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Peanut Jar Mixers 15

A cloaked woman trudged through the snow-covered sidewalk. The remaining townsfolk began clearing up the knee-deep snow. Everyone took notice of her light attire against the blistering cold. She looked around, keeping her hood in place, awaiting the shopkeeper to greet her. Robert recognized her immediately as he shuffled out of the storage room. Her gray eyes gave her away. Her solemn smile met his pensiveness. She reached into her pockets and revealed the brilliant necklace. His tears welled. “But how?” he asked. Enne’s smile remained. “That—Doesn’t matter anymore,” she replied. “Let’s just say you won’t have a problem with a wendigo.” “And the wanderer? But, there’s no way… He couldn’t take out something like that.” Enne chuckled while setting the necklace on the table. She said: “Ever the skeptic that one.” Robert looked upon the necklace after holding it closer. This was the last momento of his nephew and brother. He never thought he’d see it again. Little did he know the significance of the mysterious stone. The shopkeeper looked at the cloaked woman. Her demeanor evoked a sense of peace. “Enne, was it?” he asked. “Who are you?” Her eyes wandered before giving a response. “The windigo was the man you were looking for,” she answered. The old man narrowed his eyes. “He changed… Into that thing?” “The harsh conditions enabled his transformation. Psychosis is more than a state of mind. He clung the best he could against the evil that dwelled within.” “How did you kill it?” “A flaming spear to the heart.” He couldn’t believe they killed the beast, not after it took so many lives of those who hunted it. As Robert was left to wonder, Enne cast her gaze upon the heirloom when he unclenched it. She continued: “But it begs the question. Where did that piece come from?” Robert narrowed his eyes upon the heirloom. “This?” he replied. “It belonged to my mother and her mother.” “That doesn’t explain much.” She crossed her arms. “You don’t seem to know the significance of it… Perhaps your brother did.” The shopkeeper recalled what happened between him and his brother. Their relationship was already on shaky ground before running off with the other piece. Robert couldn’t provide a satisfying answer, as he genuinely didn’t know. As though there was nothing he could add, he replied: “I have no idea. My brother just left.” Enne nodded without utterance. The old shopkeeper nodded, tightening his lips before releasing a sigh of relief. “Miss, thank you for bringing this back to me,” Robert broke the silence. “You don’t know how much it means to me. Ever since that day, I couldn’t rest knowing I was so hard on the boy.” “Maybe you can seek closure now?” she suggested. Robert seemed puzzled by her rebuke. Laced in those harsh words was something he needed to consider. He remembered what his nephew said in his final moments. The memories overwhelmed him as Enne observed the expression’s subtleties. Regret and sorrow struck him all at once. However, she wasn’t one to judge. The shopkeeper pocketed the necklace and said: “He asked me to forgive his father.” She nodded along. “But I haven’t seen him in years. He never came back.” “Forgiveness,” she repeated. “Forgiveness is something you should always keep in your heart. When that day comes, you’ll be ready.” Robert absorbed her words; His nephew uttered such words. It would be the best way to honor him, even if his heart wasn’t in it. Perhaps it would be for the best to carry on a different outlook. Part of him could finally rest until that day came. His eyes met hers again, finding a hopeful glint behind her lilac eye. “You’re right,” he agreed. “Thank you so much… For everything.” “Please, take care,” Enne said as she proceeded to the exit. Enne felt relieved she could mend things. The decision rested on him should that day come. As she shut the door, the wanderer leaned against the ice-encrusted railing. He observed the townsfolk clearing their sidewalks. He absolutely hated the cold, especially after surviving the blizzard. “Allie?” she spoke. “I thought you would’ve remained at the inn.” “We’re leaving anyway,” he muttered. “Doesn’t make much sense to cozy up.” “Yeah, but we can pat ourselves on the back. We did a good deed, although I’m sure you’re basking in your wrongness about everything?” He chuckled. His eyes trailed toward hers. Enne leaned against the rail next to him. Her warm body pressed against his, nearly knocking his arm from its resting place. “After that night,” he answered. “There’s a lot I’m yet to understand.” “Just admit you were wrong already.” “Eh, I lacked the mental fortitude to reach the conclusions you did. Hundreds of years, but I’ve only scratched the surface.” “Oh, I see. Fancy wording for your skepticism? Good enough.” “Maybe.” Alejandro looked at Enne through the side of his eye. She fixated on the towering tree lines along the town’s edge. She felt at peace, knowing the threat of the wendigo was gone, and family matters were on track to be settled. “It’s amazing,” he said. “Imagine all the other myths out there. There’s a chance they’re real after all.” “Ah,” she replied. “You’ve finally come around! Nothing is impossible. Even now, mana is a mystery to humans, but we elves know much more.” “How does this tie to your skin’s scales?” “I think I’ve become stronger somehow. It’s… Much like my father’s. Iscah was a similar age to him but showed none of those markings. I wonder… Maybe there are things I don’t understand myself.” The wanderer watched the wintry scene along with her. She wondered where the shopkeeper’s brother had taken the ring. The jewel-encrusted in its casing was more than a regular stone. It was much like her necklace, carrying similar properties. She couldn’t tell this to Robert, knowing the danger it posed. So as long as it was kept separate from the other like-stones, its threat would be insignificant. “So, what now?” she asked. “We can get our bike,” he answered. “That’s a few days’ walking.” “Sounds like an adventure!” She hopped ahead before turning to him. Her playful wink sent a tinge of uneasiness as he followed. They walked through the clear paths toward the edge of town. They walked past the clinic where the hunter stayed. Enne looked on curiously when she halted. The nurse looked at her with the same grimace from before. “What’cha looking at?” she shouted. “The hunter?” Enne asked. “Is he okay?” “That fool done run off in the early morning.” “What?” Alejandro gasped. “You just let him go?” “With everything he was saying, I wasn’t about to mess with him.” “What was he saying?” Enne questioned, but the nurse shrugged indifferently. “He was an outsider. Not our concern.” “Not your—” Enne felt Alejandro’s gentle grip. She looked over and saw him shake his head in protest. With nothing else to say, they walked away. They saw the crusty snow-covered slope as they reached the edge of town. Enne still expressed her displeasure with the dialogue when she looked over. Alejandro didn’t want any trouble with the locals. “What a fucking asshole,” Enne quipped. “Were you expecting that one to be a saint?” the wanderer mused. “I was expecting her to be at least slightly concerned.” “Outliers like these don’t care about civility, not when they have mouths to feed. It’s kinda tribalistic out here.” “Those outsiders tried to help.” “Like we have?” Enne crossed her arms. She saw a clearing down the slope. The travel would be dozens of miles and plenty of time to ponder. Robert was the first person who came to the wanderer’s mind when he realized he had sowed doubt in her mind. He walked over, standing by her side as they looked on. “What mattered is what you did for Robert,” he said. “You guided him to another possibility. He doesn’t need to have regret.” “So, you were listening?” she asked, her lips pursing slightly. “Of course, you would….” “And—That’s more than enough.” “We could do more….” “Doing more requires taking a step at a time, Enne.” Her eyes trailed toward him playfully after having been affirmed of her deed. Enne didn’t hesitate to slide down the hardened surface as he watched, surprised by her suddenness. Enne’s laughter echoed down the trail. He couldn’t help but smile before he followed. “No more detours!” he shouted. “Then that’s no adventure, is it?” she replied. With you, there’s always something, Alejandro thought. And there concludes this short story. Fret not, there's more to come in the coming months! Please follow. You can lso find me on IG: erii1776 This Novel Contains Mature Content Show This Chapter? Yes

Enne turned to see Alejandro’s pale, tired face as they approached the river’s ice-covered edge. They navigated the barren lands for days with incremental signs of their motorcycle’s engine failing. Centuries of overgrowth covered the rest stop, which they used to hide the motorcycle while they took a walk. She looked toward the midday sun that shone on the crystal-clear rushing stream. The wanderer’s slow gait drew concern as he wobbled beside it. He noticed smoke lingering above the trees to the northwest before trembling forward. “I don’t feel too good,” he said. “We can rest for a little,” Enne said. “There’s no real rush.” “But we’ve still got a ways to go and the motorcycle… clearly needs maintenance.” “And I need to make sure you aren’t vomiting all over the place. We’ve been on the road for hours, let's enjoy the view. Come on, you know you need it.” “The coast isn’t the safest of places.” “And? I can wipe the floor with anyone. C’mon, don’t be such a worry-wart!” Alejandro sighed, feeling a strange sensation in his throat. His knees gave out as he collapsed onto the shore. She turned away as he vomited into the river. He saw blood dilute into the stream, hoping she hadn’t noticed. He kept his eyes on her. Not now, He thought. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m more concerned about you than the water, Allie,” she said. He wiped the little blood he had off his lips before he looked at her. The half-elf’s motherly expression exuded her concern. She helped him to his feet and placed her hand against his forehead. An exasperated gasp escaped her mouth as her hand trembled against his warm skin. “What?” “You’re burning up… More than before.” “I—It’s fine. It’ll go away. Let’s leave in a few.” Alejandro nudged away, unsettling Enne as he attempted to walk away until he stumbled against a boulder. She rushed over to him to catch his fall. She held him by his coat and reeled him toward her. He was less than a foot away from face-planting into the soft rock. He turned to her, discovering her subdued fright. She’d never seen him in such a terrible shape beyond his time in Gardenia. “Allie, you can barely stand up. We’re resting until you feel better!” He grumbled in defeat. “We can set up camp close to the motorcycle.” “En, we don’t know what’s out here.” “I’ll protect you.” His eyes trailed away, feeling a great sense of shame. He traveled alone for centuries, falling ill and recovering from severe injuries. He wasn’t accustomed to someone else’s concern, even if that someone was Enne. They walked toward where they would set up camp. The convenient clearing had little vegetation and plenty of cover from most angles. They wouldn’t have to be worried about bandits infringing upon them. Alejandro’s body wobbled against hers as they reached the middle. She turned to see his delirious state and sweat run down his face. He coughed blood away from her, sending her into a crippling panic. She held him before he fell over and felt his blood drip over her shoulder. Tears ran down her face, clouding her judgment on what to do as she panted. His breathing was faint. “No, no,” Her voice cracked. “Stay with me!” Enne examined him after laying him on the ground, despite her jumbled thoughts. He grunted, trying to regain consciousness. Her breathing normalized, but her raised hands trembled over his chest. Her vision blurred at the sight of his blood around his mouth. The fear of being left alone overwhelmed her. A twig snapped, drawing her attention. A small band of hunters emerged from several directions. The rag-tag bunch wore worn camouflage clothing, nearly uniform, in their presentation. Their skin complexion stood out from the people they’d come across so far. She raised her hands as they approached. A young woman emerged from the synchronized pack, short in stature, but her toned physique projected strength. Her coarse, black hair was tied into a low ponytail. Her hawkish brown eyes glimpsed her pointed ears, signaling his group to stop. But it was the fresh blood splattered along her shoulder that concerned her. “Don’t shoot,” she said. “My—My partner, he needs help!” The leader walked next to her for a closer look at the wanderer. His hoarse breathing piqued her compassion as she kneeled down. The half-elf maintained her composure while taking count of those around her. Enne didn’t feel any threat from them, despite their militant appearance. “Can you—Help us?” she asked. Her earthly eyes turned to find Enne’s distress. “We have a small encampment about a mile up. We have a shaman who can help. Luckily, we found you, elf.” Enne felt her ears while maintaining her gaze. “But I’m not doing this for your sake. We’re doing it for him.” Her dirt-smudged face remained expressionless before she stood up. She waved to signal her men to retrieve him. Enne watched as they helped carry him on a makeshift stretcher that one of them carried. She pulled her hood over to hide her ears, knowing she would receive glares when they arrived. They crossed the river and went deeper into the thicket of the forest. The unassuming path led to their destination, a small collection of cabins stretching several homes over. A beautiful lake stretched the land, marking where the river began. There was a small population, comprising mostly women and children. Their conditions were subpar, reminiscent of what Alejandro lived through. The half-elf stood at the commune’s entrance. Her skin complexion stood out from the brown-skinned populace. She walked with the scouts, feeling scrutinizing eyes on her. She ignored them while overhearing them whisper amongst themselves in their native tongue. She bore their unsavory tones and glares in silence. They brought the wanderer to a cabin toward the center of the settlement. It overlooked a sizeable lake where the streams went. The cabin served as one of many medical facilities, housing the sick. There were many packed from illness, mostly men, which drew several glances from her. She saw they didn’t have the basic necessities, as the available instruments were worn and unsanitary. They arrived at a room on the second floor. It had an expansive view of the lake, the first thing she noticed when she entered. They gently set the wanderer on a bed in the corner. The leader dismissed everyone, leaving just herself and the half-elf. Her gray eyes searched for what she wanted to say as the leader looked over. “I’m glad it was my turn to scout,” she said. Enne winced. “What do you mean?” “Anybody else would’ve opened fire, especially on you. No questions asked. You’re a half-elf, aren’t you?” “You can tell?” “The way you expressed yourself, definitely human.” “I think there is a bit of a misconception about that, but I’m glad you came across us when you did.” Enne glanced toward Alejandro, taking comfort in knowing they were in good hands. While the young woman turned to peer out the window, the half-elf sat next to him and held his hands. She felt a soft pulse against her warm hands. The woman glanced over occasionally at the unlikely sight. “It’s rare to see an elf and a wanderer,” she said. “Especially in these parts.” “We were traveling to see how this part of the land was.” “Honeymoon?” She chuckled softly, caressing Alejandro’s hand with her thumb. His energy was the lowest she’s ever felt. The woman winced before leaning against the wall facing them. Enne was more personable than the other elves she encountered. Many would feign any association with the tribal leader, but she recalled another who didn’t. One that looked different from the rest. “Well,” Enne said. “Where I’m from our living conditions are better than most, perhaps the best in the land.” “A settlement? Around here?” “More like a well-kept secret.” The skeptical leader raised an eyebrow while the half-elf focused on Alejandro. “So, what happened to him?” “I don’t know. He said he wasn’t feeling well earlier. When you found us, he had vomited blood. I—I…” Enne’s sudden feelings arose from the depths of her soul. Again, she had to maintain her control, but seeing his frail state was much to absorb. There was a certain shame she tried to hide as she gripped his hand. Warm tears trickled down her face before looking toward the expressionless young woman. A slight nod acknowledged her understanding of their bonds. “His mana is corrupted,” she said. “What?” Enne asked. “But, how?” “It could be many things. If you would’ve used mana on him while he was unconscious, you could’ve killed him.” “I—I never considered that. I was so overwhelmed by—” “Maybe it’s the world bringing us together.” Enne paused at the thought, leaving an uncharacteristic silence. Alejandro’s shallow breathing held a consistent rhythm. Enne took a deep breath and looked over. “Thank you.” “Don’t misunderstand me, though. You’re still an elf. Even if you’re some halfling, I can’t fully trust you.” “I’m literally leaving his life in your hands at this moment.” “Yeah? Well, it may take a few days for him to recover.” Enne glanced at her companion before addressing her. “Is there anything I can do to help? It’s the very least I can do.” “For now, rest. I’ll make sure my scouts keep an eye out for your motorcycle.” “Thanks again.” An older man entered, wearing a withered flannel and ripped denim. His thinning, long peppered hair was tied into a low ponytail. His stern face softened when he saw her. His squinted eyes saw her pointed ears, but said nothing as he approached Alejandro. “Takoda,” The old man said. “Sorry, I didn’t get here quicker. How’s his condition?” “Alo, thank you for coming on short notice,” Takoda said. “He’s not looking too good.” “Not like there was much fish in that stream. We should be moving as soon as we can. The winter grows harsh.” “There are still many people in the sick bay.” Alo glanced over and nodded to the dire reminder. “And who may these people be?” “Enne Bouvire,” The half-elf said. “This is Alejandro, my—” The shaman’s expression furrowed, summoning a strange feeling dwelling within her. “Did I say — Something wrong?” “No—Your companion seems familiar is all.” He did do a lot of traveling, she thought. The shaman reached his hands over the wanderer, waving it slowly over him. His eyes winced while detracting his hands. Alo gulped as he turned to her; His eyes signaled distress. His lips struggled to part, confirming her concerns about Alejandro’s condition. “Is there anything you can do?” Enne asked. “How long has he been like this?” he asked. “No, more than an hour ago.” “I mean, his condition. How long has he shown symptoms?” She looked toward the wanderer, failing to reply. He never spoke of any symptoms, but by how the shaman spoke, it seemed to be a pervading issue in Alejandro’s health. Her gray eyes returned to Alo, who awaited an answer. “Today was the first time he’s shown anything.” The shaman looked toward Takoda, giving a nod that sent her away. Her heart raced with uncertainty as her hand trembled on the wanderers. Alo pulled a chair, sitting across her after the door closed. Her watering eyes came with regulated breathing as memories poured in. The shaman hesitated to speak, seeing how she was holding back. “He’s not just sick. He’s dying.” Her eyes dilated as her lips quivered. Enne wanted to speak. She wanted to say how wrong he was. However, shamans were like doctors when it came to gauging mana. The elder returned a solemn frown, as parting with the news wasn’t something he wanted to address. He looked upon the wanderer, whose hoarse breathing drew his attention. “No,” Her voice trembled. “There has to be another way! He was fine this entire time. This—This can’t be happening, not again.” Her voice reduced to sobbing as she cried into Alejandro’s arm. Her words reached the depths of Alo’s humanity after seeing the half-elf cry. However, he knew his words would be devoid of a sobering response. He left her alone to weep, turning to her once more with a heartfelt frown. Perhaps there could be, he wondered. *** Later that evening… Enne never left Alejandro’s side. Dried tears marked her face. Her eyes raised toward the window, watching the sunset over the tree line. She heard the footsteps of the townsfolk traversing the muddied path. Her stomach rumbled, but she didn’t want to leave his side. A gentle knock brought her back to her senses. “Come in,” she said. Takoda entered with two bowls of soup. Its hardy scent reminded her of how long it had been since she last ate. She welcomed her with a weak smile as she set them down by the nightstand beside them. “Thank you.” “Not a problem. If there’s anything we can do for you. You can reach out to us.” “He said there’s nothing we can do—About Allie’s condition.” Takoda glanced at the wanderer’s body, fetching for words of comfort. The half-elf knew she wouldn’t get an answer. She grabbed the soup, looking at the mix of seasoned carrots and potatoes and unfamiliar meat. She took a bite from the firm, chicken-like meat, finding it deceivingly delectable. Enne took more bites as Takoda watched, impressed by her hunger. “Wow, what’s in this?” “Veggies, chicken-base, and river dragon.” A loud gulp prevailed in their silence. She lowered her spoon into the soup, looking up as she withheld her disgust. “River dragon, you say?” “Yes, we eat what we can. We dry the meat with salt, so it doesn’t rot.” “N—no, it’s great!” “It isn’t much different from an alligator. Don’t worry we cut appropriately since it can be toxic.” Like a Greenland Shark? she thought. “I’ve actually never had alligator either.” Enne set her bowl to the side, focusing on Alejandro again. He wouldn’t be waking up soon. She knew he wouldn’t want her to be stuck in a room the entire day. That’s not why they traveled this far. She turned to Takoda who was leaning against the dirty windowsill. “Is it possible to walk around town?” Takoda’s eyes trained on her. Her crossed arms sent Enne a strange signal, as though she were uncomfortable with the idea. It made sense, considering what Enne was. She didn’t want it to be a limiting factor, however. Grasping the hems of her dress, the half-elf gathered herself. “If that’s okay with you,” she said. “We don’t want to cause any more problems for you.” “I’ll allow it,” Takoda replied. Her reluctant tone betrayed the underlying acceptance she had. “I understand. I imagine my presence here isn’t well-received.” “At least you acknowledge the sins of your ancestors.” Enne bided her tongue, instead producing an unsettling glare. Takoda’s gaze shifted. She wished she hadn’t said it so openly. The half-elf softened her expression after finishing her soup. She wondered if this was how Alejandro felt when people he encountered scorned him. She couldn’t allow herself to stoop so low to their ignorance. “By the way, the soup was great,” she said. “I’d love to know the recipe!” Takoda looked over with a reluctant smile. This one was another one I had on the back burner for some time. In the spirit of all things cryptids and mythology, it's part of a few short stories. Thanks for reading and hope, you enjoyed it! This Novel Contains Mature Content Show This Chapter? Yes

(Michael and the guy shook hands as they introduced themselves.) Michael: "The Name is Michael Grimes, you can call me Mike ???: "The name is Greg, it's great to meet you, Mike. (The three of then set off on the way to find Raymond and bring him with them, as they are on the road, the box truck starts to make noises and then they hear a pop and have to pull over.) Greg: "Shit." (As they pull over, the engine starts to smoke as they lift the hood up.) Mike: "What's the problem?" Greg: "One of the pipes on the truck busted and we will need a replacement immediately." Mike: "Alright, we'll fan out, you two check those cars over there and ill check the ones over here. (Mike pulls out his Revolver and slowly approaches the cars as he takes a deep breath and flings the door of a tinted muscle car open and aims in, a zombie lunges at him and knocks him over, the gun flies out of his hand as he struggles with the zombie on top of him, holding its head back.) Mike: "RAAAAH" (Mike pulls out his knife and cuts its head clean off, he then kicks the body off and punts the head clean into the trees nearby.) (Mike checks the car for supplies then checks the engine for the part and moves on to the next car, he finds no one left in it and assumes it was abandoned, he checks it and finds some medicine and a hatchet.) "Look what we got here, looks like I got myself a new hatchet." (Mike heard screams and went sprinting over to Shane and Greg, he arrives, and Greg is being bitten by a zombie, he walks up and kicks it off then stabs it in the head and kneels down to Greg.) "Your bites are pretty bad, we could try and get you to the settlement you guys live at and get you saved, or you know the other option, your decision man." Greg: "Just do it, I don't want to put anyone at risk." Mike: "Alright, Shane you might want to look away if you don't want to see this." (Mike pulls out his revolver and points it at Greg, as a shot is fired, we then see a saddened Shane and Mike driving down the road as Greg found the part.) (Shane and Mike spot a home and decide to pull over and check it out.) Mike: "Alright Shane, quick in and quick out, no messing about get work done." Shane: "Alright." (Shane cautiously led the way in by kicking the door in, Mike followed behind him as they scanned the area and split up as Shane went upstairs and Mike stayed on the ground floor to look around.) (Mike looked around in the kitchen and saw a door, he cautiously approached it, drawing his hatchet, as he took a deep breath and opened it two zombies walked out, and he took a step back tripping over a fallen over chair.) Shane: "You alright down there Mike?" Mike: "All good Shane, only two zombies I can handle it." (As mike said this one of the zombies fell on top of him knocking his hatchet out of his hand as he struggled to keep its arms and mouth away.) Mike: "Shit, got to get out of this." (Mike looked around and noticed something behind him as he grabbed it, he realized it was a toaster and bashed it over the head of the zombie, caving it in and killing it, as he got up, he grabbed the cord of the toaster and swung it at the head of the other zombie knocking it clean off.) Mike: "Damn zombies, can't believe I struggled against these two." (He spit out blood and tossed the toaster aside as Shane came down.) Shane: "Nothing upstairs, you find anything down here?" Mike: "Nah, nothing but these two, guess this place had already been ransacked, we should just get back and-" (As he said this, he heard the box truck start up and peel off as they both ran out and after it as someone flipped them off from the driver side window." Mike: "FUCKIN GREAT, THERE GOES OUR TRANSPORTATION." Shane: "How do we get there now?" Mike: "I Guess we walk. (Him and Shane started towards the direction they were headed and looked tired and bummed out.) 30 minutes of walking (Mike noticed the truck and told Shane to be quiet, he pulled his revolver and walked up to the driver side and noticed the guy looking at a map, be holstered his revolver and flung the door open grabbing the guy and tossing him on the ground.) Mike: "You got about 30 seconds to explain yourself before I kill your dumbass." ???: "Woah man, I wasn't trying to steal from you, I just have a quota to meet, all these supplies will really benefit my settlement, we just got a really injured person." Mike: "What did the guy look like? what kind of weapons was he carrying?" ???: "I didn't get a good look at his face, but he had a katana and was super messed up." (Mike Looks at Shane with a concerned look, and then back to the guy.) "You're going to take me there, that is the friend I am looking for, and I swear to god, if you try something or mislead us, I will torture you. (As Mike holsters his revolver and Shane puts his hammer up, Mike then picks up the guy and throws him in the truck, he then starts it up as they take off for the settlement.) (After 3 Hours of driving, the three of them then pull up to a gate, Mike tosses the guy out and tells him to get them inside.) Guard: "What are you doing with Eric, and why do you want inside?" Mike: "My friend is in there, if you let me in then you can have your friend back, and I will negotiate with your leader." (As the gates open up and allow them to drive in, Mike looks at Shane to make sure and stay on guard.) Mike: "Alright, now take me to my friend first, and we should probably get this guy some attention." (He then shoves Eric towards the guard as they walked into a nearby building with a sign above the door that says infirmary.) Guard: "Your friend is asleep in the infirmary just past this lab, go on in and ill follow you." (As he gestured, Mike started walking across the lab, as he did, he noticed a woman standing at a table, she looks up from her work as she makes eye contact with him, her eyes are almost emotionless and her stare could almost kill a person, she isn't scary, but mysterious and has a bit of superiority in her eyes.) (Mike starts to feel uncomfortable just as he hits the beginning of a hallway and shakes the feeling off, he then walks into a room where Rey is sitting, and he pulls up a chair and sits next to him.) Rey: "Is that you Mike?" Mike: "It sure is buddy, What the hell happened to you?"(As he said this, the woman in the lab coat then appeared in the doorway and began to talk.) ???: "The Guards and I were on an expedition to get ingredients for me to make new substances." (She walks by them and stands next to the bed as she analyzes every square inch of them both, she studies their physical being and also studies their gestures and movements to get a hypothesis on their personalities.) "We were walking, when we happened to uncover your friend here, I was fascinated on how he must of been there for days, yet he was still alive, so I told the guards to pick him up, we brought him back and I helped him the best I could, I wanted to study him, to see what kept him alive and allowed him to be able to survive to put it simply." Mike: "Uh-Ok, I appreciate you for helping him." (Mike had no clue what to say as he felt uncomfortable and looked down upon.) ???: "I do not need you thank your; it was not hard I believe it was easy even, I did it so I could further my studies in optimal survival in the wasteland." Shane: "We didn't catch your name." ???: "The Name is Dr Kukyo Akari, but you can just call me Dr Akari." Mike: "Well it is great to have met you Dr Akari, but if you do not mind, I would like to catch up with my friend here." (As Mike said this, Akari backed out of the room and gave all 3 of them looks as if they were not human, but only another tool she can use for her studies.) Mike: "Shane could you stay here with him while I go and talk to their leader." Shane: "Yeah man I can do that." (As he said this, Mike then gets up and is escorted into a luxurious house with furnishing and power, as he is then lead to a room that is like an office, as he sits down and waits.) ???: "What brings you to my settlement? Do you wish to live here?" Mike: "I don't know that yet, But maybe." ???: "Well, I have to ask you a few questions, 3 specifically." Mike: "Go ahead." ???: "First question is, what brings you to my settlement?" Mike: "I was informed by one of your settlers that my friend was here, and that you had a good settlement, I was intrigued by it and decided to come." ???: "Second question is, what did you do before the apocalypse started?" Mike: "I don't see what has to do with anything, but if you must know, I was a Former Marine for 4 years and later a Sheriff in the small town I use to live in, I have a degree in Engineering as well." ???: "Third and Final question is, why should I let you into my settlement?" Mike: "You shouldn't, you should keep your gate closed, never let anyone in, No one can be trusted in this world anymore." ???: "Are you saying I shouldn't let you and your friends stay? Why is that?" Mike: "You don't know me, you don't know what I am capable of or what I will do behind your walls, I could kill everyone one by one if I pleased and you would be too late to know." ???: "And that is exactly why I will let you stay, that mind set is something we need and will help us thrive and become better than we ever were before you guys." (They got up and the man offered his hand to shake, Mike looked at it and walked out.) ???: "My name is Franklin Ogundimu, I am a former Mayor, I have 2 rules for my settlement, you will be nice to everyone and do the job that is assigned to you, and there is no guns allowed inside the walls, you will relinquish it, your weapons are still yours to take when you got outside my settlement, but they are of no need inside the walls." (Reluctantly Mike relinquished his hatchet and his revolver, and then walked off to go find Rey and Shane.)

