Riley Ross-Chapter 82: An awkwardly normal conversation among abnormal teenagers

Chapter 82: Chapter 82: An awkwardly normal conversation among abnormal teenagers

A few minutes before the random explosion, while Bella was complaining violently about having to clean during their supposed field trip, Riley was diligently brushing all the trash on the floor. There were all sorts of trash—wrappers, cans, cups, cigarette butts, and even diapers for some reason.

And while Victoria was completely disturbed by everything she was seeing, Riley was completely unbothered by everything. He picked up the diapers with his tongs and placed them in their garbage bag without uttering even a single "eh". Victoria tried her best not to be disgusted—after all, the other girl who was sticking close to Riley had no reaction on her face at all whatsoever.

Tomoe was even picking up the diapers with her hands; granted, she was wearing gloves, but still...

"Umm... Riley." Victoria moved closer to Riley, glancing at his face for a moment before putting trash in their bag, "I noticed you seem to like cleaning a lot. Do you... clean a lot in your home?"

"No." He answered while his hands kept on moving, "I only clean when necessary, V. I used to not clean at all, but Sister dragged me out of my room once and forced me to clean—I have been cleaning when necessary ever since."

"O-oh..." Victoria softly giggled, tucking her hair behind her ear before quickly removing her hand from her face when she realized it was dirty, "You... seem to be very close with your sister."

"I suppose I am, V."

"Are you... also close with her?"

"Hm?" Riley blinked before looking at Tomoe as Victoria was glancing at her, "I do not know the answer to that yet, V. Perhaps we should ask her."

"Wh—"

"Tomoe. Are we considered close?"

Tomoe immediately stopped cleaning as she approached the two.

"Yes," she answered without any hesitation, "I believe right now, I consider you the closest person to me. Like Whiteking’s speech—I am not alone because of you."

"Hm," Riley nodded, "I suppose I feel the same. Does that answer your question, V?"

"T-that..." Victoria lightly clenched her fists as she heard that. The sparks in her green eyes, also subtly sputtering as she looked away, "Then are you... are you two like... together?"

"Yes," Riley shrugged. Victoria was about to gasp, but Riley’s next words saved her from that, "Are we also not together now, V?"

"N—"

"I believe she meant if we are in a romantic relationship," Tomoe shook her head, "Then I would answer that for you, V—our relationship is purely professional... and he is twelve. And so are you, why are you asking this question?"

"I... I’m just curious!"

"No, you’re not just curious..." Tomoe narrowed her already small eyes at Victoria. She stared at her for a few seconds, leaning closer and closer causing Victoria not to know what to do or where to look. But finally, after a few torturous seconds, Tomoe finally said something again, "...You have a crush on him."

"N—"

"You do, V?" Riley tilted his head to the side, reacting before Victoria could say anything. She bit her lip, and the sparks coming out her eyes started to dance wilder by the second—her eyes also started to become moist, her feet wanting to move away from there.

Any moment now, and she was about to explode.

"You should not."

But Riley’s words once again calmed her down.

"It will not be healthy for you in the long run, Victoria." Riley sighed, shaking his head as he started cleaning again, "I am not like most people, and I do not process feelings and emotions like the rest of you. Yes, there might come a time when I start to care for you—but I do not believe I could ever love you back, or like you for that matter. I am physically incapable of the most beautiful thing called love."

All the worries and unease clouding her mind instantly withered away as she heard Riley’s words. Even Tomoe’s incredibly stoic face turned even more muted as she glanced at him. After all, she had already witnessed that.

She had already witnessed Riley’s incapability to feel or experience love. The way she tortured her mother, but most importantly... the way he just casually snapped the neck of someone so innocent.

Someone like that would forever be incapable of love.

"That’s not true."

But of course, someone like Victoria who hasn’t seen that side of Riley wouldn’t know that. She stood in front of Riley, her lips slightly pouted as she looked him in the eyes. Her face, as red as they could be despite their green luminescence.

"I... I don’t believe that at all!" She said, once again clenching her fists. And even though her lips were trembling violently with her voice, the sparks sprouting from her eyes were firm, "I’ll... I’ll prove it. From now on, I’ll dedicate my life to proving—"

BOOM!

