The Summoner's Rebirth: Awaken, Milady

Chapter 10: Compromise

"Aria-nim is so smart. I like people like Aria-nim,"

"I detest people like you. Thank you for giving me information. Considering that I helped you kill the boss and clear your quest, our debts should be cleared. I hope that we don't meet again in the future," Aria clicked her tongue in disgust. She couldn't let her mind rest easy at all. Everybody had their hidden motives. Even if the opponent was a kid, she couldn't take them lightly.

"No, that's impossible, you know?" Yoo Jin laughed.

"If you hate me, then you're in for a big storm. There's one thing I never told you... Along with the notification of a new player, we are given the newbie's location for 3 days.. I didn't guess your identity, my tracker told me that you are a <Player>,"

"Although... meeting you was a coincidence,"

"In fact, I am also a new <Player>. It has been a day since I got elected. Miss Aria should know what I mean,"

"You are also being tracked, and your pursuer is heading towards South Korea. As such, I will also be involved.. huh?" Aria tightened her fists. She hadn't gauged the other <Players>' strength yet.

If possible, she wanted to go alone. After further calculations, she was sure that given an unlimited time, she would've been able to gather all the right conditions to open the door to Unity. With the right skills and abilities, she could do it all by herself.

"Correct. Once they arrive in South Korea, the System will definitely force us to meet.. for the initiation process with the other <Players>,"

"As fellow new <Players>, why don't we stick together for some time until the tracking season ends?" Yoo Jin offered.

Aria glared at the child. However, his statements were truly worrying.

Two new players, side by side, they would certainly attract attention.

"I can help you," Yoo Jin further continued. "I'm not alone. My real purpose was to scout this dungeon. I had a bad feeling, so I didn't jump in straight. As long as you cooperate with us, it will definitely bring you benefits,"

Weighing out the choices, Aria finally came with a resolute conclusion.

Aria decided to follow along with Yoo Jin's plans for now. She still had to ask a lot of things, and staying with Yoo Jin would at least grant her some information about the world.

'..Yoo Jin got to level 7 just by training in a single day. Without fighting monsters? Then, his evolution progress should be remarkable.' Aria had to remind herself of his words.

She kept track of everything he said in order to detect a slip.

The boy was not simple. Of course, he was a <Player>. One of the seven out of seven billion. He wouldn't be simple.

'No, there's a chance that he was lying. I have no inspecting skills, I can't tell.'

'His information might be falsified. I have to get another informant.'

'I can't trust people, I really shouldn't.'

Aria sighed.

'Come to think of it, there was another cheeky brat that I met during my time.'

Zenovann. A boy of unknown origins that showed up one day, asking to be her apprentice.

He wasn't exactly crafty, but he often played pranks. A bright child.

'His eyes were pretty.' The blood red irises that glimmered like rubies, combined with his black hair was the spitting image of the devils depicted in the records.

'Who knows, maybe he was indeed a devil.' No one was able to confirm his identity. He appeared out of nowhere, and had no affiliations whatsoever. Not even his birth records was admitted into the registry.

The Devils. A forgotten race that had perished thousand of years prior to her time. The perfect version of Demons.

The Demons still existed when she was alive, but it would be a blasphemy to compare them to their Devil predecessors.

Simply put, Demons were a degraded version of Devils.

Both the Devils and the Demons were stronger than the average Human, but there was a stark difference between the two.

Devils could only have black hair and a pair of blood red eyes, in contrast to the Demons who possessed all sorts of different attributes.

The most fundamental difference, was of course, the mentality. Demons were prone to succumbing into their madness. The blackening that is the corruption of their heart, leading to a disrupted state of mind: Craziness.

At first, they also thought that Zeno was a member of the detested Demon race, but he soon proved that perception wrong as he continued on without any signs of corruption.

No. His heart was purer than those who devoted themselves into the Holy Church.

A pure soul, through and through.