(Raymond and Michael are now walking down the road and arguing.) Michael: "I told you to put the damn sword away, now the damn horse is gone." Raymond: "You aren't my boss; I will do what the hell I want." Michael: "That is good, BUT YOU STABBED MY DAMN HORSE MAN." Raymond: "It was an accident, it made a noise and scared me, I thought it was a damn zombie." (Michael then stops and stares at Raymond, he then thinks.) "Alright sure, but why the hell did you drag me away, I forgot my damn hat" Raymond: "You weren't leaving and there was like 50 of them, you would of gotten eaten alive over a damn hat." (Michael then looks upset and continues to walk.) "My hat man." Raymond: "It's just a damn hat, get over yourself. (As he says that, Michael carrying his gear and crossbow goes running into the woods laughing.) (Michael stops and drops his stuff as he shoots an arrow, and a deer drops dead with an arrow through its eye.) Michael: "I bagged us a deer, hell yeah, I got dinner for tonight Gaymond, Sorry I mean Raymond." (Raymond then looks visibly pissed off.) Raymond: "Don't be surprised if you don't wake up tomorrow, you damn country hick." (They then stop and set up camp.) -30 Minutes later- (Michael and Raymond are eating cooked deer as they are talking and then they both stop as they hear the roar of motorcycles and drop their things as three motorcycles pull up.) Biker: "What have we got here, seems like they scattered when they heard us coming." Biker 2: "Yeah must of pissed themse-" (As he is talking his upper body then drops onto the ground cut in half.) Biker 3: "What the hell, hes dead who did this?" (After saying this the biker then had a kunai thrown clean through his eye.) Raymond: "Jigoku de Yasumu." (As Raymond said this, he then slashes 3 times across the last biker and then his guts spilled all over the ground as he fell to his knees and face first into his own guts.) Michael: "What the hell, I didn't even get time to react." (Raymond grinned coldly and savagely as he wiped the blood off his blade and sheathed it slowly.) Raymond: "Me and the Blade are one, it is as it is part of my arm." (Michael ran over to the bikers and took everything then shot all 3 of them in the head as to make sure they don't turn; he then runs over to their bikes and gets excited.) Michael: "Seems we will be traveling in style from now on pal." (As Michael and Raymond were riding down the road, they heard commotion in a nearby bar and decided to check it out.) Michael: "Ready?" (He nodded at Raymond as he had his hand on his sword and Michael had his revolver drawn, he entered and he had his gun knocked out of his hands by a bat and he did a back roll.) Michael: "Damn, bastards." (He looked around and saw a bunch of guys and zombies, he then looked at Raymond and ran around him grabbing his sword out of its sheath and running towards them all.) (Michael then proceeded to use the sword decently well as he was slashing down zombie and men alike.) Raymond: "Thats my sword you jackass." (Raymond then looks down and sees his revolver and picks it up using it to shoot people.) (As Michael retreated and they changed back, Michael then felt a sharp pain in his hand, He looks down and sees that someone cleverered a piece of his finger off and cut his gun in half.) Michael: "DAMN!" (He fell back holding the stub where he was cut.) (Raymond then proceeded to cut the guy's head off and kill off the rest of the men in the room as Michael tended to his wound and grabbed a rag out of his back pocket and put the pieces of the gun in it saddened.) "This was my father's gun, only thing I had left from him." (Raymond kneeled on the ground and put one hand on the gun pieces and the other on Michael's chest.) "Even though you may have lost that which your father's soul is centered in, he may live on in you forever." (Michael looks around as Raymond watches the door, he takes all the loot off the dead guys and zombies and then found a locked room, he took a nearby crowbar and pried it open, as he did this, he saw what was inside and a smile came across his face.) Michael: "Oh hell yeah." (Michael then proceeds to take off his gun belt and his vest) 20 minutes later (Michael walks out of the building with a new Colt Python on his side, as well as a new jacket and some boots.) Michael: "Let's get going Raymond." (As he said this a whole herd of zombies emerged from the woods and his eyes widened.) Michael: "get on the motorcycle and go, make it to here and I'll meet you there." (He hands Raymond a map with a circled town.) "DON'T ARGUE JUST GO." (He took out the python and started to shoot them then switched from that to a machete and started to kill them.) (Michael killed over 20 zombies and then fell back and got impaled on a spike, he pulled himself off and ran into the woods and got away from the zombies, he leaned against a tree and sat down passing out.) "Damn...." (As he started to black out, he thought that it was the end.) 2 Hours later (A Falcon was flying overhead when a man rushed to the unconscious Michael and decided what to do, the man picked him up and started walking as Michael came too.) ???: "Hold in their brother, I've got you, just rest you won't die in my hands." Michael Injured: "There is a.... Zombie behind you." (The man turned around and threw his other arm up and smashed its entire head with slash down of a hammer, the zombie's head exploded everywhere, and he then kicked it over to free his hammer.) (The man then stopped in a small shack and put Michael down to tend to his wounds.) "You're lucky I found you, you are about dead. The Names Shane Redmond, it's great to meet you." Michael: "It is great to meet you Shane, I would shake your hand, but I can't really feel my arms." Shane: "Appreciate it man, But I get it just relax and let me tend to you." (Michael comes to a few hours later and sees Shane sitting on the other side of the Shack reading a book.) "What are you reading?" (Shane looks up and smiles.) Shane: "It's one of my favorite novels from before the fall, it's called Project: Inferno." (Michael nods and then asks a question.) "You out here alone?" Shane: "Nah man, my partner should be showing up anytime, old friend of mine." (As he said this a box truck then pulled up outside and someone stepped out and set their rifle against the truck and stretched.) Shane: "There they are, we better get going." Michael: "I need to find my friend, he should be in a town nearby, his name is Raymond." (Shane then helped Michael up and outside, when he saw what they drive around in, Michael was astonished by it.)

(A man in a leather jacket walked down the street and whistled a tune, he was playing a guitar and was attracting the attention of nearby zombies.) ???: "Damn I must be a fuckin MUSICIAN!" (As he said this, he broke the guitar over a zombie's head and started to use it to kill the other zombies.) ???: "You are one ugly bastard." (He throws the neck of the guitar aside and pulls out a knife and proceeds to kill 15 zombies with it.) (A group of 5 men run out onto the road and aim 2 guns and 3 spears at him.) "Drop the weapons and we won't kill you." ???: "Woah lets not jump the gun here, what fucking says you can even lay a goddamn finger on me?" Bandit: "This gun says I can kill you in one shit." ???: "I don't give a goddamn lick of what you have in those feminine hands of yours, I got a mind of a god, the balls of a fuckin robot, and I can just about do ANYTHING!" (One of the bandits attacks him with a knife and cuts the sleeve of his jacket nearly off.) ???: "Bastard, do you know how much I loved this jacket, oh well I guess ill give myself up." (He lays his weapons down and as the guy with the rifle approaches he grabs him by the head and slits his throat.) Somewhere else in the Apocalypse (A horse was trotting down a paved road as a man dressed in a cowboy outfit from head to toe, wearing a poncho and bandana around his face looks around.) ???: "This is a good place as ever to set up camp." (The man hops off the horse and proceeds to grab his gear and set up his camp.) (As the man is sitting on a log poking at a fire, someone approaches him from behind with a knife, the man grabs him and he flips around and kicks the guy back.) ???: "Bastard." (The man pushes aside his poncho revealing a black handled revolver as he quickly pulls it out and unloads 3 rounds into the man.) (He stands over the dying man and says one thing.) "Tell that bastard of a Devil that Michael "Calamity" Smith sent you to his stupid ass." (The man spits on him and kicks him in the face killing him.) (The mans partner then leaps out of the trees wielding a sword and attacks him, Smith blocks with his gun and both the gun and sword go flying.) Michael Smith: "You want some too now do ya?" (They then start circling about to engage in hand-to-hand combat, the guy goes in for a kick as Smith dodges it and goes for a takedown. ???: "You fight with no honor, those who fight with honor will not use a gun in battle." Michael Smith: "I wouldn't really call sneaking up on a man trying to sneak attack him honorable." (The guy then grabs smith and takes him down with an armbar.) (Smith then uses his other arm to reach into his boot and grab a smaller revolver, Smith points it at his head as the other man has a blade to his neck.) "Seems we are in a bit of a tight squeeze here partner." Michael Smith: "I will give you my word that I will not kill you if you let go, let's talk about this, maybe we can work together." (They both get up and sit on the log, they begin to talk and decide to travel together.) ???: "My name is Raymond Takahashi, and I am on a mission to find my family, I know they are out there." (He looks into the night sky at the stars as he says this.) (As the two then get some sleep and wake up early to embark on their journey to find what they are looking for, everything is quiet and that starts to worry Michael as it is never quiet........)

Chapter 15 The Decision With Warbler Crayon and his friends were in the room at the hotel and were wondering what they were going to do after they heard the news. " This is fucked " said Colourea. " We should contact Warbler before then " said Colouruke. " They are going to check his email account ? " asked Crayon. " This is insane but this is the law they have made " said Challenger. " We must figure something out " " This is terrible " said Dove. " Well it's time to contact him before it is too late " said Artby. " I feel terrible right now " " Not to mention bakers like us hanging out together " They contacted Warbler by email. The email got to Warbler and he read it. Warbler wrote this back: I miss all of you, but the king wants war very desperately. My brother is a lot happier now, he feels that by doing this it will allow him to fight in the war with me. I have been training hard, my wind attacks are getting stronger. Maybe I will be able to use sky energy for my attacks soon, it would be great. I am not sure what makes sense right now since that the king will start checking my emails. It really is tough, I hope that we will meet again someday. All the best, Warbler They read the email that was sent from Warbler. " Well, I'm glad that we heard from him before it is too late " said Grackle. " Same here " said Crayon. " Bakers will miss him " said Artby. " They enjoy baking for him " Time passed. King Bobby and the advisors ate supper and after that they were talking. " This is great " said Blackburnian. " The king has saved Warbler " " He sure has " said Queen Starling. " Warbler does not need friends like that " " He doesn't, Crayon must understand where he was wrong " said Lord Grackle. " It will take time " said Diana. " But not contacting Warbler will make them think about what they did " said Diana. " I hope that they do " said King Bobby. " Warbler cannot have people like this emailing him " said Blackburnian. " As his brother, I must take a stand against this " " I want Warbler to fight and will do whatever it takes for him to fight " " This is a war that he must fight in " " We need him, Bird's Isle needs him " said Queen Starling. " Bird's Isle loves Warbler and Bird's Isle wants him in the war " said King Bobby. " Bird's Isle needs the Numerian resources to make Bird's Isle a better place, Warbler makes that easier " said Lord Grackle. Crayon was not able to understand the resources and how they would help Bird's Isle " " Challenger has failed Crayon " said King Bobby. " But as long as they leave Warbler alone forever then it doesn't really matter " " Blackburnian has done way too much as a brother for Warbler " said Queen Starling. " If his dream of them fighting together cannot happen, it will be dreadful " Crayon kissed Colourea, Crayon and his friends went to bed after that. Morning came and they all got up. Crayon and his friends went to the bakery. Artby went inside and thanked every baker. " I will never forget bakers, baking is something that cannot be forgotten " said Artby. " Baking has done wonders in fights " " In fights ? " asked Crayon. " Baking has made us so strong, made me a better person " said Artby. " Baking can do so much, it is only fair that I show how great a customer I am to bakers " " How great a customer ? " asked Dove. " Being a great customer to a baker is something I think about all the time, I dream of bakers baking bread " said Artby. " Uh, thanks " said the baker. " Baking has made us better people " said Artby. " I stay grateful to all bakers " They got their bread and left, they went back and had breakfast. " That was great " said Artby. " Customers like me let bakers know they are always appreciated " " Appreciated ? " asked Colouruke. " Bakers must always know that what they are doing is appreciated " said Artby. " When a baker is thanked, you always see a smile on their face " " Well bakers do like it when you buy bread " said Challenger. " I have thanked bakers and dreamed about bread baking to keep bakers so comfortable " said Artby. " I keep bakers comfortable " " Uh, yeah " said Grackle. " When a baker is not appreciated, it is horrible " said Artby. " Bakers have done so much for us " " Well, we should train " said Challenger. Crayon and his friends started to train. Crayon then charged up his Sky Implosion while Challenger used his Thunderstorm Implosion. The attacks had tons of power. Colourea and Artby used their Light Implosions while Grackle and Dove used their Wind Implosions. Challenger then showed everyone his Ultimate Thunderstorm Bomb and his Ultimate Thunderstorm Blast. " Challenger has gotten stronger " said Crayon. " He really has " said Colouruke. Crayon then used his Ultimate Sky Blast and the Ultimate Sky Bomb while Colourea used the Ultimate Light Blast and the Ultimate Light Bomb. Artby used the same attacks as well. Colouruke used the Ultimate Sea Bomb and the Ultimate Sea Blast. " Great attacks " said Challenger. " Thanks, Challenger " said Artby. Challenger used his Times Seven Thunderstorm Strike while Crayon used his Seven Times Sky Strike. The strikes hit with power, Colourea was able to use the Times Six Light Strike for the first time. " Keep training like this and we will be able to challenge King Bobby " said Challenger. " Hopefully by then Crayon will be able to use the Sun Implosion by himself " " He will " said Artby. " King Bobby is very strong but we are a lot better since Blackin " said Challenger. " But we must be very careful, the queen is stronger than him " " Challenger, about contacting Warbler what do you think the plan should be ? " asked Grackle. " They will send in warriors and likely Lord Grackle " said Challenger. " I don't know what Warbler plans to do " " Knowing King Bobby he will start the war soon " said Crayon. " If we want to stop the war we need to contact Warbler but we should not use email " " Yeah, the king will be seriously angry with Warbler since he will check Warbler's email " said Challenger. Crayon and his friends headed home and they contacted Warbler. Hello Warbler, This is Crayon, do you know when the king is checking your email ? I recommend deleting this before the deadline, we do not want anything to happen to you. All the best, Crayon Warbler received the email and he responded to Crayon. Crayon, The king has decided at 1pm to check the emails. He has said that if that he finds out that we are messaging each other that he will end it. He has ordered me to delete all your email contacts as well. He says that he will start checking my emails now but not open them unless he is suspicious. I will do so, we will contact on other accounts for the time being. We still have our Colouropinion accounts so we will have to contact there. This will be the last email that I send you so contact me there. Thanks, Warbler Warbler deleted the email accounts so that the king would not catch on. Time passed, everyone ate supper. The deadline was approaching, eventually everyone went to bed. King Bobby then had another statement in the morning which he released. The deadline has passed. At 11 am, I will be checking Warbler's email account. It is expected that he delete the accounts that I said that he cannot contact. We are also going to look for any messages from people who oppose the war that are critical of it, we have encouraged him to not date people that are. Dating is something that is important and when it comes to Warbler, even more so. Blackburnian, his older brother has decided to take action and he will find Warbler someone that supports the war when Warbler feels that he needs someone. Warbler's sex life is something that we take very seriously, so we must be good to him. We will continue to care about Warbler and I encourage people to do the same. Warbler's sex life will be put ahead of Crayon, we expect everyone to do the same in Bird's Isle. I know that everyone in Bird's Isle cares about him. Thank you for your understanding, King Bobby Blackbird King Bobby sent the statement. Crayon and his friends ate their breakfast and so did the advisors and Warbler. King Bobby checked the email and found that they were gone but he was able to find the Colouropinion account which infuriated him. He then ordered Lord Grackle and warriors to meet up with Crayon and his friends. " Warbler, this is not acceptable " said King Bobby. " I have not messaged them there for a long time " said Warbler. " We will arrest them now " said King Bobby. " We have no choice, I have sent in Lord Grackle and warriors. " This is not something that can happen for the sake of Bird's Isle " " You must understand " " I understand " said Warbler. " Good " said King Bobby.

Two men stood across each other, having yet uttered a word. The store smelled of rotten wood and aged shelves with sparse items and settled dust. Alejandro held a handful of freshly-carved deer pelts he had gathered during his hunts in the surrounding area with Enne. The shopkeeper remained glued upon his client’s amber eyes. Alejandro couldn’t tell whether it was due to him being a loathed sorcerer or perhaps the old man didn’t know who he was. Nonetheless, the sight had become all too familiar. “You ain’t thinking about leaving town now, are ya, wanderer?” Robert asked. The man’s amber eyes narrowed at the question. Alejandro’s heavy winter jacket concealed his dwindling frame. His graying shoulder-length hair was tied into a low ponytail that became bushy at its wavy tips. His salt and pepper beard reached the coat’s thick collar. Coming for a routine exchange, he didn’t expect the old man to say much to him. He had only ever known his name through hearsay. He slid over the animal pelts for trade. ‘Robert, was it?” Alejandro answered. The old man’s brown eyes looked at them with dissatisfaction. “We’re just passing through, and we’ll be gone in a day, give or take.” “More deer pelt?” Robert sighed, taking it off the counter to accept the trade. “Huh?” The old man’s frail finger pointed toward an open door full of assorted animal furs. Robert’s unwavering frown had become synonymous with him since the incident years ago. The wanderer withheld his laughter when he saw the mountain of surplus the shopkeeper had built. Otherwise, the shopkeeper had every reason to decline. “Before ya know it,” Robert said. “We’ll probably be eating it. We get so many of them I don’t even know what to do with it.” “All you get is fur?” he asked. “Ain’t nothing around here but a few deer here and there.” “Is that so? Something feels a little…off.” “There are things that prowl in those woods that ain’t meant for this world. Besides, anyone who hunts there wouldn’t give up their food.” “Necrobytes can be a real nuisance.” “It ain’t none of that, son. I was the last hunter from this town that ever dared to enter that godforsaken mountain. Even those foolish enough to go there never came back, or we’d find them ripped apart down the mountainside.” There wasn’t any doubt from Robert’s voice; there was something there. Before Alejandro could ask, a hooded woman entered. Her black, hooded cloak barely draped over her slender shoulders, containing much of her long silver head of wavy hair. The red ribbed dress touched her thigh, exposing much of her skin, save for the bandaged wraps on her right thigh. Her well-worn black boots stopped at her fair-skinned ankles. She stood by the counter, arms crossed. Her silver eyes met with the wanderer’s amber eyes. Robert ogled the cloaked woman, perhaps a little too much in his observation. “Is everything all right, Allie?” she asked. “Nothing important, En,” he replied. “Ain’t ya cold, miss?” Robert asked. “This weather isn’t too bad,” she answered politely. Allie and the shopkeeper looked at each other, silently acknowledging the cold climate. The weather remained steady at 20 degrees. Light snow fluttered through gray skies and stuck to the pathways. Alejandro knew why his companion could walk around as though it were a brisk spring night. Robert looked between the two with suspicion. “Are you with this man?” The old man asked. “Yes,” They answered over the other at once. “It ain’t safe out there,” the old man reiterated. “There’s a monster out there that not even a wanderer like him could kill. Killing deer ain’t nothing. Enne turned to Robert with piqued curiosity. Alejandro set their supplies to the side and watched. Whenever she became interested in something, she would probe further. This often resulted in unnecessary flights of adventure. She took a few steps forward with a grin, though the old man’s sagged face hesitated to move his lips. Something was terrifying by the interrogative expression she had. “You’ve got my attention,” she spoke. “We’ve gotten warnings from others, but no one’s managed to explain what this thing is. Perhaps you can explain? “A windigo,” his haggard voice trembled into a whisper. “It prowls the forest along the mountainside. I’ve seen it. That devil took my buddies and my nephew. It’s been well over a year since that happened. We were looking for a missing family, but we only found two bodies, the other two, maybe the windigo, took them. The damn town is cursed.” Windigos? Cursed? Alejandro thought. “How did you manage to survive, then?” Enne asked. “My nephew… He pushed me down a slope before it could get the both of us,” he replied. “Are you sure it wasn’t misidentification?” The wanderer asked. He ignored Enne’s glare of disapproval. “The indigenous population centuries ago spoke of them centuries ago, but there’s no merit. It could be a bear, hell, even a pack of wolves.” “I know what I saw,” Robert grit his teeth. “I’ve hunted in these lands for years. What I saw could only be brought on by the devil himself.” “You’d be surprised by misidentifications of experienced hunters.” “I used to be just like you until that day. I thought it was some fucked up native tale, but I was dead wrong.” “I’m just stating—” “That’s enough,” Enne cut Alejandro off before turning to the shopkeeper. Robert listened to her soothing voice. “We’ve traveled through many towns, and this is the first we’ve heard of this. Allie, I don’t see a reason he would say such a tall tale.” Enne’s focus shifted from curiosity to concern after considering everything he explained. Experienced hunters knew their wildlife better than anyone. What was the windigo supposed to be if it wasn’t any known wildlife? She couldn’t help but stroke her chin in pondering. “I’m just saying, miss,” the old man pleaded. “Anyone that goes into those woods is asking for death.” “Unfortunately, we can’t stay out from those parts,” she interrupted. “Taking the long road took longer than anticipated. And my partner and I still have a ways to go to get back to our motorcycle.” Robert wondered what she meant when she saw the grin on her lips. “So, we’re in no hurry. Allie and I love solving problems.” We do? Alejandro raised an eyebrow. They were days behind schedule. “What are you saying?” Robert asked. “We want to solve your problem.” Robert chuckled. “I admire your tenacity, but nothing good’ll come from that mountain. You best steer clear from it.” “Welp, you aren’t required to come with us.” The shopkeeper patted his hip. “Wouldn’t be able to. My nephew may’ve saved my life, but I can’t walk without a cane. I called him a coward all this time, yet he’s the one who saved my life. Wish I would’ve treated him differently.” “Why is that?” Enne asked. His tired eyes slowly drifted toward hers. “It’s a really foolish reason,” Robert shook his head. “I’m not here to judge. If it sets you at ease, I’m all ears.” Enne pointed toward her ears with a smile, a gesture Alejandro knew well. He smiled, watching her try to pry into the old man’s heart. Those gestures were what won him over to her whimsical nature. Robert agreed with a weak smile. “Well, his father and I had a falling out after our mother passed. It was two heirlooms, one a ring and the other a necklace. It was meant for us to pass down. But he ran off with the ring but left the necklace to his son. Michael… I was always so hard on him. I didn’t want him to grow up to be like his old man. Everything that happened, it was so sudden.” Robert’s tears rolled down his face. “I’m sorry for your loss. I—I get the impression your nephew must’ve had no ill will toward you. You must’ve stood in like a father. Sometimes we let our personal attitudes shape our perception around us. We hurt others, forgetting we too are hurt.” “He—asked me to forgive his father. I don’t know if I can.” The wanderer leaned away from the entrance, grabbing his companion’s attention. He found it hard to believe an old Native American myth could be real, but his curiosity was piqued by the man’s confession. He met her silver eyes, watering from his plight. “Well, not sure if there’s anything else we can get for those pelts,” Alejandro said. “You can have them then. I think we’ve gotten all we could for the trip back.” “What?” Robert responded. Enne’s lips pursed, seeing her companion’s passive expression of concern. “Why?” “Can’t do anything with it.” “And,” Enne added, turning toward Robert. “We did give a decent portion of our food to the local kitchen. 60/40, I believe. Is there anyone who can help us understand this, windigo, better?” The shopkeeper wiped his tears and cleared his throat before he spoke. They might’ve bought the dwindling town time for the cruel winter. Getting his bearings together, Robert answered: “There’s an old woman that lives on the edge of town. She’s a descendant of a local shaman that passed away some years ago. She might be able to help.” “We’ll do our best,” Enne replied, turning to the wanderer. “Allie, let’s go pay her a visit.” Later that evening… Enne stacked several books onto the bouncy bed. It startled the slumbering wanderer as he sat up. The cold books had books slid against his body. It was rare to find inns with decent comfort as most towns were desolate. The wanderer observed her casually flipping open the first book from the edge of the bed. Her energy was as consistent as before, curious about the thing Robert said with so much fear. Alejandro’s tired eyes drifted toward the slit of her kimono, quickly glancing away when she noticed. “I know you weren’t trying to strain your eyes on mere words,” Enne smiled. “What are you doing?” Alejandro sighed. “It’s late.” “Late? Our night is just beginning!” “What? We’ve been out most of the day. And we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.” Enne pouted before laying by the books. Her lightweight kimono was barely holding together with her curvaceous body. It was then the wanderer realized another concern when her teasing eyes redirected at him. He didn’t know how to express his concerns, especially seeing her wraps around her thigh undone. The black, scaly surface was hard to the touch, but she didn’t seem affected by it. “En, you should consider wearing… clothes?” The wanderer said. “Why is that? She replied, inching closer to him. “Were you jealous the old shopkeeper had his eyes on me?” “Unless you’re suddenly into older guys….” “Seriously? What do you take me for? It’s not my fault if people take a liking to me. Remember when I said my body temperature could be better regulated by wearing less?” “Sounds like an absolute copout.” “I have dragon blood coursing in my veins. At least, I’m not wearing a string.” Enne turned to find his blushed cheeks. She grimaced at the thought of having him hot under the collar. He cleared his throat, looking past her and onto the books. It comprised the local wildlife and a collection of stories relating to the town. Enne’s head came off the way of his sight with her teasing smile. “Were you really thinking…” “Good thing we aren’t going anywhere hot.” “Who says I’m not feeling hot right now?” Enne winked with a grimace to match when Alejandro let out a tired laugh. He sat up against the rachet bed end, watching her drag a book toward them. Her demeanor changed drastically, having taken a more serious expression after feeling the weight of it in her hands. Centuries of this local town’s lore were consolidated into this. “Enough of the chit-chat,” she said, examining the book’s worn state. “We need to get to the bottom of the town’s history.” “What would it have to do with the town?” the wanderer asked. “I’m quite familiar with these sorts of tales. You can say I’m a bit of a cryptozoologist myself.” “Okay… Right? Wait. Why is this tied to cryptozoology?” “You don’t believe me? There’s a chance that most River Dragon sightings attributed to much of the lake monster sightings centuries ago.” “You’re saying they were here sooner?” “There’s a chance. From what I’ve read from my father’s writings, they might’ve been introduced accidentally via portals… Just like necrobytes. Point being… Because people then weren’t aware of these mechanisms, they concluded there was something else to it.” “Windigos—” “Were deemed supernatural to the local tribes. People who traveled in harsh wintry weather would become delirious after a time, transforming man to beast. Of course, that’s a gross simplification—” “Windigo psychosis.” “Is what it was called in the psychology field of the 20th century, but there is more to it than just someone who loses their marbles. It’s a very real thing and what Robert described was very much an actual sighting of the beast in true form.” “I—I find it hard to believe.” “Why? There are so many fantastical things that exist around us. Necrobytes, mana, and so on and so on. These things would be beyond the standards of human science centuries ago. Can we maybe entertain that if mana could manipulate matter, it could manipulate organisms?” “Like how necrobytes impact lower life forms?” “Exactly. Mana is wielded differently based on sentience as well, whereas necrobytes could only affect the other.” “Wow… How did you come to that conclusion?” “What do you think a 300-year-old half-elf does with their free time?” “I think there’s a certain level of pseudo-science here.” Enne left her response with a smile as she turned back to the book. Alejandro noticed her paler skin, contrasting with what it was when they first met. He reached his hand over before she turned the page. Enne rested her hand on the book, absorbing his warm touch before looking at him. “We don’t need to find reasons to jump into everything,” Alejandro said. The candlelight emblazoned her silver eyes subtly when she looked at him again. “We need to do what’s right,” Enne responded. “You’ve seen the state of these communities we’ve traveled through.” “And your health? You’re just one person….” “What does it matter? I can use my powers to help, not keep my head down.” “It matters to me.” Enne paused. His word struck a chord, though she did her best to hide her reaction; She couldn’t. Alejandro guided her hand toward him, kissing her hand. “After all, what’s a knight without his queen?” he asked. “Typically, queens aren’t supposed to have affairs with their subordinates,” she smirked. “Goddammit, Enne.” Enne and Alejandro have grown quite a bit since the end of the first novel. The flow between them is a lot more natural since they're used to the other's presence. Writing lines for them have always been fun. If you like, like! Comment on what you think? This Novel Contains Mature Content Show This Chapter? Yes

