From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 613 Walking Through Ashes
"two--"

The little elephant Quintor was surprised to find that he was no longer in Stryhaven's magic laboratory. The lightning and fire surrounding him had all disappeared, and apart from feeling a sore bottom, he was able to move around freely again.

“I never expected Professor Doom to make such a joke… At least I landed safely and didn’t fall into a large area of ​​water…” Kuntoli moved his stiff wrists and began to look around at his surroundings, but what first stimulated his senses was the smell of rust and the pungent smell of burning in the air.

The baby elephant sprang up from the ground, about to cry out in surprise, but thankfully his hands were faster than his mouth, stopping him from making a potentially dangerous shout.

On the wooden floor, which was piled with clutter, lay many human corpses. Judging from their clothing and wounds, these dead were nothing more than defenseless civilians.

The scene before him reminded Quintorli of his time at the Langdosdra Military Academy, where the upperclassmen would use these battlefield experiences to frighten him, telling him how a coward like him would be killed like a chicken on the battlefield.

Unfortunately, judging from Kuntoli's current observation, those senior students were nothing but empty talkers. They only needed to describe the smell of blood in the air, the stench of burnt flesh, and the faint sounds of laughter and shouts of killing, and he would start trembling like he is now.

After all, as a shepherd's son, Kuntoli did know how to kill chickens, but not how to kill people.

"Relax, protect yourself... Relax, protect yourself..." The little elephant squatted on the ground and silently repeated Professor Doom's instructions several times. Then it began to observe its surroundings again. This was an unfamiliar world, and everyone it encountered could be malicious.

The place where the baby elephant was located was very narrow, more like a corridor than a room, and it was not even roofed. Two rows of railings extended from the top of the wooden wall, but now there were several broken pieces with splinters of wood. It seemed that the corpses on the ground were killed and thrown down from there.

The floor was cluttered with broken chairs, tilted screens, and even some musical instruments.

“This is a dilapidated theater…” Little elephant Kuntoli had a general idea of ​​where he was. “I’m under the stage.”

This passageway, hidden from the theater audience's view, was used by the actors to move undetected between the two sides of the stage. Therefore, there was a wooden door on each of the two walls.

Kuntoli decided to leave first and find a more secluded and safer place to check the supplies. He casually pulled out the crowbar from the side of his adventure backpack and held it in his hand for self-defense. As a Hengjian student who had participated in several archaeological internships, although he had never actually used it, he roughly knew how to use it.

Besides being used to pry open heavy objects, it can also break some heads. If the owners of those heads insist on causing trouble for the baby elephant.

Quintori took a few steps forward and then caught sight of more theater props: some wooden swords painted with gold, winged helmets decorated with iron plates, and some wooden plaques used as city walls.

“It’s a bit old-fashioned… The story of angels saving the world hasn’t been performed in the theaters of Akevivo for many years.” The little elephant placed his hand on the handle of the wooden door and turned it carefully, but the barking and screams coming from behind the door startled him.

Knowing that someone was under attack, Kuntoli hesitated for a moment, but still pushed the door open and went in.

Hiding backstage at the theater were a blond half-elf and a mad dog with drooling and bloodshot eyes.

The dog was practically clinging to the half-elf, tearing his fine clothes to shreds.

"This is terrible! How could the gods allow such a thing to happen..." The half-elf fell to the ground, showing no intention of fighting back, only complaining about the fate ordained by the gods.

"Hey!" Little Elephant shouted, swinging his crowbar and sending the mad dog flying. The dog crashed into the wall, fell to the ground, twitched and whimpered twice before lying still.

Standing at two meters tall, the baby elephant Kuntoli possesses strength far exceeding that of an ordinary human, making it a piece of cake for him to deal with an ordinary animal.

The half-elf, whose life had been saved, showed no gratitude to Xiao Kun. Instead, he stared blankly at the mad dog by the wall, muttering to himself, "Why did you kill it? Why did you kill it?"

