“What about your sister, Zen?” Hosuke asked Zen about her little sister.

“She’ll be fine. Right, sis?”

Astral nodded while holding her teddy bear tightly.

“We’ll get your parents back. We promise.” I assured Astral as she was slowly wiping off her tears.

“Is everyone ready?” Hosuke asked us.

Both me and Zen answered, “Yes.”

We know that doing these kind of things was certainly breaking the law. But we don’t have any other options for now. We have to save Zen and Astral’s parent. It’s going to be a mess especially when we were told by Zen that the leaders at the city were all corrupt.

One time she saw a bribe happened right in front of her very eyes. To make things worse, the one who accepted the bribe was her own parents. I’m very curious of what Zen was really feeling back then. She was probably angry and disappointed at the same time. I’m not surprised the fact that Zen understood what corrupt really mean. She’s a smart girl. Not your average girl.

“Let’s go.” Zen lead us to the city.

I picked up Seven and kept it inside my pocket. We walked out of the house and began our 2nd adventure of the day. It took about an hour when we finally arrived at the city. When we finally reached the city, we can see that the place looked so run down and badly maintained. Either they don’t care of their own citizens or they just too cheap that they never even took out a single coin to at least do something with the city. The only thing that looked well maintained was the castle that proudly stands tall in this winter ‘wonderland’.

The city feels more like a village when you see that the place was almost like a barren wasteland. We only saw about 3 citizens who were walking around the city. I thought a city was supposed to be busy. Where was everyone anyway? Hosuke even tried asking the people who we saw and even they have no idea what was going on. Either that or as Zen said, those guys were just the few ignorant people that don’t know about what was going on in this city. Hosuke said that those guys were probably what we called them now trashes of the society. Some of them looked drunken and all waste out from drinking too much.

“Where is everyone?” I asked Zen whether she knows it.

She replied to me, “The city was not always this empty. It is probably because all of them are at the town square right now.”

“Why is that? Is there something going on today?”

“There’s no other thing other than my parent’s hanging I think.”

“Oh. Shouldn’t we go there then?”

“There’s no rush to it…”

“Are you serious?” Hosuke interrupted her. “Didn’t I told you that those two are the ones who took care of you ever since you were born?”

“I know but…”

“Here I thought you would be a smart girl. But what I got is just a brat who can’t get over something. Then again, you are still a child.” Hosuke then leads the way.

Zen didn’t say anything. We continued our way heading toward the city square to find out what really happened. We slowly starting to see the real Zen that we never seen before. I’m not saying that her calm and cold behaviour was just an act or anything. Both of her is still her. There’s nothing else to say than that. Enough said, Hosuke have been all riled up a lot for the past few hours. He was probably ticked off over the fact that a little girl who was ungrateful to her parent.

In any case, as we reached the city square we finally get to saw where was all of the citizens that was missing when we thought the city were just an abandoned city. Hundreds and hundreds of people was circling around the square and as what Zen suggested, it was in fact because of her parents. But they aren’t about to be hanged yet. It looked more like they are announcing the hanging.

After the hanging has been announced, the crowd slowly scattered away from the square and continued their daily life. Zen’s parents were then brought to the dungeon. From what we got from the announcement was that Zen parents will be hanged the following day. Now we don’t want that to happen. We better help them out.

“You got any suggestion, White?” Hosuke asked as he drinks down a bottle of mineral water.

“I’m trying to think of one.”

“Maybe we should just go head on inside the dungeon.” suggested Zen as she was drinking a bottle of milk.

We got ourselves some refreshments after the announcement. We were sitting on a bench at the city square hatching some plans on what needs to be done to save Zen’s parents. It was pretty weird of how here we are discussing some plans to break out two prisoners in public. Then again, the city guards doesn’t seem to find us suspicious at all. I’m actually quite surprised about that. Those guards really don’t do a good job indeed. I mean, even the entrance of the city was unguarded. What was wrong with this city?

“Hey, White. I think I have an idea.” Hosuke’s inspiration started to flood in.

“What is it?”

“How about we cause a big chaos over here. Doing that will totally decrease the amounts of guards guarding the dungeon am I right?”