Alejandro awoke suddenly. He panted amidst a strange silence. He gathered his thoughts, tempering his breath as he listened to his surroundings. The sunlight seeped through the curtains, revealing the books laid on the bed. Enne lay against the pillows while her body intertwined within the thin sheets. Perhaps it was the cold air emitted from the window’s poor insulation or the utterances beyond that startled his slumber. He peeked through the curtain, finding a crowd gathering toward the end of the narrow street. Enne’s ears wiggled at his sudden movement. Her eyes opened with renewed vigor that became characteristic of their travels together thus far. The bedsheets covered her body as she sat up to look behind him. Alejandro felt her sudden warmth press against him. “You went to sleep without clothes?” he asked, glimpsing her eyes reflecting faintly from the window. “I’m not sure why you’d be so surprised.” Enne delivered her lines with a soothing morning voice. “Remember, I get hot rather easily. Slept well?” “Yeah.” “That didn’t sound terribly convincing.” Alejandro looked over his shoulder, finding the glimmer in her eyes when she smiled. Under any other circumstance, he would’ve awoken in some rundown shelter, feeling the full brunt of an unforgiving winter. Her hands gently gripped his arm, quickly reminding him of her companionship. “You think you’re still dreaming?” Enne smirked. “You don’t waste any time,” Alejandro replied, turning his body toward her. “We have a long day ahead of us.” Enne leaned against him as she looked over his shoulder. Alejandro felt the rough patch of skin scratch against his back. Her fingers moved the curtain to the side, making the street below more viewable. A small crowd mass at the other end. Something was amiss. “Yes, indeed,” she replied. “A long day is upon us.” It wasn’t long before Enne and Alejandro joined the crowd. The clouds overhead whitened as the snowflakes became dense. The snow built up gradually since the morning hours. Enne remained unphased from the grueling temperatures while Alejandro bundled himself to keep the warmth. Few of the townsfolk acknowledged the outsider’s presence, allowing them passage. Enne absorbed the atmosphere. The audible gasps and crying bombarded her senses as they reached the front. “Dear God,” Alejandro muttered. Enne kneeled at the foot of the horrific sight, a small wagon containing several battered corpses of several men. Many were outsiders who were foolish enough to venture out into the mountainside. It was hard to tell whose body part went with whose as they were gathered together in a rush. Innards ruptured from the deep lacerations, and bones were crushed by extreme force. Much of the bodies were long frozen, slowing down the decomposition from the environment. Enne was beyond words as she examined the brutality. Her head slowly turned toward the wanderer and met his stoic nod. “I told them boys not to mess around in the mountain,” Robert spoke as he emerged from the crowd. His emotionless eyes gazed upon Enne’s silver eyes with a dire warning that went silently into the morbid atmosphere. “It brings nothing but despair.” A little later… Enne and Alejandro approached the other end of town, away from the peak. The two absorbed the beautiful atmosphere in silence as they reached a beaten path. The wanderer felt a sense of déjà vu when his eyes followed the trail into the wooded area. His companion took a deep breath as though she held it for long. She looked over to see his absent gaze. “Those bodies,” she said. Her voice brought Alejandro back as he exchanged a puzzled look. “That was definitely no bear. There was something cruel about how they were killed.” “It’s nature,” he responded. “Robert might think bears don’t pass through, but if no one entered the area over a year—” “You aren’t dismissing his account, are you? Besides, I’m sure you know what a bear attack looks like.” “En, if what you said last night is correct, then this windigo is problematic. But, we have no—” “Those lacerations were far too deep to belong to any bear.” “And how would you know that?” “Why is it so hard for you to accept that this might be something beyond your understanding?” “I’ve been out here all my life. I’ve seen shit like this happen more times than you could imagine.” Enne pouted, knowing she couldn’t budge his opinion. She still knew little of the world beyond Gardenia, but she knew there were things he couldn’t comprehend. Alejandro’s eyes redirected at the browned treeline and saw a thin layer of smoke arise. His nerves eased quickly as he took a few steps forward. “Reminds me of that shack you lived in,” Enne recalled as she stood next to him. “Oh, how time flies! Now, you’re traveling with me.” Her elbow’s gentle nudge drew his narrowing eyes. He saw her infectious smile, a smile he had grown accustomed to. The wanderer remembered his time in the isolated shack where he’d sulk for days on end. She saved him from himself, something he found hard to admit. Even now, Enne never held it against him when he got back onto his feet. The damsel always supported him, expecting nothing in return. “It does stir up old memories,” he finally said. Enne proceeded up the path first as he followed close. The secluded home was by the edge of the hill, where the trail continued further down the summit. She caught a snowflake as they reached the front porch of the house. It was a rather plain wooden home, typical of the town’s architecture. Flowers aligned the entrance, covered by transparent plastic from the cold. Alejandro entered the porch while his companion looked around. “This is it, I suppose?” he said aloud. “Fit for a hermit indeed,” she joked. “That’s—not nice.” “Who are you calling a hermit?” a woman yelled. They turned to see a short, elderly woman at the entrance. She looked at them with the wrinkled, stern brown eyes of a mother. Her braided black hair had streaks of white reaching down to her waist. Her blue woven dress reached her ankles, meeting a pair of weathered boots. The old woman would’ve been deemed fairly innocent-looking if it weren’t for the shotgun she pointed at them. She examined them as they remained frozen in place. “My, my,” Enne hid behind Alejandro. “Eh, a pleasure to meet you?” “Someone sent you here, I take it?” The old woman asked. The wanderer looked over his shoulder to see his spirited companion. “You must be Sarah,” The wanderer asked. The old woman lowered her shotgun. “I am,” she answered. “Who are you?” “My name is Alejandro,” he said. “This is my companion, Enne.” “Hm, a wanderer and… A half-elf? Such a rare duo in these parts.” “As opposed to?” “Wait, how did you know I’m a half-elf?” Enne asked. “I guess since you thought I was a hermit, I’d be blind too,” Sarah answered. “It’s obvious. No normal human would go out with the little clothing you have in this weather. I hear descendants of some elves have skin that protects them from cold climate.” “Good—point. Oh, dearest Allie can confirm the—” “Anyway,” Alejandro interrupted. “We wanted to talk to you about something.” “Why else would anyone visit little ol’ me, anyway?” Sarah responded. “I imagine Robert told you about me. He’s the only one that remembers I’m still here.” “Y—yes,” Enne answered. “We wanted to know what you knew about the windigo.” “The town has slowly been dying ever since the windigo attack killed most of the hunters, all but Mr. Winston. Some remained. Many believe the town was cursed, even before that horrific incident. No one is foolish enough to enter the mountainside.” Sarah remained indifferent to the half-elf’s presence. She fixated on the wanderer, who felt she had something against him. Her behavior seemed cryptic, like having foreknowledge of who he was. “Please, come in,” she insisted. “I’m sure Alejandro must be cold.” His smile was met with an unconvincing one as she let them in. The room’s presentation was unassuming at first: Old couches, a table in the center, and a bookshelf close to the kitchen. It wasn’t until they saw the next room over that it caught the duo’s attention. It was a room dedicated to housing unusual artifacts, much from her indigenous roots. Sarah insisted they sat while she made tea. The half-elf leaned against the wanderer as they watched Sarah boil the water. “How long have you lived out here?” Enne asked. “All my life,” The elder responded. “My lineage spans generations in this region, long before the Europeans arrived.” “Wow, roughly a thousand years, then? I’ve read about what happened once the lands were occupied, it was—” “One can cling to the past for so long. Life is too short to hold a grudge, but….” “But?” The wanderer asked. Sarah didn’t respond to him. He thought little of it. Sarah had her reasons, reasons he was curious about. He remembered his title carried the stigma of being a skeptic. The idea of an old Native American mythos being the culprit to the town’s decline seemed strange. He’d experienced much in his travels before meeting Enne. Although the setting was the same, there was certain magic he would’ve ignored otherwise. Sarah set down teacups. “When those elves invaded,” she continued. “It allowed us to move beyond those godforsaken settlements my ancestors lived in. We did our best to find our footing in the new world, but again, corruption prevailed.” “How did your ancestors see mine?” Enne asked. Sarah stopped to think about it. Her eyes watered, but she wiped them in a single stroke. “I didn’t see a difference. But this is beside the point of why you’re here.” “I’m sorry… I shouldn’t be prying into things like that. I don’t know much about how life is beyond where I’m from. You can say I come from a place of privilege.” “It’s all right, Enne. An old woman such as myself should handle it by now. Humility is a trait many lacks. If I’m not mistaken, half-elves are in a unique place in the natural order.” “I shouldn’t exist,” Enne said. Her tone changed subtly. “It’s considered sacrilege under Elven Code. If they found out about my current whereabouts, it could lead to bad outcomes.” “But here you are. Strange how things can manifest. One can create life, but another destroys it. This is a particular point you find yourself in, like destiny.” “I have my qualms on that… I exist, but sometimes I wonder where I’m going.” “It would be easier to let go of the past, but it is the past that molds us into the people we are today. Even the lands around us define us, which is why I chose to carry on the legacy of my forefathers. Heritage is vital to the tribe, even if I’m amongst the last of them. This knowledge is all I have to give.” “Thank you, Sarah.” The elder radiated a motherly warmth that reminded Enne of her late mother. “But, to the topic at hand,” Sarah said. “Windigos. There are several variations you’ll hear. I’m sure the wanderer is aware of windigo psychosis, which is when someone loses their mind to severe snow conditions or something along those lines.” Alejandro nodded. “Physical transformations are rare, even in the times of my ancestors. You know why that is?” “Mana?” Enne answered, meeting the side of the old woman’s eye. “Yes, we called it spiritual energy. If it became too corrupted under harsh conditions, its chances of changing increased. Mana is what the Elves call it, like how Tao describes the same thing in Eastern culture. We all have an interpretation. Hopefully, the wanderer can catch up to this. I imagine he thinks this is just mumbo jumbo.” “That is,” The wanderer interrupted. “A bit of an assumption, no? I’ll admit. It’s a hard sell for me to think that something supernatural could exist when it seems like they didn’t have this problem before.” “Allie,” Enne spoke. “It would be more reasonable to look at this more of a natural phenomenon. Many principles between her spirituality and mana overlap. It could help us figure out how to handle it.” “Wanderer,” Sarah said. “Why are you here?” Alejandro realized his answer when he glanced at Enne. “I want to understand this, whether or not I think this is necessary.” “Knowledge for knowledge’s sake?” The old woman laughed. “Fine! You best learn well from this discussion. I’ve met many wanderers in my days, some handsome, some disgusting, but you’re somewhere in the middle. I can sense it.” “Sense it?” he asked. “Mana is more than just energy. It’s a manifestation of your inner self. Unfortunately, mana is looked at from a more—practical interpretation. The Elves acknowledge this, but wanderers see it as tainting a theory. It’s better to look at it from a multifaceted understanding instead of a singular truth. You should know better than most that truth is loosely defined.” “Please,” Enne spoke. “Don’t patronize him. He’s saved my life many times. He may seem like a dolt, but his heart is in the right place. She insulted me in real-time, He thought. “Maybe I’m wrong,” Sarah conceded. “But, for certain, there is a darkness that dwells within you. Your soul is crying for redemption.” Enne glanced at him. She remembered how he was when they first met. He was in a miserable place, at death’s door. She feared that one day he’d slide back into old habits. The old shaman saw the half-elf’s expression. She knew her love for him went beyond words. “But, I’m not here for counseling either,” Sara continued. “Windigos are dangerous beings. Their hearts are made of ice, and their physical strength is only rivaled by their voracious hunger. Once someone becomes a windigo, there is no turning back, even if there remains a semblance of their former self.” “Why are you telling me this?” Enne asked. “I can tell you’d hesitate if you heard their human voice in the face of their impending death.” Enne reflected. She accepted it was a possibility. She knew Alejandro wouldn’t have a problem dealing with the death blow. The will to set aside his feelings seemed admirable in that scenario. What if the windigo uttered its sudden pleas? The answer wasn’t as easy for her. “Their soul must be cleansed with fire,” Sarah said. “Only then can they be laid to rest.” “They?” The wanderer asked. “Those lost spirits that fell victim to the beast. They cower from its presence, afraid to move to the afterlife. So, if you hear anything, don’t be alarmed. Let the whispers of the mountain guide you.” I've always thought the mythos surrounding the windigo rather fascinating. I wanted to tie in the magic system to something more grounded. How does mana affect people and other lifeforms? It was a question that helped give form to why I chose this cryptid over the other... And I've got plenty. Leave a like or feel free to comment! This Novel Contains Mature Content Show This Chapter? Yes

Chapter 13 Lord Grackle's Not Happy Lord Grackle was talking with King Bobby. " I will be the next one to fight " said Lord Grackle. " Sounds about right " said King Bobby. " We need Curtis to be avenged " " I loved Curtis, he had a great sense of justice " said Lord Grackle. " He understood what was right and what was wrong " " He sure did " said King Bobby. " I will be issuing a statement soon " " Good " said Lord Grackle. " Bird's Isle needs to see what has happened " " Exactly " said King Bobby. King Bobby declared this statement which mentioned Curtis and also Warbler. We must remember all that Curtis did as an advisor, his sense of justice was great. We are strongly encouraging Warbler to change who he hangs out with. I encourage advisors and other people to have a talk with him, he is not being influenced in a good way. Blackburnian is very upset, he is so hurt right now. Can you blame him, he cannot fight with his brother Warbler now in the war. Challenger has failed Warbler, Colour King would not fail him like this. We must always remember Curtis, Draco, Rourke, Salvador and Paula for all they have done. We must let Warbler know about all that his brother Blackburnian has done for him, I fear that he has forgotten. He cannot forget Blackburnian in this way, this cannot continue. This is bad for him and anyone in the family. Crayon and his friends are not friends that Warbler can have, it is terrible for the man. Thank you for understanding, King Bobby Blackbird King Bobby sent the statement. After that, King Bobby was with the advisors. " We have something important to discuss " said King Bobby. " It involves Warbler " said Queen Starling. " What is going on ? " asked Lord Grackle. " Has he been drugged ? "asked Diana. " I don't think he is taking any drugs right now, but he has not been influenced in a good way " said King Bobby. " I think Challenger is responsible " said Blackburnian. " What he has done is unforgivable " " I cannot respect what he did " " Warbler has to understand that this is not personal " said Lord Grackle. " I am furious about Curtis being gone as well " " Same here " said Queen Starling. " Curtis was a great man " said Diana. " What plans do we have involving Warbler ? " " We will make sure he is with the right people " said Lord Grackle. " Yes, but I believe that Crayon and his friends are responsible " said King Bobby. " I don't know if Warbler is involved with Numerians or not " " We must bring them here " said Blackburnian. " I cannot take this anymore " " Warbler cannot have this happen to him, he is a great guy " " Everyone knows what a great guy he is " " We should investigate who Warbler has been hanging out with " said Lord Grackle. " That is not a bad idea " said Queen Starling. " Numerians have resources we need to make Bird's Isle better " said Blackburnian. " Yes, we need them " said King Bobby. " First we must have an intervention for Warbler " said Queen Starling. " We will have to get him to come alone " " He will " said Blackburnian. " I have faith in him " Yes " said King Bobby. " We will change Warbler for the better " said Lord Grackle. " That is true " said Queen Starling. " He will be back to the way he was " Meanwhile Crayon and his friends were well rested and they got up. " Glad we are all here together " said Artby. " It is great to see " said Challenger. " We shouldn't get into training right away " " We should see if anything has changed " said Colouruke. " I wonder if King Bobby has said anything " said Grackle. " Knowing him he probably has " said Dove. " We will have to wait and see " said Warbler. King Bobby then released another statement. Warbler, we need you to come alone to us. Warbler, your brother Blackburnian is very concerned right now. You will meet with all advisors there. We have lifted the restrictions right now on serving Crayon and his friends because we need to deal with this, it is so important. We need an intervention for Warbler right now, we need him to change who he hangs out with. If you see him, tell him to come to Bird's Isle right now. Blackburnian is so worried about him, he is so upset about who Warbler is hanging out with, we must think about this. Warbler must be in the castle instead of with Crayon and his friends. Crayon and his friends are not who he needs in his life. They are not friends that are good for him, everyone in Bird's Isle must see this. We are all here for Warbler during these times. Thank you for your patience and support at this time, King Bobby Blackbird Crayon and his friends watched the statements from King Bobby. " What the fuck " said Colourea. " They think they can force Warbler to not hang out with us " said Colouruke. " For this war ? " asked Crayon. " Do they not know that he doesn't want to fight " " It appears not " said Artby. " King Bobby will not stop until Blackburnian is happy " said Challenger. " The king can find other ways for him to be happy " said Artby. I think he is saying this to make the war seem more reasonable " said Grackle. " It isn't " said Dove. " I am not sure what we are going to do " said Warbler. " King Bobby will probably send people in " said Colouruke. " We may have to fight more people " said Challenger. " I can fight " said Artby. " Perhaps bakers can make Blackburnian happy since we do not want to fight " " Bakers ? " asked Colouruke. " Bakers can make anyone happy if the right bread is used, bakeries keep people happier " " The thing is that we don't know if Blackburnian eats bread or not " said Grackle. " Bakers can help " said Artby. After that, they checked out of the hospital and headed home. They had something to eat and ate. There was another statement from King Bobby. Warbler is in Bird Port right now, we recommend that people head there to look for him. Blackburnian is very concerned about him right now, we all are. What Blackburnian has gone through as his brother, is not what we want him going through. If you are in Bird Port right now, please look for him. When he is found, we will have a special intervention for him. Warbler must have friends that are better. Crayon and his friends have not been good friends, we must all see that. Thank you for your patience and support at this time, King Bobby Blackbird Warriors were sent to Bird Port to search for him, other people joined the search as well. Soon posters were all over about the intervention for Warbler. " We must make sure Warbler never hangs out with people like this " said a warrior. " Blackburnian has had enough of it " said the second warrior. " As a brother he is so hurt " " What Challenger has done is unacceptable " said the third warrior. " We will find Warbler for the good of all " said the fourth warrior. " Warbler must remember what Blackburnian has done for him " said the fifth warrior. The warriors then started contacting people for the whereabouts of Warbler. Eventually they found a place in Bird Port where they were. Warriors and people knocked on the door. " Open up, think about Blackburnian " said a voice. " Don't keep doing this " " Shit " said Artby. " What are we going to do now " said Colouruke. " We will fight " said Crayon. " Yeah, we can do that " said Artby. " I suggest you open up now, we do not want to fight " said another voice. " We just want Warbler for the intervention " said another voice. " The rest of you will be left alone " " Blackburnian is very concerned about Warbler, you cannot hang out with him anymore " said the first voice. Eventually they broke open the door. Tons of people were there, mostly warriors. " If you refuse to give us Warbler for the intervention, we will have no choice but for you to face justice " said a warrior. " All we are asking for is Warbler " said the second warrior. " The king does not think that you should hang out with Warbler anymore " said a man. " Why ? " asked Colouruke. " The things that you said to him have angered Blackburnian his older brother " said the man. " You ruined his chance of fighting with his brother in the war " " This war is important " " But he doesn't want to fight " said Grackle. " Grackle, you are just making up things to make things worse here " said the man. " Just give us Warbler, if you refuse it will make things worse " " Blackburnian is so infuriated about how is treated " More people arrived and a warrior let them in, they were mostly warriors. " You are outnumbered like crazy, give us Warbler now " said the warrior. Several of them surrounded the others while three others grabbed Warbler. There was a struggle between them but Warbler was taken into this vehicle. They were able to break free but warriors blocked them from reaching Warbler. The vehicle started to drive away and the people left and told them to not hang out with him anymore. " Noooo " said Dove. " Warbler, no " yelled Grackle. " I wonder what they are going to do to him " said Crayon. " There is going to be an intervention " said Grackle. " Blackburnian will be there most likely " said Challenger. " Does he want him in the war this much ? " asked Colouruke. " Even though he doesn't want to fight " " They will force him to fight " said Challenger. " Warbler will have to do so unless we find him " " It is unfortunate " said Grackle. " It really is " said Crayon. Meanwhile King Bobby was contacted by a warrior who was not driving. " King Bobby, Warbler will be heading here " said the warrior. " Good " said King Bobby. " We will make sure that Warbler no longer hangs out with people who do not influence him in a good way " " So is the intervention for Warbler happening where ? asked the warrior. " In the castle " said King Bobby. " It is a huge event " " Thanks " said the warrior. The warriors then headed to Bird's Isle with Warbler to meet the king for the intervention. Crayon and his friends were talking. " We have to find them " said Grackle. " We have to be careful, all the advisors will be there " said Challenger. " They are stronger than Curtis and we have not trained since the fight with him " " We will have to figure something out " said Colourea. " We will have to train first but we also do not want Warbler to go to war " said Colouruke. " Sounds like a plan " said Artby. They headed to train. Challenger, Colourea, Artby and Crayon used their Light Implosions, Dove and Grackle used their Wind Implosions and Colouruke used his Sea Implosion. They hit with intense power. After that Crayon used his Sky Implosion and Challenger used his Lightning Implosion. Both of them were stronger than the previous implosions significantly. Crayon used his Ultimate Sky Bomb while Challenger used his Ultimate Lightning Bomb. Colourea and Artby used their Ultimate Light Bombs while Dove and Grackle used their Ultimate Wind Bombs and Colouruke used his Ultimate Sea Bomb. The bombs were extremely powerful. Crayon used his Ultimate Sky Blast while Challenger used his Ultimate Lightning Blast. The blasts hit with tons of power. Crayon used his Times Six Sky Strike while Challenger used his Times Six Lightning Strike. This was the first time that Crayon could use it. " Amazing " said Dove. " This is great " said Artby. " I am glad Crayon can use it " said Colourea. " The rest of them used their usual Quintuple Strikes and they hit with intense power. They finished their training and they headed to a bakery. " Glad to see bakers again " said Artby. " Time for me to thank every baker like I usually do " Artby thanked every baker. He was so happy to see them. " I never get tired of seeing bakers bake bread " said Artby. " I know that this is the customer I need to continue being " " I want to be a customer that shows how much they love bakers " They got their bread and left. They went home and ate. They enjoyed their meal. Meanwhile Warbler arrived in Bird's Isle with the warriors. He was met by Lord Grackle at the airport and they headed to the castle. " So Warbler, how are you holding up ? " asked Lord Grackle. " I am good " said Warbler. " We need you to be influenced in a good way " said Lord Grackle. " Do you know when the intervention is ? " asked Warbler. " Tomorrow morning " said Lord Grackle. " You understand that we will not allow you to hang out with those friends you made because Blackburnian has ordered it " " I thought the king wanted it to stop " said Warbler. " Well yes, but Blackburnian encouraged the king " said Lord Grackle. " Well we should head to the castle " " You can stay the night there, we will allow it " " After the intervention we will have a big decision to make " " Understood " said Warbler. " Good " said Lord Grackle. They arrived at the castle. Where Blackburnian and Diana were there to greet Warbler. " Warbler " said Blackburnian. The two of them embraced. " It is great to see this " Diana was happy that he was there. " I am glad to see you again " said Blackburnian. " We have had more memories together than Challenger will ever have " " Come inside " said Diana. " We are going to have supper " " Breakfast will be served before the intervention " said Blackburnian. " The king has requested some very good meals. " He is someone that wants the best for you, unlike Crayon " They went inside. " Warbler has returned " said King Bobby. " He must be free of those bad friends " said Queen Starling. " He is now " said Blackburnian. " Our warriors got him here " " They saved him " said Lord Grackle. " He cannot have friends like this, it is not acceptable " " I think that Warbler did not expect them to be that way " said Blackburnian. " Unfortunately they were " said Diana. " We must report that Warbler has been saved " " Yes we must " said Blackburnian. The supper that was made was crab and lobster prepared with a spicy lemon mayonnaise. They had salad and squid. For dessert they had an apple cake and strawberries. They enjoyed their meal. " Breakfast will be from 7:45 am to 8:30 am. " The intervention will start at 9 am. " We encourage all of you to get up at 7 am because we want you to all be ready " said King Bobby. " Some warriors will be there " They each went to their seperate areas. Crayon and his friends were talking. " We are going to Bird's Isle tomorrow " said Challenger. " We have to be extremely careful, there will be warriors around " " We will " said Crayon. " Good " said Challenger. " I don't know if what will happen with the intervention or not " " I'm not sure but they probably believe they are saving Warbler " said Colouruke. Everyone went to bed. Then they got up early at 6:05 am. " We need to get to Bird's Isle " said Challenger. " We sure do " said Crayon. " I don't know what they plan to do to Warbler there but it is going to be guarded heavily " said Grackle. " My guess it involves us hanging with him " said Colourea. " It probably is " said Grackle. " We will have to wait and see " said Dove. They ate their breakfast and brought what they needed with them. King Bobby, Warbler, Lord Grackle, Diana, Blackburnian and Queen Starling got up and showered. After that. " So Warbler I hope you are ready " said Blackburnian. " It really is great to have you here " " It really is something to have you here again " said King Bobby. " There will be a delicious breakfast " said Queen Starling. " Sounds good to me, I am ready " said Warbler. " Good " said Lord Grackle. " It will be brilliant " said Diana. " There is a special part of the castle we will use " said Queen Starling. " Anyways breakfast is ready, we should eat " said Lord Grackle. " Yeah, we should " said Diana. Breakfast was served, there was a bacon potato quiche, french toast and there was fruit served as well. They all enjoyed their breakfast there. Meanwhile Crayon and his friends were at the airport. They got onto the plane. " Man, I feel really bad about this " said Colouruke. " Same here, they really want us away from Warbler but we have to stop this war " said Challenger. " We will " said Crayon. " Same " said Colourea. " We will " said Artby. " Bakers will have less people to feed, I care about bakers " The plane took off. Meanwhile the advisors and Warbler moved into the area for the intervention.

