Darksteel

Chapter 10; Slaying Monsters is too bothersome.

WARNING: For those of you who are younger or sensitive readers, this chapter contains some pretty freaky Monsters. There is quite a lot of description here too, so if you are squeamish when it comes to scary stuff, maybe skip past a bit of this chapter. (And don't worry, I'm hoping to put some cute and fluffy creatures that AREN'T Monsters in this story)

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While Asta was generally nervous about most things involving the classes at Adalain Academy, nothing made him want to run away faster than the words Monster Slaying.

It did not help that the class was taught by Smithy and his rather frightening son, Ivo Atamire.

Tall and clad mostly in black, Ivo shared no resemblance to his father other than the thick, raven black mane of hair upon his head.

His features, however, were nothing like Smithy's.

Cold, dark eyes the colour of sharpened steel glared out from beneath heavy brows, and while Smithy's face was rounded, Ivo's was all sharp angles and protruding lines; sharp as flint and twice as cold. 

His lips were pale and thin, pulled back into a perpetual snarl, and while a good many might have found his expression off-putting, many more were intimidated simply by the hideous scar that slashed over his left eye. 

Dark red and stark against the boy's pale skin, the scar stretched from forehead to jaw in a cresent moon shape, the skin around it an unsightly purple.

Yet to Asta, the most unsettling thing about Ivo was the way he glared at him; silently, as though he was studying him, doubting that the boy could survive such a class.

Asta doubted the same thing... but that was beside the point.

 "Is there a reason that Ivo keeps looking at me?" Asta whispered to Adar, who did not look thrilled to be speaking to him.

The other boy sneered at him, "Atamire knows Monster food when he sees it."

"Well, at least I'm special."

"Yes, you've certainly caught his eye-- I'm sure he'll be making special coffin arrangements for you as well."

Ignoring this last comment, Asta turned his eyes to the surrounding area instead, hoping to distract himself from the uneasy feeling that thrashed inside his stomach like a wild beast and, perhaps, possibly find an escape route if needed.

Thus, cranning his head to see over the crowd of other students and Guild mates, Asta turned his gaze toward the field beyond them, taking in the expanse of it, of the way the breeze gently rippled across the grass, running invisible fingers over this sea of sunlit green.

And yet beyond that, stretching in a dark ring that abruptly cut off the field, was a forest of dark trees, their twisting forms blurring together as they entertwined with one another, branched grasping toward the sky like skeletal, fleshless fingers.

The sight of it was enough to send a shiver trailing down Asta's spine, making his skin turn cold as though a phantom has just breathed down his neck, turning his blood to ice.

The forest simply seemed... wrong, somehow. As though some dark creature waited in its midst, ready to pounce the moment some poor soul entered beneath the deformed trees. 

Shaking his head to clear it of his jumble of thoughts, Asta turned to Nico, mentioning the way the trees unnerved him-- their stillness despite the breeze-- and, upon hearing this, the other boy declared that that was the Forbidden Forest.