Chapter 19: 17 – Blood-filled “orientation”

Glenn was woken up in the middle his sleep by the loud sound of something hitting the ground. Groaning and getting up, he saw Ava standing in the doorway. Right beneath her was pieces of what he assumed was a new plate. That must have been the source of the sound.

Ava stared straight at Glenn with widened eyes. "Y-you!"

As Glenn was about to ask her the obvious question, Ava went unconscious on the spot and fell to the ground with a thud.

Seeing this, Glenn rushed toward her. Luckily, she didn't seem to have been injured by the sharp ceramic fragments. As Glenn picked her up and laid her down on the couch, Ava regained consciousness. 

She gazed blankly at Glenn, rubbing her eyes for a few seconds to make sure that she wasn't dreaming, or worse, hallucinating. She pinched her own cheeks, and then Glenn's.

"What are you doing?" Glenn frowned.

But as if she didn't hear him, Ava looked down to her shaking hands and muttered to herself, "am I dead?"

"No, you're not." Glenn spoke with a slightly raised voice, breaking Ava out of her trance. "Why are you like this?" 

"Tell me something only Glenn would know."

"That doesn't answer my questio—"

"Just do it."

Seeing his sister's insistence, Glenn sighed and closed his eyes in recollection.

"You remember when you were out of socks, and you tried to use mine?"

"Yes..."

"Right. You accidently used my "special sock," and your foot went all uhhh... slimy. Since you were receiving training from dad at that time, you had the habit of tasting anything strange. So you basically licked my c—"

"OKAY! I GET IT!" Ava shouted, preventing Glenn from continuing with the story.

"Heh," Glenn chuckled, "now are you ready to answer my question?"

"Y-yes," Ava replied after a few seconds of pulling herself together from the embarrassment, "but I want to ask you this first. How the hell did you crawl back from death?"

"...?"

Seeing Glenn's confusion, Ava sighed. "You know what, nevermind." Then, she moved in to hug Glenn tight. "I'm glad that you're still alive."

Ava's hug was so tight that Glenn felt that all the air was knocked out of his lungs. Patting Ava's back to signal for her to let him go, Glenn gasped for air and demanded, "tell me. Why did you think that I was dead? I was only gone for a week."

In response, Ava stood up and made her way toward a cabinet. Opening it and taking out a piece of paper, she handed it to Glenn.

Glenn scanned the paper. Most of it was pleasantries that made no sense, but he still managed to single out the important texts.

 

After reading the letter, everything made sense. He, along with almost everyone in the alliance, knew what the "re-educational" facility was. Although no one dared to speak about it in public for fear of being transported to the same place, it was kind of like an open secret. Thus, it was understandable that Ava thought that he was dead.

However, there was one thing that he didn't understand.

"When did this letter arrive?"

"2 days after you were gone."

"Ava, I have to tell you something."

"Is it that important that you had to spend several minutes staring into thin air and ignoring your precious little sister?"

"Y-yes."

"You're lucky I'm so patient. Now, tell me, what troubles you so, my dearest brother?"

'You sly fox!'

Now that Ava had attacked his weakness by calling him her "dearest brother," Glenn couldn't back out now. As such, he told her everything, from his meeting with Ander, Kevin, Katherine, to the Spirit queen, and, eventually, the injustice that he witnessed earlier today.

Surprisingly, Ava took all of this in rather easily. After Glenn finished his story, Ava nodded solemnly. "I see. Thank you for telling me this."

"You believe me?"

"If I can't trust my own brother, who else can I?" Ava said as if it was a fact. "But I swear to Goddess Lyra, if you was just lying to make fun of me..."

"Nope. It's all true." Glenn quickly added. "And remember, do not dig too deep into this. You could endanger yourself."

"Got it," Ava nodded.

Although Glenn couldn't help but feel that Ava's affirmation was a bit insincere, he eventually just chalked it up to him being a bit too paranoid. Then, he realized something.

"Is Mason preparing a funeral for me?"

"Oh right!" Ava exclaimed, "he is! We should probably tell him that you're back, shouldn't we? I don't want him to waste money for nothing."

Glenn nodded, and followed Ava downstairs to find the old landlord.

...

After informing Mason about himself, Glenn found out that Ava had just taken the entrance test to Kevlas that day, and, surprisingly, she was placed 15th. It meant that she was admitted into Kevlas, and was eligible to prestigious classes.

"Oh, but you missed the exam," Ava said with a sullen face, "I guess you can't go to Kevlas after all. But don't worry, I'll take you with me once I become a full fledged Delve—"

You are reading story Conqueror of the Abyss at novel35.com

"No need to worry about that," Glenn interrupted her with a shit-eating grin. "I got a direct admittance."

Ava's mouth was hung open. If she had been carrying another plate on her, Glenn was sure that it would've dropped on the ground. Eventually, she regained her calm and asked, "h-how?"

"What can I say?" Glenn shrugged, "except that it's all about connections. Dad was right all along, who would've known?"

...

A week had passed since that, and now, it was the first day of the Kevlas school year. 

Glenn checked his stuff. Since unlike other academies, Kevlas didn't have uniforms, students were instead given some kind of badge for identification.

Currently, Glenn's badge was a silver symbol of the alliance, with one stripe right below it, signifying that he was a first-year. He stuck it onto his brown linen shirt and put on a gray overcoat. He briefly considered putting on a scarf since, as always, it was cold outside, but he ultimately decided against it. 