And before she could finish her words, a loud explosion thundered through the sky. The three quickly turned their heads toward the noise, only to see a mushroom of smoke creeping across the sky and turning the flat lands darker and darker by the second.

"What is—"

And right when Victoria was about to react, a violent blast of wind blew across them.

Tomoe quickly moved in front, summoning a wall of crystal to cover the three of them. Meanwhile, Riley stretched his hand toward the trash bag that was blown away, making sure the trash they had cleaned so far wouldn’t scatter through this flat wasteland again.

Victoria glanced at the crystal wall for a few seconds, before hearing a scream somewhere behind her. She glanced back, and not even a millisecond later, she disappeared into a streak of lightning and appeared right in front of a boy who was being swept by all the wind and dust storms.

Victoria clapped her hands, causing an even louder boom to erupt as a web of lightning thundered from them—almost blinding the boy as the cracks of electricity completely devoured and disintegrated anything within its path.

The wind of the blast lasted for several seconds before finally dying down. Victoria let out a breath, wiping the sweat from her face before checking in on the student behind her.

"T-thank you, V..." The boy nodded, his legs trembling to the point that he couldn’t stand up even though he wanted to. Hard bubbles, emerged from his nose and fell to the ground with a light solid thud. The instructors were indeed right—there were levels to being a super.

"Hmn." V only nodded in response before quickly making his way back to Riley and Tomoe. Hannah and the rest of the Baby Crew were also on their way.

"W-what the fuck?! Riley, are you okay?!"

"How far is that? Do you think we have cancer now?!"

"I-imagine if that exploded here..."

And while the rest of the Baby Crew started discussing the explosion, Riley was looking at the flat ground behind him. He had just spent half an hour in making sure that not even a single waste could be seen in his area of responsibility... and now it was filled with all sorts of trash again.

His head and eyebrows began to lower, and his breaths started to turn heavy.

"We just cleaned this area," he whispered to himself, "And now it is dirty again."

And with an unusually deep sigh, he started picking up trash with his tongs again.

"Riley! Stop cleaning! You—"

"Class 1-V! Gather to me!"

"Scarlet Mage, what’s happening?!" Hannah quickly rushed toward Katherine as soon as she flew toward them.

"I don’t know. But the instructors are already checking it," Katherine breathed out as she looked around, "Stay close to me! We don’t know if this is an ambush of some sort."

"How can that even be possible?!" Hannah also started looking around, pulling Riley closer to him, "D—Whiteking’s here! He would have intercepted any sort of attack!"

"As I said, we don’t know anything. So, just stay close to me!"

"...Okay," Hannah looked at the rest of the Baby Crew, nodding to them as they stuck close to Katherine. The rest of class 1-V soon gathered, and Katherine quickly started counting them.

"Thirty... thirty one. Thirty-two. I... think this is everyone." She let out a loud sigh of relief as she finished counting, "We should—Huh? Thirty... three, four? Why is there... more of you?"

All the students of class 1-V started looking at their peers and the people beside them, checking to see if they knew them. And after a few seconds, a group of students parted.

"Scarlet Mage!" Katrina, the slightly morbidly obese student of class 1-V raised her hand, her cheeks bouncing as she called for Katherine, "I... don’t recognize these two!"

"Huh?" Katherine quickly made her way to Katrina, her eyes focused on the two students, "Are... you sure?"

It was quite hard to tell who was who since all of them were wearing uniforms and had half their faces covered with a giant pair of sunglasses. But as Katherine stared at the two students that Katrina pointed to... it was quite obvious that they were older than the rest of the students, even older than her.

"Who—"

And before Katherine could even ask who they were, one of the two individuals suddenly took off his coat... revealing the bombs strapped around his waist. Katherine quickly halted her steps, her breath holding on its own even though she didn’t want to.

"I would advise all of you to stay calm." The man calmly said, "And don’t move. First of all, let me introduce who we are—we are the Dark Millenium...

...and we are here to take the students who are on the Potential Villain List."

"Potential... Villain List?"

This content is taken from (f)reewe(b)novel.𝗰𝗼𝐦