Extra's Path To Demon King-Chapter 102: Forging Facility

Axel, with some trepidation, looked back and saw the ever-so-beautiful Valkyrie in plain clothes looking more beautiful than ever, looking right at him with a silent glare. Axel was horrified. How long had she been here? Don’t tell me right from the start? How come I didn’t sense her coming into my perception even in the slightest?

But that devastating beauty of hers did not ease his worries or distract him from looking at her; his eyes met with her scarlet, radiant eyes, and he hurriedly moved his gaze away. It always gave him a bad feeling whenever he looked into those scarlet eyes. As if there was something sinister and deep in it, something unnerving, something extremely wrong.

But to break that tension-filled atmosphere, Lumina suddenly laughed aloud, unable to hold it in any longer. Thankfully, they were in a separate chamber within the restaurant, and sound would not go out from there.

So, she laughed with no bars attached, Axel had a sour expression on his face. One was so cute and innocent that he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. Laughing like that only made her cuter. But on the other hand, another was dangerous but most beautiful. She was like a forbidden flower.

But another person suddenly entered, for the first time, he was glad to see the 4th prince. He was skeptical after entering, he shot a dangerous glare towards Axel, who was sitting in this enclosed space with his one and only cute sister. But seeing Lumina laugh so wildly like that, he shot a questioning look towards Sophia, but she shrugged in a very reserved manner and sat next to Lumina, who was laughing her heart out.

There was only one table in that enclosed space with 4 chairs. Lucien came closer, and Axel automatically moved to the chair inward, and the 4th prince sat right beside Axel. Lucien put his hands on Axel’s shoulder and said with a fake smile,

"Now, may I know what you were doing with my lovely little sister? I presume Sophia only entered a few moments ago."

Axel cursed the entire bloodline of Lumina and her 14 ancestors, including her brother and Valkyrie, who both seemed to want to tear him apart for spending time with Lumina alone in an area like this, where only couples came.

Lumina barely stopped laughing and tried to sit in a more reserved manner.

"Pftttt, do you know the look you had when Sophia sneaked up behind you?"

The Valkyrie stated emotionlessly, "I do not sneak up."

"Pffft....is that what happened?" Lucien chimed in with a laugh.

Then Lumina explained all that had happened, Axel wanted to give her a death stare, as both Suncrest siblings were laughing their hearts out, making fun of him; he could barely keep a frown from showing on his face. And the Valkyrie remained emotionless throughout their whole conversation, it seems she didn’t find it so amusing.

Axel eventually said with a fake smile, unable to contain his annoyance,

"Hah, hah, very funny."

Which generated another burst of laughter from both Lumina and Lucien, things eventually calmed down after unknown amount of time, if it was in a normal situation he would have instantly barged out of there, but he couldn’t, he needed the damn favor. Well, yes, there were other and maybe more experienced forgers within the academy. But these two were on another level, he didn’t know what the Valkyrie went through in the trial. But he knew what Lucien went through.

Similar to how he became a runecaster out of necessity, Lucien had to do the same. Lucien eventually asked with a tinge of amusement,

"So, you need to see someone forging?"

"I’m surprised you already didn’t know that?"

Lumina said to Sophia in a pleading tone, "Sophia, why don’t you show him forging just one time with the sword?"

She shot a mild glare towards her and said, "Not interested."

She wanted to pester her a bit more, but seeing the obvious annoyance in her friend, she gave up. She eventually turned towards her brother and said in a surprisingly serious tone,

"Brother, in that case, you show him how to do it, and teach him."

She added after a pause, "Axel always helps me in any Runic studies, whenever I encounter a problem, you should help him with this much."

Lucien raised an eyebrow at that comment and nodded, "Well, considering what Ken did, I would have helped him anyway with something like this, now that I hear him helping you like that, just helping with this won’t be enough, would it?"

Axel turned towards Lucien and looked him up and down strangely,

"Don’t look at me like that, I know we started off with the wrong start. But I have nothing against you. As for Ken, let’s just say he had a bad childhood."

Hearing that, Axel almost lost his cool, taking in a deep breath. It’s fine, he knows what kind of person Lucien is; he was smart, cunning, manipulative, and scheming, but he was a good guy at heart. From his perspective, it made sense to protect his tad bit arrogant cousin. And considering how cooperative he is being to resolve their bad start, he didn’t mind putting it aside for a moment. In the end, it was already set in stone what he would do when the time came.

Axel shrugged and said, "Whatever, I don’t care about him anymore."

Lucien smiled at that response, and so did Lumina. The 4th prince put his hand forward, turning towards him a bit, "Well, let me introduce myself properly then."

"Lucien Suncrest, the 4th prince of the Suncrest Great Kingdom."

Axel shook his hand and said, "Axel Nomrad."

Lucien smiled towards him and added, "And this is Sophia Evercrest, the one and only Valkyrie of this generation."

Axel said with a sigh, "I know."

The Valkyrie did not say anything and only kept sipping the coffee with no interest in joining in the conversation. After that, Lucien and he agreed to meet tomorrow when Lucien would take him to the forging chamber of the academy and teach him forging in that place.

When the matter was settled, he promptly excused himself politely. Lumina tried to keep him, but he was feeling too awkward, and the Valkyrie was giving strange glares from time to time; he reckoned she did not like him at that place. She apparently didn’t see him in a good light for some reason.

With a sigh, he got rid of all the unnecessary thoughts. As he readjusted his routine and his to-do list. The next day, he met with the 4th prince after all the classes were over. The guy took him to a certain building, a bit far from the central building, in the general area where they lived. The island had many facilities, and it was quite big in fact. And in totality, only half is used.

The other half is actually filled with powerful beasts, and it even has a 5th-tier beast in it, ruling over all the other ones. As far as he knew, the beast was quite intelligent, and it was a beast captured by the principal from some other place and put on the other half of the island to govern all the other beasts. It was a win-win situation, the beast would get to live. And with something that strong watching over the forest, no horde or beast would dare to act wild. But there are countermeasures and various barriers put in place on that dividing line.

So, no beast horde can break free and invade the civilized part of the island. They were going to the facility, which is close to the border that separates the beast forest and the academy-designated area.

Both were fairly silent on the way, Axel didn’t feel like speaking; he was more comfortable with the silence. Reaching in front of a certain section, where many single-story facilities were spread around, and the constant sound of metal hitting metal could be heard. And from every single section, steam was coming out of the roofs.

Lucien said, turning to him, "Well, this is the forging facility."

"I know it looks a bit old school and primitive, with that steam coming off from the pipes and no magic, that is because most of the forgers are specialists of the warrior branch. They cannot use magic; in fact, they believe that when it comes to forging itself, using magic prematurely disturbs the process."

They went inside while Lucien kept explaining the basics to him, reaching in front of a certain room. They saw a certain buff-looking man, to Axel’s surprise, it was actually Gareth.

The examiner who was in charge of the Masked Competition.

He was hammering away at the mixture of molten metal, shaping it into a proper structure. His control was breathtaking and extremely explicit. Just looking at it, even someone who doesn’t know anything about forging can tell how skilled the person was.