"You look exactly the same, haha. What's your secret? A face-mask?" Anne asked as Van walked beside her, the two slipping out of the Capital unnoticed.
"Don't worry about it..." he replied with a smile, eyes forward, leading her across the plains toward a certain cave.
"Hmm... A dungeon for a date. You're really clueless, aren't you?"
"I guess..." he muttered simply, matching her pace as they entered the mouth of the cavern.
Something about the place made her skin crawl.
'Something feels... wrong...'
She glanced around warily, her footsteps faltering. Van was ahead now, pushing open an old wooden door embedded in the stone.
The sight inside made her stomach drop.
About a dozen students were bound and gagged, their eyes wide and desperate. Some were trembling. Others wept silently. She recognized them instantly—these were the same students who had mocked her, spread vile rumors about her. Now they looked terrified. Broken.
'...!!'
Her eyes flared as they locked onto the scene. And there, standing before the hostages, was one of the academy's magic professors—smirking like the devil herself.
"What the...!?" Anne turned sharply toward Van.
But Van was gone.
In his place stood a man she didn't recognize, wearing the same clothes—but his presence, his aura, his expression were twisted into someone else's.
SLAP.
The sound cracked through the cave like a whip. His hand struck her face, and she fell hard beside the others, gasping.
"Shut up, slave," he sneered, towering over her with cold eyes.
"You took yer sweet time, Avn," The female professor let out, unimpressed. "What, fancying little girls now?"
"Oh shut yer trap, Aicila," he snapped, his voice gruff and harsh, barely resembling Van's. "Not everyone's got that fancy magic of yers...!"
He leaned in close, his glare sharp as a blade.
Anne's breath caught.
'This... this is not Van...!! Those... those are... BANDITS!'
Panic surged in her chest. She stumbled backward, scrambling to her feet, heart pounding like it was trying to escape her ribcage.
Aicila turned on her heel, thrusting a finger at Anne. "Faux: Bind."
In an instant, magical ropes coiled around Anne's arms and legs, a spectral gag wrapping tightly across her mouth.
'Binding magic..!!' Her mind flared in alarm as her knees buckled. She crashed to the ground again—gagged, bound, helpless.
Aicila scoffed, shifting her gaze back to Avn—the man behind the illusion.
"Hmph. Excuses..." She crossed her arms. "You've got the rarest damn magic I've ever seen—'See-Memories-Of-Everyone-You-Want-And-Transform-To-The-Person-In-Their-Memories.' You don't get to make excuses."
At that moment, Anne and the kidnapped students all shared the same stunned thought:
'That's... a really convenient type of magic...'
Anne gritted her teeth behind the gag.
'Fuck... FUCK... But that doesn't change the situation...'
YOU ARE READING
Betrayed, I Met The Demon Lord
FantasyVan and his friend Magus had reincarnated in another world with magic. Tasked to kill the demon lord, they set forth. Van was granted very rough skills that made life for him in that world a living hell, yet he muscled through. Magus however, was be...