I give it a thought and said, “Not exactly, there will still be some guards inside the place.”

“If that’s the case, then let me do the chaos on my own. You and Zen can go to the dungeon.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“Come on, trust me. This is going to work. You won’t be disappointed at all.”

“I think he is capable.” Zen agreed to follow the plan. “White will be helping me getting both of my parents out of the dungeon.”

“We’re really going to do this?” I asked.

“Yes.” Zen was very confident.

It looks like she finally decided to help her parents after receiving those words from Hosuke. As everyone finally agrees to proceed with the plan, both Zen and I made our way to where Zen’s parents were brought to.

The plan begins with Hosuke standing at the centre of the square, smiling. He pulled out any nearby water and made a huge water sphere. The sphere manages to caught everyone’s attention around the square. Hosuke then executes the plan by making the sphere explode and splashes all over the square. Making everyone wet. This made some of the guards angry and forced them to intervene with Hosuke. Hosuke retaliated and slaps the guard with his Water Manipulation ability and then the other guards raised their swords, ordering Hosuke to stop and surrender.

As expected, Hosuke continues to fight back the two guards with his ability. He even made a stream of water passed through the right ear of a guard and exits out to his left ear. It’s kind of disgusting when you think about it. Then, a group of guards noticed the scene and joined in as well to help out their colleagues. Hosuke continues to retaliate by forming up his water trident and swings it around. His trident hits one of the guards helmet which made them stunned for a bit. With that window, Hosuke forced a burst of water to come out from down the cold sewage and made the stunned guard flying away to the sky and finally lands on a fruit stall.

More guards continue to come in as Hosuke keeps on fighting the guards with his Water Manipulation. As this was happening, both Zen and I had finally arrived outside the dungeon. We didn’t expect that the dungeon would be guarded well. From where we were hiding, we can at least count about 20 of them guarding the exterior of the dungeon. Thankfully, shortly after reaching the dungeon, a guard from the city square told the other guard about Hosuke.

Almost all of them including the ones from inside went to the city square to handle the chaos. I guess Hosuke really did a great job of manipulating those idiots. I can’t believe these guys were the city guard. A city guard should be smarter than this to be honest. Why would they send about 70% of your men just to eliminate a mess. They never had the idea to think that the enemy might be doing that as a distraction.

In any case, the entrance to the dungeon was left with only a single guard. I threw Seven at the guard and with a portion of my ability being infused inside it, it stopped the guards movement by stopping the time around him. Both Zen and I ran for the entrance. Not me though, I made a running elbow to the guard as the time around him started moving. The guard was sent to the ground shaking his head in confusion. With a little bit of Haz new update for the Infinibots. A tranquilliser shot was given to the guard, forcing the guard to fall asleep.

“Alright, let’s get in.” I said to Zen as she was admired by my ability.

We finally entered the dungeon. We looked around for some clues of where Zen’s parents were locked in. I tried to look around the receptionist desk and found nothing at all. Meanwhile, Zen was looking for some clues inside the officer’s room. We were kind of surprised to find out that the dungeon was empty. Then again, the officer might be walking around the cells right now. I guess that was one of the reason why the officer’s room were not locked.

“I found it, White!” Zen called me after finding a file.

“Really? Where are they?”

“They are at cell 707.”

“Let’s go there then.”

“But we don’t have the keys.”

“We just have to take it from the officer then.”

“Are you serious?”

I simply answered to her, “Why not?”

The respond that I get was rather surprising. She laughed. Although she only laughed a little. But I don’t care about that, she actually can laugh it seems. I knew she was not just a robot or anything. In any case, we better find and tranquillise that officer at once. Then we finally can save Zen’s parent.

Meanwhile, as Hosuke was still distracting the guard. A figure steps in from a distant. Next to him are dogs. Not just the normal dogs but rabid dogs. Might as well call it hounds. The man ordered his dogs to attack Hosuke. It caught Hosuke off guard as he barely tried to protect himself from the dogs fangs. Hosuke looked around and finally noticed the owner of the dog.

“Dogs. I hate dogs.” Hosuke begins to charge up his magic as streams of water started to flow around him.

TO BE CONTINUED