Chapter 45: Three Doors

Jaxir rushed along, pulling Nick along as fast as he dared to. He looked completely focused on the path ahead as they closed in on the destination, but then he came to a sudden stop and his head snapped toward a certain direction.

His gaze met Rin’s and he gave her a grin before pointing.

Rin was shocked for a moment and then scoffed. Did she look like a child who would fall for something so ridiculous—

Pa.

A magic bullet slammed into the back of her head. She tumbled forward and the spell she had been silently chanting was interrupted.

She tumbled toward the ground, her eyes wide in astonishment. Her Twinkle Mana kicked up and a spiralling light of twinkle brassy energies caught and slowed her fall to the ground.

[-3]

She landed on the ground with a light tap of her toes, but she couldn’t erase the shock rolling through her heart. Had Jaxir just controlled Twinkle Mana in her own formation to attack her?

That was impossible. Absolutely impossible.

’Dammit. He’s definitely suppressing his level. But I don’t recognize him, is he not part of the Spark Faction? Who is he, then?’

Jaxir suddenly dashed forward again, pulling Nick along again. This time he was moving so fast that Nick found himself gliding through the air half the time.

Rin was completely caught off guard. Jaxir had been moving at a certain pace from the very beginning. Though he was speeding up, nothing about his previous actions suggested he could move this fast.

’Impossible! His stats have to be supp—!’

Rin’s eyes landed on the feather set Jaxir was wearing and she cursed.

She had tried to catch Jaxir off guard by lining up outside his line of sight. So she had obviously not approached from the direction he was heading toward. Simply put, she had curved around and attacked from the side, leaving a straight shot toward the center of the formation wide open.

’He planned all of this from the beginning. He has to be extremely familiar with formations, and he must have chosen to target me in specific, otherwise it simply doesn’t make sense that he’d be so confident there are no other enemies.’

Rin’s analysis was completely wrong, but it wouldn’t be until a long while later that she realized this.

Twinkle Mana wrapped around her and she rushed forward. She had to stop Jaxir and Nick from entering the Dungeon. Her level shroud wouldn’t be enough to let her enter.

’Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! How is he so fast while he’s dragging someone else along?!’

Her eyes widened when she realized that Jaxir was actually transferring some lightness to Nick.

’Impossible! Who the hell is he?!’

Rin had had the same thought three times already, but it wasn’t getting her any closer to her goals.

She rushed to raise her staff up high, charging it with a large amount of Twinkle Mana.

But the moment she made a move to do so, another bead of Twinkle Mana rushed out from the dense fog around her, slamming into her head.

It tried to inject itself into her spell and completely threw it off balance.

She stumbled, her hand whipping back in a vain attempt to try and regain some control.

She could only watch as Jaxir burst into the eye of the formation with Nick in tow.

...

Nick gasped as though he was breathing real oxygen for the first time in several minutes.

"You can see now?" Jaxir asked.

"I can—"

"Great, let’s go. We don’t have much time before she catches up."

Without wasting another word, Jaxir rushed toward the dungeon.

"STOP! WE ARE FROM THE GRAVITY TEMPLE!" Rin’s roar came from the distance.

Jaxir grinned over his shoulder. "We know that."

"Hey!" Nick said, a bit offended, rushing after Jaxir. "What if I wanted some plausible deniability?"

"Well, you’ve been plausibly denied."

Nick was speechless for a second but then he erupted into a rain of laughter. He liked this guy.

Jaxir vanished into the dungeon and Nick went in right after him just as Rin finally caught up and burst into the eye of the formation.

She skidded to a stop, her eyes bulging with fury.

Gone. They were really gone.

She gripped her fists tightly. She couldn’t believe that she had made a mistake like this.

’I need to report this. Some other faction has to be interfering, and somehow they have Twinkle Mana of a higher grade than I do.’

Rare Twinkle Mana was something only the ranked members had. It was inconceivable that a nobody would have it. Jaxir had to be using some sort of disguise artifact.

Rin grit her teeth and then took a deep breath to settle her nerves.

’Only two of them entered, so at least one of our people will get the reward if they perform well enough. If they’re smart, they’ll work together to get rid of them. For now, I need to prepare for their exit.’

If she found even the slightest hint of weakness in Jaxir’s backstory she was going to blitz him to death.

As aggravating as all of this was... nothing Jaxir had done struck true fear in her.

Level shroud items strong enough to allow you to enter a lower level dungeon often came with the greatest drawbacks.

**

Jaxir didn’t get to run for long after he entered the dungeon. He instantly became weightless as though he was yanked through spacetime.

When his vision cleared, he found himself alone in a room with three doors.

The first door had the symbol of an eight-sided star at the top of it. The second door had a dotted array of stars with three that looked more prominent than the others. The last door was likewise a symbol of stars, but it was arranged in a constellation that looked like...

’A feather?’

Jaxir raised an eyebrow. It seemed that these doors probably represented the three villages.

He could only pick one?

His eyes landed on the first door. That seemed like the obvious choice. That eight-sided star was one he had seen before. The Twinkle Twinkle Bear had used it during their battle.

If that represented the Twinkle Village, it made sense to take it since that was the quest the old lady had given him. But... Jaxir was kind of curious about the other doors.

Just as he was about to make his decision, there was a ping in his notifications.