Clovel - Premium Web Novels

Chapter 41: 41—Demon hunt [1] Noah stood on the edge of the park’s crystal lake. The moon was high in the sky and the place was strangely empty. The park had been quiet since he got here. The only sounds now were the passing cars and him skipping rocks on the lake. "Tch, only five," Noah murmured to himself. He glanced around again but he was completely alone. No ghost girls, and definitely no demon hunter girls. Will the ghost only come to me if I enter the park as a Wraith? Last time was just her protecting her territory. The thought of going home came to him. But before he could walk off, he heard footsteps from the paved walkway. His eyes followed the click of heels to find Madeleine. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶 Her black hair and her golden eyes glowed with an unnatural sheen. She was wearing a black leather outfit: a tight long-sleeved shirt and a skirt over her trousers. She had gloves on with strange inscriptions and a wrapped staff on her back with three points. He waved at her, scanning her up and down again. "You’re dressed for war." "I would have dressed better but I didn’t know we would be meeting here again," Madeleine explained, hands on her hips. "By the way, are you following me?" "Only if you want me to," He retorted. Her sharp look made him smirk. "I’m not. I don’t follow people when they’re trying to be alone." Madeleine turned red and turned away. "Just forget about that. Why are you here?" Noah glanced around the wide park and its well-kept trees. He shrugged, "I have a strange memory of this place. A fight with a little girl... I don’t normally fight little girls. Unless they’re uncool." Madeleine stared at him frankly for a moment then picked up a rock. "I think we met here before." "Yeah, I have some memories of meeting someone with your eyes out here." He watched Madeleine skip a rock three times over the lake. "Gonna have to practice that." She glared at him, grumbling, "Shut up. So you wanted to see me or the ghost girl?" "Both," Noah said with a shrug. "I wanted to try and understand my... situation more by talking to you. And I wanted to speak to the ghost girl because I think she was murdered and buried here. Last time she hit me more than she spoke." Madeleine stopped in the middle of skipping another stone and turned to stare at him for a while. "That’s nice of you," She said finally. Then she turned back and threw her stone. "I didn’t know that about her. Ghosts are hard to track and pin down. Even when they remain in a fixed place. They can just hide till you fuck off." Madeleine’s stone skipped over the lake four times before sinking. Noah smiled and mock-clapped for her, then he picked up a stone himself. "She came immediately I got here in my memories," Noah remarked, before throwing his stone. "Injuries on her wrists and neck. And some other marks on her skin... she was trapped somewhere damp and dark for a long time." The words left his mouth before he caught them. Madeleine nodded, looking genuinely impressed. "She came because another spirit was invading her territory..." Madeleine repeated. "What if we use you as bait?" "The problem with that is that I can’t leave my body easily. And I am not leaving my body in the middle of a park." "Relax, I can protect your body." She rubbed the stone in her hand and paced around. "I’ll hide myself till she comes too." Noah sighed, but he was very interested. "How do we do it?" A couple minutes later, Madeleine had drawn an array of symbols around a tree. Each one a complex mess of glowing red lines. "What is this?" Noah asked, studying every symbol. "Dark arts," Madeleine offered simply. He remembered Hadrian saying something similar. They used these complex symbols to summon monsters and use strange powers. But that name... "Dark arts sounds corny, no?" Madeleine laughed freely, a clear crisp sound that was pleasing to his ears. "It wasn’t looked upon favorably a long time ago. It’s a bunch of magical disciplines mashed up together so the Union gave it the official name of Dark arts." "That’s another one that bugs me," Noah said, raising a hand, "Union of what?" "The Supernatural Union. A bunch of different organizations that were forced together by the government during the civil war. They all have pretty different goals, but the overall goal is to safeguard the natural world." That makes an uncomfortable amount of sense. This world was really different from his. The country name and lots of historical events had different names, but some retained the names they had in his world. Madeleine clapped suddenly and pointed around the tree. "Okay so get in the circle and lie against the tree. The spell will activate and cast an illusion around your body." Noah raised an eyebrow; this looked a lot more complex than the lone symbols Hadrian had drawn. "Will this work? Like I won’t be burnt alive or anything?" "Of course you won’t," she said, slapping his arm in indignation. "This is standard dark arts, mostly straight from the textbook." "Mostly?" "I added some stuff to practice," Madeleine said with a giggle. She pushed him forward, smiling. "It won’t kill you." Well at least it doesn’t look like a Liminal room... He got in and laid down against the tree, closing his eyes. Madeleine waited patiently, keeping a hand on her staff in case he lost control. "Anytime now," She whispered. Noah waved her off. Then after wasting a couple minutes, he walked out of his body. The darkness shifted around his head, two sets of arms moved, then a copy of Noah walked out of his body. His head was a crown of black flames with two white circles as eyes. Other than that he was exactly the same. He walked out of the circle and sighed; his voice was deep and rumbling like a bonfire. "This is such a bummer."