Chapter 14 Warbler's Intervention Crayon and his friends then were approaching Bird's Isle and they were only ten minutes away. The intervention started. King Bobby, Warbler, Blackburnian, Diana, Lord Grackle, Queen Starling and a few warriors. King Bobby started the first question. " Warbler, why did Challenger behave this way and force you to go against the king and your brother ? " asked King Bobby. " I don't know " said Warbler. " He seems to believe that there is no reason for this war " " That is ridiculous " said Lord Grackle. " Does he not understand the resources " " Challenger is not a good leader " Blackburnian asked the second question. " Warbler my brother, what type of influences did they do ? " asked Blackburnian. " Well they really did not support the war " said Warbler. " I don't remember any special influences but Artby likes bread a lot " " Did he buy any bread with anything odd in it ? " asked Blackburnian. " I don't trust him " " The bread seemed pretty normal but he claimed to dream about bakers " " Dream about bakers ? " asked Queen Starling. " I'm not sure why " said Warbler. " Well we believe Artby to say some things but I think that Challenger is the most responsible " said Diana. Diana asked the third question. " Warbler, did you have sex with anyone that you shouldn't have ? " asked Diana. " Warbler must have sex with the right people, I care about him " said Blackburnian. " No, I did not " said Warbler. " We are asking because we believe that someone against the war may have pressured you sexually " said Diana. " Warbler, there are people here that are not opposed to the war that you can have sex with " said Blackburnian. " Warbler, there are some women that are opposed to the war, they are the type of women that will do anything to make sure you do not fight " " Are you referring to Dove ? " asked Warbler. " I do believe so " said Blackburnian. " Warbler cannot have sex with women who oppose the war " said King Bobby. " It is not acceptable " " I did not have sex with Dove " said Warbler. " We are here to help " said Queen Starling. " Well if you say that you did not sleep with Dove so I am willing to believe you " said King Bobby. " Same here " said Diana. " Warbler has been misled by these friends " " Why is Colouruke want to not fight so badly ? " asked Blackburnian. " He does not believe that this war is good " said Warbler. " I don't know why he is refusing to this degree " said Diana. " I do remember him being against it first " " Same here " said Blackburnian. " Maybe there is something going on that we are not sure about " " There could be " said Diana. " Colouruke is up to something " said King Bobby. " Yeah, I could see so " said Lord Grackle. " We must always be ready " said King Bobby. " Warbler, this intervention is over " " Understood " said Warbler. " Good " said Queen Starling. " Anyways I have an order to make now " said King Bobby. Colouruke, Colourea, Artby, Crayon, Challenger, Dove and Grackle are now forbidden to hang out with Warbler. Warbler has been saved, he now can join the war with his brother Blackburnian. If you see them, tell them that they have not treated Warbler well and they need to stay away from him. It is terrible how Warbler has been treated, I hate seeing that. Failure to do so and they will be arrested. I care about Warbler, as a man who cares about him I will not allow him to be treated this way. Blackburnian has had enough of it, as a brother he cannot be put through this. We must think about him always and never forget. Remember to keep treating Warbler well, King Bobby Blackbird After that, they headed out the building. " Warbler, we glad to have this discussion with you " said Diana. " The king has shown how much he cares " said Blackburnian " " He signed an order prohibiting Crayon and his friends from hanging out with you " " He's a great king " said Lord Grackle. " Now Warbler, I'm not sure how much training you have done but I hope that we can have you train tomorrow " said Queen Starling. " While I was with them, I was training " said Warbler. " Well that is the only good thing about being with them but now you get the chance to fight with Blackburnian in the war together " said Queen Starling. " Yes, it is an amazing chance " said Blackburnian. " It really is " said Diana. They went outside with each other. Crayon and his friends arrived in Bird's Isle and saw the news and listened to the new law. " We cannot hang out with him anymore ? " asked Crayon. " King Bobby has gone mad " said Colourea. " It seems so " said Colouruke. " What are we going to do ? " asked Artby. " We are going to have to fight " said Grackle. " Seems like it " said Dove. " Let's go " said Colouruke. They headed into Bird's Isle and they were approached by a warrior. " I hope you know to leave Warbler alone " said the warrior. " We do " said Challenger. " Good, the king cares about him too much " said the warrior. " Anyways you can be in Bird's Isle but you cannot go around the castle, talk to him " " King Bobby is furious about how he is treated " " We understand " said Colouruke. " " Good " said the warrior. The seven of them went through Bird's Isle and they saw more warriors. " Man the king is really serious about this " said Artby. " We should go see bakers " " Bakers ? " asked Colouruke. " We need to eat some bread and the bakers may know something about this " said Artby. " Bakers are incredibly wise, they know a lot " " Incredibly wise ? " asked Crayon. " Bakers know a lot, customers love bakers for it " said Artby. " Customers know this wisdom they have and they often go to bakeries for it " " Well, we should get going " said Challenger. " Good idea, bakers would want that " said Artby. They went to a bakery. " Have you heard about anything with this law that the king passed ? " asked Grackle. " The king has forced your group from not hanging with Warbler " said the baker. " Yeah, we heard " said Dove. " I knew he wanted war, but not this much " " We should get some tasty bread " said Artby. " There is so much great bread here " Artby thanked all the bakers. " Well, be careful " said the baker. " " We will " said Artby. " I am always thankful for bakers " " Customers know bakers very well " " Uh, thanks " said the baker. They enjoyed their bread. After that they were approached by more warriors who told them not to hang out with Warbler. " They think that we did not see the report " said Colouruke. " I wonder how Warbler is feeling right now " said Grackle. " I have no idea " said Challenger. " He is in a very tough position " " We just need to keep eating bread and training " said Artby. " Well, we are going to fight him most likely " said Colourea. " He is very skilled but we beat Curtis and Crayon was still not defeated " said Challenger. " True " said Dove. Meanwhile Warbler was with the advisors and had supper with them. " Warbler, our warriors will fight to make sure that you do not hang out with them again " said King Bobby. " They care about you just like me " " We all care about Warbler " said Lord Grackle. " I cannot take credit alone for saving him " said King Bobby. " What the warriors did prevented Crayon and his friends from doing anything " " It's great to see that he is saved, the warriors were so brave " said Blackburnian. " Now, supper is ready " said Diana. They enjoyed their supper. Crayon and his friends found somewhere to eat their supper as well. " That was great " said Warbler. " Warbler, you will be training tomorrow " said Lord Grackle. " Warbler will do great " said Diana. " He will " said Blackburnian. " Crayon and his friends have failed him, he is better off without them " " Challenger has not set a good example, so with him gone he will do better " said Queen Starling. " He's no Colour King " said King Bobby. " We will have to decide a day for the war " " Yeah, sounds good " said Blackburnian. " Warbler will fight " " He must " said Lord Grackle. After that, Crayon and his friends checked into a hotel that they could stay at. They went to bed. They got up, they had their breakfast while the advisors and Warbler had theirs. " Warbler, it is time " said Blackburnian. " We need to get stronger " " War's no joke " said King Bobby. " We have a proposition for Crayon and his friends " " We will need you to not be around for it as it is forbidden for you to talk to them " said Queen Starling. " These friends are a disaster " said Blackburnian. " I understand " said Warbler. " Good " said Lord Grackle. " The king has an idea for the war " " You must train by yourself outside here because we need you to be stronger " said Blackburnian. " Understood " said Warbler. " Good " said Queen Starling. " We will go now " said King Bobby. They rest of them headed to meet Crayon and his friends. Warbler kept training his attacks, he used the Wind Implosion. He also used the Ultimate Wind Blast, the Ultimate Wind Bomb and the Quintuple Wind Strike. Crayon and his friends then started to train their attacks. Crayon used his Times Six Light Strike while Colourea used her Quintuple Light Strike. Colouruke used his Quintuple Sea Strike. Grackle and Dove used their Quintuple Wind Strikes. Challenger used his Times Seven Light Strike, a new technique. " Wow " said Crayon. " These are the type of technique we will need " said Challenger. " It sure is " said Artby. After that, Challenger charged tons of energy for a new attack called the Thunderstorm Implosion and it hit with such insane power. It was stronger than the Sky Implosion. " Insane " said Colouruke. " The advisors will be stopped " said Colourea. " With this power and bread combined it will be great " said Artby. Bread makes us scarier to our opponents when we fight " said Artby. " I'm so scary now " " Well we should continue training " said Colouruke. Challenger then used the Ultimate Thunderstorm Bomb while Crayon used the Ultimate Sky Bomb. The bombs had tons of power. Artby and Colourea used their Ultimate Light Bombs while Dove and Grackle used their Ultimate Wind Bombs. Colouruke used the Ultimate Sea Bomb. After that they trained their Blast techniques. Challenger used the Ultimate Thunderstorm Blast while Crayon used the Ultimate Sky Blast. The blasts were insanely powerful. Colouruke used the Ultimate Sea Blast while Grackle and Dove used their Ultimate Wind Blasts. Colourea and Artby used their Ultimate Light Blasts. Warbler finished his training. Crayon and his friends also finished their training. Warriors were scattered through Bird's Isle and they contacted King Bobby. King Bobby and the advisors were approaching. Eventually they found them. " So you have made it to Bird's Isle " said Queen Starling. " We have a proposition " said King Bobby. " What is it ? " asked Crayon. " We are going to start the war " said Queen Starling. " Warbler is fighting " said Lord Grackle. " He's fighting ? " asked Grackle. " Yes, so are the advisors " said Diana. " We have a sense that you do not want to fight " said Blackburnian. " But Warbler must fight in the war and it must still happen " " We are giving you a choice this time " said Lord Grackle. " You can refuse to fight but Warbler must fight " said King Bobby. " He is needed " " Does he even want to ? " asked Challenger. " He does " said Blackburnian. " He might not tell you directly but he does " " Warbler is such a nice guy that he doesn't want to hurt your feelings, he is such a great guy that way " " I love the personality he has " " Warbler is a complex man " said Lord Grackle. " You don't understand him " " Like I have said, he is such a great guy " said Blackburnian. " You still must refrain from hanging out with him and we have blocked your numbers from his phone " said King Bobby. " If you call him it will be directed to a number that is not him " said Queen Starling. " You will be told by a man to leave him alone " said Blackburnian. " So don't call him " " Warbler cannot have any of you calling him " said Diana. " Since that we have banned hanging out, calling him " said King Bobby. " We will check his email to make sure that you are not emailing him as well " " I see " said Challenger. " We are going to shut off all contact " said Blackburnian. " If we see any accounts online that are messaging him, they will be shut down " said Queen Starling. " I cannot allow this " " Warbler deserves the best " said Blackburnian. " Any accounts from you seven that are being used to talk to him that are created after tomorrow will be shut down and you seven will be arrested " said Lord Grackle. " For just online talk ? " asked Colouruke. " Colouruke, you must understand " said Blackburnian. " It could lead to a meetup which is illegal " " This talk cannot happen " " It is not good for Warbler " " Bakers like him being in the bakery " said Artby. " What about bakers ? " " Bakers can be seen if Warbler wants but we have great meals " said Lord Grackle. " Colouruke, you have not been a good influence on Warbler " said King Bobby. " We have no choice " " This isn't what we wanted to do but we have to do so " " This is the only way that allows Warbler to fight in the war " said Queen Starling. " We are just banning you from contacting him, we are not arresting you " " That's it " said Blackburnian. " A good influence ? " asked Artby. " We don't want to fight in the war " " That is the problem " said Lord Grackle. " Fighting in this war is so important " " The resources are amazing from Numeria " " That's why we don't think that you have influenced Warbler well " said King Bobby. " We want Warbler in the war, you went against that " said Lord Grackle. " We have changed our decision on forcing you seven to fight, but we are going to crackdown on any contact with Warbler " " Warbler cannot hang out, talk or message people against this war " said King Bobby. " Since you seven have been hanging out with him so we have come to this decision " " You have let Warbler down, I have taken a stand for him " " Warbler must have things done right for him " said Diana. " So do you accept ? " asked Blackburnian. " If you do not we have no choice but to arrest you " " We will give you a minute to talk " said King Bobby. " I hope that you agree with us " " What are we going to do ? " asked Dove quietly " " We are going to have to agree " said Challenger. " But Warbler doesn't want to fight " said Colouruke. " I know he doesn't but I don't want to go to jail " said Colourea. " Same here, I love baking too much to want to go there " said Artby. " I want to be there as a customer for bakers " " We must do this unfortunately " said Crayon. " That is true " said Challenger. " Yeah, this is unfortunate " said Colouruke. After that, they then decided to make the decision to not contact Warbler. " Good decision " said King Bobby. " I will give you all of today and tomorrow to take Warbler off your friend lists on all websites that you can contact him " " Failure to do so will result in serious consequences " said Queen Starling. " It is not a risk worth it " said Blackburnian. " We didn't want to do this but we had to " " We need him going to war " said Lord Grackle. " It's nothing personal " " Now, we will leave you for the time being " said Diana. " Warbler is going to be happy " said Blackburnian. " I will enjoy seeing it " King Bobby and the advisors left. After that Crayon and his friends headed back to the hotel. King Bobby had released a new statement. Starting at 11:55 pm tomorrow we will prohibit Crayon and his friends from contacting Warbler period. We have already blocked their phone numbers from Warbler's phone and banned talk with him. Now is the time to delete him from your contacts from email and any social media that you have. If we find any new accounts created that we believe to be yours we will forbid you from contacting him. If this new law is broken, you will be arrested and put in jail. We will be checking Warbler's email so don't think that you can get away with creating fake accounts to trick us. You cannot fool the king. Thank you for your understanding, King Bobby Blackbird King Bobby sent the statement.

Chapter 19 Last Advisors vs Last Heroes " Warbler's best interests will be fulfilled " said Diana. " Don't bet on it " said Crayon. " They will " said Blackburnian. " The king wants this life for him " The king knows that Allie is perfect for him " " Why does Allie support this war ? " asked Challenger. " It is because it is a war that will make Bird's Isle a better place, Allie is keeping Warbler happy " said Blackburnian. " Allie knows what it means to be from here " said Diana. " What does that mean ? " asked Challenger. " To support Bird's Isle as much as possible " said Blackburnian. " I am proud just like Warbler to be from here, you must feel the same about Colourland do you not ? " " Well yes, we do love Colourland but this war is not a good war " said Challenger. " It is not a war that is good for Colourland to fight in " " That is your decision but Warbler must fight, he knows that Allie loves him " said Diana. " Allie is so happy " " If Allie loves him so much then how would fighting in this war be good for Warbler ? " asked Crayon. " You don't understand " said Diana. " Allie is one of the warriors " " She has decided to not fight against your group but she will get to see Warbler " said Blackburnian. " So they will get time to spend together, a lot of it " " Well we should continue this battle " said Diana. Diana charged her Sky Implosion while Crayon used his own. The attacks collided with each other and they both took damage. Crayon got up and he punched Diana while Blackburnian punched Challenger. Challenger then used his Thunderstorm Implosion and he directly hit Blackburnian down to the ground but Diana then used her Ultimate Sky Blast to hit Crayon. Diana then grabbed him while Blackburnian then punched Crayon. " Hahahahaha " said Blackburnian. " The king has shown what a great king he is, he is a king that everyone loves " " Oh really ? " asked Challenger. " The war he started is a great war for the people " said Blackburnian. " The people are happy to go to war " " Yeah by the people you mean yourself and Diana " said Challenger. " No the citizens love the war " said Blackburnian. " King Bobby has given them a chance to show how much they love him " " People love King Bobby a lot, he is an amazing king " " The citizens are proud of King Bobby, proud of getting ruled by a king, seeing a king who wants to make Bird's Isle a better place just like them " " Outside of the warriors and the advisors I don't think that they would believe that " said Crayon. " Well the people of Bird's Isle are proud of being ruled by a king like I said " said Blackburnian. " We should continue " Blackburnian then started charging for the Ultimate Bird Blast while Challenger used the Ultimate Thunderstorm Blast. The attacks hit, Diana punched Crayon. After that, Crayon then rushed for Diana with his Times Seven Sky Strike and hit her down. Crayon was struggling while Diana was slightly struggling. Diana then went for Challenger but Challenger then knocked her down. Crayon fired off his Light Implosion while Challenger used the Ultimate Thunderstorm Bomb while Diana then used the Sky Implosion. Diana and Crayon were seriously struggling. " Now this is time to end Crayon " said Blackburnian. " It is " said Diana. " Crayon has skill but he went against our king so this must happen " " I will keep fighting " said Crayon. Blackburnian then started charging for the Bird Implosion while Diana used the Sky Implosion creating an insanely powerful attack, Challenger used the Thunderstorm Implosion and Crayon used the Sky Implosion. The attacks collided and everyone took lots of damage. Crayon and Diana appeared to be defeated. " Diana has lost " said Blackburnian stunned. " Crayon fought well but now it is up to me " said Challenger. " Challenger, you will not succeed " said Blackburnian. " The king has tons of faith in me " Meanwhile the king and queen were talking. " Diana lost ? " asked Queen Starling. " Challenger is stronger than we thought, but Blackburnian will win " said King Bobby. " Warbler knows that his brother is the man who truly cares about him " " Well, that is true " said Queen Starling. " Blackburnian will defeat Challenger, Warbler's life depends on it " said King Bobby. " Allie wants the same " " Allie loves Warbler, she will not want these friends getting in the way " Meanwhile Warbler was thinking. " Man this is really out of hand, my brother and Challenger are the last two " he thought. " I really hope that my brother will not force me to fight but if the king sees this " " Now I am with Allie, which is good and bad at the same time " " It is great to be with someone but this war is too much " After that, Challenger and Blackburnian continued their discussion. " I want you to know about Warbler and Allie more " said Blackburnian. " What is there to know, Blackburnian ? " asked Challenger. " Well they hit it off very quickly " said Blackburnian. " Allie is very smitten with him " " How so ? " asked Challenger. "Warbler is better off " said Blackburnian. " You dare to go against that " " Warbler has a new life, one that Bird's Isle wants him to have " " Warbler does not support the war but Allie does, this is going to be hard " said Challenger. " I do not want to go against that " " He does and the king intends for this relationship to continue " said Blackburnian. " You will not stop the relationship, Challenger " The king has changed Warbler , now it is time for us to continue the fight now " said Blackburnian. " Yes " said Challenger. " Yes, you will be taken down " said Blackburnian. Blackburnian then used the Bird Implosion and he aimed it towards Challenger while Challenger used the Thunderstorm Implosion. Both of them took damage. Challenger got up and he punched Blackburnian down to the ground. Blackburnian then used his Ultimate Bird Flock while Challenger used his Ultimate Thunderstorm Bomb to counter. Blackburnian was struggling. " How could this be " said Blackburnian. " I fought so hard and with tons of power " " My design to fight in the war with my brother Warbler must happen, he needs this " " Warbler must fight, Warbler must fight " he yelled. Blackburnian then rushed towards Challenger with his Ultimate Bird Blast while Challenger used his Ultimate Thunderstorm Blast. The blasts hit each other both were knocked down. Challenger was slightly struggling. Blackburnian then went to kick Challenger but Challenger got to him first and kicked him. Blackburnian then got up and rushed Challenger with his Bird Implosion but Challenger then used the Thunderstorm Implosion. The attack of Challenger looked to be too much and Blackburnian appeared to be defeated. The king was insanely angry. " What " yelled King Bobby. " I have to fight, how can this be " " Blackburnian has so much skill " " This is terrible for Warbler " " Now Warbler does not have his brother for the time being " said Queen Starling. " I will make that Challenger guy truly regret this " " With no advisors to fight, it will be a lot harder " said King Bobby. " Warbler must get a lot stronger " " Yes, he will keep training " said Queen Starling. " Warbler will be able to get stronger " said King Bobby. " We will go to the area that the fight was " said Queen Starling. " Yeah, we must " said King Bobby. " Blackburnian is so important to Warbler, Warbler needs him " Challenger, Grackle and Dove went with Warbler and they got his friends together and they ran out of the area. The king was not far behind. " Warbler is gone " said King Bobby. " Challenger took him " " Bring Allie here " Meanwhile Crayon and his friends checked into a hospital with Warbler. " Glad to see you all " said Warbler. " I cannot imagine what the king will do now " " Right now, we have stopped all the advisors " said Challenger. " Now just the king and queen remain " said Grackle. " They will be very difficult " said Dove. " We will need to get better and train again " said Challenger. " I hope you stop this war " said Warbler. " I am not sure where Allie fits in with this honestly " " Good point " said Challenger. " Anyways, I should get back because the king will lose it " said Warbler. " True, he will be very upset " said Challenger. Warbler headed back to meet up with King Bobby and Queen Starling.

Chapter 17 The King's New Laws King Bobby had released a new statement. We have changed the law involving who Warbler is dating. Warbler cannot date anyone opposed to the war, anyone who attempts to set him up with someone that is opposed will be arrested. Warriors who are fighting in this war must also support this law as well, they cannot date people who oppose this war. Other individuals who attempt to set up warriors with people that are opposed to the war will also be arrested. King Bobby released a second statement. If you are with someone that is opposed to the war, you must change that viewpoint. Do whatever it takes to do so outside of killing. By the time war starts, they must support it. If not, you must break up with them until the war is over. If not, them and you will be arrested. We have also banned contact by email between people who oppose the war and our warriors. People who oppose the war cannot also call warriors as well. Thank you for your understanding, King Bobby Blackbird Blackburnian released a statement. Warbler needs someone right now who supports the war. We encourage single women who support the war to do so. Warbler is one of the warriors who is one of the strongest. We want the best for Warbler, think of this opportunity that you are getting here. It really is good. Bird's Isle is with you and him during these times. Anyways we hope to hear back soon, Blackburnian The king and Blackburnian sent the statements. Warbler resumed his training like usual, he was using the Sky Implosion and it hit with intense power. Blackburnian was impressed with the progress than he had made. " Warbler, you have gotten so strong " said Blackburnian. " Thanks " said Warbler. " You heard my statement didn't you ? " asked Blackburnian. " I did " said Warbler. " I wonder what will happen in the future " " Warbler, my status as an advisor should help " said Blackburnian. " Plus since women are banned from being with people who oppose the war it should be simple " " Seems like it " said Warbler. " Good " said Blackburnian. " We will let you know when the first person wants to meet up " " See you later, keep training maybe you will be able to use the Bird Implosion one day " " Yeah, I will see you " said Warbler. Warbler kept training, he then used the Ultimate Sky Bomb. Then he used the Times Six Sky Strike. Warbler then used his punches and kicks. After that Warbler used his Ultimate Sky Blast, then he used the Bird Flock move which he was able to start using. Time passed, Warbler kept training while Crayon and his friends were in the hospital. Eventually, Crayon and his friends were cleared to go and they headed back. They then heard the news about the statements from the king and Blackburnian. " King Bobby was not joking about Warbler's sex life " said Artby. " Now he wants to ban all warriors from dating people who do not support the war and ban contact even ? " asked Colouruke. " I had a feeling it would come to this " said Challenger. " I wonder why they are doing so much for Warbler " said Colourea. " They don't want us around him, helping him might be enough " said Artby. " Especially if they are going to give him tons of money " " Yeah, these things would make it more likely to keep us away they think " said Colouruke. " We have to find him before it is too late " said Crayon. " Yes, we must " said Colourea. " His brother is insanely powerful " said Grackle. " We must keep up training " said Dove. " Yes " said Challenger. " Blackburnian will make it very difficult " " We must be ready " " True " said Crayon. They headed to a bakery. Artby thanked the bakers again like usual and then he started to talk. " Customers must treat bakers right " said Artby. " I will make sure that you are appreciated always " " I cannot let bread baking not be appreciated " " When I dream about bread baking, it is always to keep the baker appreciated and more welcome " " Uh, thanks " said the baker. They got their bread and left, they ate their breakfast while King Bobby and the advisors ate theirs. " Warbler, we have heard back from the first person " said King Bobby. " Warbler, we are doing this for you " said Queen Starling. " Did Colouruke ever do anything like this ? " Colouruke just complained about not wanting to fight, we are better than that " said Diana. " Who is this person ? " asked Warbler. " Her name is Allie " said Blackburnian. " We will give you the money that we feel you need " " She supports the war and the king " said Diana. " You will meet her this afternoon " " Sounds good to me " said Warbler. " I am glad you are happy to meet her " said Diana. " This really is good " said Blackburnian. " Things will go well " said Queen Starling. They had their breakfast which they enjoyed. Crayon and his friends were training hard. Challenger then charged up tons of energy and was able to use the Sun Implosion by himself for the first time. " Wow " said Crayon. " That is insane " " Indeed " said Dove. " Man, Challenger is getting quite unstoppable " " He really is " said Colouruke. Crayon then charged his Sky Implosion while Colourea and Artby used their Light Implosions. They hit with intense power. Grackle and Dove used their Wind Implosions while Colouruke used his Sea Implosion. Colouruke then used his Ultimate Sea Bomb while Grackle and Dove used their Ultimate Wind Bombs. The bombs had a lot of power. While that was happening, King Bobby released a new statement. For this war there will be no casualties. I have confidence in all the warriors, they will succeed in getting Bird's Isle better resources. People will want to travel to Bird's Isle more and it will help our businesses. All of our advisors believe that there will be no casualties, this war will go great and our warriors will be seen as heroes. They will be given the respect they deserve. We wish Warbler the best of luck on his date with Allie this afternoon, Bird's Isle wants the best for him and so does the queen and myself. Allie will be happy to meet him, I can guarantee it. Thank you for your understanding, King Bobby Blackbird King Bobby sent it out. Crayon and his friends then finished his training and then they heard the news. " No casualties " said Challenger. " That would be something " " I don't see it " said Crayon. " I don't know how strong the Numerians are but I don't think that will happen " " Some warriors may believe it " said Grackle. " Also I wonder who this Allie person is ? " I have no idea " said Colouruke. " Apparently Blackburnian has been setting him up " said Colourea. " I'm starting to wonder about Warbler " said Dove. " He was trying to contact us before " said Grackle. " He cannot do that anymore " said Crayon. " I wonder if Allie will try anything " said Colouruke. " Blackburnian really wants him to be with someone " said Grackle. " I think he believes that it will keep him away from us " " Yeah, that would keep Warbler more occupied " said Colourea. " We have to get to the castle " said Dove. " But if we have to fight King Bobby it will be almost impossible " " We are going to need more training but I wonder about Allie and if she is involved with the advisors " said Challenger. " We will have to wait and see " said Colourea. " Yes " said Crayon. Crayon and his friends then went outside. " If any of us see Warbler then contact any one of us " said Challenger. " Yes, we will do so " said Colouruke. They went outside and they split up and were looking around. Time passed and Allie was on her way to meet Warbler at the castle. King Bobby gave Warbler money, because if he felt that it would go better for Warbler. After that, Allie had arrived. " So this is Warbler, I have heard so much about you " said Allie. " I am glad to see you here " said Warbler. " Blackburnian wants me to do what is necessary for you " said Allie. " Thanks " said Warbler. " Good " said Allie. " I am glad we agree " " This war is a war that needs to happen " " Yes " said Warbler. Allie and Warbler were together and they headed into this limousine that was been driven by one of the king's people. " Wow " said Allie. " It is so nice in here " " It sure is " said Warbler. " It is nice to be in a vehicle like this " Warbler and Allie were on their way to this restaurant. Crayon saw this limousine stop outside this restaurant and he contacted his friends and told them it was. " Crab and Lobster Kings " said Challenger. " I have heard of it, it is really expensive " " I heard of it " said Dove. " The king eats there sometimes and so do the other advisors " " Well we should meet up around here and wait outside for Warbler but we have to be careful " said Crayon. " Yeah, that would be a good idea " said Challenger. " If Blackburnian sees that we are doing this, he will flip " Warbler and Allie went inside the restaurant. They then saw the menu and they ordered from it. While that was happening all of Crayon's friends arrived. " So this is where Warbler is ? " asked Artby. " I have heard about it " " It is " said Grackle. " Well we must wait until Warbler comes out " said Grackle. " If Blackburnian is the one who set up the date, he may be close " said Challenger. " I am ready for him " said Artby. " I am not scared of him, bread has made me more ready than ever " " Bread makes us more ready, bakers can remove fears " " Remove fears ? " asked Colourea. " Yes " said Artby. " I have no fears thanks to bakers " " Bakers have made me into the person I am today " " I am glad to see " said Challenger. Time passed and eventually they saw Warbler and they started to talk to him. " It is good to see you seven " said Warbler. " But you seven really should not be talking to me for long " " Allie is in the bathroom right now " " So what has happened ? " asked Crayon. " Well, the king has really cracked down " said Warbler. " He doesn't even want our warriors dating anyone who doesn't support the war " " He has gotten a lot stricter on the issue of dating " " Yeah, we heard about it " said Colouruke. " He has gotten a lot stricter" said Warbler. " To be fair he has helped me find someone so it is not all bad with him though " " But he has banned us from talking which is hard " " It really is " said Grackle. " But with King Bobby he does not think that you are good friends for me " said Warbler. " Warbler, we will miss you " said Crayon. " I know, I do as well but around the advisors I must make it seem that I am happy " said Warbler. " I understand " said Challenger. " I am glad to see that you do " said Warbler. " We have to be careful " said Colourea. " We will figure something out " said Colouruke. " I hear Allie, so I got to go " said Warbler. " If I am seen talking to you it could get to the king " " That cannot happen " Bye " They waved their goodbyes and they left the restaurant and looked from afar. Warbler met up with Allie and they embraced with each other. The limousine was there and they got inside. Shortly after, Blackburnian and Diana arrived. " So Warbler, it is great to see you " said Blackburnian. " It is " said Warbler. " Anyways we are going to join you " said Diana. " Thanks " said Warbler. The limousine then headed back to the castle. " That was close " said Colouruke. " I know " said Crayon. " If they saw us around Warbler, it could be very bad " said Colourea. Meanwhile Blackburnian and Diana got out at the castle and they let Warbler take Allie back to her place. Warbler kissed Allie at the place, Warbler then headed back to the castle a lot later on. After that, King Bobby then arrived with Warbler, Diana and Blackburnian. " So you know what you must do now " said King Bobby. " Warbler, you must get ready with them to arrest Crayon and his friends " " We want you to witness something special " said Diana. We want the fight to be outside the castle here " said King Bobby. " We want to truly see the brothers destroy Crayon and his friends " " So did things with Allie go good ? " asked Blackburnian. " Yes " said Warbler. " Good " said Blackburnian. " I cannot wait for you to see the techniques I know honestly " " Yeah, they will be so strong " said Warbler. " You will see Crayon lose miserably " said Blackburnian. Blackburnian, Diana and Warbler were heading to meet Crayon and his friends. King Bobby sent another statement. Right now, if you see Crayon or any of his friends make sure to contact the authorities. Blackburnian and Diana are looking for them. Bird's Isle is happy for Warbler on his date, he said it went good so that it what the country needs. Warbler and Allie being together is very important to Bird's Isle, Crayon and his friends cannot interfere with that. They have not respected the relationship, Allie will not stand for it. Crayon simply is not a good friend to Warbler, how dare he treat him the way he has. Warbler must be treated with respect, I cannot believe what has happened. Thank you for your understanding, King Bobby Blackbird Eventually Crayon and his friends were found. " Come outside the castle " said Blackburnian. " What is happening there ? " asked Colourea. " Warbler is there " said Diana. " But I thought that talking to him is forbidden " said Colouruke. " Well the thing is, that the king wants to see from inside the castle " said Blackburnian. " Warbler's date went well " " I am happy for him " said Grackle. " Warbler found someone named Allie, things went well between them " said Blackburnian. " They are happy together " " I heard the king said that he wanted him to be with someone " said Dove. " Yes, that is why me and the king stepped in " said Blackburnian. " As you probably know the king takes it very seriously " " The king has now decided to take dating more seriously in Bird's Isle " " More now ? " asked Crayon. " The king recognized that Warbler is single, me and the king decided to do what is necessary " said Blackburnian. " We have taken action " " But you must come outside the castle to continue this discussion " said Diana. " The king wants to see what is happening, he is not happy " " Well we have to go " said Crayon. " Good " said Blackburnian. " This will be wonderful " " Yes, it will " said Diana. Crayon and his friends joined Blackburnian and Diana outside the castle.

