Author's Note: Hope you all enjoyed the previous chapter. We're getting closer to meeting the head of the Eye of the Midnight Sun. Hope you all enjoy this chapter.
"…" Character P.O.V.
'…' Character thought.
"…" Spells.
"…" Animal P.O.V.
'…' Animal thought.
[…] Over-voice.
{…} Through Communication Device
Now then on with the new chapter.
Chapter 40: Pursuit over the Snow
The feeling a dread was thick in the air as the snow continued to fall and the Village of Nairn continued to worry about their missing children.
"Luca, Marco, where could you have gone at this hour?" Rebecca asks in worry as she looked around the village.
Asta looked around the village and saw that the other people of the village were outside and looking for their children as well, worrying and praying they were alright.
"Barshim!" A man yells calling out to his missing child.
"Helen, where are you?" A woman calls out.
"Guess they're not play hide-n-seek-" Asta begins to say as he turns back towards Rebecca.
"Die!" Gauche said as his mirror clone disappeared and he fired another magic mirror beam.
Asta summons a large boulder of ice in front of him as the beam bounces off it and launches upwards. He then glares at the man, who jumped down from the hole had created to the ground.
"I'll never let you marry my sister." Gauche says, unaware of the situation or just choosing to ignore it.
"Listen, Gauche! Now's not the time for that! There's something more important going on right!" Asta says the ice boulder disappears and tries to convince the Mirror Mage to stop.
"There is nothing more important than Marie, in this or any other world, damn it! I'll kill you!" Gauche shouts as he fired more mirror beams.
Asta raises his second Anti-Magic sword and slices through the mirror beams until a voice drew his, Gauche's, and Rebecca's attention.
"Hey, what the heck's going on in this town?" Noelle asks coming out of Rebecca's house and putting on her coat-like jacket. "Why is it snowing this time of year? This is absurd!" She says shivering from the cold.
"Noelle." Asta said as he walks towards her and lowered his scales. "Were you sleeping this whole time?" He asks with slight amazement in his voice.
"I was until a certain moron put a huge hole in the side of the house, which is what woke me up." Noelle says glaring in Gauche's direction but he ignores her as he continues to glare at Asta. "Anyway, what's going on around here?" She asks still shivering.
"Most of Nairn's children have disappeared. Including Rebecca's siblings, Luca and Marco." Asta explains while pulling off his sleeveless vest jacket and button up shirt making the two girls blush at seeing his have naked body. "Here, Noelle. It might not be much but it should provide some extra warmth." He says handing his fur vest jacket to his mate.
"Thanks a lot, Asta." Noelle says and kisses Asta's cheek shocking Rebecca.
'Wait, is she the one Asta was talking about?' Rebecca wonders staring at the Dragon Slayer couple.
"What's wrong with Rebecca?" Asta asks his girlfriend.
"Oh, let me handle that, Asta." Noelle says draping her mate's sleeveless jacket over her shoulders for extra warmth and begins sniffing the air. "More importantly, thanks to my enhanced sense of smell I've got a faint scent of a lot of kids heading towards the mountains. Is some kind of festival being held there?" She says and this news shocked Asta and Rebecca as the latter decided to speak up.
"That must be…" Rebecca begins to say feeling a bit hope now that she knew where all the children, including her siblings, went.
"I'm going to make you bleed." Gauche says as he appeared behind Asta with a magic mirror ready.
This caused Asta to let out a small yelp a fear and surprise.
"Stop it." A familiar voice says, causing the everyone to turn to see it was Sister Theresa.
"Old hag…" Gauche says in distaste.
"The old Sister Theresa." Asta says in surprise.
The person who told Gauche to stop was none other than Sister Theresa Rapual of the Nairn church as she and another nun walked towards them. Sister Theresa held her hand out and let a bit of snow fall into her hand as she examined it.
"I feel magical power in this snow. Magic that can control others…" Sister Theresa says as she frowned. "and that only affects children whose magic hasn't matured." She says.
"What?" The group gasps as the nun continued the examination.
"A number of ours were taken, too. What do they mean to do taking all these children?" Sister Theresa wonders as worry came into her voice.
"Hey, old hag, what do you mean "taken"?" Gauche asks as he turned to Theresa and a certain and obvious thought came to mind. "Don't tell me Marie was, too!" He yells.
"Sadly, that is what I'm saying." Sister Theresa says, confirming Gauche's fear as he gained a look of rage and charged at the elderly nun.
"You old hag!" Gauche screams as he grabbed her by the collar of her outfit and lifted her in the air.
"Sister Theresa!" The nun shouts in fear.
"How could you let that happen, you stupid old hag?!" Gauche asks yelling.
"Please stop!" The nun shouts as she worried for Sister Theresa.
"So quick to resort to violence…you really are a failure. If you want to hit me, go ahead. But that won't bring back the children. It won't bring back Marie." Sister Theresa said as she felt no fear in the man's rage.
Gauche lost his rage as he let out a short gasp before gazing towards the ground.
"You're right, it won't help Marie. But I won't feel better until I do." Gauche shouts as he reeled his fist back to punch Sister Theresa.
