Chapter 24: A Sour Revenge

Morning came

As Lia was getting dressed, she recalled last night during dinner. Teo was strangely upbeat. She knew that Teo was recently up to something, or else why would he even ask Windle to buy him that thing?

She looked at her own figure in the mirror that had in the room. She smiled as she saw her hair getting longer. Although it has only grown by a bit, she was still very happy.

Before she came to the academy, her parents always trimmed her hair when it got too long

Recalling the past..

"Lina, you're hair is getting long. Let mom cut it for you"

"But mom, I want to grow my hair longer"

"You look so much cuter with shorter hair, Lina come sit here while I get the scissors"

Thinking about it, her mother also had short hair. It seemed that her father loved her mother's short hair.

But now that Lia was living alone, without her parents, she decided to grow her hair like the other girls in the academy.

Lia headed for their usual spot to meet up.

Once Windle arrived, Lia walked up to him and said "Lets go"

Both of them walked towards their first class side by side.

"I wonder what Teo is up to" Lia said aloud

"There's probably something happening today" Windle responded in a soft voice

Teo told both of them that he was going to be late this morning so they should both just go on without him

"Do you think its because of that thing?" Lia wondered

"Shhh! Teo said to keep it a secret" Windle looked around to see if anyone over heard

Windle was a little more paranoid than Lia. He could roughly tell why Teo needed that thing and there was a chance it could lead back to him.

.....

When they arrived at the first class, Teo was still not there. They sat down to the usual place and chatted as they waited.

Soon Dina arrived and a figure from behind was running as if to want to catch up. This figure was Teo.

Teo arrived right after Dina arrived. Since class has yet to start, Teo was technically still on time.

In Dina's classes, when one is late or absent they were forced to attend a make-up class, which is why Teo didn't want to be late.

Teo went and sat down with Windle and Lia. Although he was panting, he looked surprisingly cheerful.

"So, what were you up to?" Lia asked

"Just a little surprise"

....

When class ended Lia went ahead to her class, while Teo and Windle stayed for a bit longer. Teo didn't want to go to their second class too early. So he told Windle to hang around here for a while.

After enough time passed, they headed to their second class.

When Windle and Teo got near the class, they could see black smoke risking up in the air.

When Teo saw this, a smile came to his face, but with enough effort he quickly hid his smile and pretended to be shocked.

Windle beside him was actually really shocked 'What happened?'

he thought. Then a realization came to his mind, he slowly turned and looked at Teo. He caught the glimpse of Teo's brief smile as it turned to a shocked expression.

Both slowly got near the area and saw other students running away from 4 figures. 3 of the figures completely covered in black smoke residue and while the other figure was only partially covered.

The 4 figures were on the ground puking and their closed eyes dripped of tears. A strong unbearable stench came from the 4 of them. This was the smell produced by a ash horned skunk.

The ash horned skunk was a wild beast that could only be found in dense forests. It had black and white fur with small white horns on its head and were subspecies of the ordinary skunk, but compared to the ordinary skunk, the ash horned skunk produced such a foul odor that ordinary skunks would become paralyzed from the smell. The smell also lasted for 3 days, so humans and beast tend to avoid them.

Teo asked Windle to buy him the foul smell producing gland that was harvested from a ash horned skunk. This gland is often used by people who often explore the wilderness. Its stench is so strong that even the strongest beasts avoid it and thus it was treated as a life saving item. Hunters that hunted these wild beasts must kill them with with a projectile in one blow, if not, the ash horned skunk would leave a trail of its putrid smell in the surrounding area and would easily escape. If they were to get close to it, the ashe horned skunk would release the stench as well.

The array that Teo chose was, the smoke generating array, an array that produced a meter wide smoke when pressure was placed on the array.

Teo plugged his nose and carefully mixed some of the liquid, extracted from ash horned skunk's gland, with the elemental ink he made. In the morning he placed the finished array under the seat of where his targets usually sat. Once they sat down, the array would activate and produced smoke containing the foul stench of the ash horned skunk, covering anyone nearby.

This was Teo's revenge, his sweet sweet revenge. Although these people dared to try to harm him, his revenge was not to hurt these people, but rather embarrass them! Although they are puking from the smell and their eyes were irritated to the point that they started to tear up, he did not think he was hurting them at all.

But in fact they did feel pain from vomiting out so much, and their eyes could not be open as the stench infused smoke had irritated them.

Teo was secretly laughed inside when he saw his targets on the ground suffering from the smell. Although they could wash most of it off, there would still be a faint foul smell that would remain for 3 whole days. Teo expected that his targets would not be able to even step outside their caves from such embarrassment.

'HA HA HA now we are even'

In retrospect, his revenge plot was quite immature, but for a 10 year old boy, it was the perfect revenge.

Teo almost could not contain his smile as he watched his 3 targets suffer.

But as he enjoyed this scene, his face suddenly froze. He saw a 4th figure that was covered in smoke.

His target was the 3 members from the Silver Sword Association but there was a 4th person who was in the range of the array!

The fourth figure was a girl in the class. For some reason she was caught up in the blast. She helplessly vomited and coughed, her cries of pain echoed in Teo's ears

A sense of guilt rushed in his mind.

'This can't be possible, why was she there?'

Teo thought he crafted the perfect plan. For over 2 weeks everyone in class sat in the exact same spot they had been sitting on since day one. No one should've been near his targets, but unfortunately someone was.

'Did I make it too strong?' Teo wondered as a sour feeling in his gut emerged

'Why didn't it go according to plan' he asked himself, but he couldn't know the answer.

He intentionally delayed his arrival so that people would be less suspicious of him, a person who just arrived after the incident occurred.

Teo who was originally full of joy when he thought his plan was executed perfectly, was stricken with guilt. He didn't want to involve an unrelated bystander in his revenge, but intentionally or not intentionally, it didn't matter. He had already done it, his 'perfect plan' wasn't as perfect as he thought it was.

A wretched feeling bubbled inside him. He quickly rushed forward, not caring about anything else and tried to help the girl, but as soon as he arrived he began to vomit. His eyes became so irritated that he could no longer keep them open. He collapsed on the floor and continued to cry and vomit.

He wasn't crying only because of the painful convulsions from his stomach, nor because of his eyes being irritated. He also cried because of this terrible feeling of regret in his heart. He regretted coming up with this plan. If he knew that this would've happened he would've just swallowed his pride and forgiven his aggressors.

No one else dared to get any closer. Windle also stood there and watched. He was unable to do anything.

The other 4 students who were on the ground had already passed out from the event, while Teo was still on the floor, vomiting and crying. His cries became louder and louder.

His perfect revenge left him feeling empty and disgusted with himself.

[Author's note: If anyone did not get the explanation with the arrays last chapter, its basically like a little kid's block set. When Teo had the specific symbols (shapes) he had to pick the specific pattern (box that fitted all the shapes). And the placement of where the symbol would go would also be determined by the pattern.

Also, the first arc is going to be finished soon. Its kinda short but I want to accelerate the story for a bit.

Finally, when some readers are asking me whats going to happen and why is this the way it is. I usually don't respond because I don't wish to spoil it. If it is about a plot hole I did not planned for, I will respond to that comment, but if it a mystery I intentionally placed, I don't have any plans on revealing it through the comments

Cheers and thanks for reading]