The little elephant was a bit hesitant, but he wasn't angry. He knew that some people would panic and say whatever they wanted when they encountered danger, or even hide behind a wall and tremble with fear. When the instructors at the military academy pointed at him, he himself had the same impulse.

"I'm sorry, but it almost tore your throat," the baby elephant said sincerely.

"Ah! What kind of monster are you!" The little elephant's attempt to comfort her clearly backfired. The golden-haired half-elf immediately darted to the wall, pointing at Kuntori and screaming, "Demon! Don't come any closer! I don't taste good!"

The baby elephant panicked, looking around frantically: "Where is the demon? Does it eat people?"

……

"So, you're from the Elephant Clan? Your brothers and sisters all have elephant heads like you?" After a moment, the half-elf finally calmed down, realizing that the little elephant before him wasn't some new breed of demon, but a powerful yet gentle fellow. "Well, I was the principal violinist of this theater, at least before the disaster. But now I'm hiding in the theater's ruins, evading demons and cultists, hoping to see tomorrow's sun... And you, Quintorli? You seem like a well-prepared adventurer..."

“Uh…” Kuntori decided to embellish his story a bit. “I’m an archaeologist, uh, an apprentice one. I just hope my teacher can find me… You just mentioned demons and cultists? What exactly happened here?”

The blond half-elf shook his head, his face filled with sorrow: "Like many others, you're confused about the situation, aren't you? Yes, who can accept all of this? The massacre on the city's founding day, the swarms of demons, humans losing their minds and killing each other... now even the dogs are going mad..."

"This city... has been invaded by demons? And during a festival celebration?" Kuntorli asked, dumbfounded. He had heard of some inherently evil mages summoning demons, but he had never heard of demons invading a human city on such a large scale. "Yes... Kanaburi's annual founding day... a sea of ​​joy turned into a bloody slaughterhouse..." The violinist covered his face and sobbed, "Who could have imagined that such an important city would be invaded? Patriarch Hurren's rounds of arresting so many cultists all seem to have been in vain... I wonder what kind of people those Crusaders are really..."

"Hey! Who's there!" A noise came from behind another wooden door backstage; it was a crazy female voice.

The person pushed open the wooden door, and a cultist covered in blood and with a pale face appeared in front of the little elephant.

"Ah!" the half-elf shrieked sharply, instantly hiding behind Kuntori. "A cultist! She'll kill us!"

“That’s right!” The cultist licked the blood off his dagger and grinned as he approached the two men. “I will cut off both of your heads and offer them to my Lord Bhavam! Such large heads will surely win His favor. Perhaps I can even keep your ivory as a unique souvenir!”

The cult sorceress wasn't particularly tall, even rather thin, but the bloodthirsty expression on her face intimidated the little elephant. Although he had indeed killed chickens and had just killed a dog, he had never had any experience dealing with humans, let alone a human cultist.

In truth, the female sorcerer of the Baphomet cult wasn't entirely confident either. The guy with the elephant's head was much taller than her, and the crowbar in his hand was stained with the blood of some unknown creature. If a fight broke out, she might not be able to defeat him. Only by intimidating him could she be sure of victory.

In fact, most of the civilians she killed were like this: bound by fear, unable to exert any strength, and once the knife was inserted into their bodies, they could only lie limply on the ground, becoming lambs to the slaughter.

The cultist sensed fear and her laughter grew even more sinister. She believed that she would win another battle under the protection of Baphomet, the King of Minos and Lord of the Labyrinth.

Unfortunately, the cultists' laughter was interrupted by a rope. A dark shadow appeared beside her, strangling her neck with a crude noose, attempting to control her movements.

The cultist's eyes bulged out and his tongue lolled out, yet he continued to brandish the dagger in his hand, trying to extricate himself from the predicament.

The dark figure dodged twice, then shouted at the two people who were frozen in place, "Don't stand there! Kill her!"

