Echoes of Hollow

"An angel? There's an angel in your boyfriend's body?! HaHaHaHaHa!"

Grabbing a pillow, Alyia tried to throw it at Lior. But he caught it in the air and lay back on the couch, continuing to laugh, not even bothering to dodge.

"I don't understand why you're laughing. It's not funny at all."

Crossing her legs, she sighed.

"Maybe not for you, but it's hilarious for me! You spent hours looking for him, and when you finally found him, he wouldn't even accept a kiss on the forehead. Do you know what that means...? If you keep going down this path, your bed is going to stay cold for a long time."

"Funny."

Trying to contain her anger, but with her forehead still furrowed, Alyia gave a smile laced with sarcasm.

"At least I have a boyfriend. And what about you? Have you gone chasing after Addiah today?"

"Ouch...! That hurt."

Lior sat up, trying to hold back his laughter. He stopped for a moment, sighed, and wiped the tears from his eyes.

"But, seriously, what are you going to do? It’s not like you can just remove the angel from inside him. And, actually, do you even know which angel it is?"

"Aah..."

Sighing deeply, Alyia let her body fall back on the couch, staring at the white ceiling above her.

"It’s the damned devil..."

"What...?"

"It's Samael, the archangel! The one they say was expelled from damn heaven! Damn it, you didn’t pay attention to any of the lessons I gave you, did you?!"

"That’s..."

There was no more room for laughter. Stunned, Lior stopped, incredulous, thinking for a moment.

"That's impossible, right...? Isn’t he supposed to be guarding hell? ...If it really is him, who's in charge down there now? If that's the case... what's stopping Leviathan from coming back to earth?"

“Why are you asking me this as if I know the answer? Do you want me to go there and ask? And why does it even matter? It’s just a gecko. You should be thinking about getting back to training. Don’t forget, your time is almost up.”

Getting up, she walked toward the stairs leading to the second floor.

"I'm going to sleep for a bit, so keep it quiet... you two in the kitchen as well, and Nura, put that jar away!"

"I already did..."

With her cheeks puffed out, the girl closed the fridge door, and with yellow flames flickering from her hair, she left her brother behind and walked into the living room. She lay down with her head on Lior’s lap, who, seeing her state, smiled.

"See? If you hadn’t ratted me out, this wouldn’t have happened."

"Alyia is so annoying!"

"And you’re not coming to the park with us either!"

The slamming of the door echoed.

"What...?!"

With her eyes shining, she looked up at Lior, trying to make the cutest face possible.

"Don’t even try, you betrayed me, remember?"

"Hmph!"

Crossing her arms, Nura turned away, smoke puffing from her ears.

"...You're so annoying too...!"

***************

After the nurse who came to calm them down left, the woman sitting in the chair at the far right corner of the room sighed. Unfortunately, her doubt about the strange mana had been answered, but now she couldn’t look at Hye for more than two seconds without her instincts forcing her to turn away.

"So... giants over a thousand meters tall, griffins, an ice man, werewolves, and... an archangel...? Are you sure the place you were in was a dungeon, Samantha? Aside from the spiders, none of these other creatures have been seen in portals before, well, except the giants, but none of them were that big. Was this a dungeon or..."

The sentence didn’t need to be finished because everyone already knew what she was getting at. And although she had thought it, the woman didn’t have the courage to say it. Swallowing hard and then exhaling deeply, she looked at Hye, but couldn’t hold that gaze, shifting to Samantha instead.

"And are you sure about this? I thought you didn’t want to get directly involved with dungeons, let alone enter one..."

"Yes..."

Samantha nodded, holding one of her elbows and trying not to avert her gaze.

"I really didn’t want to, but... being in that place made me rethink things a bit and..."

Without giving her time to turn away, she raised one hand and grabbed Hye’s ear.

"...this boy... he became a hunter after being away from me for less than a month. What’s he going to want to do next? It’s better to teach him now than to let him learn by doing dangerous things on his own."

"I understand, but... I don’t think I can do it, so..."

"It’s alright, I understand, you don’t need to worry..."

"No..."

Seeing Samantha's expression, the woman stood up and tried to walk toward her, but her feet froze, her voice wouldn’t come out, and, reluctantly turning her gaze away, the bright mana made her shudder. Returning to the chair, she sighed.

"I think you misunderstood something, it’s not that I don’t want to help, it’s just that I can’t. Or rather, I’m not able to. Geniuses like you are beyond my reach. I could try, but the result would be minimal. So I was thinking it would be better if someone more capable did it, right?"

"Someone more capable...?"

"Yes, Lior couldn’t do it, he doesn’t even train himself, so helping someone else would be impossible. Theodore follows the same pattern, so that wouldn’t work either. Which means there's only one person left..."

Watching the woman’s actions, Hye saw her glance at the wall for a moment. After that, she sighed, briefly shaking her head in denial.

"Okay."

The woman stood up and walked toward the door.

"Shall we?"

"Excuse me...?"

"I’m going to introduce you to your new teacher. Although, apparently..."

Her eyes wandered, resting on Hye for a brief moment.

"...one of you already knows her, right?"