Shadow Monarch: Heroines Could Hear My Thoughts?!

Chapter 92- Soul Eater Awakening (Part 1)

Using a fork, Emilia picked up some of the pasta that Rin had prepared and put it inside her mouth. Her face immediately changed and her eyes widened as she looked down at the lunch box and then at Rin.

"Is it good?" Rin asked with a small smile. He knew that reaction way too well for him not to understand what it meant. It was the same reaction that his family would have when they eat his dishes.

"It is… good," Emilia said as she took another bite and chewed it slowly. Her expression as she enjoyed the food was so adorable as it completely contrasted the bombshell of a body that she had. Her small, red lips kept on munching on the food as her cheeks puffed a little bit just like a cute puppy.

Rin gave a satisfied nod and continued eating his food too. In less than 20 minutes, both of them finished lunch and sat down silently.

"Can I ask you a question, master?" Rin suddenly said.

"Mhm?"

"How strong are the top 10 rankers? I know that they have great strength but I want a clear idea about it. How dangerous are they if they decided to revolt against the whole world?" He asked.

The reason for Rin's question was simple and that was to understand how high the peak of this world is. He wanted to see how far he was from the top and who was better to ask than Emilia herself?

Emilia looked at Rin's side profile for a moment before she sighed and replied.

"The top 10 rankers, huh? Frankly speaking, they are a bunch of monsters. No, not even monsters, they are ten catastrophes. Each one of them is a freak of a kind that the world has never seen before. The previous generations of top 10s were extremely strong and capable of feats peers their age could never even dream of achieving in all of their lifetimes." Taking a deep breath, she continued.

"But, this generation of rankers is different. Their powers are simply unknown. Even when I met them once before, I couldn't even gauge how strong they are. They are extremely talented and extremely clever people. So, to answer your question about them. If those students decided to revolt then there is only one person that can stop them in this whole world. The headmaster."

"He is the only human being that is stronger than them. That, in and out of itself, a scary fact that not many people are aware of."

Rin's eyes widened a little bit when he heard those words. He did hear Donnie speak about them before, but, he had never thought he will be this far off the mark about them. Who are these people?

"But, you don't need to worry about them, yet. You are still way too far down the ladder to even look up to them. Just take your time and try to take one step at a time."

Emilia stood up and dusted her clothes off and looked at Rin.

"But, just in case something extremely odd happens and you end up meeting one of them sooner than expected. I will give you some advice… No, scratch that, it's an order. Do NOT even entertain the thought of speaking to them or even trying to do anything funny. If they took interest in you then your life will be turned into a living hell."

"Are they bad people?" Rin asked a question that even he knew the answer to. But, he was simply trying to create an understandable image of them.

"Everyone at the top is rotten, Rin. You can't reach the top while being a 'good' person. It won't be long before you also have to stride down that path where only two choices are present. Either eat or be eaten."

A flash of emotions passed through Emilia's eyes for a split second that went unnoticed by Rin. A weird memory returned to her and she quickly shook it away before she gets all nostalgic and sentimental.

"Anyway, enough resting. Get back to practicing. I won't let you out of this place until you learn the scroll. Understand?!"

"Yes!"

Then, Rin's hellish training continued for hours and hours. After that conversation, he felt his heart burn with determination. He now had a clear idea of how far behind he was so he was ready to shorten that distance. It was simply a matter of time.

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Time passed quietly and the day of the entrance finally came. Throughout that time, both Elise and Rin were extremely busy with a lot of things including training. While Rin was under the mercy of Emilia, Elise was training in the border forests of the first level of the academy.

The border forests are places that surrounded the academy city. As the name suggested, these luscious forests were a place where monsters and wild beasts lurked and lived. The place was very popular with students as it was the perfect place for them to hunt and gather mana stones.

Those mana stones could be sold for gold or even traded for ranking points in case the student wanted to increase their rank. As for Elise, she was simply there to gather as many Action Points as possible.

At the moment, she had close to 5000 Action Points so she wanted to reach 10k before the start of the academy.

"Raaaa!!!" A monster's horrifying roar echoed throughout the whole forest luscious forest. Then, from behind the trees, a giant tiger that was towering at 9 feet in height rushed out with its sharp eyes aimed at a certain prey that it has been following for a while.

Elise looked at the predator that jumped on her as a cold glint flashed in her eyes. Then, without hesitation, she brandished her sword and jumped in the air to meet the tiger. Soon, the sharp claws of the angry beast came down on her intending to slice her into pieces.

*Swish*

But, Elise suddenly vanished and appeared behind the creature as if she just teleported. Without looking back, she simply swung the sword to get rid of the blood on the blade before putting it back inside the sheath.

The monster's body then fell down to the ground limp and motionless. A huge slit ran through the side of its torso that split it open like a piece of butter. It didn't even have the time to roar in pain before dying.

"Not bad. This new skill that I got is quite handy."

Her eyes were looking at the description of a skill that she obtained a few hours ago inside the forest from a metal rabbit.

[Blink]

[Rank: C]

[Level: 1]

[Blink allows the host to momentarily increase their speed by 400%. The boost only lasts for 1 second but increases with leveling up. The skill activation depends on the host's mana.]

The skill was extremely useful as it compliments Elise's fighting style and gave her a card to use when she wanted to surprise her opponents. Even though the skill consumes a lot of mana and doesn't last long, it was still worth using.

After that, Elise walked closer to the beast's dead body and stored it inside her inventory. This was the tenth monster she killed in the previous 2 hours and all of them were stored inside her inventory just for Rin to use.

"Rin can use this beast to create a summon with his dagger." She murmured to herself as she left the place and continued her hunt. The outskirts of the border forests weren't dangerous as only monsters in the G and F-Rank live there with some rare cases of E-Rank monsters being sighted there but they were not that common. But, the deeper the person goes, the more dangerous monsters become.

If they go deep enough, they can even find A-Rank monsters living there but they were way too far away from the outskirts that they basically never leave their domains to hunt a bunch of weak humans.

As Elise was venturing inside the forest, she heard a small sound coming from somewhere close by.

'Hmm? Is it a monster?' She thought in her head as she changed her direction and sprinted toward the sound.

When she passed through the thick trees and huge tree leaves, she found herself near a huge lake. The lake was somehow big in size yet so well hidden that she didn't even sense it at all.

'Weird. The map here doesn't show that there is a lake. Is it a bug or did this lake appear suddenly?'

Looking around, there were no monsters or creatures at all. In fact, the place had weirdly quietened down a lot. The sound of birds also vanished.

Elise wasn't stupid as she quickly caught that weird change.

'If the forest became eerily quiet. It means there is… a predator nearby!'

But, before she could even do anything, an object suddenly extended out of the lake and grabbed Elise's body.

"Wha-" Before she could even finish her words, her body was quickly dragged inside the lake before getting submerged in the water.

A moment later, the lake quietened down completely as if nothing happened and the forest returned to its usual liveliness.

(A//N: Question: do you want to see Elise's full system next chapter or just small parts of it? I can work with both choices.)

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Thanks for reading. Any support you give me is always appreciated no matter how small it was. Let's all keep it up :)