CHAPTER 78: CHAPTER 77: CAN I KILL HIM?

The group kept watching the scene from a distance. Honestly, everyone thought Gloo was just like his codename: too sticky.

They remembered he had gone mute the day the Aurelia couple disappeared. It wasn’t until he heard about Zaen that he had a burst of energy thanks to his misplaced jealousy.

Zaen suddenly jumped off the ledge of the now-barren balcony overlooking the courtyard. Gloo rushed after him, but instead of dodging, Zaen caught the rubbery substance and used it to launch himself back into the balcony, leaving Gloo to fall below.

"The son isn’t as bad, considering he hasn’t had any formal training," Storm couldn’t hold back and spoke what was on everyone’s mind.

A few heads nodded. No one in the courtyard had missed the way Zaen had moved. There were little to no unnecessary movements, and even the moves he committed to were clean... too clean.

It was just as Storm said, Zaen didn’t look like someone who had grown up without guidance. The level of decision-making he showed was a rare sight, especially among the new recruits. Not to mention, he was doing all that while being practically blind.

While there had been reports of Zaen being involved in countless strange scenarios, including the Bus 357 and Hell’s Restaurant scenarios, the group had been skeptical.

Besides, Eira had revoked everyone’s access to his files, so anything they heard about Zaen was through rumors, and everyone knew it wasn’t the most reliable source of information.

However, now that they had seen him in action, they realized that Zaen indeed showed promise. Perhaps even better than their beloved masked squad captain.

"Maybe it runs in the blood," someone muttered.

The nature of Zaen’s father’s research was no secret. Since the number of hunters was constantly decreasing, he had taken it upon himself to sort the mess out and establish ways to ’inherit’ talents using the genetics of existing talented individuals.

It was a necessity because anomalies weren’t born as equals to their human counterparts. Unfortunately, the research was never completed... at least not officially.

Yet, his work had established a new school of thought within the organization. One that argued that inheritance did work in a twisted way. Whether it be curses or traits, a part of them was passed from hunter to hunter. Even if the abilities didn’t match perfectly, the potential often did.

Now the group wondered if Zaen was a product of such an experiment.

After all, the Aurelia family had been monsters of their world in their own right, as it was one of the seventeen core families that had started fighting the anomalies nearly three centuries ago and hadn’t been wiped out.

Naturally, the seventeen families also included the Chos.

If the rumors about the Aurelia couple were true, then Zaen might be walking around with a talent strong enough to alter the academy’s balance.

"If talents pass on... then the kid’s probably got enough raw instinct to put half the second years to shame, and that’s saying something since not everyone here is allowed to continue after the first year."

"Let’s just hope," she whispered, "he inherits the good parts... and not the insane ones."

The first year at any of the academies was the easiest. It was also called the foot-soldier training simulator. The goal of the first-year curriculum was simple.

The organization needed capable people to make up for the loss of annual deaths. Everyone was given basic training, and the necessary protocols were imprinted into their minds before sending them to the field.

Among them, those who possess a higher level of skills or potential are ’held back’ for specialized training. The same went for the next year, and the next year... and so on.

It was the masked squad’s sixth year at the academy. They were the first ones to accomplish such a feat, yet... Zaen’s parents had already prepared a curriculum for them well in advance. It was like they could see the future and knew the group was capable of such a feat.

It could be said it was their parting gift to their students, but after seeing Zaen, they weren’t so sure about that. Perhaps he was the actual gift.

That is, if Gloo didn’t lose his marbles and actually did lasting damage to Zaen. It was unlikely, but weirder things had happened in the academy, so it wouldn’t be the first or the worst incident there.

While they were engrossed in speculation, Gloo stuck to Zaen’s feet, dragging him down. Mimi and Hina rushed to his aid, but a wall of molten iron stopped them in their tracks.

Gloo didn’t want any interruption between him and the so-called prodigy.

At the same time, molten iron merged with Gloo’s body and shot towards Zaen. The latter didn’t bother dodging and cut through it all. But it wasn’t the cuts that caused Gloo pain, it was Zaen’s smug smile.

Such an arrogant frontal confrontation, of course, greatly enraged Gloo.

You’re not very smart, are you?

That was the only thought in Zaen’s head. He knew Gloo was strong, and defeating him wasn’t possible for him currently. The only reason he lasted this long was that the other guy seemed to have his mind in his kneecaps.

Despite saying that, he knew that wasn’t the truth. The organization wouldn’t have given the guy so much importance if he had been an imbecile. It was more like something was triggering the gooey guy.

He kept falling for obvious feint attacks while failing to block the actual strikes. That didn’t mean Zaen wasn’t drained. The constant attacks were too much for him, even with his enhanced stamina and agility.

He stood on a pile of rubble, looking around. The ground was already covered with lava-like molten iron, leaving no place to stand. He had noticed it before, but was too occupied to do anything about it.

Molten iron was melting other things around, increasing its size, but most of it was contained around Zaen.

Perhaps you haven’t lost all sense of reason.

Whether he had lost his senses or not wasn’t up for discussion. It was more about why the hell was he going all-out against him? Because Zaen didn’t believe for a second that the guy before him was restricting his powers at all.

Instead of focusing on the fight, Zaen turned around to face the rest of the masked individuals who were standing far away. He looked right at their leader and mouthed a few words.

"...did he just say what I think he did?" Storm asked, literally baffled by Zaen’s arrogance.

Can I kill him now?

Those were Zaen’s words.

Logically speaking, defeating someone and killing them were two different things. Zaen was confident he couldn’t ’defeat’ Gloo, but killing him was an entirely different thing. Besides, killing him would give Zaen enough exp to heal any injuries he would incur.

"Should we—?" Storm said, taking a step ahead, but stopped the next moment.

"No need," the leader cut him off. "The recruit stepped over the line. Gloo will teach him a lesson, and no one will intervene."

Zaen waited for a minute, but when they didn’t intervene, he just shrugged and accepted their decision. Surely they wouldn’t punish him if something were to happen to Gloo.

"Shop."

As he got busy interacting with the invisible interface, Gloo lashed out, sending a wave of molten iron Zaen’s way. However, unlike Zaen, Gloo didn’t want to kill his opponent.

After all, he was there to make Zaen feel the difference in their power, but taking a limb or two wasn’t something he would feel bad about.

The molten iron struck Zaen’s left shoulder. The sound of sizzling flesh echoed through the place, coupled with the smell. Within seconds, Zaen’s entire shoulder blade was exposed. The skin and muscles had been erased from existence.

Everyone’s mouths fell open, but not because of Gloo’s ruthlessness.

Zaen literally had his bones exposed, burned away, never to be grown again, and yet... he didn’t scream in pain. He was as calm as always.

"This is it?" he scoffed, tossing something like a marble in his mouth.

A moment later... his flesh and skin regenerated. If it weren’t for his burned clothes, no one would’ve believed he was even hit by the molten iron.

The masked guys weren’t an exception. Storm shook his head, as if he had been hungover and saw something ridiculous. Lolita rubbed her eyes and then kept glancing between Zaen and their leader, hoping to get an explanation.

No one had recovered from that shock when Zaen did something even more absurd. He dunked his entire arms into the molten iron and hurled it at Gloo.

The latter jumped back, but still got burned by the splashes. His reaction was similar to that of Zaen.

No pain.

No squeals.

Nothing.

Still... he screamed.

"ARGH!"

Not because of the ’lava’ but because Zaen had stabbed his gooey form with his blade.

"You feel pain too? Good to know," Zaen smirked.