Chapter 18 Showdown With Blackburnian and Diana They arrived and Warbler is here. The king then had a camera recording of the area outside and he put it on a giant television which him and the queen were watching. " Warbler will get to see that Blackburnian is the one who actually cares about him " said King Bobby. " Yes " said Queen Starling. " If Warbler is smart he will stay with us, we got him with Allie " said King Bobby. " Blackburnian told me that it went well and everything happened that was necessary " said Queen Starling. That is what I mean " said King Bobby. " Plus he gets to eat better here as well " " With our other advisors gone, we will be increasing the pay of Blackburnian and Diana and we will give Warbler some extra money " said Queen Starling. " That is true " said King Bobby. " Warbler deserves the best " said Queen Starling. Blackburnian and Diana began to talk to Crayon and his friends outside. " There is one thing that we will say first " said Diana. " The king is recording us so if you try anything it will not work " said Blackburnian. " Warbler is here to witness something " said Diana. " What is that ? " asked Challenger. " We need him here to see that we are the ones that care about him more " said Diana. " Warbler is a great guy " " Warbler knows that we have done more for him than any of you have " said Blackburnian. " He may not say it to your face directly but it is the truth " " Well with both sides here there will be no secrets " said Diana. " Crayon cannot lie anymore " said Blackburnian. " That is true, he cannot " said Diana. " Well it is not true " said Crayon. " Well, the king got him what he needed" said Blackburnian. " Well I stepped in and I did the right thing " " Allie is the woman in question if you must know " " She is a great woman for Warbler " " Okay " said Colourea. " Warbler enjoyed being with us as well " " King Bobby gave great meals for Warbler " said Diana. " These meals are enjoyed by him " " Maybe we should let him decide " said Colouruke. " He will pick us, I have shown to be one of the greatest brothers in history " said Blackburnian. " Allie loved Warbler a lot and it is because of me " " So you convinced her ? " asked Artby. " Well the king encouraged women to be with Warbler, he says it's good for Bird's Isle " said Blackburnian. " The king says that he will put out more statements " " How does that help Bird's Isle exactly though ? " asked Grackle. " People are happy for him " said Blackburnian. Nobody can go against that ever " " Blackburnian, if you say so " said Challenger. " I'm just saying the truth, Challenger " said Blackburnian. " " Now you must come with us to jail or risk death fighting " said Diana. " Which is it ? " " We will fight " said Crayon. " You really are foolish " said Blackburnian. " We will fight Crayon, Challenger, Colouruke, Colourea and Artby. Grackle and Dove you can watch the fight with Warbler. " I will make sure that Allie is happier with Warbler, she would not accept this " " She supports the war, now time to die " " Yes, they will all be taken down " said Diana. " Bring it on " said Crayon. Blackburnian began charging tons of energy and he used the Ultimate Bird Flock while Diana used her own. The birds full of energy went right for Crayon while Artby then used his Ultimate Light Bomb. The attacks hit, Blackburnian then used the Sky Implosion and it was stronger than the usual ones. " Hahahahaha " said Blackburnian. " Warbler will remember this " " He will " said Diana. " He knows what we are doing for him " said Blackburnian. Diana then started charging the Sky Implosion while Blackburnian used the Ultimate Sky Blast. The attacks combined into one giant blast of energy but Artby used the Light Implosion while Colouruke used the Sea Implosion. The attacks combined and everyone took damage. Crayon then kicked Blackburnian while Blackburnian punched him. The king and queen were talking. " Crayon and his friends will go down " said Queen Starling. " Blackburnian and Diana are going to crush them " said King Bobby. " Yes " said Queen Starling. " Challenger will learn his lesson " said King Bobby. " He ruined the chance for a better war " said Queen Starling. " It is unfortunate " " That is true, but Warbler will do wonders for Bird's Isle " said King Bobby. " Warbler knows what it means to be from here " " I heard the statement involving him and Allie " said Queen Starling. " Good " said King Bobby. " Yes " said Queen Starling. " Challenger will be at the mercy of Blackburnian and Diana " " Warbler knows that with Allie he is better off " " My law has forced him not to sleep with people that oppose the war so I am proud of myself as a king " said King Bobby. " I have changed Warbler for the better " " Warbler knows what he is doing " said Queen Starling. " He sure does " said King Bobby. " Warbler will choose us " Blackburnian then kicked Crayon and then blasted him with the Ultimate Sky Blast. Diana then charged up the Sky Implosion while Artby used the Light Implosion to counter. The attacks collided with each other. After that, Blackburnian then started charging up for this new attack called the Tenfold Bird Strike. " Bird Strike ? " asked Crayon. " Bird energy is even stronger than sky energy " said Blackburnian. " It is extremely powerful, you cannot stop it " The attack directly hit Artby down and he took serious damage. " Hahahaha " said Blackburnian. " You will never stop us from making Warbler's life better " " His life ? " asked Colouruke. " Yes, his life is great " said Blackburnian. " The king has made him richer " " Richer ? " asked Colourea. " He wanted him to make Allie happier " said Blackburnian. " King Bobby has said that Warbler must have more money " " He has succeeded " said Diana. " Allie is the woman he needs to keep him happy " " Warbler and Allie must stay together " " If you say so " said Challenger. " But he also misses Crayon and his friends as well " " He has admitted it to us " said Artby. " The bakers want people to hang with us, they love it " " Bakers ? " asked Diana. " Bakers have wanted people to hang out with us for a long time, not just Warbler " said Artby. " Yeah well he's got Allie " said Blackburnian. " Allie knows that as well " Well let's continue the fight " said Crayon. Blackburnian then used his Tenfold Bird Strike while Challenger used the Thunderstorm Implosion and Diana used the Tenfold Sky Strike. The attacks hit each other. Challenger got up, but was kicked by Diana. " Now Diana, that's what I love to see " said Blackburnian. " Thanks Blackburnian " said Diana. Blackburnian then used a new attack the Ultimate Bird Blast. The blast hit with tons of power towards Colouruke, Colouruke used his Sea Implosion to counter. The attacks hit, Blackburnian's attack was stronger. Blackburnian and Diana used their Ultimate Bird Flocks and they combined into the Legendary Bird Flock which tons of bird energy then blasted down on all of them. " Hahahaha " said Diana. " Indeed " said Blackburnian. " Warbler will remember this, for the rest of his life for sure " " Warbler will see what we have done for him " said Diana. Colouruke charged his Ultimate Sea Blast while Challenger used the Ultimate Thunderstorm Blast and the blasts directly hit Diana. Blackburnian then used a new attack called the Ultimate Bird Bomb, this bomb exploded with power never seen before from a bomb attack and severe damage happened. " It's not over yet, bakers wouldn't want me dead " said Artby. " I have been such a good customer, customers like me cannot die " " Cannot die ? " asked Diana. " Great customers don't die " said Artby. " Bakers have been able to use their baking to help " " Yeah, well I have my doubts about that " said Blackburnian. " Bread keeps me alive " said Artby. " The bakers know how important my purchases are to their bakeries so they put special flour preventing me from dying " " Hahahahaha " said Blackburnian. " C'mon man " " Blackburnian, it is true " said Artby. " Bakers will not let their best customers die " " Baking will prevent that " " Well, we will just keep fighting " said Diana. Blackburnian then started charging up the Ultimate Bird Blast while Diana used the Ultimate Sky Blast combining into the Supreme Bird Blast which had tons of power, Challenger used the Ultimate Thunderstorm Blast while Crayon used the Ultimate Sky Blast. The blasts combined into to the Ultimate Disaster Blast. The attacks collided, everyone took damage. Colouruke and Artby were slightly struggling. Blackburnian then rushed with his Ultimate Bird Bomb while Challenger used the Ultimate Thunderstorm Bomb. The bombs collided and they both took damage. Challenger got up and he punched Diana. Diana then kicked Colourea. Colourea got up and punched Diana, she then used the Light Implosion which knocked her down. Diana and Blackburnian then grabbed Colouruke. They then threw him into Challenger who jumped out of the way. Diana then used the Sky Implosion while Blackburnian used the Ultimate Bird Blast. Crayon used the Light Implosion and Colouruke used the Sea Implosion. The attacks collided with each other. Colouruke was getting near the end. Diana then started using her Sky Implosion while Blackburnian used the Ultimate Bird Blast while Colouruke used the Sea Implosion and Artby used the Ultimate Light Blast. The attacks collided with each other, Colouruke was defeated. " No " said Crayon. " Well, so much for him " said Blackburnian. " You now know what it is like fighting the strongest advisor " " You have not won " said Colourea. " We will win, the king will not succeed in his plan " said Crayon. " He will " said Diana. " He is a great leader " " King Bobby knows what is best for Warbler, Warbler's life is on the line " said Blackburnian. " Allie is counting on us " " Allie loves Warbler " " I have no idea about that relationship but this war is too much " said Challenger. " Numerians are not a threat " " We will continue " said Diana. Diana then rushed Artby with a punch while Artby did the same. Blackburnian then used the Ultimate Bird Flock which directly hit Colourea. Colourea then got up and she then used the Ultimate Light Bomb while Artby used his own. The bombs then directly hit Diana. Blackburnian and Diana then punched Artby at the same time. Artby was seriously struggling. " This is for bakers " said Artby. " They have done so much for me, my purchases must continue " " I must continue as a customer so I will fight to buy at bakeries forever " " For bakers and customers of their bakeries " Artby then charged lots of energy for his Light Implosion and he directly hit down Diana but Blackburnian got him and a struggle started. Colourea rushed but Diana then tripped her which allowed Blackburnian to knock Artby to the ground. " Now face my strongest attack and one of the most powerful attacks in the world " yelled Blackburnian. " Bird Implosion " " That attack is insanely dangerous " said Challenger. " Now finish Artby and prevent him from talking to Warbler again " said Blackburnian. The attack then hit Artby which defeated him. " Artby " said Challenger, Crayon and Colourea. " Well, it was nice to use my brilliant attack " said Blackburnian. " It is too strong for them " said Diana. " That is true " said Blackburnian. Diana then rushed for Colourea with her Sky Implosion while Colourea used her Light Implosion. Colourea was starting to struggle. Colourea was able to get up and use her Ultimate Light Blast while Blackburnian then used the Ultimate Bird Blast to knock her down to the ground. Blackburnian took damage but not as much, he then got up and used the Bird Implosion. The attack aimed directly for Colourea but Crayon and Challenger started to use their Ultimate Light Blasts to hit Diana. The attacks hit their targets Colourea was near the end. Blackburnian then grabbed her while Crayon grabbed him. There was a big struggle but Blackburnian knocked Crayon off and he then knocked Colourea to the ground. Diana then grabbed Colourea and punched her. " Nooooooo " said Crayon. " Well now, it is just the four of us " said Blackburnian. " The best for Warbler is going to happen "

Chapter 16 Lord Grackle Battles Crayon and his friends went outside. King Bobby created another statement. Right now, something terrible has happened. Right now, Crayon and his friends refused to take Warbler off their Colouropinion accounts. Warbler says that they have not messaged him there recently but we cannot take any chances. Warbler must fight in the war, that is what the advisors have decided. We encourage people to not follow Crayon and his friends because that is not what is good for Bird's Isle. Unfollow them now, it is for the best. We encourage people to not email them as well and we encourage people to come to us if they are emailed by them. E-mailing any friend of Crayon cannot happen, these friends are not good. I hope for the best during these times. Thank you for your understanding, King Bobby Blackbird King Bobby sent the statement. After that, Lord Grackle and his warriors were able to find Crayon and his friends after searching. " You will pay for this " said Lord Grackle. " But Warbler hasn't messaged us on that account " said Crayon. " We don't believe that " said a warrior. " Taking advantage of Warbler is not acceptable, do you know how much his brother wants war ? " asked Lord Grackle. " Blackburnian will not stand for this " " But he doesn't want to fight " said Colouruke. " Colouruke, you are so full of it " said a warrior. " I hope to see Colouruke in jail " said a warrior. " Yeah, he should go there " said another warrior. " Colouruke is not wrong " said Colourea. " The thing is that the king wants war " said Lord Grackle. " Warbler is a citizen of Bird's Isle and we have selected him to fight because of his high skill level " " Many great people will fight " " I know he is skilled but is Numeria worth it ? " asked Challenger. " Numerians have resources that are great " said Lord Grackle. " For a leader of a country, you do not have a good understanding of resources " " Resources are useful, but to leave Numerians with nothing ? " asked Challenger. " Yes " said Lord Grackle. " You sound like someone who is supports Numerians instead of us or Colourland " " I do not " said Challenger. Then why do you oppose this war then when you aren't even being forced to fight " said Lord Grackle. " People will die for nothing " said Crayon. " Our warriors will not die " said Lord Grackle. " You sound like someone who hates Bird's Isle " " I hate to have to say that but it is the truth " " We do not hate it " said Artby. " I love the baking here " " Artby, maybe you don't hate it but this is the impression I was given " said Lord Grackle. " There will be no casualties like I said " " How can you be sure ? " asked Dove. " Very simple, I trust in our warriors, I believe in them " said Lord Grackle. " I never expect a casualty ever, do those warriors look like they are going to die ? " " There is no guarantee " said Grackle. " There is, Grackle " said Lord Grackle. " I believe in these warriors " " Now it is time to come with us or fight " " We will fight " said Artby. " I ate so much bread " " Well, prepare yourselves " said Lord Grackle. " You will all go down " " Bring it on " said Crayon. Artby, Grackle and Dove started to fight the warriors while Crayon, Colourea, Colouruke and Challenger fought Lord Grackle. The warriors fired their Super Wind Bombs while Grackle and Dove used their Ultimate Wind Bombs to counter. A giant explosion of wind energy happened. Everyone got up from the explosion. Artby used his Ultimate Light Blast while the warriors used their Super Wind Kicks to kick it down while Grackle kicked a warrior. The warriors then all punched Artby simultaneously. " Artby " said Grackle. The warriors grabbed him and they used their Triple Wind Strikes while Grackle used his Quintuple Wind Strike and Dove used hers. The attacks collided and they all took damage. Grackle then got up and he used the Wind Implosion while the warriors used their Super Wind Blasts. The attacks hit each other. The warriors got up but Artby used his Light Implosion and directly hit the warriors. There was only one warrior able to fight, the warrior then used the Super Wind Bomb against Artby while Artby used the Ultimate Light Bomb. The warrior was defeated. " Crayon, you must know something " said Lord Grackle. " What ? " asked Crayon. " The king has ordered Blackburnian to tell Warbler who to date " said Lord Grackle. " The king is concerned, he is a great king that way " " He is a very caring king " " Why does he care ? " asked Crayon. " He needs him being with someone that supports the war " said Lord Grackle. " Warbler cannot be with Dove " " It is not good for Bird's Isle " " If Warbler is with someone against our great war, it will be a disaster" " There is nothing going on between them " said Colourea. " Colourea is right, nothing has been happening " said Crayon. " Don't be so sure " said Lord Grackle. " We cannot take the risk " Now let's start the fight " Lord Grackle then charged up his Ultimate Sky Blast while Crayon used his own to counter. The attacks hit each other, Challenger then used the Times Seven Thunderstorm Strike but Lord Grackle used the Tenfold Sky Strike to defend the attack. Lord Grackle then started charging energy for the Sky Implosion. Colouruke used the Sea Implosion while Crayon used the Sky Implosion, creating the Hurricane Implosion. The hurricane attack was too strong and did more damage. Lord Grackle then used the Bird Flock move. " Bird Flock ? " asked Colourea. " Yes " said Lord Grackle. Birds appeared out of energy and they combined around Colouruke and they all started to peck. " Ow " said Colouruke. " Hahahahahaha " said Lord Grackle. " This is a technique that would be great against Numerians in the war " " Such a shame you all refused to fight " " These Numerians would be defeated " Now it is time for this move, the Super Bird Flock. Energy appeared charged as tons of birds and they pecked Crayon. Crayon took damage but he then used the Ultimate Light Blast while Colourea used the Ultimate Light Bomb. Lord Grackle used the Sky Implosion. The attacks collided with each other and they all took damage. Lord Grackle used the Super Bird Flock again and the birds pecked Colouruke. " Colouruke has been a terrible influence on Warbler " said Lord Grackle. " Warbler cannot be mistreated " " But Warbler wants to talk to him " said Colourea. " King Bobby has called Colouruke a bad influence " said Lord Grackle. " Colouruke does not know the way to treat Warbler " " The way to treat him ? " asked Colouruke. " I know how to treat him " " If you really did, you would let him fight " said Lord Grackle. " You have not shown me that you are a good friend " " Great friends want each other to support Bird's Isle and the wars that are good for the country " " You must always think of the resources in this war we could get " " Numerians must be invaded " " War has nothing to do with being a good friend " said Crayon. " It does " said Lord Grackle. " Now let's keep fighting " Lord Grackle then directly hit Colouruke with his Ultimate Sky Blast. Lord Grackle then grabbed Colourea. Colourea tried to shake him off but it was no use. Lord Grackle then threw her into Colouruke which knocked them both onto the ground. Lord Grackle then used his Sky Implosion while Challenger used the Ultimate Thunderstorm Blast to counter it. The attacks hit. Lord Grackle then used his Sky Implosion while Challenger used the Thunderstorm Implosion while Crayon used the Sky Implosion, since these implosions were both level two an attack never seen before was used called the Disaster Implosion. Disaster Implosion " said Challenger. The attack hit with such power, it was way too strong and Lord Grackle was hit down hard. Lord Grackle then got up but he had taken damage and he then used the Ultimate Bird Flock which then directly hit Colouruke again. Colouruke was slightly struggling, Lord Grackle then rushed towards him. " Colouruke, this is for Warbler " said Lord Grackle. Lord Grackle then used the Tenfold Sky Strike and he hit him down hard but Colourea was able to use the Light Implosion and hit Lord Grackle. Colouruke was struggling. Lord Grackle used the Sky Implosion while Colouruke used the Sea Implosion. The attacks collided with each other. " Colouruke, you must understand " said Lord Grackle. " You must be a better friend " " A better friend ? " asked Colouruke. " Colouruke has not been a bad friend " said Crayon. " Yes, he has been one " said Lord Grackle. " Warbler needs war, war will do wonders for him " " War does so much " " Wonders ? " asked Colourea. " When Warbler survives the war, people will love Warbler " said Lord Grackle. " Warbler will be popular on a higher level " " For popularity ? " asked Challenger. " Not just that, for the country " said Lord Grackle. " The king wants him to be more popular " " Warbler will be extremely popular this way " " His popularity means so much " " But why ? " asked Challenger. " He cares about Warbler, somewhere that you need to improve " said Lord Grackle. " We should continue the fight " " Yes, we must " said Challenger. Lord Grackle then rushed Colouruke with his Ultimate Sky Blast but Colouruke then used his Sea Implosion. The attacks collided with each other, Colouruke could barely move. " Now, Colouruke you must remember something here " said Lord Grackle. " What ? " asked Colouruke. " Colouruke, I am hoping that when you are in jail that you do some self reflection and understand that you were wrong " said Lord Grackle. " Colouruke has wronged Warbler and is not a friend Warbler can have anymore " Lord Grackle then grabbed Colouruke, threw him down and defeated him. " Now since Colouruke is finished, you three must learn from the mistakes that Colouruke made " " Mistakes ? " asked Crayon. " He did not treat Warbler in a good way, you can learn from it " said Lord Grackle. " Warbler will remember " " Anyways, we should continue " Lord Grackle then charged up the Sky Implosion while Crayon used his own while Colourea used the Ultimate Light Bomb. The attacks collided with each other, they all took damage. Lord Grackle then used his Ultimate Sky Blast and he hit down Colourea. Crayon then kicked him while Lord Grackle punched him. After that, Lord Grackle then used the Sky Implosion while Challenger used the Thunderstorm Implosion. The attacks collided with each other. Lord Grackle then got up and he kicked down Colourea. Colourea got up and then hit him with Quintuple Light Strike. Lord Grackle and Colourea then were punching each other a lot, then were kicking each other. After that Colourea was starting to slightly struggle. Colourea and Crayon used their combined the Sun Implosion and they hit Lord Grackle down to the ground. Lord Grackle then got up and he used the Ultimate Sky Blast and he hit Colourea directly. Colourea got up and she used her Ultimate Light Blast while Lord Grackle used his Ultimate Sky Blast. The blasts hit each other, Colourea was getting near the end. So Challenger, you must know something " said Lord Grackle. " What must I know ? " asked Challenger. " Blackburnian has decided to aid Warbler with who he is dating and he has demanded that people who do not support the war cannot be with him " said Lord Grackle. " What Warbler does in his love life is so important " " Why ? " asked Crayon. " His love life is about him being happy, I would think " " King Bobby wants people to support the war and he believes that if people are not dating people that support the war then they do not support it " said Lord Grackle. " Who you date means a lot " " Dating is important for Bird's Isle " " Wow " said Challenger. " Challenger, if people are dating people that are against the war, how can they fight " said Lord Grackle. " It sends a terrible message, Bird's Isle does not need our warriors loving people like that ever " " Our warriors are supporting Bird's Isle, they want to fight and they must always remember that " " I cannot stand them dating people against the war " " It is disrespectful " " Dating must be done in the right way " " Let's continue the fight " said Crayon. " Warbler would want that " said Lord Grackle. " He wants you all to not interfere " " He loves the castle " " Let's go " said Colourea. Crayon then charged his Light Implosion while Challenger used his Thunderstorm Implosion, the attacks combined together to create an attack called the Sun Storm Implosion. The attack had insane power, Lord Grackle used his Sky Implosion. All of them were hit by the attack, Colourea was defeated. Lord Grackle got up and used the Ultimate Bird Flock but Challenger used the Thunderstorm technique which shattered the bird energy which made it unusable. " What, how could this be " said Lord Grackle. " You are seeing our true power " said Challenger. " Time to continue " said Lord Grackle. " Yes " said Challenger. Challenger then punched him while Crayon kicked him, he went down to the ground. Lord Grackle then rushed for Crayon with his Ultimate Sky Blast which Crayon used his own to counter. They both took damage from the attack. Lord Grackle and Crayon were slightly struggling. Crayon then used his Sky Implosion while Challenger used the Thunderstorm Implosion which created the Disaster Implosion which Lord Grackle used the Sky Implosion to counter. Both attacks hit their targets, Lord Grackle then got up and kicked Challenger. " You two are quite strong " said Lord Grackle. " I must warn you about the final two advisors " " Blackburnian and Diana, what about them ? " asked Crayon. " They are in a league of their own " said Lord Grackle. " I will warn you " " Blackburnian's power is insane, he wants war so bad " " No matter how much they want war, it won't stop us " said Crayon. " He will make sure that Warbler fights " said Lord Grackle. " He will make sure of it " Blackburnian is the type of brother that will make sure that Warbler's interests are put first, which is something that you two have not done " " His interests ? " asked Challenger. " Warbler's interests are being able to fight in this war, fighting with his brother and finding someone who supports the war " said Lord Grackle. " Women who do not support it cannot be with him, the king will likely make more statements about it " The fight continued, Lord Grackle then used the Ultimate Sky Bomb while Crayon used his own. The bombs collided and an explosion happened. Crayon and Lord Grackle both got up and grabbed each other. Challenger then charged his Ultimate Thunderstorm Blast, Crayon was able to knock Lord Grackle off him and the blast directly hit him. Lord Grackle was getting near the end but he tripped Crayon down to the ground and he then hit him with the Ultimate Sky Blast. Crayon and Lord Grackle then punched each other and Lord Grackle was defeated. " We should head to a hospital " said Challenger. " Good idea " said Crayon. " Let's go " said Challenger. Crayon took his friends to the hospital. Artby, Grackle and Dove joined them. " Great to see that we won, bakers are owed a huge purchase " said Artby. " Huge purchase ? " asked Grackle. " Bakers need purchases, bakeries have done wonders for us " said Artby. " I never forget to make a purchase " " Uh, okay " said Dove. " If I do not purchase bread, bakers are incredibly sad " said Artby. " When a baker is that sad, the quality of the baking goes down and it is not good to see " " Quality of baking from being sad ? " asked Crayon. " I always thank bakers because they feel appreciated, being nice to a baker makes the bread better " said Artby. " If I am nice to more bakers, bread will be tastier for sure " " Tastier bread means our mouths are better off " " Anyways, we should go inside the hospital " said Challenger. " Time to trust in bakers and keep treating them so good " said Artby. " Bakers have made me a good person so I must return the favour " They checked into the hospital and then they got some rest. Meanwhile King Bobby was wondering about Lord Grackle with the others. " Lord Grackle should be back " said King Bobby. " I am not sure what happened " said Warbler. " Warbler, we are here for you " said Blackburnian. " Lord Grackle will return " " I know he will " " Lord Grackle should be able to do it " said Diana. " He understands the resources of Numeria, he understands what it means to be an advisor of Bird's Isle " said Queen Starling. " I have some new statements that need to be made " said King Bobby.

An ambrose malaise had hung over me for several days. For weeks prior I had had bouts of light fever that would disappear, then reemerge. My arms and legs becoming heavy as though weighted, as my temperature rose and then fell. I hid all of my symptoms though, not telling anyone I was sick. I thought I had multiple good reasons. I didn’t want to inconvenience any of my friends, I didn’t want people to feel sorry for me, I didn’t want to be put in a hospital. And I didn’t want to be told I could be dying. My loneliness then increased. I avoided playing any games or going on any social media, now I only looked, scrolling then not even bothering to look at messages from friends. Like a cancerous sore on the inside of my skull, the weight of sadness and self-doubt gnawed endlessly at every right to self-worth I once had. Now in my weakened stake, it seemed to surround me like a predator closing in on a weakened prey.  Now this past week, I finally felt a cold misery consuming my body. As my joints felt hot and painful to move, while the muscles in my hands struggled to do the simplest task. Everything would slip through my fingers as I didn’t have the strength to grab it. And then some days I couldn’t open my hands at all, needing to force my fingers to open with my teeth. My mouth had become dry like sandpaper and eyes wedged shut with yellow bile every morning. As I stared up at the ceiling, my breathing becoming labored as I felt my heart palpitate, I wracked my brain why I had never told anyone. In that moment praying for someone to come and save me.Then as heart palpations pumped through my chest, wringing in my lungs like thundering bells, I saw the outline of a person at the end of my bed. Darkness hovered around her as though a hallow, framing her face. And light shown off her though it illuminated nothing and casted no shadow. It only served to project her image closer to me. Dark and dreadful with an appearance of pale somberness. Eyes slowly shifting through strands of dark hair. She hugged to her side a wooden instrument, crude and rusted along its edges. A scythe at the ready.  Her voice was soft and elegant, whispering “Many have walked your path before you, now it is your time to do the same. As they were, you will be.” Raising the point of her blade upwards over my head.  “W-wait wait!!” I shouted, stumbling over my words. “You like to play games, right??” Her gaze narrowed as the blade remained frozen over me.  “Yeah, yeah, you like to play games? I challenge you for my life. If you win, I’ll go with you, no questions asked. If I win, I keep my life. Deal?” She paused for a moment, blinking twice.  “Yes,” she whispered. My eyes watching as she lowered her blade. Her body collapsed as she kneeled on the floor. “Name your game.”  I tried to clutch my chest as my breathing was still intense. “Uuuhm…” My eyes darted. “I know this game called chess? You ever heard of it?”

Thank you for taking your time and reading this story honestly at first this was a personal story I wrote to help move on from my first love but I stopped writing when I realized I couldn't move on just yet I had some things to do first. Then last week I felt like writing a depressing story but couldn't really think of anything then I checked my drafts I found the remnant's of the first draft and got to work changing the some things like the girls name but most things before the walk didn't change so if they seem like 2 different stories that's because it basically is.  Anyways this was my first shot at a story more grounded in reality so I hope its not absolute trash. Once Again thank you very much for reading something I created see you next time hopefully.

