AUTHOR'S REINCARNATION IN A FANTASY SETTING

When she was done telling me about the reason she was doing all this and going out of her way to warn me, then she came to the main topic which was the plan Seiren and Emmeric had devised to use against me.

She went into detail and told me everything they'd planned. To sum it up, their plan was for the girls to follow me while keeping my presence hidden and when I find a hidden task item, they'd either use that chance if I'm in an isolated area to ambush me there or they would try to steal my item and lure into such area. AFter that Emmeric will come and kill me, according to the plan.

This helped me greatly. I still doubted the credibility of the information she'd given me but I decided to make my counter plan around it. Which turned out to be a good decision in the end.

Since I knew about Seiren and Emmeric's plan it was easy to counter it. When the exam started, I entered the forest and only after walking a few meters the girls were following me.

They were bad and careless at concealing their pesence and I was able to sense them behind me quite easily. But even if I wasn't able to detect then Req would've done that to me. Their carelessness also showed in the fact that the whole time they weren't' aware of Nsiria who was also following them.

After that all I had to do was make it seem like they were tailing me successfully and I was not aware about them. I went into the cave since it was a good place to take them down and since it was an isolated place, it would help to lure them in the trap too since they would think that I'd trapped myself by coming here.

I remember the time when I ripped off Winston's arms, that time I'd only used the ice element to attack him, thus it's only reasonable that Emmeric also saw that aspect of my magic only.

I had not met him since then and there's no way he would've known about my powers any other way. As I've never shown them publicity or to the academy. This was one of the benefits I get for blending in the background and keeping a low profile.

Everyone in the academy thinks I'm just a normal nobody and no one knows what I'm truly capable of.

When I entered the cave I made sure that everything looks like it's going all according to their plan. That way they'll let their guard down and I'll attack when the moment is right.

And the moment did come, and everything do go according to the plan. Not their plan, of course.

***

"Something still doesn't seem right," Seiren said. "You say this bitch told you about our plan, but how does she knows about it? We've never involved her. Even if she knew that we were plotting something against you, she shouldn't know the details."

"Well, I'm curious about this myself," Zero agreed. "I was meaning to ask you three about it. How in the bloody hell did you managed to get your plan leaked when there were only fucking five of them?!" he meant it in a mocking sense of way, but no one asked.

"Isn't it about time you stop acting?" Nsiria said. Her eyes were toward the three girls.

Everyone present there knew what it meant. They had a traitor among them, and it was someone in the three girls. 𝑓𝑟eℯ𝒘𝗲𝑏𝓃𝑜𝚟𝙚𝑙.𝒄o𝑚

"You are right. It's about time I was getting tired of this too," a girl among the three said as she stepped forward.

"You?" Seiren said. It wouldn't be wrong to say that she was taken aback by this. Anyone would feel the same way if betrayed by their friends.

"I can't say I didn't see this coming. You were acting differently for a while now," Wrena added her opinion.

"What the hell are you two on about? You don't really think like we're friends or something, do you? Remember the reason why we three got together? It was so we can take down Ellyn in order to win Leon, but there were three of us and one Leon so we'd decided to compete once Ellyn was taken care of.

"We were acting together just on a temporary basis. So are a fool if you thought we were friends or comrades or whatever," Alada said as she slowly walked close to Zero and stood beside him, opposite to Nsiria.

"She's the one who told me about their plan, and gave me the idea to leak it to you," Nsiria explained to Zero.

"Why?" Seiren asked.

By this time, she was clenching her fists tightly and her expression was a mix of anger and sadness. Her eyes were widened too and it looked like she would cry, except their were no tears.

"Why, you say? It's simple. Because I have nothing to gain by staying at your side anymore. My goal was to get Leon and that still hasn't changed. However I can't do that with no now."

Alada looked at Zero. "He is more powerful than you, more smarter. I could tell that when we had the encounter on the rooftop. Right now, he is the easiest way to get to Leon. I just understood that," she said.

"Why do you think he would let you do that, huh? He's already acquainted with Ellyn; Leon's girlfriend. Why would he go out of his way to sour his relationship with her for you?" Seiren asked, her tone was harsh.

"See? That's why you're an idiot, and I left you're side. You can't see that he is not 'acquainted' with her. He is just manipulating her for his own good," Alada stated.

"Wha…."" Seiren was at a loss of words. She'd never thought about it like this.

There was a moment of quiet as Seiren did nothing but stand there, looking down while clenching her hands and gritting her teeth.

"So…now what? Will you kill him?" she asked, at last. Her words carried a certain weight which told she was serious about it.

"There's—"

"I'm not talking to you!" she screamed, stopping Alada mid-way and looking straight into Zero's eyes.

"I'd like to know that as well. Is this where I die?" Wrena appealed.

Zero didn't reply rather walked slowly walked toward them. Taking one step at a time, he walked close to the two girls and stood in the gap between them.

"Do you two want to die?" he asked.

"Not now," Wrena said.

"….No," Seiren replied too.

"Okay," Zero said.

There was a gust of wind as Zero moved both his arms and hit both the girls behind their neck. The chop was hard, and before the two of them could realize their feet stumbled and they fell to the ground as they lost concussions.

"Did you kill them?" Alada asked.

"You just called her an idiot, and this is what you ask," Zero mumbled as he walked toward them.

"So, what's the deal with you two?" he appealed.

"I just wanted to interrupt her plans, though seeing her fall on the ground makes it even more worthwhile. For now, I'm done so I'll just head back and complete the exam I guess," Nsiria said.

"I don't need to tell you, do I?"

"Yeah. I won't tell anyone you. In fact, after seeing what you did I wouldn't dare to tell anyone about you," she repiled, looking at Emmeric's corpse.

"Good. And you?" he turned to Alada.

_{𝑓r𝘦𝘦𝘄eb𝒏𝙤vel.c𝙤𝙢}

"I've said this before too. I want to work with you so that I can achieve my goal. Of course, I will be helping you with whatever you want too," she said.

"You want to me to make you my partner when you've just betrayed your previous ones right in front of my eyes? Hmm, sounds reasonable."

"I wouldn't do that to you."

"I'm sure she thought the same thing. 'She wouldn't betray me',"

"Tch! So what should I do to make you believe me?"

"Try and dodge this."

"Huh?"

Zero moved with high intensity and was behind the remaining two girls in no time. She hit them behind their neck too and just like Seiren and Wrena, they stumbled into unconsciousness as well.

[Why did you even bother asking when you'd already decided to put everyone to sleep?] Req's voice asked in Zero's head.

'Just for the fun of it. Plus, these two had helped me out, they deserved a few words at least.'