Alongside Vesper, there were three other first-years in the A class, all of them which have managed to reach the core level four at a very young age.
One of them was the vampire standing right in front of her now, Marlin Sao.
Marlin Sao was best described as a battle-crazed freak who liked challenging anyone in the same league and even those above him just to see how well he would be able to hold out.
He had been challenging Vesper to a round of battle for a while but she wasn't interested and always declined the challenge.
This time, they were all out here and he believed this was the perfect opportunity.
"What do you want?" Vesper asked.
She already felt exasperated just looking at his face.
"The flag of course," Cassie muttered in confusion.
"Don't worry, I have no interest in your flag," Marlin remarked.
"What?"
"You know what I want so don't waste any more time." He said, pointing his lance at Vesper.
Aware of what was about to come and how she couldn't avoid it, Vesper let out a sigh before slowly letting go of Axel's arm.
Afterwards, she shot Cassie a stern look. "Make sure he doesn't get hurt."
Cassie felt her heart drop at that moment.
Was she leaving?
"Don't worry, I'll be fine," Axel assured her.
Marlin quickly charged toward her at that moment.
She immediately pulled out her dagger to block the lance.
"You should choose a better weapon if you're going to fight me." Marlin's lips curled up in a smile.
Just as the tip of his lance made contact with the dagger, he pulled it back and spun.
Vesper wasn't able to register what happened next as the lance horizontally slammed down her gut, exerting enough force to send her flying back as Marlin quickly gave chase not wanting to give her any breathing space.
Witnessing what just happened, Cassie had worry written all over her face.
"Is she going to be alright?"
"Don't worry, she'll be fine."
Axel didn't seem to be bothered in the slightest so Cassie was able to calm down and believe that nothing bad would actually happen.
She was a princess, after all; even if he was capable, that vampire would be crazy to actually do anything to her.
Cassie turned back for a moment to see numerous trees collapsing further ahead. It looked like Vesper and Marlin were having quite an intense battle.
"Vampires can be really violent, right?" She said but there was no response from the person supposed to be standing beside her.
That was when she realized something was wrong. She turned around to see that Axel was nowhere to be found.
"You have to be kidding me."
With a snap of her fingers, numerous fireflies suddenly gathered above her. Seeing fireflies by this time of the day was practically impossible, but for a fairy, this was nothing.
Covering her legs with earth mounds she quickly slid deeper into the dark parts of the forest, the fireflies illuminating.
She neatly combed through the area, making sure not to miss a single spot; without the command, she had over the forest as a fairy, she was sure that she wouldn't miss anything.
Seeing that there was nothing there, she decided to push forward. Soon, she began to hear voices, and the closer she got, the clearer they became.
Among those voices, she could recognize one.
"Axel."
The expression on her face turned hopeful as she increased her pace.
Soon, she dashed out from the dark part of the forest to find Axel standing there, but he wasn't alone.
Just ahead of him was a team which seemed to have two flags in their possession. There were two fairies in the team, and one of them turned out to be Ivan, who seemed to be apprehensive as he stared at Ivan.
He believed that if Ivan was here in his condition, then Vesper had to be close by, but he didn't expect Cassie to show up instead.
"Vesper told me not to let you get hurt. Why did you run off?" A frantic Cassie said as he moved closer to Axel. "How are you even able to get this far on your own?"
"I'm not a baby for you to babysit." Axel retorted.
"I know but I'm just worried about what Vesper will do if something does happen."
Catching wind of their conversation, the expression on Ivan's face suddenly relaxed.
Vesper wasn't here?
He couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.
"Looks like a free flag just landed on our plate." The female fairy behind said as she moved closer to Ivan.
"And it looks like there's a lot of points to pick up from this one." The male vampire behind said as he licked his lips.
"Hand over your flag and we won't have to do this the hard way." The fairy demanded as she pointed at the two easy meals in front of us.
