Author's Reincarnation in a Fantasy Setting

ero stopped in his tracks and placed the red crystal he was tossing, into his pocket as he stared right in front of him. Right ahead stood the figures of Emmeric and Wynfir, and behind them were the three girls: Seiren, Alada, and Wrena.

"Who are you?" he asked, the question was directed at the person who was standing at the front: Emmeric.

Emmeric was already in a pretty bad mood when he came here, and hearing Zero say this made it even worse.

"The hell did you say?!" he grumbled and rolled his fingers into a tight fist. His facial expression was that of an angry beast.

"You destroyed my friend's life, you froze his arms! You destroyed his whole life! And I was right there when you did that, standing there looking at my friend despairing in pain while I wasn't able to do anything. That was the most helpless I've felt in my entire life!

"But you! You didn't give a fuck! You froze his arms and then made him quit the academy, you destroyed his life! That's why I'm here, to avenge him!" he rambled.

"I'm here to kill you, and these will be your last moments," Emmeric said as he faced Zero.

"That's right," Seiren said from behind. "You were a fool to walk into this cave, and now you have nowhere to escape. This is where you will die."

In the end, Emmeric wasn't able to wait any longer. He dashed forward, the muscles and veins on his right arm popping up as he punched Zero right in the gut.

The punch was hard and Zero was sent flying a few feet backward. He stumbled on the ground and coughed blood as he stopped himself from rolling on the ground any further.

Seiren and the other two girls came forward too. They didn't intend to fight, but they wanted to watch and be there for the moment when Zero will die. However, right now they all were rather a little taken aback by the events that followed just now—especially Seiren.

She had seen what Zero was capable of, thus the way he took that punch directly was rather surprising.

"Ah, I remember now," Zero said as he wiped the blood dripping from his mouth. "Or rather, I can't forget. I remember how that bastard Winston tried to assault my sister, and as a result, I utterly destroyed him. So, what did I do wrong?"

Emmeric's rage crossed all limits, and he growled like a beast.

"There was nothing wrong with what we did!" he claimed. "And in the first place, we weren't able to do anything to your sister, that Leon bastard came and stopped us. Plus, we were told to assault her by someone else, it was not even our will. Yet you did what you did! I wouldn't have minded if you left Winston with just a beating. Honestly, we all deserved that much.

"However, what you did was even worse than your deed. You took Winston's arms, had him quit the academy, and destroyed his whole life since he won't be able to do anything without his hands! That was something he did not deserve."

"Yeah, you are right," Zero said. "I ended his life, and that is what someone will get if they even try to meddle with my sister!" his voice raised and his expression changed.

"Since we are still talking, let me clear something up for you. The ones who are trapped in this case with nowhere to escape are you people, not me!" he looked up, and there was a smile spread over his face.

His eyes were filled with madness and pure bloodlust. Seiren was taken aback to see this, since those weren't the type of eyes you see in a student.

Zero used elemental magic and a thick wall of ice covered the entrance of the cave and blocks it off completely, making it impossible for anyone to go out.

'So that's why he took that punch before. To lure us inside the cave,' Alada thought.

"What the fuck!" Seiren screamed as soon as she saw the only route out of the cave get blocked. "How are we getting out of here now!?" she said to Emmeric.

"Shut the fuck up! It doesn't matter whether the cave is blocked or not, the one dying is still this bastard," he replied.

"Well, we'll see about that," Zero said as he raised his hand toward Emmeric. A spiral of frost gathered before his palm, and a second later an ice spike was blasted in Emmeric's direction.

However, he brushed it aside with his hand as if it were nothing. "I know how your magic works, Zero. I know you can use ice magic without any incantation or magic circle. But I am prepared for that."

Emmeric curled the fingers of both his hands inward and clenched them into tight fists that he pointed toward Zero. A closed his eyes for a second and when he opened them again, two sun-colored magic circles appeared before each of his fists.

"I've trained this body to its limit just so I can beat you to a pulp, and I've practiced fire magic just so I can counter your attacks. It was all for this very moment. Even if you use ice, it's still a form of water and I can beat it by fire," Emmeric said with a menacing smile on his face.

"Oh, I see. You say you can counter my ice, huh? Well…do it then," Zero said as a big smile spread over his face.

A second later a burst of cold and chilled winds erupted from Zero's body, and wherever those winds touched they froze the place. In no time, the winds getting emitted from Zero's body were raging into the whole cave like an ice storm.

The walls, ceiling, and the ground turned white and cool as they froze and were covered by a sheet of ice. The ice covering the stop didn't just stop after that and begin to round up around the feet of everywhere present there except Zero.