23 Predator (1/2)

Burnt down trees surrounded the village.

'It seems like they're using slash & burn techniques for crop cultivation' Nova reported.

In the distance, there seemed to be a few badly-cemented buildings, around 2-3 storeys tall. It had started to get dark by then, so the select few streetlights flickered on.

Nero was currently hovering over the centre of the Village, slowly descending due to the mana not being able to handle his weight for long without hurting Nero.

_

Nero had hidden his adept mana, no one except Madison knew of him becoming a Slayer and he didn't see anything but more potential danger coming from showing off.

He had realised that he didn't even know the tip of the iceberg about mana and its possible uses. He had always questioned about the Tale Of The World Walker, how did this mystery person get powerful enough to leave the Earth safely? Even if they had the power, how did they use it so mindfully, commanding mana to cover their body, act as fuel for the flight, act appropriately when experiencing turbulence, etc, without having some kind of pre-commands set?

The only reason Space Travel on Earth was possible in the first place was because of the code directing the path of the flight, predicting what could be on their course, auto-manoeuvring when necessary, essentially doing an action based on a countless number of factors to reach the inputted destination.

He also had his mind on something else, he could not figure out the link between what Madison said and what she did.

On the way, he had tried a number of times to do what Madison did, after not understanding why his 'code' didn't execute, he gave up and asked Nova to run different approaches to reach the end goal that Madison did.

'What the hell does 'Arorus' have to do with making a goddamn Wind Blade?'

Confused, Nero had just given up. He knew that without enough information, he simply couldn't advance further on his quest to understanding more about Mana.

_

'Locate Aldin's birth home.'

'Acknowledged, pinpointing the location on the map.'

'Wow, I really hate the concept of superstition, though, in this world, I can't even tell if it exists, too many things already go against the bloody rules of physics, what could one more possibly do?'

The villagers had thought of Aldin as the Devil, simply because he had, very partially, managed to harness control over mana around him.

All he had done was, with guidance from Nova in his dreams, lowered the surrounding temperature by a few degrees while trying to extend his dominance over his surroundings. People around him had frozen to shock when it happened, looking around to find a boy emanating a chilling aura around.

From there, mayhem ensued, someone shouted: ”He's the Devil's Child!”, and crowd effect made everyone adopt the same type of view towards him, people brought out sharp farming tools, weapons, etc, and they chased Aldin out of the village miles away, simply due to not being able to accept the fact that Aldin had taken his first step on the path of Magic at the age of six.

Nero could understand their choking rage towards a child, but that wouldn't lower his ambition to slaughter those who tried cause harm to 'his' body.

He took at as an attack directed towards him, human irrationality played a part in his conclusion but he couldn't care less.

He wanted to Slay them.

Nero could finally take a step back and look at his personality, he was someone who firmly stood by his beliefs, someone who didn't take any level of threat from anybody, someone who was smart enough to understand that to his thoughts, irrationality simply had an effect.

He was someone who was human.

It didn't take long for people scurrying around the Village to notice a glooming figure on a slow descent, shadowing the dying daylight above their heads.