Cassie was a bit offended by the way they were being looked down on and it was clear from her expression that she wasn't ready to take this lying down.
"What a joke." She scoffed. "You expect us to hand it over just because you said so?"
"Oh, I'm just giving you a chance." The fairy said, raising her hand in defence. "You might be able to hold out on your own but how long will you be able to keep up if your teammate is useless?"
Her gaze shifted to Axel who was standing there with a calm expression on his face.
What she said did make sense, though; other than Axel, all of them there were in the B class and were all core level three.
However, what they didn't know was that Axel had also broken through to core level three recently.
Looking at Axel, Cassie had a worried expression.
She wondered whether it would be best to just forget about it and retreat.
However, if their opponents decided to chase them, they might not be able to outrun them, and that would be more troublesome; it would be easier if they were facing just three vampires, given their location.
For now, she had to hold her ground and hope that Vesper would return soon.
As for Axel, she didn't have any expectations of him, especially in his current condition; she just knew she had to protect him no matter what.
"Don't worry, I won't let anything happen to you." She said to Axel before turning to face the three, determination written clearly on her face.
The fairy on the other side had a smirk on her face now as she glanced at the two beside her while asking, "Who's going to take this one on or should I do it?"
"I'll do it." The vampire immediately stepped forward. "Playing with little fairies is always nice."
Cassie couldn't help but shake her head at his stupidity.
The vampire quickly charged forward without hesitation, but before he could cover enough ground, Cassie had charged forward herself.
He released the first blow, blasting a huge stream of fire straight toward Cassie.
Stomping her right foot on the ground, she created a tall cover out of earth to block the attack.
With another stomp, the vampire with low battle awareness suddenly found his legs caught in a thick mound of earth.
The cover protecting Cassie suddenly burst open at that moment, and the next second, she was suddenly in front of the vampire.
'How is she so fast?'
Without hesitating, Cassie slammed her right fist down his gut.
"Oww." The vampire groaned as he saw his life flash before his eyes.
He never expected that tiny hand to hurt this much.
Cassie had no intention of giving him the chance to regain his composure.
She grabbed him by his right arm and lifted him up in one fell swoop.
This was another surprise for the vampire, he never expected a body that small to have so much power.
A rectangular platform with a very rough design suddenly appeared behind the two at that moment, and without giving it a second thought, Cassie slammed him down on it.
The vampire felt a huge surge of electricity surge through his body as he felt something on his back crack.
The aftermath of all that was that he was practically paralyzed, even though it might only be temporary; vampires had super healing, after all.
His two teammates watching the fight from the side couldn't believe their eyes; he had not even landed a single hit, and he was taken out of the fight just like that.
It seemed that they had greatly underestimated Cassie and she used that to her advantage.
The female fairy was grinding her teeth now as her eyes lit up in fury.
"That useless fool."
Filled with rage she pulled her sword out of her storage ring and was suddenly in front of Cassie without warning.
The sword was infused with light, and at that moment, she just wanted to slice her up into tiny little pieces.
However, just before she could bring the sword down, she suddenly found someone strongly gripping onto her hand, preventing it from moving an inch further down.
"Huh?"
With a confused expression, she lowered her gaze to find Axel standing there, preventing her from doing anything with one hand.
"Since when did the useless ones get to join the fight?"
"Axel?"
Cassie was also surprised.
"I don't think you're qualified to call me useless."
Before the fairy could retort, he thrust the cane he was holding at her stomach with its head.
The fairy's eyes bulged out as she forcibly let go of her sword out of shock.
The fairy wasn't given the chance to recover from the initial hit as Axel suddenly sent her flying back with a roundhouse kick.
[ Combo skill unlocked ]
[ Light and water intertwined ]
[ Combo slash ]
[ Effectiveness ×2 ]
Just as his roundhouse kick hit her, the attack was released. A water slashed with its edges coated with the light element.
The attack hit the fairy forcing out a shrill from her as she tumbled on the floor. She passed out soon afterwards.