The Monster Monarch System-Chapter 107: Thoughtless?

An explosion of flames echoed around the town, picking up and decimating buildings in an instant as the flames pervaded everywhere... Julie sighted the destruction and knew what the Masked man’s plan was.

’To redirect the attention of every Cavalier in the town toward this location and run,’ Julie thought as the board glided through the air, the massive towering flames eliciting a heat that made sweat trickle down her face.

Within the flames, the slime cocked it’s arms back, gathering more flames around them – the cloak didn’t burn even after being exposed to such an intense amount of heat... Channeler cloaks were valuable due to the kind of fabric used in making them, one that was able to resist the power of elements to a certain degree.

And then the slime forced them forward, flames rippled through the air with the force of a bullet and engulfing the board of holy flames... much to Julie’s surprise and miscalculation.

"Is he actually facing us head-on?" She muttered under her breath as the crimson flames which threatened to blast her and Arya into oblivion were fought back by holy flames which dissipated shortly after, Arya moved past several blasts of crimson flames with peak precision while cocking her fist back and firing a powerful orb at the growing flames. Any Cavalier that came near the explosion of flames were burnt to ash.

’How much Magical energy does he have?’ Arya thought as her orb of flames was destroyed in an instant... the flames spun out of control, the explosion taking up even more buildings, Arya was forced to pull back in fear that more flames would continue raging and eventually break through her defenses.

But the explosion died down momentarily, the swirl of flames vanishing as well. Julie gasped, the masked man was on the move again.

"Where did he go?" Arya wondered while clenching her fist, she looked around while Julie tried to contemplate the reason why the Masked man vanished only to sight something flickering in a distance – a red light, a seeming signal.

Julie pointed toward the signal.

"Teacher, I think that is a signal," Julie muttered under his breath and she felt the board moving forward at an intense pace, even Julie had to wrap her arms around Arya’s waist to keep herself from falling – the board tore through the air, heading toward the flickering red light only for it to stop as abruptly as it had taken off.

Julie pulled back.

"Why did we st - ?"

Even she couldn’t discern what was going on, why were there multiple signals on all of the roofs? Each one a small crackle of flame, she had been... outsmarted. She struggled to find meaning to all of this but the meaning wouldn’t reveal itself – each small spark sizzled like a flame, Julie didn’t know what to do at this point... she had never felt overpowered like this in her life, she had always been the one in control but unfortunately for her, she found someone whose intelligence rivaled hers.

Rem stood atop a house, wearing the masked man clothing while eyeing them from the distance.

’She really is keen and her eyes are sharp,’ Rem thought while leaping down and sprinting through Reifall at an unbelievable pace, ’But it was unfortunate that she wasn’t able to see through the guise,’

The flickers of flame vanished as soon as Rem made it out of the town, he had fulfilled his purpose and the events following after would make it easier for him to clear dungeons from both sides.

#####

Arya’s expression turned stone as soon as she heard that someone had cleared a C-grade dungeon from the Forest of death, while the Cavaliers had mostly been focused on apprehending the Masked man in Reifall. By the time the sensory magus had detected the gate closing... the person or people who cleared the dungeon had moved, taking the magical stones away.

"It sounds like the Masked man," Arya muttered, "I think he’s back for good this time but I don’t know how it’s possible – think about it, how can he be in Reifall and the forest of death at the same time?"

Arya turned to Julie and the girl adjusted her hat.

"Well it’s possible that someone is impersonating him," Julie said, they were in Arya’s office and steadily thinking about what happened today.

"I would like to agree with you on that but he’s the only one we know capable of soloing dungeons," Arya said, "Even B-ranks would find it hard to solo dungeons, so the Masked man is nothing less than A-rank capable of using both soul energy and magical energy,"

Julie shuddered upon hearing it.

’He really is a monster,’ Julie thought and crossed her legs, ’But she has a point to it,’

She had thought that the one that they faced wasn’t the real one but it might as well have been the real one – since they weren’t in the forest when it happened, Julie was sure that it was a powerful party under the control of the Masked man.

’But the last escape that the Masked man made was weird,’ Julie thought while peeling her eyes shut, she could picture each flicker of flame as though she was there again... the escape that the Masked man made was strange because nobody knew where he went after that, it was possible that he ran directly to escape but that was also unlikely because of the fact that there were still Cavaliers positioned at exits of the town.

’And it would take a whole lot of speed for anybody to run from that position to any of the exits,’ Julie thought, that was the part of the puzzle which could not be solved no matter the effort she put in, she had witnessed the Masked man running before and he was not nearly as fast as this. It was very unlikely that he suddenly gained that much speed...

’Unless!’ She smacked her palms against each other, ’Maybe the real one and fake one left in the confusion,’

"Well we have to play it safe," Arya said, "So we won’t deploy any cavaliers tomorrow, I’ll talk about it with the Mayor,"

"Why shouldn’t we deploy any Cavaliers? What if he attacks again?" Julie asked, to her it sounded really stupid.

"The Masked man is known to take some time off after each expedition he makes," Arya said, "This way he manages to look the least suspicious while having performed a big crime, the biggest problem we have with him is that he’ll strike when we are not expecting it,"

Julie sighed, there was truth to what Arya said but she still felt weird... this was the first time she was actually so confused and for now she wanted to rest.

#####

Arya’s lips quivered while Julie stared blankly, she had suspected that this would happen but this confirmed her thoughts about the Masked man in question. He was going beyond the depths of her intelligence, she wasn’t able to calculate or deduce his movements because neither she nor the Authorities had expected that 3 C-grade dungeons from both Reifall and the Forest of death to disappear on the same day and with no records of any official party going there.

"It’s him," Arya muttered under her breath, the Authorities had been taken by surprise – they knew this was a person that struck unexpectedly.

Julie walked beside her mentor, the afternoon wind blowing gently against her face as they kept pacing toward the GUILD.

"You said he strikes unexpectedly," Julie said, "And since you guys didn’t expect it yesterday so he did it, but I don’t understand why he keeps going to dungeons,"

Arya sighed.

"He probably needs a lot of money, which is why he keeps going into dungeons," Arya said, "And then he sells the stones to an illegal buyer or he sells it to the Black market,"

"Why can’t we trace the sales in the Black market?" Julie asked.

"The Black market has a policy which means they won’t give away the identities of whoever they’re trading with," Arya replied, "And even then, nobody accepting Magic stones will actually reveal themselves,"

Julie sighed.

’If the Cavaliers try to press into the Black market and threaten the salesmen then the Black market would lose their trust in the authorities and the Masked man’s name might not even surface,’ Julie thought.

It was dangerous and the possibilities of reaping any benefits from this was extremely low, it seemed that at every turn, the Masked man was bypassing the intelligence that she was very proud of... She didn’t know what to feel of it, Julie fell silent trying to contemplate a method that would be useful to dealing with him but nothing came up... She gritted her teeth in frustration.

’What can I do? He’s clearly smarter,’ Julie thought but she soon reached a conclusion, ’It could work...’

But the idea was shunned by her mind yet again, there was no hope for it working – for all she knew, the Masked man was much more smarter than her.

’I’m thoughtless?’

-

Author’s Note:

Hah, she wasn’t able to match him in the end. Well what else did she expect? Let’s continue on our path to 2k collections people!