Gauche let his punch fly towards the nun until it was caught by Asta, who rushed in between Gauche and Sister Theresa to stop the man's useless fit.
"Asta! Are you crazy? Why are you doing this?" Rebecca asks worrying her crush as Gauche pulled his fist back and glared at the Dragon Slayer Magic using Black Bull.
"Asta, you bastard." Gauche says as his hair cast an eerie shadow over his eye.
Asta didn't seem to acknowledge the threat as he tried to calm his fellow squad member down from his slightly deserved anger.
"Look, this is getting us nowhere. So how about we calm down and cool off?" Asta asks, trying to stop anymore unnecessary violence but before Gauche could reply to Asta's claim, the young mage suddenly struck Gauche on the top of his head and forced him into the snow, face first. "A Magic Knight needs to stay calm at all times." Asta says as he felt Fuegoleon's wise words repeat in his head.
"Well, listen to you." Sister Theresa says as she and her fellow nun watch Asta's actions.
Gauche rose from the snow and gave his reply to Asta's advice.
"Calm, eh? You're right." Gauche says as his hair blocked his eyes.
"So you finally understand?" Asta asks with a smile but that quickly faded when he felt something wasn't right.
"I'll calmly kill you." Gauche says as he showed Asta his slightly blood covered face.
"Are still going on about this?!" Asta asks before Gauche quickly wiped the blood off his face and kicked Asta to the ground.
Gauche then tried to stomp on his stomach until Asta grabbed his foot and pushed back but found some difficulty in doing so, either the Mirror Mage was stronger than he appeared or the situation with his sister being kidnapped help him tap into new strength he didn't know he possess and didn't think about it.
"Struggle all you want, I'm still gonna make this hurt!" Gauche says as he put more force into his foot.
"This is a waste of time! You need to stop this so we can look for clues!" Asta said as he still held the foot back.
"What? As if it'll be that easy!" Gauche quips until something came to mind, and caused him to stop his attempt to hurt Asta. "Wait, the magic mirror that I have Marie keep with her at all times…I wouldn't be able to transmit to it because of this snow, but if I search for the mana in that mirror…I should be able to figure out where she is." He finished as he took his foot off of Asta and the Dragon Slayer could see new hope in Gauche's eye as he sat up and gave a smile.
"See? I told you. You just had to calm down." Asta said before Gauche gave a surprise stomp to his stomach, forcing him back to his back.
"All right! I may have figured that out, but I'm still killing you. I'll kill you while giving thanks." Gauche says through his clenched teeth as he repeatedly stomped Asta's stomach.
"I'm going as well. I'm going to get the kids from the church and the town back." Sister Theresa says, drawing everyone attention.
"Thanks, Old Sister, but I think you should leave this to us." Asta says as he pushed Gauche's foot of him and got up on his knees.
"No. as much as it pains me to say it, this old hag will be useful." Gauche said, actually agreeing with the nun he hates.
"Huh? She's not just an ordinary old lady?" Asta asks as he tried to get the nun to stay which caused Sister Theresa to chuckle a bit as she smirks at the Magic Knights.
"I'm not going to lose to you young'uns just yet." Sister Theresa countered.
Asta would've found another reason for her to stay if his attention wasn't turned to the sound of snow crunching behind him, he turned to the source and saw Rebecca on her knees with tears in her eyes. This also gained Noelle's attention as she turned to the crying red head.
"Asta…Marco's an idiot and Luca's too headstrong, so I'm worried about them…what shout I do? If something were to happen to them…" Rebecca's voices her words and concerns.
"Get a hold of yourself, Rebecca!" Asta shouts snapping her out of her worried induced state. "Take that!" He yells striking her on the top of her head causing her slight pain. "It'll be fine! I'll get them back, no matter what!" He says as Rebecca stares at him. "They'll laugh at you if you're all panicky when we get back." He says raising his clenched fist.
"Y-You're right." Rebecca says with a smile.
'Asta, you truly have a way with words.' Noelle thought with a smile as she stared at her mate.
The soft moment was soon interrupted as a broomstick suddenly hit the side of his head as it floated into the air.
"We're leaving, let's go." Gauche says as he was the one who hit Asta as he and Sister Theresa were on their brooms.
"Hey! How exactly am I supposed to follow? I don't have a broom of my own." Asta says staring up at the two.
"Well you can forget about me giving you a lift." Gauche says glaring at his squad mate.
"I'm sorry but it's difficult for me to carry more than myself at this age." Sister Theresa apologizes.
"Man, there's gotta be a way to follow." Asta says clenching his fist unaware that his Elemental Dragon Slayer grimoire was starting to glow. "If only I could fly on my own without the use of a broom." He says as the glow grew brighter gaining everyone's attention. "What's this?" He asks as his Elemental Dragon Slayer grimoire hovers in front of him and opens to the Dragon Creation page and a new spell appears under the Dragon Creation Magic: Dragon Claw spell. "It's a new creation spell." He says and reads it to himself and smirks after seeing what it'll do.
"What's it say, Asta?" Noelle asks.