Taro stood face to face with Marto, his sword drawn and ready for battle. Marto sneered at him, his eyes filled with hatred and malice. "You should have stayed out of this, Taro," Marto spat. "You have no idea what you're getting yourself into." "I know exactly what I'm getting myself into," Taro replied, his voice steady and resolute. "I'm stopping you from betraying our city and our people to the Gobarah." Marto chuckled, his amusement only serving to fuel Taro's anger. "You think you can stop me? You're just a fool, Taro. You have no idea the power I have at my fingertips." Taro knew he couldn't wait any longer. He charged at Marto, their swords clashing as they fought with all their might. Taro could feel the eyes of the city's defenders on him, watching and waiting for the outcome of the battle. The fight raged on, Taro and Marto locked in a deadly dance of steel. But in the end, Taro emerged victorious, his sword piercing Marto's heart as the traitor fell to the ground, gasping for air. Taro stood over Marto, panting and covered in sweat. He had finally brought the traitor to justice, but at what cost? The city was still in danger from the Gobarah, and Taro knew that the fight was far from over. As he walked back to the HQ, Taro couldn't shake the feeling that something was off about Marto's body. It seemed to be...changing. And when he finally looked down at the corpse, he realized with horror that Marto had transformed into a Gobarah. It was too late to do anything now. Taro could only stand and watch as the monster he had just defeated rose to its feet and let out a roar of triumph. The city was lost, and there was nothing Taro could do to stop it. The story ends with Taro standing in defeat, watching as the Gobarah take over the city.

It seems like just yesterday when we would sit on this bench under this tree and just talk as recess passed by us yet despite that it's probably been over ten years now and she still comes up on my mind. Does she even remember me? Does she think about me as often as I do her? I ask myself these questions every time I come back here hoping maybe one day she would be sitting here the same as me looking out into the horizon of roofs but that day will probably forever remain a figment of my imagination. As more families started to enter the school grounds I decided it was time for me to take my leave. On my way out there was a family of four playing soccer, another playing basketball and on the other side of the grounds was a father and son playing frisbee. Seeing them reminded me of the time when my life was a lot more peaceful and easy going. As I reached the front gates another family was going in. I didn't pay them much attention then from behind I heard one of them call my name “Junior?” they said it in a tone with confusion yet a little bit confident turning back I saw the person calling my name and it felt as if time had slowed down in front of me was a girl with tan skin and dark brown hair I couldn't tell if this was the same girl whom I've spent a lot of time thinking about yet somehow my heart was beating fast as if it knew who this person was and deep down I thought the same. “Yeah” I answered back “Do you remember me? We used to go to this school together.” she said “Jackie right, we used to hangout all the time during recess.” I said, holding back a smile from the happiness I felt. “Such a coincidence seeing you back here when did you move back into town?” she asked “I’ve been back since 6th grade but I went to a different school when I got back.” I answered. I wanted to ask if she wanted to go for a walk but something just felt awkward, the same vibe I got from back then seemed to be gone. “Um is it ok to go for a walk just the two of us real quick only if i'm not interrupting anything of course.” I asked to finally catch up just after all this time it felt like this would be my last time to do so for some reason. “Yeah that's fine I just have to tell those two I’ll be gone for a bit and I'll be right back.” she said with a face that almost seemed to scream why now I couldn't blame her after all it does seem a bit suspicious. As she ran towards the others I thought of what I would say to her or what I could say to her. There was only one thing I knew for sure: I would tell her my feelings at the end. “So how long do you think this walk will take?” she came back while I was spacing out. I would be lying if I said it didn't make me jump a bit. “Oh it shouldn't take longer than a walk around the block, let's get going shall we?” I didn’t know how long it would actually take but I wouldn't want to waste her time just catching up. - - - For the first couple of houses the walk was silent until she finally decided to break it with a question. “So what happened after you moved away?” That was her question: it was simple yet the answers came with painful memories of the past. “Well a little after I left I want to say one year was the start of me learning what it was like to live without a home.” I said with little hesitation but by the look on her face it seemed like I should have held back a little. “That sounds really-” “Dark yeah sorry about that.” I cut her off because for some reason whenever people gave me that look of pity it made me sad even if I thought about those times I wouldn’t tear up but whenever someone else asked I would start tearing up like the floodgates had been opened. I quickly tried to change the subject by asking a question of my own. “So what about you, what have you been doing all these years?” I had actually already known the answer. I found her social account a few months ago. I know what she has been doing since I moved but I never reached out. I was too afraid that she may have forgotten me. “Well after graduating Elementary I started working at my family's farm a whole lot more eventually they let me join a Charrería. Since then I've been following my dream of working with horses. I even got to do some shows outside the states.” She replied with more or less what I had expected but I wasn't expecting her to mention her dream back then because she wanted to be a veterinarian. I guess time really does change some people. We were nearing the end of the walk by now it's strange the block around seemed to be a lot bigger as a kid. Up ahead were the two people she came with, one man about the same age as us and a small little girl who couldn't have been older than 10. I thought about telling her my feelings right then and there but something didn't feel right like I would be ruining something that hasn't come to be yet. The little girl came running over to us she seemed to be in very high spirit when she got to us she asked Jackie when they were going to play she said it in that puppy dog face all kids have honestly she looked so much like Jackie it felt like looking into the past she used to make the same face when she wanted help with math tests. “Your kid I'm assuming?” I asked “Huh oh no she's my niece I'm still on the fence about whether or not to have some of my own.” Judging from that statement I guessed she was currently in a relationship at the moment. Without thinking my mouth decided to say what I've been thinking ever since she called my name about 20 minutes ago “Is that your boyfriend back there?” I don't know what made me ask maybe curiosity or just plain stupidity. “Actually my fiancé we've been engaged for about 3 months now I believe.” She answered and with that my hope of getting into a intimate relationship shattered “I see well uhm I gotta get going now, I wouldn't want to waste any more of your time than I already have.” After hearing that she was in a relationship I didn't want to intrude anymore into her life. I wanted to sink into a hole for even thinking I had a chance. “I see well it was great meeting you again after all this time.” “Yeah definitely we should catch up more at a later date see ya.” Despite my words at that time I knew for sure that was the last time we would ever interact with each other and even though my first love ended right where it started on the ride home I realized she was no longer the same person I fell in love with and maybe it was my turn to finally move on. - - - “What's up with that story dad? We wanted to know how you fell in love with mom, not some woman we don't know.” “Yeah yeah stop wasting our time.” “What but you asked about the story of my first love didn't you.” “We thought Mom was your first love though you always say she was your first love.” “Yeah what's up with that, have you been lying to us?” “No, your mother is without a doubt my first true love but that story is for when you're older.” “No, we want to hear it now, tell us now.” “Yeah Yeah.” “Nope it's time for bed so go to sleep. Goodnight my princesses.” “Fine you win today Papa but we are definitely getting you to tell that story one day.” “Yeah Yeah.” ‘’As I said when you're older, now say goodnight or no night light.” “Goodnight then Papa you better remember to tell us the story later” “Goodnight Papa.” “Sleep tight, don't let the light bugs bite.” “There is no such thing as light bugs pa- zoozoozoo” “Yeah Ye- zoozoozoo” “Uh finally they fell asleep they're always so hyper but when they sleep like this they look like angels. right Grace? I hope you can see them from way up there?” THE END

Taro sat in the HQ, going over the battle plans with his team. They were discussing the best ways to defend the city from the Gobarah when one of the defenders, Marto, spoke up. "I have an idea," Marto said, his voice dripping with enthusiasm. "We could use traps to catch the Gobarah off guard. We could set them up in the slums, where they're most likely to attack." Taro nodded, considering the proposal. It was a good idea, and one that could potentially give them the upper hand in the fight against the Gobarah. But as the meeting went on, Taro couldn't shake the feeling that something was off about Marto. There was a gleam in his eye that seemed almost...sinister. After the meeting, Taro decided to follow Marto and see where he went. He trailed him through the city, staying hidden in the shadows as Marto met with a group of Gobarah. Taro's suspicions were confirmed - Marto was a traitor, working with the monsters to bring down the city and Taro's team. Taro knew he had to act fast. He couldn't let Marto's betrayal go unpunished. He made a plan to confront Marto and bring him to justice.

As the Gobarah took control of the city, Taro could do nothing but watch in despair. He had failed to protect his home and his people, and now they were all at the mercy of the monsters. Taro retreated to the HQ, where he found the remaining defenders huddled together, trying to come up with a plan. But it was too late - they were outnumbered and outgunned. The only option left was to retreat and regroup, hoping to come back stronger and reclaim the city. As they fled through the streets, Taro couldn't help but feel a sense of shame wash over him. He had let his city fall, and he wasn't sure if he would ever be able to make things right.

Taro stood face to face with the seven-foot tall Gobarah, its sword-like arms glinting in the sunlight. He could feel the eyes of the city's defenders on him, watching and waiting for him to make the first move. Taro knew that this was a fight he couldn't afford to lose. He gripped his sword tighter and attacked, darting forward and striking at the monster's midsection. The Gobarah swung its arms at him, but Taro was too fast, dodging and weaving through the attacks with ease. Finally, Taro saw his opening and took it, driving his sword into the Gobarah's chest. The monster let out a roar of pain and fell to the ground, its body convulsing as it died. Taro stood over the fallen monster, panting and covered in sweat. The city's defenders cheered and applauded as he walked back to the HQ, a hero once again. But Taro knew that this was just the beginning. The Gobarah were getting bolder and more numerous every day, and he knew that they wouldn't stop until they had taken over the city.

Taro and the remaining defenders fled to the countryside, where they set up camp in an old abandoned farmhouse. It was a far cry from the luxury they were used to in the city, but it was better than being captured by the Gobarah. As they sat around the campfire, Taro couldn't help but think about all that he had lost. His home, his friends, his sense of purpose. He was an exile now, a warrior without a city to defend. But even in his despair, Taro knew that he couldn't give up. He had to find a way to reclaim Al-Gorabah and drive the Gobarah out once and for all. He vowed to do whatever it took to make things right.

The day of the battle dawned, and Taro and his army marched on the city, ready to face the Gobarah head on. The battle was fierce and brutal, with both sides taking heavy losses. But in the end, Taro and his warriors emerged victorious, driving the Gobarah out of the city and reclaiming it as their own. As Taro stood on the battlefield, surveying the scene of victory, he couldn't help but feel a sense of pride and accomplishment wash over him. He had succeeded in his mission, and had brought his city back from the brink of destruction. Chapter 8: The Aftermath As the dust settled and the wounded were tended to, Taro knew that the work was far from over. There was still much to be done to rebuild the city and heal the wounds of the people. But he was determined to see it through, to make Al-Gorabah stronger and more resilient than ever before. And as he stood on the city walls, looking out at the horizon, he knew that he had finally found his true purpose - to defend his home and his people, no matter the cost.

Taro spent the next few weeks gathering intelligence and formulating a plan. He knew that he couldn't take on the Gobarah alone, so he reached out to other cities and clans for help. It was a risky move, but one that paid off. Taro was able to gather a small army of warriors, all united in their goal of defeating the Gobarah and reclaiming Al-Gorabah. As they prepared for battle, Taro couldn't help but feel a sense of hope surge within him. Maybe, just maybe, they had a chance to succeed.

As the city continued to rebuild and recover, Taro knew that the threat of the Gobarah was far from over. They would always be lurking in the shadows, waiting for an opportunity to strike again. But Taro was ready for them. He had become a seasoned warrior and leader, and he was determined to protect his city and his people at all costs. As he stood on the city walls, looking out at the horizon, Taro knew that he had found his true purpose in life. He was the defender of Al-Gorabah, and he would always be ready to fight for the people he loved. The end.

As the months passed and the city began to rebuild, Taro received word that some of his friends and fellow defenders had survived the initial attack and had been held captive by the Gobarah. Taro gathered a small group of trusted warriors and set out to rescue his friends, determined to bring them home and reunite them with their families. The rescue mission was risky and dangerous, but in the end, Taro and his team were able to successfully rescue their friends and bring them back to the city. As they were welcomed home with open arms, Taro couldn't help but feel a sense of joy and accomplishment. He had not only reclaimed his city, but had also been able to bring his friends back home safe and sound.

In a cramped room of a wooden hut where there seems to be not much of a light, there seem to be someone sleeping on a bed peacefully. Suddenly a figure barged into the room and shouted. "Oii wake up Noah! how much longer are you going to sleep, its already 7 in the morning!" It was a girl which looked not more than 6 or 7 years old, she had blonde hairs and green eyes. And then she suddenly ran towards the bed and jumped on it. "UWAAGHHH!!" Noah woke up, or to be more precise was forced to wake up, and he looked at the girl and said. "Whats wrong with you, and why are you jumping on me!" The girl looked at Noah with her face forming a prideful grin she said. "Fufu, it looks like your reflexes are still not trained enough, to think you didn't even noticed me, even though I shouted before attacking you." Noah glared at her with a frown and said. "You bastar-" Suddenly a old man barged into the room and said. "You kids, what's up with this ruckus in the morning." The girl's face suddenly turned into a innocent expression, like a puppy, and then she ran towards the old man and said. "Grandpa Gareth~ look at Noah he is bullying me, i was just trying to wake him up, but he shouted at me." Noah was dumbfounded, and his eyes widened while he looked at the girl and before he said anything, the old man looked at him with a glare. "Grandpa she is lying, i was sleeping and then she jumped upon me so I woke up, I didn't even eve-" "Looks like tomorrow's practice was not enough huh, you will have to do double work today." Gareth said while he proceeded to leave the room. "W-why I didn't even did anything." Gareth left the room,  without even giving him a second glance, Noah gritted his teeth as he stood there. "Hmph, thats what you get for acting all high and mighty." Noah looked at her and watched her leave and didn't said anything and thought. 'What a bitch, if only Grandpa didn't brought her that day.' 4 years ago, when Noah was only 3 years old, it was a very rainy weather that day, and as usual Grandpa went out to bring food, which is some wild animals that wander around this area, and even though it was a Corrasionol Cave where the entrance was at the top of the roof above the center of the cave, but nothing can come inside, only Grandpa know how to go out and come in. That day when he came back there was a girl by his side, even though that girl's appearance was very rigged and looked as if she just came out bathing with muddy water, her expression were still that of a haughty girl, even though her eyes were all redened from beneath and anyone can tell she just cried, but her eyes were still filled with arrogance.  Noah was shocked, because besides Gareth he hadn't seen any other human being, and this little girl was the first female he had ever seen, he looked at her for a little bit and, then Gareth looked at him and said. "Noah, this is your new friend, her name is Alesia, now come here and greet her." Noah did as he was told, and came to her while saying. "H-Hi I am Noah, nice to meet you." Noah took the intiative for the handshake but Alesia didn't raise her hand for hand shake, and just let out a snort and looked at Gareth and said. "I am hungry." "Ohh i am really sorry, i forgot to ask you for a meal, I will make something for you so you can take bath." Gareth looked at Noah and said. "Noah show her the lake and give her your spare clothes." "No need, I can't wear clothes of some riff raff brat, and first of all I am very certain about the clothes I wear, so just wash my clothes and gave me a robe or something till then." Gareth looked at her and smiled bitterly. "A-Ahahaha I am very sorry but i don't have those things, so you have to adjust a little bit, Okay." "Hmph, nevermind just wash my clothes, and give me whatever clothes you have." Meanwhile Noah was hearing everything, and he feeled kinda annoyed, because ever since he was little he has never demanded anything and was satisfied with everything he got, and then suddenly a girl came and started acting all high and mighty, so he moved forward and said. "Grandpa, since she is so demanding about her clothes, then I also too am a person who cares about my clothes, so I am not willing to give my clothes to her." Alesia suddenly looked very angered, and tears started to came out of her eye. "Y-You, how dare you, if not for me being holed up in dirty place like this, I would never ever even glance at someone like you." "Ohh that's good then, get out of here right now, Grandpa can you please show her the way out." Gareth looked at Noah and said angrily. "NOAH! is this how i teached you to behave with others, if you behave like that with others, then no one will ever like you." "B-but Grandpa she started it." "Sigh, forget about it, and just say sorry to her." "B-But-" Then the Alesia who has been silent all this time said. "No need, i don't need an apology, from a person like you, Hmph." Gareth let out a sigh and told to both of them. "Cut it out both of you, and first of all you Alesia, I know you are not willing to live in this place, but you have to deal with it, because from now on, you are going to live with us." Alesia and Noah both shouted. "WHATT!!" "WHATT!!" And then Alesia said. "B-B-But you said to me that i can go home Tomorrow." "That was a lie, you have to live here for 7 years, because SilverHorn realm's imperial family will visit at that time, so the teleportation channel will be released in a chain, and every Mage or Swordsmen above 9th stage can represent a person for the participation and only then can I send you off." Alesia fell to his knees and started crying. "Waaaaahhhhh!!" She cried for a very long time and only stopped until she can't anymore, meanwhile Noah and Gareth just stood there and even though Noah didn't like her very much, but at the end of the day, he was still a child and was affected by her. "Hic-Mama Hic-Papa" She was hiccupping and then Noah bent down and told her. "O-Oi you don't have to be so discouraged, there is me and my Grandpa in here so you don't have to worry" Alesia glared at him and said.  "SHUT UP! You know nothing!!" "Noah, leave her, we can't do anything in this matter, let's go." After that Noah followed him and got to the hut.  "Umm Grandpa, isn't she hungry, she looked wet, what is she get sick." "Hoho, why are you so concerned about her suddenly, after you bullied her so much, you little rascal." Noah blushed and was embarrassed. "I-I don't want to bully her and it was her mistake." And then a figure came waking to them, it was Alesia, she said weakly. "food." Gareth got up and placed his finger on her forehead, and then his finger suddenly shinned, and then Alesia suddenly fell asleep on spot, Gareth caught her and walled towards the hut. Meanwhile Noah was flabbergasted. "W-What did you do to her Grandpa, aren't you gonna feed her something." "Don't worry, i gave her some of my accumulated essence, it will nourish her body and she will not have any malnutrition problem for the time being, her mentality is all messed up now, let her rest for a couple of days and then we will talk to her." And just as Gareth said, after a couple of days she woke up, and started crying the moment afterwards, but after that she became more and more active and returned to her past self, being all high and mighty, but something in her changed and she started to take the initiative to start the conversation, and just like that 4 years passed and she became more and more nuisance to me, and now i am tired off her. "Heyy you sleepyhead, just get out of the bed or else i am gonna splash water on you." And thats just how my peaceful days of living with Grandpa came to end.

Gareth and Noah both stood in front of the lake, Gareth looked at Noah solemnly told him. "Noah, can you use that fire of your once again." Noah scratched his head, and pondered, but then after standing there for a minute or so, he sat down and started to meditate, suddenly the surrounding near him started to fluctuate and a fire the size of handpalm lit on his forehead. "It really is a duo primordial elemental fire." As for Noah, he was sweating buckets and looked as if he was carrying a mountain on his shoulders, Noah then said while gritting his teeth. "Is this enough Grandpa." "Okay, you can stop it now." Pant pant pant pant! Noah was panting like crazy, it was clear enough that he can't maintain this form for a long time. "Noah, do you want to know what that fire is." Noah shook his head.  "It is an elemental fire, only a few are able to wield it, it has the power to converge your element to any point or any form as you wish, even though it looks like fire, it is not a fire." "Really, so that means I have elemental fire now!" Noah was very excited because throughout this 7 years, except for gaining his time and space element, he haven't yet gained any major boost in his combat power. "No, you don't have it yet." Gareth words were like throwing a cold water on him. "Ehhh? So why was I able to use Space and Time element, when I am not even a grade 1 Awakener." "That is because it's not a complete elemental fire, but a semi elemental fire, and due to being able to activate it for first time, you were able to comprehend the initial control of Time and Space." After hearing this Noah was looking kinda distressed. 'To think I was getting excited over a semi-elemental fire. Sigh~.' When Gareth saw his expression he was a little bewildered. 'No No No, this can't go on, if he became so greedy for power, then I am afraid that he will be forced to use evil method to gain more power, and I can absolutely can't allow that even if it take my life,  because that will be not any different than Gods.' Gareth looked at Noah solemnly. "Noah there is no need to be in such a hurry to become stronger, let me tell you something, just go at your current pace, once you give yourself some time you will become so strong that even I can't imagine." "But still.." Seeing Noah still dissatisfied by his result Gareth sighed. 'Looks like I have to show him the real deal, to convince him about how terrifying the elemental fire. "Noah look here." Noah looked at him............. Silence ~ A silence so terrifying that it was bone chilling filled the air, it was not just any silence, the sound of the flowing water, the sound of wind drifting, the sound of his breathing.....even the sound of his heart beat, everything lost its sound, it was sending shivers down Noah's spine, his whole back was dripping with sweat, his eyes were trembling, for a moment his breath suddenly stopped, his mind went blank, what he was feeling just now was... Fear. A fear so tremendous that he forgot his own existence, the world suddenly loosed all of its colour, the trees, the lake the corrosional cave and not just in the cave the whole forest. The mountains, the sky, EVERYTHING . the only thing that maintained it's colour was Gareth, his white hairs flowing in the air, his iridescent eyes that looked like stars, his pale white skin that was full of wrinkles, he looked more like a Divine being that descended from the sky. But after a moment, as if the world was gaining it's colours or more like the monochrome was being removed from them, the black and white colours which were stuck to them before or completely swallowed them, those hollows were being gathered somewhere. GASP And It was none else but at the forehead of Gareth, those colours were infinitely being merged in front of his forehead and it was being condensed into a fire that looked so majestic and bright it outshined even the sun itself, then suddenly a cold and a very light voice reverberated through. "CONDENSE." It was a voice that just sounded slow and soft, but to be precise it was so powerful that it travelled through the whole world. A black colour which was so black that light was being repelled from it and a white colour so bright it was enough to blind someone even when they are not looking at it, both of these colours were overlapped on each other, A fire condensed on the forehead of Gareth. "BANISH" Another voice resounded but this one was even more overbearing, it shattered the internal layer of cave. But what happened next was even more shocking, the fire vanished from Gareth's forehead, and everything returned to normal or so did Noah thought....but the fire didn't got extinguished, but once again lit up from beneath Gareth's feet, and Gareth's whole body was engulfed with it from head to toe. As if the whole world was being destroyed, the cave shattered, the land beneath them was torned open, the whole forest was plunged, the trees were withered to ashes and were absorbed by darkness, ocean was devoured from darkness and the sky was torned open by light. It was apocalypse, the feeling Noah was having was not mere fear but ... DEATH in his mind he had already died, and his whole body was being shred to pieces by the hands of skeleton, the light and darkness both engulfed him, he wanted to cry, he wanted shout, scream and release all of emotion...but the thing he wanted to do the most was to... Die ..he wanted to release himself from this agony. But then suddenly a voice came again. "ERADICATE" As if the time was being reversed, everything returned to it's usual self, as if nothing ever happened there, Noah from start to end was standing there but the moment it all ended his feets gave up and he fell down on his knees. "AAAHHHHH!!" Noah while holding his head by both of his hands, kneeled down and tears of blood came from his eyes, and blood was coming out from his ears, his mouth and his nose too, his mind was broken and he fainted while kneeling.

Magician and Warrior these were the two main component that molded this world into what it is now. A person's existence is formed from two bodies, one physical and one spiritual, while the person lives in the physical worlds with its physical body, there also exist a spiritual body which is in a spiritual dimension which exists alongside the physical dimension. Thus Magicians strengthen their spiritual body and through them they create their mana heart, and meanwhile on contrary Warriors use their physical bodies to cultivate their spirits by forming mana channels. For being a Magician and a Warrior there is a requirement which is a element seed, it is a innate gift which more than 80% people in the world has born with, and it depends on a person's talent for how early it will take them to awaken it. So when a seed is awakened, a person can either choose to master magic if they want to be a Magician, or master physical body, if they want to be a warrior. When the seed is awakened it will determine a person's natural attribute and to become a Warrior, one has to first absorb their seed and form mana channels and to become a Magician one has to absorb the seed and form its energy into a Mana heart, it exists at the place of the heart in spiritual dimension. A elemental seed is graded into, common grade, defiant grade, prime grade, fero grade, spirit grade, black grade, white grade, vermillion grade, azure grade and divine grade. And there is an another grade which is the highest, known as the firmament grade, but it can only has been seen among the God race and only 2 people from lower realm have awoken it throughout history. A normal person can only have a single attribute elemental seed no matter how much high graded their seed is, it can only determine their affinity towards their respective element, and that is happen to be including 90% of the Awakened person in the world. And as for duo elemental there are only 10% and as for trio elemental it's hard to see a single one in a hundreds years. And quadra elemental is a legend which have only been heard in stories about great heroes. A person with a single greater element can rival a person with duo basic element and a person with a primordial element is a very rare existence and can rival a person with duo greater element. And after a person is Awakened and has chosen their class, they officially are alluded as A grade 1 Awakener, being the lowest class, and the highest class being grade 9. In front of a tranquil lake there stood two three people, they being Gareth, Noah and Alesia. Gareth was looking at both of them and  looked at Noah with a solemn expression and told him with a deep voice.  "Noah, it's been three years since you have been cultivating your physique, but you still can't perform the second change of phantom steps, meanwhile Alesia is already at sixth change, today if you can't perform well, I will have to unfortunately get rid of that superfluous amount of mana that you have." Phantom steps is grade 0 technique which can be practiced in any stage, and the power of the technique will only increase after becoming a higher grade Awakener. Noah complexion changed drastically and turned into devestation. "Hmph, Grandpa forget about him, just choose me as your main successor."  "Alesia, you are going to your home after three years aren't you, and since you live so far, how can you be my successor." "B-But I am more suitable for your technique!! Aren't I" Gareth looked at the boy in front and sighed, at first due to his elemental attribute being time and space which are both at firmament grade, and also his huge reserve of mana, he is indisputably invincible among his peer. But because of that huge mana reserve, the moment he casts a spell, he will immediately loose control. Previously Gareth thought, that it must be because of his Time and Space element, because the primordial elements have a higher sufficiency need of Mana and its far higher from any other element. So Gareth thought, that it is almost impossible for him to learn spells or technique of any other element except for Time and Space. But the problem is that Noah is only at the foundation stage, which is beneath grade one awakener, a person after their elemental seed broken becomes a foundation stage Awakener and in foundation stage you accumulate and integrate your own respective element with your elemental seed's aftermath energy.  and normally it would take a Awakener to be at grade 1 to use primordial elements in it's initial form, normally you can use any element except for primordial ones in it's initial form in foundation stage. Noah looked at Gareth and said. "I think I have a way Grandpa, and if this works out, then i think i will be able to surpass any technique I learn in its initial stage." Gareth stroked his beard and thought while smiling. 'Looks like he has found his way after all.' "I don't care about any of this, if you can't execute the second change, you are still seeking your own demise." Noah was also feeling a little bit nervous  as he made his way a bit far from Gareth and Alesia, and after he was a meter or so away from them, he streched a little bit and calmed down, Alesia while still looking at Noah said. 'Hmph, still pretending." And then Noah moved his body in a weird way to form a pose, and concentrated his mana to his feet, and something that both Gareth and Alesia had ever thought happened. The space near Noah's feets started to fluctuate, and a blue light was emmiting from beneath his feet, at first it looked like a quagmire, then suddenly Noah bent forward, but his feet remained in the same position. Then he suddenly moved his feet, but something bizzare happened, Noah's body remained in the same place but his feets were fluctuating, and it looked more like a hologram, but suddenly Gareth felt something was wrong. HIs eyes suddenly widened and he looked at the space and realized something was wrong, he looked at Alesia just to realise that she was frozen stiff in the same place, something he has never ever thought happened. Time Stopped! But when he looked at Noah he realised that something was wrong, and then he suddenly released his Aura, and it was so powerful the whole cave started to shake and A bizzare Black and White light emmited from him, after that when he looked at Noah, he then realized that the figure he was previously was seeing was a facade and the time had stopped, but since the difference between Noah's Mana release and his own Body's Mana concentration was way too big he was free from the spell's restrictions, and realised that this spell can only be worked against those of the same stage.  And he saw the real Noah 100 meters away from them. It was an unprecedented feat to travel a 100 meter in less then a second, even a 5th stage Awakener don't have that much capability. But at that moment Noah was shocked by the devestating Aura which is being released from Gareth. "G-Grandpa, what are you doing." And as for Alesia, she was so scared she fell on her knees, and tears came out of her eyes, and after Gareth realised that due to his Aura, Alesia has broken free from Time Stop and started crying, he immediately stopped his Aura release and looked at Alesia and said. "I-I-I am sorry Alesia i didn't meant to scare you." "I-Itsh okey Gwanpa" And just a moment after Noah came running to them, Gareth then looked at Noah with a solemn expression and said. "Noah, I don't remember teaching you any spell to control your Time and Space elements, so how did you do it, tell me truthfully." Noah looked at Gareth as he was kinda feeling distress about wether it was wrong to not Gareth about his capabilities. But he still reluctantly said. "Grandpa, I-I didn't meant to keep this a secret from you, but it happened suddenly tomorrow when i was strolling near the lake at night, and when I saw the lake a sudden realization came to my mind." "What realization?." "The water, it is very similiar to space in many ways, just like how water can occupy any space within it's capability, space can also do so, but can do so without any restrictions, it is like how water needs to have a sufficient amount of it to occupy a free space, but space can directly occupy any part of nothingness in the dimension, in a way the space is infinite while water is not, so hyp-" Bang! Suddenly Gareth smacked Noah in the head. "Ouch! What are you doing Grandpa! Why did you hit me?" "You Idiot, do you think i am interested in this philosophicall bullshit of yours, cut the chase and tell me the real reason." "So as I was saying, I started to notice the similarities between water and space, and then I thought that how to determine the existence of space, because if you touch the water you can feel it, but we are the part of the space itself so how can I feel." "So while I was pondering, I realised I was not going anywhere with just thinking, so I closed my eyes and concentrated." "Suddenly my forehead jolted and a light blue and purple fire lit up o-" "Wait, what did you said?." "Uhh, my forehead burned and I suddenly feeled as if I was not part of the surrounding anymore." "At that time I was able to see everything in it's true appearance, and everything I have seen in this cave since I was born and was very familiar with looked like a illusion compared to how it looked now." "But  when I tried to touch anything I realised I wasn't capable of it anymore, and my hand just went through from any object I touched" "So a idea came to my mind, what if I isolate myself from space, and use mana as a catalyst to manipulate the concentration of space and time in a particular place near me and since the concentration of spacetime can affect the time accordingly how much close the respective object or a person is near me, so what if I can make a territory with my Mana release, so that way I can slow down my opponent within my range." "But I realised that I don't have enough Mana to make a territory." "Of you course you don't, you have to be A stage 7 Awakener for that." "So I thought, what if instead of releasing the Mana and making my opponent fall into my domain, what will happen if I just focus on isolating from the space and as I was working on it." "I realised the existence of spacetime which formed the reality of this world, It was like a river with no end, it was so majestic and terrifying at the same time that I was bewildered"  "Then suddenly as I was getting more and more used to this feeling of isolation I realised there were motes of blue and purple light around the whole caves"  " There was something very unusual and mysterious about them. "  "and then I touched them and realised I can manipulate them and when I concentrated them in my body I realised everything suddenly froze even the dust in the air was frozen stiff, but I was able mantain that form for only 5 second." Gareth looked at Noah throughout the conversation and after that he said. "Come with me."