Then, he checked for his textbooks and other necessary equipment, and then stuffed them all into his suitcase. With everything prepared, Glenn exited his apartment, grouped up with Ava, and made his way toward Kevlas.

Since the closest entrance to Kevlas was all the way in the 8th Avenue, Glenn had to reluctantly take the carriage there. As soon as he arrived at the Avenue, he and Ava started looking for the entrance.

"Is this it?" Glenn asked as he looked at an... entirely unimpressive building. It looked just like every building around it, and it certainly didn't look like the best Delver school in the alliance.

"According to the information on my acceptance letter, it is," Ava answered as she walked into the building with confidence.

Glenn, although still not convinced, followed Ava suit. As soon as they arrived at the door, Ava rang the doorbell.

The door creaked open a little bit, just enough for them to see a person peeking his head out from the doorway.

"Badge?" The man said as he scrutinized Glenn and Ava closely.

Ava nodded and took out her badge, which she kept in her pocket. Glenn, meanwhile, rolled his eyes and exaggeratingly pointed toward the badge, which was clearly visible on his left chest.

The man took no offense to Glenn's actions and allowed them in. Then, he led them deeper into the house, whose interior looked nothing special. Eventually, they arrived on the second floor, where a woman, medium-length brown hair and eyes, in military clothes, sitting in a chair and enjoying her tea leisurely. Judging by the two stars that she had below her badge, Glenn could tell that she was a senior instructor.

"Are they the students?" The woman asked after finishing her tea.

"Indeed," the man answered, "one placed 15th, the other got in through Stelwall's recommendation."

Tapping her finger on her chin, the woman asked, "which Stelwall?"

"Mr."

"I see..."

Then, she stood up and made her way toward Glenn and Ava, who were shifting nervously. Fortunately for Ava, and unfortunately for Glenn, her attention was entirely on Glenn.

"Don't get conceited. Even if Ander favored you, you won't be treated any different here, especially with your... not special background."

Glenn nodded.

"Your sister, on the other hand, got into Kevlas through her own merit and efforts."

Glenn wanted to retort, saying that he had to survive the 7th layer for 50 fucking days, but he made the sound decision not to antagonize a senior instructor.

Taking Glenn's silence as a gesture of understanding, the woman smiled and placed both of her hand on Ava and Glenn's shoulders. "We'll be meeting each other often, so I'll introduce myself. I'm Liz Beres, a senior instructor, as you might have guessed."

"N-nice to meet you, instructor Beres," Ava stuttered with a smile.

"You can call me 'madam' if you want," Liz smiled softly at Ava. "Anyway, school's starting in a few minutes, so I'll send you in now."

"But... how?" Glenn asked. Ever since Glenn entered the house, he had been keeping a keen eye on everything. And the conclusion he came to was: this house was completely normal. There was barely any Mana here, and the little Mana he could sense came from the man that opened the door for him.

Then, he realized something. He couldn't sense any Mana coming from Liz. Either she had no ounce of Mana inside her, in which case, she would've been dead the moment she was exposed to Mana, or... she was skill enough to hide her Mana completely.

Judging the Liz's slowly widening smirk, it seemed that it was the latter. And, Glenn's suspicions were confirmed just a split second later, as a burst of Mana suddenly exploded out of Liz.

Still keeping a hand on their shoulders, Liz whispered, "the puke bin will be on your right."

Then, everything disappeared. All Glenn could see was darkness—no, it wasn't even darkness, it was nothingness, the same kind of nothingness that he experienced when Annie teleported him before, only, he wasn't in this space for a very brief amount of time like last time. Before Glenn could take any action, all his senses returned at once, and he was hit by a sudden sense of vertigo. He immediately looked in front of him, spotting Kevlas academy in all its glory.

However, he couldn't stare at the academy in awe, as the urge to puke overwhelmed him. He remembered Liz's words and immediately turned to his right. There, he could see the gray puke in. However, it was only big enough for one person, and Ava was already occupying it.

Left with no choice, he puked all his breakfast to the ground right in front of him. After finishing with the puking, Glenn pulled out his handkerchief to wipe his mouth. Only then did he hear the quiet snicker that came from his left. 

Of course, Glenn turned toward the source of the sound, only to see a dozen or so men and woman, around his age, dressed in much more extravagant clothes than his, stifling their laughter while conflictingly, obnoxiously pointing their fingers at him.

At the forefront of the group, where the leader would have been most likely stationed at, was a man surprisingly not of his age. However, upon seeing the man's smirk, and recognizing who he was, Glenn understood everything.

There was no way something as prestigious and important as Kevlas would be stingy enough to have only one puke bin, and it was most likely not a coincidence that Ava was teleported closer to the puke bin than him.

And, when Glenn gazed behind the man, he could see several gray puke bins just sitting there, unused.

As such, he could only let out a shout.

"SCREW YOU ANDER!"

Ander, the man leading the group, laughed and calmly responded.

"Welcome to Kevlas, kid."

You can find story with these keywords: Conqueror of the Abyss, Read Conqueror of the Abyss, Conqueror of the Abyss novel, Conqueror of the Abyss book, Conqueror of the Abyss story, Conqueror of the Abyss full, Conqueror of the Abyss Latest Chapter