Hikari: Rise Of The Weapons Master

"It's empty…" Emma muttered in disbelief as she and Zack stared on the other side of the door.

Instead of a room or something similar, a black space greeted them. Both of them raised their feet forward while holding the door to see if there was some kind of invisible floor below them.

Only air was below their feet as they looked down the empty space. It went down for as far as their eyes could see and there was nothing else present there.

"So, what do we know?" Emma asked as they stepped inside. Since they hadn't found Hayden, they would have to keep looking until and unless their sentence ended.

"We don't have to do anything," Zack muttered while taking out Chastiefol again. "We are currently trapped in a mental illusion."

The moment he said those words, their entire world shook upside down. Zack and Emma then appeared in front of the same black door again yet it wasn't open.

[ The moment we broke the handcuffs, the entire prison was made aware that we broke free the moment I melted our handcuffs. There will be many people after us and our only chance of escaping is to leave or meet with Hayden. ]

Zack explained as he stared at the doorknob. He wasn't completely sure yet a feeling told him that opening the doorknob might put both of them into the illusion again.

[ How did you realize that we were in an illusion? ] Emma's eyes glanced around the surroundings cautiously as she took out her bow again.

She activated its special auto-aim property, thus allowing it to hit any moving person that stepped in a twenty-meter radius around her.

Since Zack was her ally, her bow didn't hit him. The only disadvantage was that her agility and strength stat reverted down to 5 when she was using the skill.

This put her at a major disadvantage since anyone could unleash a strong attack from afar and she would be unable to do anything against it.

The only reason she had used the skill back then was that her opponents were close-range fighters while Zack had been with her.

Emma believed that if she had been in danger, Zack would have been able to save her. It was only because of her trust that she had activated the ability again.

As long as it was active, no enemy would be able to sneak up on Emma and Zack unless they were stronger than her.

[ Once a prisoner dies here, their body vanishes within a minute yet those bodies didn't vanish. It was a random guess that I had made and it was true. ]

Zack replied truthfully as the two of them slowly started making their way back to the elevator.

'Good thing I looked back.' Zack thought with a sigh as he stepped inside the elevator. He had looked back on the bodies on instinct and had found out that they were still there.

This likely meant that the one who had put him and Emma in the illusion was a worker of the prison and not an enforcer. From what he remembered, enforcers had to move away in less than thirty seconds after they had killed a body.

That was how many prisoners feared death since they had no idea what would happen to their bodies if they died inside the prison.

If not for Zack's past knowledge, he and Emma would have most likely remained trapped inside the room until more workers had arrived and attacked them.

[ So, where do we go now? ] Emma didn't risk speaking as she closed the doors of the elevator.

[ We can either keep looking for Hayden, escape and find another way to contact him, or go back and tell Jonathan that we failed. ] Zack replied honestly as he looked around the elevator.

[ Then we shall keep looking. Do you know another room from where we can go and meet Hayden? ]

[ Well, there is a way… ] Zack then told her the plan as the pink-haired girl's eyes sparkled.

Zack was surprised by this as he had forgotten that Emma loved adventurous and dangerous things.

"So, we go now?" Zack asked as Emma nodded. He then pressed the number 2 button as the elevator seemed to shake again.

The next moment, it stopped once again as the two of them. The doors opened once again as they found themselves looking at something replicating Eva's office.

Modern technology such as computers could be seen in the office alongside sofas for people to wait at. Zack and Emma didn't immediately step out of the elevator and instead saw whether there was a barrier around the room.

The duo had been through enough things that they first checked anything before using it.

'Speaking of that, we didn't really get to test these out.' Zack thought as he took out the bracelet and earrings from his inventory.

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STR: 44(88) (+15)

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Just like the description had said, Zack's original strength stat got multiplied by twice as soon as he wore the bracelets. They had automatically adjusted to fit his wrists and felt comfortable.

He then passed the earrings to Emma who took them and tried to wear them on her ears. However, it was proving to be difficult.

Zack was barely holding himself from chuckling as he saw Emma's attempts at wearing the earrings.

"Here, let me do it." He then took the earrings out of her hands and brought one of them closer to her right ear.

He then touched it to the bottom part of her ear and closed it. The earring didn't even sting as Zack did the same thing to her other ear.

"Who could have thought you would struggle with earrings." He couldn't help but say those words as Emma pouted.

"No one taught me that so how was I supposed to do it." She replied before taking out a pocket-sized mirror and looking at the earrings.

Zack was once again surprised about the type of things that Emma seemed to carry in her inventory. What he didn't know was that the mirror was an emergency weapon in case Emma couldn't use anything else.

The glass from the mirror would deal some kind of damage if Emma ever required it.

Currently, the girl's attention was focused on the two earrings. The one on her right ear had the sun etched upon the silver metal while the other one had a moon etched on it.

[ It serves as a reminder that the special move can only be used once. It also symbolizes a phrase called 'from the Sun to the Moon' which is to say that these earrings have almost traveled all the way from the east to the west. ]

Zack explained with a surprised expression as Emma smiled.

[ I wonder if that's true. ]

[ I wonder about it too. ]

Zack's reply was a lie as he was actually wondering how he knew about the earrings' information. He had only seen them for the first time in the shop and the only reason he had bought them was that he had seen someone use the skill 'Blood Poke'.

[ Emma, if a situation comes where we are trapped, use the skill without any worries. I will make sure nothing happens to you after the side effects of using the skill kick in. ]

Emma took a deep breath as she looked at the information of the skill. Her expression remained calm yet the description had shocked her.

Yet, she decided to believe in Zack's words.

[ As you say. ]

The duo then stepped forward and entered the office of the warden of the prison. ]