Chapter 383: 383

When Alexander, with the shadow guards, Caelith included, returned to the academy, he dismissed the clone and retained its memories.

There, he saw the discussions that started amongst the students and even some teachers when he was introduced as the new guest teacher.

The headmaster, Francis Ostrich, also gave him a guest teacher badge so he could use it to access certain areas.

That badge didn’t disappear when Alexander dismissed the Liquid Shadow clone, so he picked it up from the floor where it dropped.

Not really caring about it, Alexander just tucked it away into his sleeve and forgot about it.

If he ever wanted to get somewhere, he wouldn’t need a badge to do it.

He could just sneak or break in there if needed.

After putting away the badge, Alexander decided to go look for Michelle.

He didn’t know whether Michelle even noticed that he was gone for a while.

There was the chance that she didn’t go when the headmasters called the students to the plaza to introduce Alexander as the new guest teacher.

If that happened, there would be a great chance that Michelle didn’t even realize that the one back at the platform was a clone.

Of course, the chance for that was very small, and Alexander was guessing that Michelle was in fact aware.

Whichever was the case, Alexander wanted to see her.

So, a while later, while training, Michelle felt a familiar presence nearby.

At the moment, she was standing still, keeping her abdomen as tight as possible while she stood in front of a machine created by an armament master that constantly shot out spirit energy as long as it was loaded with spirit stones.

That spirit energy crashed in waves right at Michelle’s abdomen like punches.

Quickly, she dodged one attack to the side and moved to the machine in a flash.

Then, she took out the big spirit stone that was keeping it running and put it at the top of the machine.

Finally, she moved towards Alexander.

“Traitor has decided to return?” she smiled darkly as she moved behind him.

With a simple move, she wrapped her arms around his neck and shoulders from the back, jumping up ever so slightly to hang from his back.

Alexander didn’t mind having Michelle on his back.

Quite the opposite actually.

He enjoyed the closeness.

“Is it a betrayal when I still remained close?” he asked, also with a smile.

But his smile, unlike Michelle’s, wasn’t dark.

Michelle’s smile was that of a creature running on obsession, while Alexander’s obsession wasn’t yet surfacing, so the smile seemed somewhat normal.

“Still is!” Michelle shifted her position while still hanging on Alexander’s neck and shoulders so she could line her face up with his.

“It still makes you a traitor…” her eyes were gleaming with something dark and dangerous.

Alexander withheld his smile and bent back a bit so Michelle had to put her feet back on the ground.

Then, he turned around to face her.

“I got a gift for you. But you probably don’t want a gift from a traitor, don’t you?”

Michelle narrowed her eyes.

A gift from Alexander could as well be a trick.

Especially with how his expression had shifted.

And the thought of a trick made Michelle curious.

“Show me. I’ll then reevaluate the traitor status.”

Alexander let out a singular low laugh that seemed to vibrate through his chest before he reached into his space, grabbing the snake he had thrown there earlier.

He grabbed it by its head so it couldn’t bite him.

Like that, he took it out.

“This little one seemed like something you would be interested in…”

He let the snake crawl a bit through his hand so the head showed.

Like that, he lifted it up so Michelle could look at it closely.

Michelle lowered her head so she could look at the snake closely, her eyes narrowing sharply.

She had never seen a snake like that.

“It’s an interesting little thing, indeed,” she commented.

Slowly, she lifted her hands to take the snake from Alexander.

The little snake was deadly scared of Alexander, so it willingly crawled to wrap itself around her forearm and let her examine it.

But as Michelle did that, the snake seemed to realize something.

Something in its expression changed.

Then, with speed that shocked even Alexander, it flung its body into movement.

Before anyone could react, the small snake had crawled to the side of Michelle’s neck, its mouth wide open to bite down.

But before the fangs could connect with Michelle’s skin, the small beast froze.

Michelle tilted her head ever so slightly to look at the creature on her neck.

It in itself seemed to not be aware what was really going on.

Seeing the snake like that, Michelle had an idea.

Slowly, so the snake could see she wasn’t about to attack, she lifted her hand and put it in front of the snake.

Then, she extended a single finger and pressed it against one of the fangs in the snake’s mouth until some blood seeped out.

Instantly, before the blood could slide over the fang into the snake’s mouth, the snake coiled back, bolting away from Michelle, choosing to return to Alexander instead.

The speed at which the snake moved was astonishing.

Neither Michelle nor Alexander could follow its movements with their eyes.

But that in itself wasn’t all that shocking.

Well, it was, but not compared to another thing.

Specifically the fact that the snake chose to hide away from Michelle by returning to Alexander.

Were its survival instincts that terrible?

That was to be doubted, so that could only mean that the beast could feel something from Michelle that no one else could.

And it only reacted so strongly after blood spilled out of her finger, so the reaction was probably to the scent of her blood.

A reaction to the Spirit Soul Blood maybe?

Michelle had no clue.

Alexander didn’t know.

And so it seemed the snake couldn’t speak, so there was no way to know from it what was going on.

Of course, that was unless Michelle wanted to use her memory manipulation skills and read the snake’s memories.

Michelle looked down at her finger bleeding slowly and then at the snake hiding with Alexander.

“Your gift is as traitorous as you are,” she finally said with a smile.

Darkness continued swirling in her eyes.

There was so much of it that Alexander couldn’t even read her emotions from her eyes.

But he could do that through the Shadow Pact.

Michelle was actually getting excited.

Just a bit more and there would be a shift in the color of her eye.

It would start moving towards red from purple.

“How am I a traitor?” Alexander defended himself, but it was more of a teasing than defending.

“I didn’t do anything wrong. I got you a gift.”

Michelle stepped closer to him.

“A gift that attacked me…”

Being shorter than Alexander, she had to tilt her head up to see into his face, but somehow, from that angle, she looked like a venomous monster that took the skin of a human.

But the biggest account for that had to be given to the gleam in her eyes.

And when even the color of one of her eyes started turning red, she really looked completely inhuman.

Alexander moved his hand to take hold of the snake (which was hiding behind his neck), and present it to Michelle again.

“Look at the little thing. That would never hurt you. It’s completely terrified.”

And he was right.

The snake was shaking.

That was obviously fear.

And it started shaking more the closer it was to Michelle.

Michelle tilted her head and twisted her neck a bit to lock her gaze at the snake.

“What did I do to scare you so much?” she poked at it with her bleeding finger.

And that caused something neither Michelle nor Alexander would ever expect.

The small snake actually went limp in Alexander’s hand.

Like its survival instincts were nonexistent and it just decided to give in to the danger.

Michelle took the snake from Alexander, examining it closely.

“Am I all that scary?”

When she couldn’t find out what was wrong with the snake, she decided to summon Mare.

Mare was also a snake and also a beast, so there was a high chance she would know what was going on.

“What is it, Michelle?” Mare didn’t expect to be summoned so abruptly.

Michelle quickly summarized what had happened with the snake and Mare listened closely.

Then, instead of taking the snake from Alexander, she grabbed Michelle’s hand and turned it over to look at the small prick on her finger from the snake’s fang.

And quickly, a frown formed on her face.

Michelle didn’t like that frown.

It very much looked like Mare was disgusted with what she was seeing.

But what could be so disgusting about a single prick wound?

That meant the disgusting thing was Michelle’s very own blood.

Was there something about Spirit Soul Blood that only snake beasts could see (or sense in any other way)?

Michelle didn’t know, so she could just wait for Mare’s verdict.

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