The little elephant, drawing strength from who-knows-where, took a large step forward and struck the cult sorceress across the face with a crowbar. Her pale, crazed head exploded like a water-filled balloon, splattering red and white matter across the wall and emitting a nauseating stench.

"Bullshit!" Without a head, the noose could no longer strangle the cultist. The dark figure was splattered with blood gushing from the cultist's arteries. He quickly pushed away the corpse in his arms and cursed in disgust.

"Ah..." The man wiped the blood from his face with his sleeve, looking at the elephant-headed man in front of him with shock and anger, and couldn't help but ask, "Who are you?... Never mind... Anyway, I'm a victim of cults... Come on, we have to find a way out..."

"Where are you going?" the little elephant asked blankly, unable to resist looking up at the top of the figure's head. Only then did he realize that it was not an ordinary human, but a creature with ram-like curved horns and a tail.

“The stage—there’s only one way to leave this theater, but it’s currently guarded by a bunch of cultists. If we want to survive, we have to find another way,” said the middle-aged man with curved horns on his head, who looked more like a demon than Xiao Kun.

He seemed like a shrewd guy, and not on the same side as the headless cultist lying on the ground. The little elephant hesitated for a moment, then followed him up the stairs to the top of the stage.

Xiao Kun roughly understood what the middle-aged man meant. The only exit of the theater was behind the audience seats, but there was a large group of blood-covered cultists standing face to face with them across the actors' passage below, laughing and making obscene gestures.

"Why don't they come over?" the little elephant asked.

“The door is blocked. They’re too lazy to bother opening it; they’re just watching us starve to death.” The middle-aged man introduced himself. “I am Resca, a demon, and you are a strong elephant-headed man. If we work together, we might be able to escape this slaughterhouse.”

“It’s the Elephant Clan,” the little elephant weakly corrected, glancing at the blood on Resca’s hands and silently abandoning the idea of ​​shaking hands. “I am Kuntoli, Kuntoli Kant, everyone calls me Little Kuntoli.”

Kuntoli suddenly remembered his mentor Kemina's words. Should he frown and pretend to be someone not to be trifled with?
“Alright, Quintor.” Resca frowned before he could, examining the backpack on Quintor’s back. “You look like you have a lot of useful gear. Why are you here?”

“He’s an archaeologist…” The voice coming from behind Xiao Kun made Resca raise the dagger he had taken from the cultist; Xiao Kun hadn’t even noticed when he picked it up.

“Hey! It’s one of us! Not cultists!” The pale-faced, trembling violinist also came up, raising his hands to indicate that he was harmless. “They’re just beasts… Who knows how there are so many cultists in Kanaburi? Where were they hiding before?”

"What do you think? Those guys, because of this, shared bread with us at the starting point of the Holy War, walked the same streets, and even came here to see your performances a few times!" Demon-born Resca sneered, turning back to the little elephant. "Archaeologist, that's not a very common profession. Are you employed by the Pioneers' Guild?"

"What? No..." Xiao Kun had no idea what the Pioneers Association he was talking about was, so he could only give a vague reply and rack his brains to try and fool people.

"He got separated from his teacher! He's looking for his teacher..." The violinist had completely accepted Xiao Kun's identity and spoke up to help him out again, but when he met Reska's cold gaze, he immediately became hesitant and stuttering.

“That’s right, I’m still just an apprentice…” Xiao Kun quickly continued, hoping to dispel the middle-aged demon’s suspicions.

"So, you're not a native of Kanaburi? Nor a member of the Crusaders? You just arrived and ran into the demon lord's raid on the city?" Resca scratched his stubble-covered chin. "Listen, child, it's cruel, but that's reality. We can only survive in this demon-filled city by relying on our own strength. Luckily, your elephant mother gave you strong arms; if you use them to smash a few more heads, maybe we can reach safety and find your teacher. Of course, I mean you might see him at the Iron Guardian's Ambition Tavern."

(End of this chapter)