"I've got a better idea, I'll show you." Asta says and begins gathering his magic around himself. "Dragon Creation Magic:…" He begins to say as the snow around him started to kick up as something started to form from his back. "Dragon Wings!" He shouted as two black wings with red markings took form and spread from his back.
This took everyone for a loop as they had just witnessed the Black Bulls' Elemental Dragon Slayer actually make dragon wings, making him even more of a dragon to them then he was before. Asta gazed at his wings and gave a few test flaps, making sure they can move properly and it wasn't too uncomfortable for him. After he was done, he jumped into the air and gave flying a try as he pour some magic into his wings and started flapped them in a rhythm. With some difficulty, Asta was able to stay in the air and actually fly. After his test flight was over, Asta lowered himself to the ground but staggered a bit as he landed on the ground.
"Okay, wings work but I gotta work on the landing." Asta mumbled to himself.
"Enough of this! Let's go!" Gauche shouts impatiently.
"Hey, hey." Asta says before taking off back into the air.
"What about me?!" Noelle asks as she ran to them. "You're just going to leave me here? I want to help!"
"You can't fly on a broom either, can you? Unless you can make wings like him." The Mirror Mage replied with an uncaring tone as he stood on his broom.
Noelle glared at Gauche for his comment, basically saying she was useless, until Sister Theresa spoke up.
"The town might be attacked again. Would you mind staying behind?" Sister Theresa asks.
"And could you report back to the Magic Knights?" Asta asks before he, Gauche and Sister Theresa fly off the save the kidnapped children.
"I'm counting on you, Asta!" Rebecca shouted as she and Noelle watched them fly away.
'Well it won't be all bad. Now that we're alone I can finally talk to her about Asta's unique situation.' Noelle thought looking at Rebecca while Nero was on the stair railing staring down at the girls.
Meanwhile in the mountains, inside a series of caves, the mystery mage stood in front of the Village of Nairn's missing children with a smile on his face.
"I'm so happy I made so many friends." The Mage is with a small laugh. "L-Let's all get along." He says continuing to laugh.
The children all had blank looks on their faces and among the children were Luca, Marco, and Marie, who's dress' stomach area had a small glowing mirror underneath it. The magic radiating from the mirror caused Marie to snap out of her trance like state as she took in her surroundings.
'Where am I? This isn't the church. What am I doing here?' Marie thought while looking around noticing the others were in trances. 'Everyone seems out of it. What's wrong?' She wonders before noticing the mystery mage amongst the rest of the children. 'Who is that?' She thought.
"Make sure you stay good boys and girls with the spell I'm using." The mage says.
'Did he put a spell on everyone? Come to think of it, Brother did say that the mirror he gave me would protect me from magic a little. "hang on to this mirror as if it were me." So that's why I…' Marie thought as the mystery mage noticed she wasn't under his spell's control.
"Looks like my spell on you has been broken." The mage says. "I wonder why. You bad little girl…we can't be friends if you won't be a good girl and stay under my spell." He says.
"But you're wrong. Putting someone under a spell and making them do what you say doesn't make them a real friend." Marie says causing something in the mage to snap.
"How could you say something so cruel? A friend would never say that!" The mage yells as he slaps Marie in the face, knocking her to the ground.
"Neige…" An obese man with long black hair and glasses wearing black clothing and a white scarf says stepping out of the cave's shadows. "I told you not to damage the goods. Honestly, you're so hopeless." The man says roughly gripping the top of mystery mage's, now known as Neige, hair.
"I'm sorry, Baro!" Neige groans in pain to the man known as Baro.
Baro then holds a finger with magic on the tip to his glasses' right lens and stares at Marie causing him to be able to see her mana.
"She's the prize this time. Imagine having that much magic at her age!" Baro says before looking at the rest of the kidnapped children. "Having this many brats means a big payday!" He says before noticing something off about Marco. "That brat barely has any magic. I told you to only bring ones with a lot of magic, Neige!" He shouts.
"Sorry, Baro." Neige says watching Baro pick Marco up by his collar.
"Just gonna have to throw trash like this away." Baro says tossing Marco through a cave tunnel causing him to land in the snow at the other end. "Sheesh. Stop wasting my time. Now, then…let's draw the magic out of you." He says standing in front of a machine with blue liquid as it activates while he laughs evilly.
Meanwhile Asta, Gauche, and Sister Theresa continue to follow the flow of mana in the direction the missing children were in.
"We're close. The mana's getting stronger." Gauche says.
"Right. I'm also getting a faint scent of the kids as well." Asta says as his black wings flap in the air.
"These enemies must possess powerful magic. Be on your guard." Sister Theresa warns.
"Wait for me, Maire." Gauche says to himself.
'Please be safe, everyone.' Asta thought.
Author's Note: Hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Recently we've learned that Nero is in fact a human female sealed in the form of an Anti-Bird. That doesn't mean I'm going to add her the to harem, it means that until I learn more about her past I won't change her gender until I either get to that chapter or until more light is shed on the subject.
Please be sure to review and tell me what you think. Also I'd like to hear your suggestions as well.