'The brat... wasn't there.' Aria recalled the incident. Zenovann and Eris was missing from the prosecutors out of the Seven. Of course, those two were akin to family to her. She had raised and taught the two from childhood. She, Aria Schreiner, was a teacher to many.

The betrayal.. It was still etched deep within her heart. The bastard Azef's disgusting expression...

The question came to mind.

'Was Azef that sort of person?'

Doubts began to form inside her head.

'If I recall correctly, Azef was...' Aria's head began to hurt. It felt like a part of her memory was misled. Had she forgotten something important?

In her vague memories, Azef was... who was he?

Didn't she meet him early in her life? Why couldn't she remember anything? Her memories..

'..What?' Aria was lost in her thoughts. Her head rang so badly, fogs were covering up her memory recollection.

She never doubted why Azef did what he had done. Because the reasons were clearly stated by himself, she didn't care to look into the deeper truth. To see if the one who betrayed her was truly that man.

Even so, she felt like he wouldn't betray her. He, of all people, wouldn't betray her.

'..Would the Azef I used to know betray me?'

'...I saw it with my own two eyes. He burned me himself. What am I thinking about?' Aria thought of herself as foolish.

It was precisely her hopeful side that took over her mind for that short moment.

Somewhere inside her heart, she still hoped that the betrayal was not canon and was just a ploy of deceit used by another party.

However, her memories...

No, she wanted to say that they couldn't fool her, but somehow she felt like she had been fooled.

'That is of no matter to the current situation. No matter how you push it, Azef and the others must've died.' Aria sighed.

She took Yoo Jin's offer to stay together in the tracking period, so she was now lying down on a mattress inside the child's supposed base.

Yoo Jin turned out to be someone who lived in a nearby small house.

The items scattered around showed that he didn't live here alone.

The house was kept neat and tidy. There was no unnecessary furniture, as if the dwellers didn't even live here.

Only the bare minimum necessities was there.

Aria gazed at the plain white ceiling.

She felt empty.

'..This would be my first proper sleep ever since I got inside the coffin. I should savor it and stop thinking for a bit.'

Closing her eyes, she drifted to sleep.

The next day, she found herself being shone at by the intense sunlight.

Rubbing her eyes, she sat on the bed. Her thoughts were in disarray.

It took her minutes before she was able to recall the reason she was there.

Wanting to search for the kid who brought her here, Aria stood up from the bed and went out of her room.

In the kitchen, she saw Yoo Jin in the middle of cooking a light meal.

"Aria-nim, good morning," Yoo Jin was already awake.

"..Morning," Aria's mind was hazy from the drowsiness that plagued her.

Aria immediately checked her Systems to see if anything changed. Her [Main] values were still broken, and she couldn't see anything.

Her status recovered, as the three-hour vulnerability period had ended.

Her health and mana was back at full.

In just a single day, she had climbed up by 14 levels. Although the concept of levelling up wasn't a thing back then, she understood that as long as she leveled up, she could increase her power.

There were so many questions she had to ask.

"Kid, I'm going to walk around for a bit," Aria covered her mouth to yawn.

"Make sure to come back fast, I won't be happy if you waste my cooking," Yoo Jin casually said.

He was in the middle of cooking some simple breakfast. He also planned to go to the market later as the only ingredients left were some eggs, rice, and condiments.

"Mmm,"

Aria was still wearing the coat Il-hoon gave her, she wore nothing underneath. Yoo Jin persuaded her to come with him to buy clothes, but Aria assured him that she was not affected in any sort of ways.

The [Tempered Body] skill seems to be providing her with cold resistance. She was confident that she could walk through a wintry country naked and still not be affected.

The boy still persisted on buying her other clothes, though.

Aria quickly left Yoo Jin's small abode to enshroud herself within the nature.

Yoo Jin's base was located near the mountains. There was a forest that no one entered.

She went inside and tried to scout for people.

After making sure that she was alone, Aria channeled her mana and began chanting a summoning spell.

However, her desires were met with naught as the magic circle that should have appeared did not show up.

"As expected..." Aria noticed that she did not possess anything in relation to summoning.