The Magician Of Sound

"Wha—" Kai gasped and gradually lowered his swords. "Who are you?"

Although there was no change in his appearance, he could see that his eyes were shallow as if something went inside of him.

However, Kai's voice didn't go through his ears as he said, "They are enemies."

As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Evan collapsed to the ground.

Kai still didn't know whether Evan was alright or not, so he didn't catch him. He checked Evan's condition first with his ears before coming closer.

"Oi, Evan. Are you alright?" Kai poked his head with his sword, trying to check if he would come again.

"Ngh." Evan let out a groan as his eyes slowly opened. His eyes were blurry, but he could recognize Kai's figure. "Captain?"

"Oi. Are you alright?" Kai asked again.

"What do you mean?" Evan asked while looking around, noticing that he was on the ground. He quickly rose while asking out loud. "What? Why am I on the floor? Did something happen to me?"

"You were possessed, I guess." Kai wasn't sure whether it was a possession or not, but that was the closest one.

"Possessed? What?" Evan walked a few steps back, scared. "No, no. I don't want to get possessed. Force whoever possessed me out!"

"I am not sure myself. I didn't hear anything weird this whole time, so I thought you knew something."

"I don't know. All I did was search around this area, and I am still searching that area. That's why I don't know why I am on the floor earlier."

"…" Kai blinked his eyes a few times. "So, ghosts are real?"

"No! Ghost is not real!" Evan screamed while covering his ears with his hands.

"Don't tell me. You are afraid of ghosts?" Kai made a weird smile. He thought that he would get a response from Evan like, "What? You still didn't believe in ghosts even though magic is real?" or something along the lines, but to think Evan was this scared of ghosts.

"Ugh. Isn't it a given?" Evan shrilled. "You should go to a place where so many people died. You will surely see something happening before your eyes. And my job is to save those who are still alive among those who are already dead, so I often saw them…Ugh. I hate them."

"…" Kai tilted his head in confusion. "I thought because you often worked in that kind of place, you would have gotten used to it."

"Are you an idiot? They are evil. I hate them. They often pulled a prank on me even though I tried to save their fallen comrades." Evan gritted his teeth, remembering all the things that happened to him.

"Really?"

"What will you do when you are sleeping after saving those soldiers, and they flip your bed? And you do it hundreds of times. You will know my feelings."

"Okay, okay. I know. Calm down a little, will you?" Kai sighed.

Evan took a few deep breaths while looking around to make sure nothing happened.

"Let's go back, shall we? I have found something." Kai smiled, trying to gather because he thought it would be the best way to calm Evan down. Besides, he didn't think Evan would investigate the ruin alone anymore because of what just happened to him.

"So, what did you find?"

"Symbols that might be a language of the past and one time, I felt…" Kai didn't continue as he had two thoughts in mind.

The first was the feeling he had earlier actually came from the ghost. The ghost might want to possess him and tell Isabelle something. However, since it wasn't working, the spirit possessed Evan, and there would be another person that the ghost might possess. This wouldn't be good because Kai needed to take care of his teammates' well-being.

The second thought was the thing Evan or the ghost blurted out earlier was related to the feeling he had. The ghost might want to warn him about the symbol that might signify a race and told him that they were enemies that couldn't be trusted.

The problem would be he didn't know which one was correct.

"How do we call a ghost again? I want to ask some questions!" Kai couldn't help but mutter.

"What? Are you insane? No, no! I don't want to get into this kind of job."

"…" Kai scratched the back of his head. "Maybe I will ask someone if they have a person who can talk to a spirit or summon a ghost."

"You serious?"

"Yes. I will be able to get more information that way." Kai nodded with a serious expression.

"Can I quit your group during that kind of mission?"

"Feel free. I won't force you if it makes you uncomfortable. After all, I pity you the moment I listened to your reasons. I thought you were scared because of a certain story when you were a kid."

"Are you freaking kidding me? There is no way I will be scared if it's only something like that. It's just like how you are scared of your teacher because of your trauma." Evan rebuked him in a high-pitch.

