High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 623: Chapter 292: Rest and Communication_1

The sun resting on the mountain ridge appeared like a petite, fluffy ball, perfectly round and covered in a soft milk-yellow fuzz. Perhaps due to the seemingly indestructible mist shrouding the mountain peak, the outline of this sun seemed somewhat blurred and distorted, elusive.

But more likely, it’s because it’s not a real sun.

That’s what Zheng Qing thought deep down as he reached into his grey cloth bag to take out his pocket watch and check the time out of habit.

It was four fifty-two in the afternoon.

According to the current season - which was the end of October to the beginning of November - around five in the afternoon, the sun should have already set behind the mountain and the sky should be covered with a grayish hue.

But in this hunting ground, that shiny, fluffy sphere of light remained motionless in the sky. It was neither warm nor cool, not rising or setting, lazily radiating strands of light and heat, maintaining its half-life state.

”Ugh...”

The three hunters in the silver-grey dragon leather jackets knelt down, retching, trying to spit out the filth from their mouths, as they attempted to cope with the vertigo caused by drowning and multiple subsequent uses of the movement talisman.

”Do you need the Calm Heart Talisman?” asked Zheng Qing cautiously, in a tone barely above a whisper, ”Your current symptoms are due to a disorder of the body’s spatial orientation and balance. It would be very beneficial to soothe your minds a bit.”

”No, don’t waste your vitality... You’ve used so many movement talismans consecutively, you need rest even more,” replied the smallest of the wizards, trembling, as he waved off Zheng Qing’s help, ”Give us a moment’s rest and we’ll be fine.”

Zheng Qing nodded and proceeded to check on the state of the other hunters within Absolution.

Xin had already reverted from his Blue Giant state and was leaning against a boulder, eating languorously, looking visibly fatigued. Minotaur was returned back to the medal space during the second shift. Among them, probably only Zhang Ji Xin had enough energy to move around alerting others of any danger.

They should somewhat secure for the time being.

With this thought, Zheng Qing fell onto the grass, instantly drifting off to a brief nap.

He badly needed some rest.

The other hunters around instinctively softened their footsteps and voices, so as not to disturb the weary wizard.

Even Iseni, the Fishman of Lin Zhong Lake who had previously had a dispute with Zheng Qing, consciously moved further away from him.

The slender wizard, first to recover within the Serpent Tail Hunting Team, struggled to his feet from the grassland and then helped a handsome wizard with rich brown hair to stand up.

”Is this the ’great West’ you were talking about, my Master Amber?” the skinny wizard weakly joked.

With considerable effort, Xin raised his eyelids but didn’t reply. He recognized the skinny wizard. He was a first-year student at Starry Sky Academy named Omega whose family ran a restaurant in Beta Town, the famous Yota restaurant.

As for the soothsayer named Amber, Xin vaguely remembered Doctor Xiao mentioning him – In the doctor’s opinion, Amber would be one of the most outstanding soothsayers in the freshman year.

The thought of Xiao Xiao left Xin downhearted. The dried beef he was chewing suddenly lost its flavor.

”Undoubtedly,” replied Amber after he spit out the last mouthful of murky water from his stomach and staggered to his feet, ”As I said before...we have to place ourselves in so dire a situation to yield resurrection.”

Hearing these words, Xin frowned.

Unable to hold back his curiosity any longer, Xin asked, ”What did you guys encounter earlier?”

”That’s what I wished to ask you,” Omega turned towards Xin and whispered, ”As far as I know, Blue Bird is part of your Hunting Party. He is one of the strongest newcomers in Starry Sky Academy this year...Where is he?”

Xin’s plump face quivered and his eyelids drooped again.

”He was eaten by the White Wolf King.” Zhang Ji Xin returned from his patrol and replied gruffly, ”There’s no secret about it, nor it’s time for tears and mourning...We should immediately share information to increase our survival rate in this hunting ground!”

”I’m not whimpering!” Xin growled in irritation.

