom, are you safe?" Kanae asked amid the chaos.

"Yes, we’re staying quite far from your building," Tommy answered. Because they saw cracks on the building after moving, they decided to move away. Thankfully, this building spanned for quite long, so they were located at the safe distance.

Turning her head to one side, Kanae could see the long building by the side. Several people were standing quite far from her place.

BAM!

Another explosion was heard and the building tilted towards the long building.

"Hold on!" Dean instructed!

They held to whatever item they could as the building came crashing towards the long building by the side. The explosion triggered it, and the gravity did the rest. Within seconds, the building crashed to the roof of the long building, sending several of them fell to the hard concrete.

"Rei! Oro!"

"Master Dean!"

"Master Randy!"

They were gathering towards the place where these people fell down. Thankfully, they were on the rooftop as the wall on the other floor was broken and collapsed partially. Sounds of water splashing, followed by rapid screaming also came from behind them.

"The acid is going to destroy everything soon enough," Randy stood up slowly.

Dean nodded his head. "We just have to stay away from its way."

"Brat, are you alright?"

"I’m fine," Kanae smirked. "It needs more than that to kill me."

Even though she said so, her whole body already felt pain. After all, there were numerous scratches and many other wounds. In addition, the landing was not completely smooth.

"Oro, are you alright?" Tommy approached one of them.

Jason waved his hand. "I’m not in that bad condition."

"We need to climb down now," Dean stood up. He was preparing himself for a battle again. There was no time wasted as he knew that the danger was not over. "Are there a lot of monster in this place?"

"Master, there are a lot of them on the floor below and part of the stairs is already broken."

Dean frowned. "This is not going to be easy."

"Even if it’s hard, we still have to go down," Randy shrugged, bearing the pain on his back. "Let’s go."