"I know, I know. That's why I can understand your feelings." Kai patted his shoulders. "Anyway, I will do my own job regarding this matter. Of course, we will continue the investigation, but I think it's fine to do it in a group of two."

Evan let out a long sigh. "So, what are we doing now?"

"I will lead you to Isabelle before searching for Tasha and Sofia."

Evan nodded. He didn't want to deal with ghosts anymore, so he accepted his idea even though the best way was for them to grab the two first before regrouping with Isabelle.

"One more question. Did Isabelle know this?"

"Why do you want to know?" Evan narrowed his eyes while his heart skipped a beat.

"Ah. I don't need your answer anymore since your body is more honest. I will tell her of course." Kai chuckled, teasing him to loosen Evan's body. He certainly felt how deep the trauma he had with ghosts. "This will be amusing!"

"Oi, you bastard!" Evan shouted. Kai immediately ran toward Isabelle.

Not long after, Evan was sitting down on the corner of the room, sulking because Kai told Isabelle his secret before leaving.

Isabelle, on the other hand, hadn't talked about it with him yet. After seeing how Evan reacted, she walked toward him and bent down.

"What?! Are you going to tease me too?" Evan pouted.

On the contrary, Isabelle only hugged him as she said, "It must be hard for you, right? Should I accompany you when you are healing injured soldiers? Maybe I can do something about it."

Evan fell silent and felt terrible to have doubted her. "Sorry."

"It's fine. Scared might be hilarious, but trauma is another thing. What you have is not the former but the latter. That's why I am concerned about you." She sighed.

"Uhm, thanks."

"Please rely on me more."

"Uhm, I will."

"That's good then. Rest here first while I am searching if I can find another symbol in this place."

Evan looked at her and asked. "Did the captain find something here? And do you need help?"

Isabelle thought for a moment and nodded. "Sure. I need your help. As for the captain, I will tell you while working. Is that fine?"

Evan made a smile and rose from the floor, starting to help her.

Meanwhile, Kai found Tasha in another corridor.

"Tasha…" Because of what happened earlier, he was still on guard, not daring to approach others easily.

"Hmm?" Tasha turned around and found Kai with his stance. "What happened to you? Are you going to ambush me or something? Or don't tell me you want to do it here? I don't think you have this kind of fetish."

Hearing her response, he felt relief. It meant Tasha was her usual self.

"I just wanted to grab you to gather in Isabelle's position. Sofia next." Kai explained.

"Oh? Did you find something?"

"Kinda. That's why I want you all to gather first, so I don't need to explain twice."

"Let's go grab Sofia then. I will go with you." Tasha nodded. "By the way, I don't find anything that requires me to use my Space Magic. That's the reason why you want me here, right?"

"Yes. Besides, I can immediately help the first group with you here."

"Unfortunately, I can't really make a pinpoint teleportation in a closed space, let alone a labyrinth like this." She shrugged.

"It's fine. It won't take too long." Kai smiled and started walking. "By the way, did you find anything?"

"I only found a few things that didn't have any value to us. Well, they could become money, but that's not important right now."

"So, no other information." Kai nodded.

A few minutes later, they found Sofia, who was cleaning up a particular room. The room was just a kitchen, considering he saw a cube with a small hole for firewood. It should be the traditional oven or something.

Reminded of what happened to Evan, he asked Tasha to stop by tapping her shoulder twice.

Although she was confused about his action, she still let him do anything he wanted.

Kai gradually came closer and called her name. "Sofia."

"Mhm?" Sofia glanced back and saw Kai and Tasha. "What are you two doing? You are not doing it in this kind of place, right?"

"Alright. You are the normal Sofia." Kai nodded a few times. "We are going to gather right now, so I am here to grab you."

"Oh?" Sofia nodded. "Sure."

Sofia took another look at the room to see whether she missed something.

"All is good." After a while, she nodded and turned back, following Kai as they returned to Isabelle and Evan.