”But first, could you wipe the tears from the corners of your eyes before you say that?” The red-faced male wizard snorted and took a seat in front of Omega and Amber, waving his hand and saying, ”Sit down... Let’s exchange some information while we’re all still alive.”

”Let me go first.”

”After we entered the hunting ground, we first encountered a Vine Monster. We fought it for a while, then burnt it away completely... Because the Vine Monster’s territory was vast, we ended up burning the whole grove.”

Upon hearing this, Omega couldn’t help but glance at Amber, a hint of surprise in his eyes.

”Next, we encountered a bull monster with a strength level between eight and nine. We killed that too.”

”Next was a Monkey Demon... the big monkey you guys saw earlier. It was extremely cunning and would run away whenever it couldn’t fight us. When we were fighting the Wolf Demon, it brought another monkey, managed to break through our camp from behind...”

Zhang Ji Xin blew his nose hard at this point and spat fiercely, adding hastily, ”Xiao Xiao was in the camp at the time and didn’t manage to escape.”

Amber gasped at this revelation.

”Xiao Xiao? Dr. Xiao?” The normally calm wizard finally couldn’t help but reveal the shock in his heart, he said in a low voice, ”You mean the special enrollee from Jiuyou Academy this year? He’s also dead? Impossible!”

”Nothing is impossible,” Zheng Qing gave up pretending to sleep and opened his eyes, rubbing at his throbbing temples. ”After that puppet showed up, anything became possible.”

As he spoke, he pulled out a pair of black-framed glasses from his grey cloth bag.

It was something Zheng Qing had found among the debris that had rolled down the hill when the Absolution hunting team was attacking the small hill.

The lenses were shattered, translucent glass full of spider-web like cracks. His fingertips brushed the glasses’ cold, wooden frames, feeling the fine enamel, reminding him of that petite wizard’s delicate mindset.

”And you guys? What did you encounter when you came in?” Zhang Ji Xin turned his head to look at the two hunters from the tail-chewing snake.

Omega glanced at Amber, only to find that his team’s diviner was mumbling something with his eyes closed.

Despite this, he had no choice but to explain awkwardly:

”We ran into some big snakes... At first there were not many, and we even killed a few big ones and collected quite a few spoils.”

”But the more we killed, the more snakes that appeared... Out of the grassy holes, under the ground, from puddles, even from between rocks, it seems like we could find snake demons everywhere. Thousands and thousands.”

At this point, recalling some horrible memories, he visibly shivered: ”We passed a nest in the grass, and out sprung a huge snake so thick it was nearly four or five meters... It didn’t even fully reveal itself, just shot its head out and swallowed Julian whole.”

”Following Amber’s advice, we moved eastward. Although the number of snake demons decreased, the number of other demons increased... Later, Iseni’s little frog sent us a message... We saw the Blue Giant from afar.”

As he spoke, he looked over at Xin Fat Man and continued, ”The captain said he had an agreement with you that you would help each other, so we teamed up and cast a Chaos Spell.”

”Thank you,” Zheng Qing said sincerely.

Without that Chaos Spell, perhaps the Absolution hunting team would have had to pay a much higher price to escape the encirclement of the monsters.

”Not long after reciting the spell, we saw your figures sweeping past us from the front... The captain thought you hadn’t seen us and went after you, only to plunge into the pool.” As he said this, Omega sniffed, ”Of course, now we know that the Water Mirror Demon was behind it.”

”But we didn’t know that at the time.”

”Iseni thought himself a Fishman since we’re pretty good at swimming, so he jumped in to save people... We thought he was about to succeed because we saw them both struggling at the edge of the pool.”

”So we immediately reached out to pull them... but we didn’t anticipate that these were all illusions.”

”And then you all one by one fell into the water demon’s pool.” Xin Fat Man summarized, shaking his head: ”If you had prepared a few more Tranquility talismans, you wouldn’t have been deceived by these illusions.”

Omega glanced at Zheng Qing and then at the fat man, finally suppressing his urge to retort.