God, A engima being allude to as omnipotent and omniscient in majority of the folklore and mythology, God is indisputably known as the creator of the world.  But the God's epothet didn't end with just being the creator of the world, but was the entity which remained as the catalyst for the equilibrium between two worlds. The Lower Realms and The Heaven. Since God was the creator of everything and being the almighty being that created them, The people from lower realm prayed to him and worshiped him blindly which is in truth the power of belief or normally the epitome of the power that denies the reality itself, and it is the source of the world itself. 'The God' did not only created lower races, but also the ones he loved the most, and he often calls them his own race which were also created by him, they were known as God race. But they were the the beings born with the maliciousness which they hold within themselves. They were greedy for powers, since they were not used to seeing someone above them and were constantly in thoughts of being the most superior being. But the biggest hurdle between their dream and goals was their own creator. 'The God' was the epitome of the most powerful thing and was beyond their reach. And since they were the prideful creatures, they were not willing to admit that they are potentially weaker than 'The God', so they put all the blame on the power known as power of belief, and since they are the entities banned by 'The God' to enter the Lower Realm they can't get that power of belief, since they have no way to gain the belief of peoples whom have not even seen them. And since they can't run amok in lower realms, the situation between two realms have been peaceful and their never have been any conflict. But as the saying goes, "The more peace there is in the light, the more chaos will be accumulated in the dark." the peace only remained until the God was killed by his own apostle Leunethus. And after that, other Gods fought for supremacy endlessly gaining trust of lower races at the cost of threatening them, which was the most peaceful thing they can do, considering some have even destroyed half of the respective planets for an example of their power. But no matter what how much powerful the lower races were, they aren't even worth mentioning. it was not the fault of the peoples from the lower realms, but they were still tangled up in the affair of the mighty Gods and were slaughtered mercilessly. And not all the Gods were ruthless some were righteous, but due to being part of minority, when they rebbled they were killed brutally. In a Corassional cave where silver moonlight reached the every single part of the area one can see, there stood a man in a daze he was looking at the moon. His eyes were red and and the hairs were white, when the moonlight fall on his eyes, his eyes were dazzling with reflection of moon. And beside him, there was a women whom was sitting on her knees, she was very identical to him because of her white hairs which reached her waist, and red eyes which were very teary at the moment and the eye lids beneath the eyes were reddened. She was firmly looking at the baby with gentle and teary eyes, she was looking at him as if he was the most precious thing to him. The man behind her looked at her for a moment, and said with a very sorrowful voice, which cracked a little bit.  "Ana we have to go, they will find us at this rate." Ana didn't said anything for a little bit, and just looked at the baby for a couple of moments, her eyes were bland and the only thing which can seen in her eyes was the happiness yet sorrownes, she looked at the man beside him in the eyes and said. " Lukas, I can't  even look him a little bit, when it hasn't even been a hour since i first saw him." Lukas said with gloomy eyes.  "You know that we don't have much time." "Isn't there any other way" "You know there isn't." She hugged the baby closely, and the tears started to fall out of her eyes, she sobbed and burried the baby in her bossom. "You know they are very merciless, ruthless, cruel and are very sensitive towards things which can harm them in any potential way"  Lukas just stood there for a moment for a couple of moment, and said while looking firmly at the baby. "I know, they are very powerful, and to the extent that they are the epitome of apocalypse itself, they have the power to destroy the world, they can run amok anywhere they go, the mere words of theirs are enough to change the direction of the river, they can kill anyone they like, they can destroy anything they like, no one can stood up in front of them....but he, he  is the only one they fear. " Ana opened her mouth as if she wanna say something, the words almost came out, but she closed it as soon as she opened them a moment after.  Suddenly there were a sound of footsteps, and a sillhoutte was visible from a distance in the deep part of cave, both of them heard it and looked at it, as the footsteps were getting louder and louder, the silhouette was getting closer and as it got a little bit more closer, they saw a old man who came up and said with a hurried expression. "Ana, Lukas, they are here, you both have to hurry up!!" Ana and Lukas both looked at the old man with shocked expression. And then Lukas said hurriedly. "We have to go, we don't have any more time let's go Ana!! We don't have any time!!" He dragged Ana to his feet and said. "Let's go! Give him to Father." But she didn't handed the baby over, and just stood there looking at the baby. Lukas said with a frown. "What are you doing, hand him over!!" And then Ana suddenly said. "The name! I want to name him before we leave!" Lukas expression suddenly turned gloomy and he calmed down and said. "I am sorry...i was just so overcome by the situation i can't think straight, so tell me what do you wanna name him but please hurry up." Ana looked at the baby for a moment, while baby was also looking at her, and a gentle smile smile bloomed on her face and she said very quickly. "Noah, that's what i wanna name him." Lukas stood there and looked at Gareth, and he was also smiling and said "Thats a very good name." Lukas looked at her, and said with a smile. "Why did you name him Noah, if you have already thought it, why didn't you told me ." She looked at him with a smile and said. "No i never thought about, it just came to my mind right now." Lukas and Ana both looked at each other and Lukas said with a calm expression, which was quite opposite of what it was before and said while smiling at Ana. "Ok so now that we are done naming Noah, we have to hurry up or else we will be caught." Ana gave Noah a last glance and, handed him to Gareth. Gareth looked at Ana and said. "You don't have to worry Ana, I will keep him safe." Her tears started to fall down. And then she grabbed Lukas' hand and took the lead to ran toward the middle of the place where the moonlight was falling from, Lukas looked at Gareth and gave him a meaningful look.  Before they arrived at the centre, Noah started to cry while moving his hands in direction towards Ana, and when Ana heard that she stopped suddenly and looked at Noah. She was shivering and tried to go toward Noah but Lukas looked at her and shook his head. she didn't know what to do anymore, and then she looked at Noah and shouted. "Noah when you grow up, I will come to meet you again!! please don't forget about mother till then, Okay!!" Noah obviously didn't understood anything Ana said, but just kept crying, and after that Ana said in a low voice. "Bye bye" And after that Lukas grabbed Ana's hand and ran toward the centre of the cave, When they arrived at the centre. they suddenly vanished into the air. And then after a couple of minutes Noah stopped crying, and was just having hiccups, Gareth gave him water. And suddenly there was a silence in the cave, Gareth was all alone in the cave with just Noah, he sighed and looked at Noah, and saw that Noah was also looking at him with pure and curious eyes, Gareth smiled and said. "Its gonna be tiresome for both of us from now on." And then Noah suddenly started crying once again, and Gareth was panicked. "W-What happened, uhh what do you want. Ahh it must be that you are hungry lemme give you some food okay."  And after a moment, he brought a glass of milk, and he gave it to Noah, but he throwed the glass away, and was still crying and when Gareth putted him down and told him. "Wait a min, let me go and bring out some fruits." And when he didn't even walked a few step he suddenly realised that something was wrong, and when he looked back, He realized Noah was not crying anymore, he was moving his hands and legs on the ground in a swimming liking position and looked as if he wanted to crawl, Gareth thought while smiling awkwardly. 'This kid has not even turned a day old, but is trying to crawl." But suddenly something shocking happened, Noah really did started to crawl even though he was not even a day old. Gareth was flabbergasted and thought. 'Well I guess thats to be expected, since he is not a human, and a half day worth of time was enough for him to start crawling, looks like he is destined to become a swordsmen just like his father' He looked at him crawling and thought what he was doing and where did he want to go, he just followed the Noah along and after some time Noah crawled toward the centre of the cave and stared at the moon. Gareth looked at him and realized that it must because this is where he last saw his mother, and with a gentle smile he looked at Noah and said said. "That is Moon, it shines very brightly at night, it can be said to be the most Beautiful thing in the world, it is very big and looks so close that sometimes you think you can grab it by raising your hands toward it, and you have to be sure to be like Moon, because if you meet someone whom life is full of darkness like night, be the moon for them, because there isn't always sun for everyone, and remember there will be one day they will be the moon for you." Noah was still looking at Moon and when he heard Gareth speaking he nodded his head and groaned. "Hmm hmm" He looked very cute when he was noding. When Gareth saw this he was bewildered, and a very long and heavy sigh came out of his mouth, and after that he looked as if he aged a little bit in just a moment.  "It's really a very pity that, a kid who hasn't even seen the world, is carrying its responsibility on his shoulder even though you have just been born." And then Gareth suddenly stood up, and took Noah in arms and said. "Alright, now that everything is done let's check your elemental attribute and its apptitude" After he said that he walked inside the cave and came toward a hut which was in the depth of the cave, and entered inside and took a glass ball from the table, and looked at Noah and said. "Boy listen to me." Noah looked at him, and obviously he didn't understand what Gareth said. "There are 4 basic Element, 2 greater element, 2  element and 2 primordial elements. basic elements are Fire, Water, Earth, Metal and Wood .Greater elements are Light and Darkness. 2 supreme elements are Life and Death. And at last 2 primordial elements are Space ane Time. Let's see what is your innate attribute." And after saying all of this, he took Noah's hand and placed it on the ball, and then suddenly the ball shined so brightly that Gareth covered his eyes, and when he opened them a little bit he saw there were two lights coming from it, those were purple and light blue. When Gareth saw this his heart beat stopped, and his mouth opened so widely that it might be enough to fit both of his hands inside. He covered his mouth with one if his hand and with a bewildered expression he just stood there for a couple of minute just looking at the residual element energy in the glass ball, he  And when he looked at Noah, and saw him crawling towards the lake, then at that moment he recovered from his shock, and ran toward him. And he picked him up from the ground, and looked at him in the eyes, meanwhile Noah was also looking at him and he said. "You kid, you almost shocked this old man to death."

That time in the Lightning village the Sage called for Natsumi and Ken to venture on an urgent mission to Death Valley. Kazutaka had received word via messenger bird that villagers who lived near the Valley were being abducted. “Natsumi…Ken, good evening we have received news of people especially women being abducted and killed near Death Valley,” said Kazutaka before pausing for a moment. “There’s a village there near the valley about twenty kilometres from here, will you go there and find out the reason behind these murders. This is a level A mission be sure to arm yourselves well and be careful.” “Yes sir!” Natsumi and Ken replied simultaneously before leaving the Sage’s office. The two ninja readied themselves for the mission and left in flash for Death Valley. They grew up together at the ninja school and had just graduated the previous year. Ken was Kenji’s cousin and the same age as Natsumi, he had a dark skin tone and short black hair with a fade haircut. He also wore a hooded jacket and wielded a katana that was sheathed on his left waist. Natsumi on the other hand armed herself with a wooden bow and a set of more than a dozen arrows. “Hey Natsumi, do you think you can keep up with my speed?” asked Ken as they raced outside the Lightning village. “You call that speed Ken?” Natsumi replied with a chuckle as she jumped down from a tree and overtook Ken. “We have to follow the river it’ll lead us straight to Death Valley,” said Ken trying to catch up. “ Hai ...we’ll connect to that route at the intersection right up ahead,” Natsumi replied. In the meantime the shadow ninja had arrived at the gates of the Fire village and were unexpectedly welcomed by a group of five samurai. “Halt! You will not go beyond this point,” one samurai barked. The shadow ninja stopped abruptly and one of them proceeded to say, “You will let us pass or we will be forced to take your lives.” The samurai didn’t move an inch and therefore the two groups had no choice but to fight to the death. Before anyone made a move the Kage took out his shuriken and simultaneously threw them landing two clean headshots. Blood started gushing from the corpses as fell to the ground knees first and in that instant the remaining samurai drew their katanas ready to face off with the shadows ninja. It was three against one, the samurai who were brandishing their katanas versus the Kage who was only wielding two kunai knives each on one hand. Metal clangs could be heard as heated battle had begun and was now in full swing. The shadow leader was holding his own against his three opponents without any need of assistance from his men. The Kage blocked a double airstrike with his kunai and when the third samurai approached from behind him he then swiftly moved out the way resulting in the samurai slicing and injuring his fellow men. Whilst the three samurai were stunned by the sudden occurrence the Kage swooped in between them and like a predator attacking its prey, he slit their throats in a single circular motion with his arms outstretched. It seemed as though it was raining blood as the three samurai took their final breaths and fell to the ground with a thud. The Kage who was now smeared in the blood of his opponents dropped his kunai knives to the ground. “ Yare yare, is this the best this village has got? Samurai have truly fallen from grace…they no longer dance as they used to back in my day,” he sighed before facing his men. “ Kage-nin make haste…time is of the essence. We still need to get to get to the royal palace and if anyone gets in your way cut them down…scatter!” They acknowledge their leader’s message and in the blink of an eye had vanished into thin air and left the scene. The Kage remained behind with one ninja who also wore a mask quite similar to his but with slash across the left eye opening. He had spiky jet-black hair and wore a dark jacket and trousers. “Kagemaru you know what to do and why we’re here?” he said to the remaining ninja. “ Hai oto-san , we are here for that Inazuma boy.” “Indeed my son, now then let us make our way to the royal palace.” With that short exchange in dialogue the Kage and his son also left the scene and quickly made their way to the royal palace. The shadow ninja were masters of shinobi-iri (stealth and entering methods) and used the cover of the dark to maneuver within the village. It didn’t take much time for them to rendezvous at the rooftops of the buildings close to the palace because they were trying to be as low profile as they could. The palace was heavily guarded and swarming with samurai both inside and around it. “ Kage-nin you will take the outside whilst Kagemaru will take the roof and I’ll take the inside,” the Kage explained. “These guys seem stronger than those pushovers at the gate,” added Kagemaru. “Indeed. They are the royal guards so you should all exercise extra caution,” said the Kage. “ Yikuzo! ” the Kage exclaimed. The shadow ninja threw multiple smoke bombs aimed at the palace ground and they jumped from the roof using the cover of the darkness and smoke that was building up. All hell broke loose and the fighting began. “Kagemaru you will take out all those samurai on the roof with bows and arrows and I shall look for a way to enter the palace from the windows,” said the Kage. “ Wakarimashita, oto-san, ” acknowledged Kagemaru. The two of them left the scene in a flash and proceeded forward. Whilst the Kage was looking for an open window to utilize as a vantage point and enter into the palace, the smoke below was clearing and the battle between his shadow ninja and the royal samurai was now getting even more intense. Terrified civilians were running all over and many of them sadly became casualties of stampedes and the fighting. Whilst the Kage was jumping from building to building and running around the palace, he suddenly noticed a royal samurai armed with a bow and arrow opening one of the windows and aiming it at him. The samurai started shooting the arrows concurrently at the Kage who was approaching him and at the same time dodging all of them. The Kage was swiftly advancing towards the samurai and in an instant took a huge leap and jumped forward. Whilst midair he adjusted his legs to a flying kick and the samurai didn’t have enough time to draw an arrow. WHAM! The super kick landed and luckily the samurai had managed to block it with his hands in the nick of time. “Not bad at all,” the Kage congratulated. “What business do you have here?” the samurai then asked and before he could get an answer they began an unarmed combat to the death. The royal samurai’s jujutsu skills were splendid and it seemed as though the two of them were going toe to toe. When the samurai realized that martial art wasn’t enough to take out the Kage he jumped backwards and then drew his katana. “You are a worthy opponent indeed and have earned the opportunity to die by my blade,” said the samurai taking up a fighting stance. He held his katana with both hands and then advanced forward to attack. “It seems to me that the real dance has just begun,” the Kage jovially stated. Meanwhile in the daimyo’s chamber, Kazuma and Natsuhi were just getting ready for bed when they heard a knock at the door. Natsuhi put on her night gown and went over to answer the door. It was Rohan. “Lord Kazuma and Lady Natsuhi I apologize for the intrusion but the village is under attack by shadow ninja,” he said before pausing for a second. “The Royal Guards are fighting with them outside as we speak please come with me to a more secure place.” “Right Rohan let us go…you may lead the way but where are the others…my brother Keiji and his family?” asked Kazuma. Natsuhi further added, “Not forgetting the workers as well.” “Yes ma’am, they are in their rooms…you all need to go and stay put in a secure room whilst we samurai take care of these ninja.” Rohan assured her. “We need to secure the village immediately, send word to the Lightning village we are in a State of Emergency,” said Kazuma with a concerned look on his face. “To add onto that we don’t know what these ninja want,” he thought. “Affirmative Lord Kazuma…let us go,” acknowledged Rohan. While they were on the way they met with another royal samurai and Rohan instructed him to send a message to the Lightning village. When they got to Keiji and his wife’s room they proceeded to Kenzo’s room and realized that he was not there. “Kenzo’s not in his room!” exclaimed Keiji. “He had mentioned something about going out on an errand…I didn’t expect he’d be this late,” Keiji’s wife added tears starting to fall down from her eyes. Rohan promised the two of them that after the chaos was over he would personally go and look for Kenzo. After that he then grouped all the royal family members including workers he could find in the third floor and took them to a secure room. “Alright, this seems to be a secure enough spot to hide for a w-,” Rohan paused as he sensed an ominous presence. “Wait here,” he then whispered. Before he could leave he heard footsteps in the corridor making their way towards the room they were in. His left hand started to hover over his katana which was sheathed on his left waist. The room went silent and all anyone could hear was their own heartbeat. The sound of the door opening slowly then broke the silence and out of it came a shadow ninja fully drenched in blood. It was the Kage and his cloak was slightly torn. “I guess he didn’t have much fight in him,” were the first words he spouted. He had a flashback of how he took down the samurai before saying, “Oh where are my manners…hello my name is Kag-.” Before the Kage could introduce himself Rohan swept in as fast as lightning and cut his cloak around his chest area. “ Iai!? ” the Kage shouted out in amazement. To the naked eye it seemed as though Rohan had only slightly unsheathed his katana and in a split second left where he stood to appear behind the intruder with his katana back in its sheath. The Kage’s cloak fell down and revealed chain mail and armor underneath it which had also been grazed by the Rohan’s blade. He touched his chest which had a small cut and was slightly bleeding, stared at his blood in his fingers for a moment. “My, my…if it were not for this armor I would be dead right now. Yes I can clearly see it now, you’re the strongest samurai here and these are your men am I right?” Rohan didn’t reply and the Kage then laughed and further added, “You are a formidable opponent indeed and for you I will not hold back.” He released two black rods that had been hidden in his hands underneath his garments and then joined them together to make a long staff. “As I was saying before…my name is Kagero and I would like to know the name of the man who cut me before I send him to hell.” Rohan watched the Kage taking up a Bōjutsu (staff fighting) stance and he realized that the man meant business. “Ah bōjutsu I see…the name is Rohan and it is you who will be going to hell Kagero.” “Now then samurai Rohan, shall we dance?” The room went quiet for a few seconds and Rohan could sense the tension in it. He realized that the people he was trying to protect were already starting to panic as such he assured them that all will be well. “Rohan, show him what the Fire village is made of!” exclaimed Kazuma also trying to put everyone else at ease. “ Hai daimyo-sama ,” Rohan replied Kazuma whilst still staring at Kagero and wondering whether or not the Kage would make the first move. Then at that instant the two of them simultaneously ran towards each other and the intense battle began. This Novel Contains Mature Content Show This Chapter? Yes

“She’s already dead Natsumi…” said Ken checking the body for a pulse. “Be careful this place might be full of traps,” he warned. “There’s another body this side, a man this time,” said Natsumi pointing to another dead body that had been nailed on the trunk of a tree. The two of them approached the second corpse with caution and made yet another discovery. “His eyes and his dick seem to have been gouged out!” she exclaimed. “Shit that’s crazy…guess that means we’re at the right spot,” Ken responded. In that instant they heard a deep voice emanating from the nearby trees. “What are you two brats doing in my valley?” “Hey Natsumi…did you hear that?” whispered Ken as he unsheathed his sword. “Yeah I sure did, we’re not the only ones here,” she replied in a whisper as well. “Be ready for anything,” she added tightly gripping her makeshift lantern. “You may be wondering why those two bodies were crucified on those trees. Well the two love birds were trespassing in my valley the exact same way you are doing right now. I found them here this morning going at it like wild animals in heat…” There was a momentary pause. “I obviously had to set an example of them,” the voice broke the silence once again. “He’s somewhere in up in the trees,” Ken whispered once more before taking a step backwards and accidentally stepping on a twig. At that instant he had unknowingly given away his position. The rōnin who had been hiding in the trees swiftly rushed towards him with his tekko-kagi (hook claws) out like an eagle about to attack its prey. A loud clang between steel and steel echoed as two weapons hit each other. Ken had barely managed to dodge the surprise attack in the nick of time. The rōnin tried to claw at Ken a second time whilst he was still midair. Ken then dropped his light in order to use both hands to tightly grip his katana and luckily blocked the attack. “Shit…he’s fast,” Ken thought firmly gripping hold of his katana. The rōnin was still midair and falling gracefully to the ground when Ken counterattacked. Ken took advantage of his opponent’s position and then sliced through the rōnin’s cloak. The rōnin landed toes first with his bare feet on the ground and threw away his cloak. He was revealed in the dim light to be an old, untidy looking man who could have been in his late sixties. He had four claws on each hand and he wore a worn out kasa made of reeds which had two bells hanging on it. His kasa covered the rest of his face from the nose up. Below the nostrils he had a dark and scruffy moustache sat on either side of his philtrum and also on his chin. “ Yare yare , not bad at all…” the rōnin sighed. “You’re the first person in twelve years to actually injure me. I will make sure you are the last,” he added grabbing his left arm which had been slightly cut. “Before I kill you let me introduce myself, my name is Gen Hashimoto,” the rōnin grinned showing several missing teeth. “I’d like to see you try, the name is Ken Nakamura.” “Don’t lose your cool Ken, this guy’s just a pushover. If I can maneuver through those nasty claws of his I can strike a finishing blow,” Ken thought trying to come up with a strategy. “If you’re still busy thinking I’ll make the first move then!” shouted Gen as he shortened the distance between the two of them. The fighting began and all Natsumi could hear from the background was the sound of metal hitting metal. The two of them seemed evenly matched as they were blocking each other’s attacks like they had been fighting for years. “If they keep moving that fast I can’t take my aim properly,” Natsumi thought as she stretched her arm ready to fire her arrow. “I guess I’ll have to anticipate where they’ll be before they get there…and this dim light isn’t helping at all,” she said to herself. Ken swung his katana violently to the right and was met with Gen’s left claw. He switched to his left and the rōnin blocked the attack with a right claw. This exchange went back and forth for a few minutes before the rōnin saw an opening and countered with a surprise uppercut. Ken was quick to dodge the attack by slightly moving backwards at the last instant. The sharp claws had missed his chin by a lick of paint. “That was a close one…an inch further I would’ve been a dead man.” Ken jumped backwards to increase the distance between him and the rōnin. “Scared are we?” Gen let out a chuckle. “I’m sure you’re better than that Nakamura Ken.” Ken raced forward with his katana tightly gripped and swung from the left. He noticed the rōnin prepare to counter and then immediately switched the left swing into one from below. A sort of upper cut with a katana as it were. At that instant the rōnin’s bells jingled and he swiftly jumped backwards into a backflip and moved out of the way. “Copying my move…I see,” Gen smiled as landed gracefully on his feet like a cat. “You truly I amaze me boy, now my hands can’t wait to claw at that skin of yours.” “I see you copied how I evaded as well,” Ken laughed. “Are you scared old man? I’m pretty sure you’re better than that Hashimoto Gen,” he added mockingly. Natsumi had been carefully watching the two shinobi having a go at it at full speed with her bow in hand. When they paused for a moment she took aim and fired directly at Gen. The projectile flew through the air at high speed cutting the wind in a streamlined flow. The rōnin’s bells jingled for a second time. He stood perfectly still and immediately covered his vitals with both hands. His right hand hovered over his front side and the left hovered over the back. The arrow impaled his left hand which had been protecting his heart from behind. He had managed to stop it before it could leave his hand on its exit and do the fatal damage it was supposed to. “Ten metres directly to the south,” Gen whispered to himself. At that instant the rōnin moved so swiftly it seemed as though he had teleported. In the blink of an eye he had appeared directly in front of Natsumi with his right claw ready to attack. Natsumi felt her heart skip a beat as she saw Gen appear right in front of her. “Hey there girly,” he said with a devilish smile. Thanks to the immense training she had received from the Ninja school her body moved instantaneously out of the way without her consciously making the decision to do so. “That was close call,” she thought as she jumped into a backflip and quietly landed on her tippy toes a few metres away from the rōnin. “Those are some pretty fine movements you did there…” said Gen trying to search for where Natsumi had gone. “You’re quite light on your feet girl, very few have ever survived my Jinsoku Tekko-Kagi .” “So what do they call you?” Gen questioned still turning his head about in an effort to locate Natsumi. Natsumi remained silent sizing up her opponent. She was about twelve metres directly in front of Gen and he wasn’t able to locate her. Suddenly she realized something of great importance to the battle. At that same instant Ken had also noticed it. “He’s blind!” This Novel Contains Mature Content Show This Chapter? Yes

