"Clay, can you please ask him how he was completely fine from the mana frenzy?"
Eva suggested in the background, and it wasn't just her.
Katie seemed to have the same doubts as well, and sure, those were valid doubts.
2 males of similar levels turned into zombies, but I was completely fine?
Why is that?
And Clay, I mean Claire already knows that I had not gone through any artificial methods of increasing my magic power.
"Aaron, how were you fine from the mana contamination while the other two got caught?" Claire didn't spend much time thinking about it and asked straight.
Oh well, bullshit mode.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to calm myself.
Nancy was in a deep sleep and I am very glad about that, the last thing I wanted was for her to moan over the call like she did at Ruby's time.
"To be honest, I don't really know. The room was filled with blood and carnage, and I wanted to get out of it as soon as possible." I said, trying to make it sound as convincing as possible.
When no one interrupted, it was my cue to continue:
"There were such ugly corpses, that I practically sped past them. And once I was near the exit gate, I noticed that I couldn't hear their footsteps behind me.
It was quite scary, as when I turned around, they were looking at me, frozen like stone.
I don't know how I was spared, as I didn't even know this phenomenon was called mana frenzy until now.
But I do have a clue. I searched about mana frenzy after exiting the labyrinth, and I found out that it happens based on the amount of the mana that the body absorbs.
And that's directly proportional to the distance." I took a deep breath to calm myself, before throwing the greatest excuse I had managed to cook.
"Maybe I was safe because I didn't stop anywhere, and didn't give the chimera's mana enough time to corrupt me? While the other two were dilly-dallying, crying and walking slowly.
So they were caught."
Once my entire performance was finished, there was no applause, because obviously, duh.
But I received something much more valuable.
Their doubt, or rather, avoiding their doubts.
I mean, I was a normal low levelled male. No matter how far their doubts went, they cannot begin to assume that I had over 70 stats in magic, right?
It was a value that even the women reached after a lot of painstaking effort.
"I see." Claire's verdict was simple and relaxed, as if she never doubted me to begin with.
Either that, or she still remembered that I owed her a personal explanation for my magic, so she felt no need to pressurize me in front of others.
Eva's calm and rich voice hummed in the background, "It's possible. Mana frenzy is too rare and weird a phenomenon to explain, we can't possibly make sense of it completely."
Maybe I was being paranoid, but I could sense the denial from Eva's words.
As if she herself didn't believe what she was saying, but she said it anyway to let this matter die down instead of getting bigger.
After all, she was observing my entire floor 2 run, she knew that my skill was too potent for someone at my level.
She already had doubts about me, and this just proved to build her doubts into concrete suspicion.
Yet, I guess she had enough wits to not poke this topic in front of Katie who was still very much pissed about the loss of her lover.
After a few more sentences exchanged between me and Claire, the call was disconnected, letting me breathe in peace.
I didn't even realize how panicked I was.
I turned to look at Nancy who was still curled into sleep, her orgasmic face twisted into a peaceful smile.
Claire had told me that she will be having some drinks with her friends, and she can pick me up from college after that.
The offer that I politely declined saying that I was tired and will simply take a cab home.
I pulled onto a pillow and replaced it with my hand, which was serving as the pillow for Nancy until now.
"You owe me the car's ride, you know?"
I whispered into Nancy's ear before scoffing and pulling up a blanket to cover her properly.
"Mhmmm~" she murmured in reply, clutching onto the blanket and adjusting herself to sleep more comfortably.
She really did resemble a cat, so carefree and cozy.
I chuckled to myself, wearing my clothes and finally climbing down the stairs to head out… only to stop dead in my tracks.
"Aria, turn on the lights."
A feminine voice echoed behind the main door, and within a second, the world around me lit up.
First the leds flashed into bright white light, then the chandeliers began glowing in faint gold, followed by all the other artistic pieces that were decorating this awesome villa.
I nearly slipped off the stairs, scrambling to run back up and hide in Nancy's room before realizing that it was too late for it.
The door knob was already twisting as I felt my world run in slow motion, the feeling that I managed to experience for the first time without getting high on pot or something.
"Honey, why don't you believe me–" A masculine voice was saying something in a pitiful tone when the door was pulled open.
And in an instant, that voice died down.
At the front, holding the door's knob, was a mature middle-aged woman.
Her hair was white, whiter than the snow. Her skin was still so smooth and perfect as if she was timeless.
She was dressed in a long trench coat, a pair of shades covering her eyes and her heels clicked against the marble flooring of the villa.
If I had to rate her entrance, I would give her an 11/10, as she really ate the performance.
The confidence, the unintentional charm, it was simply perfect.
But, it was no performance.
Our eyes met, well, mine met with her luxurious shades that were directly focused on me.
It was safe to say that she saw me.
I didn't pay much attention to the man that was accompanying her, but I couldn't hear him yapping anymore.
So it was also safe to say that he saw me too.
And after what felt like hours, the woman calmly raised her hand and took off her sunglasses, blinking her long eye lashes once before focusing back onto me.
"Are we being robbed?"
She said with an amused scoff.