Rohan couldn’t finish his apology to the daimyo. Those three words became his last as he fell to the ground with the two weapons on his back. Kagero took the sword that Rohan had dropped from the ground. “Now then where were we?” Kagero glared at Kazuma. “There’s been too much bloodshed for one night, if you give me what I want I will be on my way and no one else has to die.” “What is it then that you desire?” the daimyo questioned trying to muster up some courage. “Where is the Inazuma boy?” requested Kagero. “Give him to me and my men and I will leave this place.” Both Kazuma and Keiji wondered which boy the shadow ninja was talking about and each brother thought of his own son who was absent at that moment. “Seems like my words have fallen on deaf ears…very well,” said Kagero moving towards the terrified group. He then plucked a katana with his right hand from Rohan’s back and used it to kill all the remaining servants present in the room only leaving the royal family members alive. “That’ll put them out of their misery,” Kagero said wiping the blood off the blade. “So daimyo-kun and everyone else remaining have I made myself clear?” he questioned. The whole room became silent. “Where is the purple haired Inazuma boy?” Kagero paused and pointed at Natsuhi. “Yes the boy with hair like hers.” The room was quiet again for a moment and the royals looked at themselves fearfully. “How troublesome, guess I should make another demonstration,” Kagero sighed breaking the ominous silence for a second time. He proceeded to swiftly grab Keiji’s wife Kaori in a chokehold with his left hand. Keiji furiously stood up and tried to punch Kagero but was given an intense right kick to his gut by the latter which sent him flying from where he came. He hit the wall with his back and fell to the ground with a massive thud and let out a loud scream as he was in excruciating pain. Kazuma and Natsuhi both looked at Kaori who was being asphyxiated and she shrugged her head signaling to them not to say a word. “We don’t know where he is,” said Keiji who was still on the ground trying to get up with his hands. “Now please let my wife go.” Kagero momentarily let go of his grip on Kaori’s neck and then looked at Keiji in annoyance. “You can still talk after that? Not bad indeed, but for lying to my face you will have to be the next one to go to the other side.” He instantly rushed towards Keiji and then impaled him with the katana through his heart. It was a swift hit and Keiji spewed a gush of blood from his mouth and died on the spot. Kaori who was trying to catch her breath from the chokehold started crying. She managed to scream out the words, “You bastard! What did my husband ever do to you?” as tears rained down her cheeks. Kagero removed the blade from Keiji’s heart and stared directly at Kaori. “You’re also at fault woman…you hinted to these two to keep quiet and for that you will join your husband in the next life as well.” Kagero removed the blade from Keiji’s lifeless body and started walking at a leisurely pace towards Kaori. “If you had all just followed my instructions this would not have happened.” Tears started falling down Natsuhi’s cheeks at the loss of her brother in law Keiji. Before Kagero reached Kaori, Kazuma stood up in front of the latter with outstretched arms. “If you want to go to Kaori-san you’ll have to go through me,” he said facing Kagero with a stern look on his face. As Kagero was about to reach them Kazuma tried to fight the shadow ninja but it was to no avail. Kagero connected his side arm square on Kazuma’s neck in a flash resulting in the daimyo falling to the ground unconscious. With Kazuma now out of the way and laying on the ground Kagero then proceeded towards Kaori and grabbed her in the previous chokehold. “Please look after Kenzo sister in law,” Kaori pleaded looking at Natsuhi. Natsuhi nodded in acknowledgement as tears ran down her cheeks. “Time to join your husband on the other side.” Kagero raised Kaori in the air with his left hand and used the right to impale her in a manner similar to Keiji. Kaori tasted metal as she coughed up blood and her life flashed from her eyes. She took her final breath. Kagero removed the katana from Kaori’s heart and streams of blood gushed out. He hurriedly tossed the body to the side without any remorse and faced Natsuhi. “And then there were two…” Natsuhi was too terrified to say a word or move an inch. Kagero then went over to Kazuma who was still unconscious, tied the daimyo’s hands behind his back and also bound his legs with a cloth torn from his garments. A few minutes elapsed and Kazuma regained consciousness only to see that Kaori had been murdered and Kagero was grabbing hold of his wife. Kagero started feeling up Natsuhi as he stared directly at Kazuma who had just woke up. “You have such a fine woman daimyo-kun,” said Kagero whilst fondling Natsuhi’s breasts. “You do know what I am going to do to her if you don’t tell me where your son is.” “Please leave her out of this and kill me instead,” Kazuma pleaded. “Is it money that you want? Whatever the amount I can give it to you.” “Do I need to repeat myself?” Kagero questioned furiously. “I don’t want your fucking money daimyo-kun,” he added before proceeding to violate Natsuhi while Kazuma watched. Natsuhi cried throughout the whole ordeal as she saw the saddened look on her husband watching her being defiled. When Kagero was done he tossed Natsuhi aside and went to Kazuma. Natsuhi lay mentally broken on the ground with the shadow ninja’s fluids dripping from her legs. Kazuma was also crying and words failed to come out of his mouth. “Time to finish things up,” said Kagero. “Since you won’t tell me where your son is I will have to put you out of your misery.” Kagero broke Kazuma’s neck and just as he was about to go to Natsuhi, six shadow ninja accompanied by Kagemaru appeared on the scene. “Kagemaru my son, have you found out where the boy is?” “Yes oto-san…we questioned a servant who was scared shitless and she told us that the boy was banished and sent to the Lightning Village.” Natsuhi’s will may have been broken but her cognitive abilities were still present and she heard every single word. She rose up from the ground and pleaded with tears falling from her eyes, “Please do not harm my son…you can have me but don’t do anything to Kazuo-kun.” “Hmm,” Kagero paused and faced his shadow ninja. “You hear that kage-nin? There you have it, spoils of war.” The shadow ninja all laughed except for Kagemaru who was disgusted by what his father had said but dared not to oppose him. Natsuhi realized what the Kage meant and was terrified by the statement. She looked down at Rohan’s sword on the ground and contemplated taking her own life before she could be sullied any further. Before Natsuhi could make a decision Kagemaru had read her mind and swiftly rushed towards her. He impaled her through her heart with the sword that was on the ground. He then lowered her gently to the ground and quietly apologized ensuring the other ninja didn’t hear. Natsuhi managed to mouth the words ‘ thank you’ before she passed on. “What the fuck is wrong with you Kagemaru?” shouted Kagero angrily. Before the Kage got his reply his son rose up with the sword and killed the six shadow ninja in a flash. “Father, that was not right and I had no choice but to oppose you,” replied Kagemaru. “That woman didn’t deserve any of this. We already know where the boy is.” “If I had not been weakened from my fight I would have beaten the shit out of you! I should have brought your little sister instead…at least she is more ruthless than you,” Kagero barked angrily. “You beat me? You can’t even use tōei…how the fuck do you think you could beat me?” Kagero gave his son a slap and the latter returned the slap with a punch to his jaw that resulted in knocking him out. “You’re weak old man,” said Kagemaru before he picked up his father. He then left the scene and went home to the Shadow village with Kagero on his back. By the same time Kagemaru left the scene Ken and Natsumi had arrived at Death Valley. “There is the valley right up ahead,” Natsumi told Ken as they reached their destination. It was pitch black as the crescent moon could barely light up much of the night sky let alone the ground. Ken lit up the way with his lighter as they followed the river to the waterfall. “So we’re jumping huh?” he asked Natsumi as they both stared down the waterfall. “Yeah it seems like it,” she replied him. At that moment Natsumi speedily came up with an idea. She took out an arrow and lit its head with Ken’s lighter and then tied the tail to a long rope. “Oh I see,” said Ken as he realized Natsumi’s plan. Natsumi took her aim straight down below the fall and shot her arrow. The projectile flew through the air to land on a tree trunk as it struck a hypotenuse with the horizontal ground and the vertical point atop the waterfall where they stood. Ken quickly tied the rope tout to a nearby tree trunk. “Right it’s now tight.” The two of them zip lined to the ground in succession with Natsumi at the front. “This was way faster, great thinking Natsumi,” Ken applauded his companion. Ken then broke a branch in two, lit the ends and gave one piece to Natsumi to use for light. They could now walk around with some light to guide their path. “Wait Ken…what’s that right there?” Natsumi asked pointing to an object on a tree. “Let’s go and check it out,” Ken replied her. They carefully walked towards the object and found that it was a woman who had been nailed naked to a tree. This Novel Contains Mature Content Show This Chapter? Yes

Natsumi and Ken had confirmed the rōnin’s disability. They both stood still at their positions trying to come up with a strategy. Ken was standing about five metres behind and to the west of the enemy. Gen may have been blind but his defenses seemed to be impenetrable. It was still dark with the moon barely providing enough light for the two Lightning shinobi to visualize their enemy. Natsumi then noticed the rōnin make a mudra with his right hand. “Where are you hiding girl,” the rōnin pressed his thumb over his ring finger with the other three faced upwards and drew his hand close to his face. “Hankei Kakuchō (Radius Expansion)!” Gen’s loss of sight meant that his other senses were heightened tenfold. His sense of smell, hearing and touch made up much of his ‘peripheral vision.’ He could make black and white mental images for anything within a two metre radius using just those three senses. So if you were within his range you were dead meat. When he activated Hankei Kakuchō he increased his field of view to ten metres. White ripples in a black void expanded from Gen’s feet that crossed with every object within their radius. He was now able to make a mental figure of Ken and also identify his exact location. Luckily for Natsumi she was still out of reach for the rōnin. “There you are boy,” Gen smiled. “Ima…shinee!” Gen used his Jinsoku Tekko-Kagi for a second time, now on an unsuspecting Ken. The rōnin moved so fast that he left a shockwave behind him. “Ken watch out!” Natsumi yelled, noticing where the rōnin was headed. The rōnin had moved faster than sound of her voice. So by the time Ken heard the warning it was already too late. Gen had viciously scratched Ken across the chest using his left claw. Ken was badly wounded and the only thing that saved him for his demise was the chain mail underneath his hood which had been ripped apart. At that instant Natsumi fired three arrows simultaneously. As the arrows entered his field of vision the bells on his kasa rang thrice. Gen used echo location to determine the position of the projectiles and tried to move out of the way. He couldn’t move as fast as he did before because he was out of energy. He tilted slightly to avoid a fatal attack and the sharp projectiles struck his right chest near the clavicle and shoulder blade. “Nice girl,” Gen applauded Natsumi as he felt the metal taste of blood in his mouth and smiled his usual smile. “Seventeen metres south but I can’t move that far in an instant because I need to replenish my ki ,” he thought. Gen then faced the teenage boy who was lying on the ground on his back trying to muster the strength to get up and fight. Gen walked over towards the young shinobi to finish him off and was stopped by a barraged of arrows. Some were aimed at his right and some at his right. The bells kept on ringing. Gen had lost use of his right hand but still kept moving towards Ken. After deducing that the bells jingled each time she shot her arrows she fired once more this time aiming at the kasa and shot it out of the rōnin’s head. “The bells! Oh well with Hankei I don’t really need them anymore.” The rōnin’s head was revealed to be bald and his eyes had been gouged out probably in battle several years ago. Natsumi on the other hand was now running out of arrows in her quiver and the dark wasn’t helping with her aim. She dropped her bow and pulled out two kunai knives one in each hand and then charged forwards in efforts to save her friend. “Hey rōnin!” she shouted. “Here I am, face me! I will be your opponent.” “Come, girl!” Gen called Natsumi turning his back to face her. “You’re going to let your woman fight for you while you lay on the ground…how pitiful,” he added in a tone low enough for Ken to hear. Natsumi was racing towards a wounded lion that had four claws on its left paw to defend itself with. The close combat then began. Natsumi was frantically attacking the rōnin with both kunai and somehow the latter could hold his own with just a single arm. He managed to defend every strike from the young kunoichi but couldn’t counter because his right hand was severely wounded. Gen may have been filled with several arrows stuck on his body, received a slash from Ken and had an unsable right arm but he was still a tough nut to crack. “Is this the best you can do kunoichi?” he asked trying to provoke her. “You fight me but your mind is with the boy right over there…and that will cost you.” He was right, Natsumi wasn’t thinking straight. She was worried about her wounded companion and childhood friend. “N-Natsumi…don’t m-mind me,” Ken tried to say whilst coughing up a bit of blood. “J-Just end t-this fucker!” Natsumi noticed Gen lower his guard for a split second and she struck forward with a right. The rōnin ducked and then using his left hand he grabbed her in a chokehold. “Gotcha girl,” he grinned with his devilish smile and then tightened his grip. Natsumi lowered her arms and dropped her kunai as she was gasping for air. She was so terrified she soiled herself. “Look boy…your girl just pissed herself,” Gen chuckled. “Kunoichi can be such weaklings…shall I violate her while you watch?” he added facing back at Ken. To Natsumi’s advantage the rōnin couldn’t use his right hand. “Uzai…I almost forgot this bitch ruined my right.” “What luck you have girl! I am unable to move might other hand.” Natsumi smiled and used the last of her breath to muster enough energy to kick the rōnin aggressively on his crotch. “Yariman!” Gen yelled out in agony and then let go of his grip. Natsumi fell to the ground on her butt with a thud and gasped to pay up her oxygen debt. Gen was still in pain and grasping at his crotch with his left hand. He tried to attack the kunoichi but before he could do anything he was stopped by a katana from behind that pierced through his chest. “Shinjimae!” Ken’s voice was heard after he struck the rōnin. “I did say I was going to kill you, you perverted old man!” Ken clenched his grip on his katana and shoved the blade deeper. Blood started oozing profusely from Gen’s chest and he let out another agonizing cry. He coughed up some more and turned his head. “Nice Ken, in shōgi you’d move like a Black Knight ,” he showed his usual grin and raised his left hand. “If I am to die here I am taking you with me.” Gen had referred to Ken by the latter’s name because he acknowledged the surprise attack as a good move. The rōnin then proceeded to punch Ken on his gut. He pierced through the young shinobi with his left claw. “Checkmate!” exclaimed Gen. “Kuso!” Ken groaned, coughing up some blood as well. He let go of his grip on the katana. Gen connected a roundhouse kick with his left foot to Ken’s stomach and pushed the latter a few metres backwards. The young shinobi landed on the ground flat on his back. He laid there lifelessly with a pool of blood spreading underneath him. Natsumi was devastated. She quickly rose up and ran as fast as her legs could carry her. Gen paid her no mind as she raced towards her bow. She swiftly got to it and raced back towards the rōnin making sure she kept a considerable distance from him. Natsumi saw Gen proceeding to make sure Ken had been finished off. The rōnin walked at a tortoise’s pace with a katana stuck on his back because removing it meant immediate death. When Natsumi was directly facing the rōnin and also in the Goldilocks range, not too far nor too close to the enemy she quickly removed her shoes and with her hands on the ground carefully took aim with her legs. She stretched the string tout with her right whilst the left held onto the bow. “Kutabare!” she fired. This Novel Contains Mature Content Show This Chapter? Yes

Rohan initiated the battle with the first strike. He swung his katana swiftly aiming directly at Kagero’s chest but the latter managed to block the attack with his staff. The samurai was trying to inflict more damage to the shadow ninja’s wound. The fight continued back and forth at high speeds with each side blocking fatal hits. As the two of them fought they seemed to be evenly matched and their terrified audience could barely keep up with their movements. Kagero then jumped backwards and threw a shuriken at one of the workers who was watching. Rohan rushed in front of the projectile and took the attack with his right arm. “Now we are both even,” Kagero chuckled menacingly. He pointed at Rohan’s arm which had started bleeding. “Are you familiar with the Art of War ?” “By Sun Tzu, yes I am…” Rohan removed the shuriken with his left hand and threw it to the ground before griping firmly on his wound to prevent further bleeding. “What does it have to do with this?” “This battle was decided before we even began,” Kagero announced boastfully. He raised his hands and pointed at the audience. “I have nothing to lose yet you on the other hand are fighting to protect these weaklings.” “We’ll see about that one,” the samurai responded. Rohan threw a smoke bomb and switched his blade to his left hand and raced forward in the cover of the smoke. They fight resumed in the smoke with the level of intensity having risen. Kagero realized that Rohan was just as good with his left hand as with his right. Rohan swung his blade multiple times at Kagero’s face and the latter failed to dodge all attacks. The samurai had managed to cut the shadow ninja’s kasa and also leave a mark on the porcelain mask. “Let me show you what real kenjutsu is,” said Rohan as he unsheathed a second katana on his right waist. His right arm was no longer bleeding as before and he was now able to utilize it. He proceeded to take up a fighting stance with the twin blades that looked identical and also started brandishing them. “Dual wielding?” Kagero thought in amazement. “So it seems you still have much fight in you…haha I truly am intrigued.” The intensity of the fight was now tenfold and Kagero had taken the defensive whilst Rohan kept attacking him constantly with a barraged of swings from all angles. Rohan then violently swung both blades to the right and Kagero managed to duck in the nick of time. Whilst Kagero was squatting on the ground he also swung his staff and hit Rohan on his back. A sharp crack of the samurai’s back bones echoed throughout the room. Rohan fell and thudded on the ground. He had received a terrible hit to his back but he ignored the pain and rose up to fight. Rohan got back in action and was more careful now not to get hit with a surprise attack like before. The two of them had been fighting for over thirty minutes now and the fight seemed like it undecided and could go either way. Then suddenly Rohan got the upper hand again, he was now combining both his martial arts. Kagero realized that the odds were now against him and while he was blocking Rohan’s attacks with his staff he noticed that he was now cornered. “ Kuso! ” Kagero groaned in annoyance. “Bōjutsu is useless for combat this close…to think I didn’t realize this sooner,” he thought. The samurai had been purposefully advancing towards and leading the shadow ninja to a wall. Kagero’s weapon was now useless because there wasn’t any space to swing it and Rohan was still advancing with his katanas. Rohan kept on swinging his blades in rapid succession and in a circular motion as if forming a tornado until Kagero couldn’t withstand it any longer. “I see you now have me cornered samurai,” said Kagero trying to think of ways to turn the tables against his opponent. “Now you’ve got nowhere to run,” Rohan grinned. He disarmed the shadow ninja with crisscrossed katana swings from both above and below. Kagero’s staff was sent flying through the air and it fell to the ground at the centre of the room. Rohan then gave Kagero a powerful kick to the gut and the latter hit the wall with his back and his bones also crackled quite similarly to Rohan’s from before. Before Kagero could collect himself he was given a punch to his face and he fell to the ground with a loud thud. Kagero’s mask was cracked almost half open revealing a left eye socket that had a kunai scar mark slashed right through and probably received from previous battles. Rohan got on top of Kagero and was ready to strike the finishing blow. “What were you saying about this fight being over before it even started?” Rohan questioned before finishing off his opponent. Kagero realizing he was about to die devised a plant in a split second and threw pepper dust into Rohan’s eyes with his left hand which wasn’t pinned. Rohan got up and cried out in pain, his eyes felt as if they were on fire. “Aahhh…my eyes,” Rohan cried out as he jumped from on top of Kagero. “Water, please…anyone! I need some water!” he exclaimed dropping one katana to try and wipe his eyes. Kagero stared at the katana on the ground but his back was in so much pain he couldn’t raise himself. “Fuck! Get up you idiot,” Kagero thought trying to get himself up with his hands whilst Rohan was still wiping his eyes. He finally managed to turn on his stomach with much difficulty and then crawl over to the katana at a tortoise’s pace. At the same instant Kagero raised himself and got hold of the blade Rohan had regained sight in his right eye with the left still closed and aching. The sound of metal clangs resumed but the two one eyed men weren’t as fast as before. Kagero then jumped a step backwards and threw the katana at the worker who had been saved by Rohan. This time the samurai was too late to react and the sword speared the worker in a clean headshot. The people who were watching were now even more panicked than before as they saw blood gushing from the corpse’s head as it fell to the ground knees first. By the time Rohan reached the body it was too already late and Kagero had taken his staff. Rohan was trying to reassure the people but was also in pain and some of them were slowly losing faith in him. “You will not get away with this!” Rohan shouted angrily facing Kagero with both hands clenched on the katana he had. He was also starting to regain his sight on his other eye. “You fight without honor…that is not the way of the samurai.” “What honor?” Kagero glared at Rohan whilst spinning his staff. “There is no meaning in any of that…in a fight to the death all is permitted.” He broke his staff in two and the said with a serious tone, “Time to end this…you’re not the only one who can use dual wielding samurai!” The two of them continued to fight for another fifteen minutes and this time Kagero was the one who had the upper hand and taking the offensive. Rohan was now defending the barrage of attacks from the shadow ninja with a single blade. In the meantime outside the palace Kagemaru had finished taking out his opponents at the roof top. He had also received his fair share of beating and after he was done he proceeded to the ground to aid the shadow ninja. The shadow ninja had lost more than half of their men while the samurai on the other hand were only down a quarter. Kagemaru then started violently evening out the numbers. “He’s making quick work of these guys like it’s nothing. Truly he’s the next in line to be the Lord Shadow,” said one shadow ninja amazed by Kagemaru’s speed. The fighting between the royal guards and the ninja continued for several minutes. Kagemaru fought using weapons similar to Kagero’s however his skill was more advanced. His staff was just as black, a bit longer than his father’s and also looked more like a spear than a stick. “Do not falter,” he told the shadow ninja after stabbing a samurai with his spear. “We still have a long way to go…they have the numbers and we don’t.” Kagemaru removed his spear and advanced forward to a group of samurai with the shadow ninja following behind him. “Watch out for the one using Sōjutsu (spear techniques)! That black spear of his has taken out more than a third of our samurai in just minutes,” one samurai warned their group. The samurai took on the defensive and moved back a bit whilst they stretched outwards on each side making a horse shoe formation in efforts to encircle the shadow ninja. “So he’s the brains of this lot huh?” Kagemaru thought. “He seems to know about my technique and he is trying to surround us. Well then he has to die first.” Kagemaru told the ninja to halt and in that instant he devised a counterattack. “So you think increasing the distance between you and us while at the same time trying to enclose us with that shitty formation will do you any good? This is shōgi not checkers!” Kagemaru shouted looking straight at the group of samurai. “He forgets that a spear can be used for long range attacks,” he thought. At that moment Kagemaru took aim and then swiftly flung his spear straight at his opponents. The weapon soared swiftly in air like a projectile and it impaled one samurai who had been standing half a metre behind the man Kagemaru thought was the general of the group. “He has lost his weapon…ATTACK!” the man shouted and samurai raced towards the ninja who seemed to have fallen into a trap. “What do we do now Kagemaru?” asked one ninja. “Wait, stay right there.” Kagemaru made a mudra (hand gesture) with his right index and middle fingers raised. “ Tōei (Projection)! ” The black spear which had been stuck on the corpse started to shake and the back of the weapon morphed and became as sharp as the front. Kagemaru then raised his left hand and like a conductor in a choir, he started to move the spear telekinetically. The weapon swept up from the ground as fast as lightning and it pierced through the “general’s” head. “The prana mudra so he’s decided to use that kage kinjutsu (forbidden shadow technique) here. I guess he really had no choice, well either way it’s over for these samurai ,” one shadow ninja whispered. Kagemaru made the spear impale more than a dozen more samurai with both ends before summoning it back to him. “We have managed to destroy their formation, you can now proceed to finish them off,” Kagemaru proclaimed giving the shadow ninja the go ahead. “What kind of sorcery was that?” one samurai asked and was quickly replied by another, “I saw him mouth the word projection …this must be the forbidden shadow magic technique. I always thought the stories were just fantasy.” “Shit we’re fucked then…” the first samurai added. “It’s not over yet, if we die then we die with honor as Fire village samurai,” the response came from the second samurai. “Onward men!” he let out a scream to motivate the remaining lot. The samurai raced forward to their deaths. They were brutally massacred by the ninja and the ground was littered with corpses from both sides. Meanwhile inside the palace the fight between Kagero and Rohan was also nearing its end. The two of them were now tired and the shadow ninja was resorting to using the terrified audience as bait to distract the samurai whilst also thinking of a strategy to finish him off. Kagero kept moving around the rooming till he reached the corpse that he had been stabbed with Rohan’s sword. As the samurai ran towards him in full sprint he threw both his staffs aimed at two more workers. Rohan reverted and then swiftly blocked one piece of the staff before it could kill the worker and then took the other with his back. He had somehow miraculously managed to save both workers from their demise. The second piece impaled Rohan from behind through his gut. It got stuck inside him and both its ends were protruding from each side. Rohan started bleeding profusely and also spewed out blood from his mouth. Meanwhile Kagero took out the katana from the dead worker’s head and then sprinted forward to stab Rohan from behind. “You fought well and if it wasn’t for these weaklings you had to defend you may have won this battle. But like I said, this fight was decided when I realized that weakness and used it to my advantage,” said Kagero clenching the sword with both hands and shoving it inside Rohan. The blade went right through the samurai’s chest and he dropped his katana and managed to let out a few words with much difficulty. “S-stabbing me from the b-back, w-what a pussy” Rohan groaned in agony. “You really did fight dirty…till the very end.” Rohan then faced Kazuma with a disappointed look on his face. “ Daimyo-sama, sumima -” This Novel Contains Mature Content Show This Chapter? Yes

Kazuo startled by the unexpected appearance of the masked ninja swiftly drew out a five star shuriken he had been given by Rohan. “Hey there ninja, if you don’t want your guts spilled all over the ground I’d suggest that you step aside.” “Does this kid really think he can stop my katana with just a shuriken?” the ninja thought lowering his guard. At that instant Kazuo quickly threw the shuriken straight towards the ninja. “Jeez…how troublesome,” said the ninja sheathing his katana on his back and pulling out a smoke bomb from one of his pockets. The ninja dropped the smoke bomb on the ground right in front of where he stood and the shuriken passed right through the snow white cloud of smoke. Kazuo was too shocked by what had just happened to realize that ninja had swiftly appeared right behind him. The ninja then gave a swift blow with his sidearm that landed straight on the young prince’s neck resulting in him falling to the ground with a thud. He was knocked out unconscious and lay motionless on the ground like a corpse. Kazuo then woke up five minutes later and let out a loud scream, “ Ite! ” “That shit hurts!” he added as he held his neck. The ninja who had been leaning on the side of a tree then immediately said, “Purple hair, ill-mannered and annoying…hey kid you are Inazuma Kazuo right?” “Of course it’s me, who did you think it was?” Kazuo retorted whilst rubbing his neck which was in excruciating pain. “I was instructed to escort you to the Lightning village,” said the ninja moving towards Kazuo. “Wait…who sent you?” Kazuo abruptly interrupted trying to get up from the ground. “The Lord Sage, your grandfather Kazutaka-sama.” “Shit, that old geezer,” Kazuo thought. The ninja then added, “Now then let us go we do not have all day.” Kazuo got up and they were on the road racing towards the village. The two of them ran steadily for over eight kilometres with Kazuo tailing behind the ninja who was as swift as the wind. They were now approaching the village when a fatigued Kazuo stopped to catch his breath. “Hey wait up!” Kazuo requested whilst panting heavily. “Aren’t we there yet?” “This guy is fast, he’s not even breaking a sweat jumping from tree to tree like that.” Kazuo thought to himself when he had paid up half of his oxygen debt. The ninja halted on a tree branch and then jumped to the ground. “We have arrived…the Village is right up ahead,” he assured Kazuo. They slowed down for a bit and started walking at a steady pace. The Lightning village wall was now in view. Kazuo had left the Fire village at dawn and it was now approaching midday when he arrived at his destination. Before they entered the village Kazuo was asked to produce his identification papers and get them stamped at the gate. After Kazuo did so, he was welcomed into the village and they carried on their way to Kazutaka’s Ninja School. The two of them were walking through the busy streets of the village when Kazuo’s stomach started grumbling. “Yo ninja, I’m hungry get me something to eat,” ordered Kazuo. “Don’t boss me around kid…this isn’t the Fire village and I’m not one of your servants,” the ninja replied with an annoyed look on his face. Kazuo was frightened by the tone of the ninja’s voice and the look on his eyes which were the only things visible from his mask. “Alright sheesh my bad…please Ninja-san can we get something to eat,” he replied more politely now. The ninja then agreed and they walked over to Karin’s restaurant which was situated in the busiest part of the village with people walking in and out and some having their brunch inside. The aroma delicious food being cooked inside could be sniffed from a mile away. “We can grab something to eat here,” said the ninja as they entered Karin’s and walked over to the counter to order their food. The restaurant was quite busy and packed with people having their scrumptious meals. The inside was spotless with ceramic floor tiles, its walls were neatly painted and wooden furniture filled the sitting area. On the menu there was ramen, plain rice, rice with stew and steak, tea and coffee amongst many other palatable dishes. “ Ohayō gozaimasu! ” Karin said with a huge welcoming smile on her face. “Welcome to Karin’s, may I take your orders please.” She was a slim, beautiful young woman in her mid-twenties and already running a lucrative business for herself. The ninja proceeded to hand over a total sum of 35 yen to her. “ Ohayō gozaimasu! ” “We’ll have one bowl of ramen and a cup of coffee.” “Great…you may take some seats and your food will be with you shortly,” said Karin as she wrote down their order. Kazuo and the ninja waited for less than a minute and their food was brought to them by one of the waitresses. “Here’s your order sir,” she said as handed the ninja his hot cup of coffee and Kazuo his bowl of ramen. “ Arigatō gozaimasu ,” the ninja thanked the waitress as she went away. Kazuo raised his chopstick and exclaimed, “ Itadakimasu!” He then proceeded to devour the tasty ramen that in front of him. The ninja removed his mask from below his chin to just above his mouth ensuring not to reveal his face and then enjoyed drinking his hot coffee. After some minutes they finished eating, left the restaurant and were back on the streets headed to the school. Along the way Kazuo thanked the ninja for the food. “ Arigatō Ninja-san…that ramen was amazing.” “ Dōitamashite …I see there are some manners up there,” replied the ninja. They walked for a few more minutes before the ninja announced that they had arrived. “We have reached the school and from here onwards you can make your way to the Sage’s office so my mission here is done,” he said as the two of them stood outside the main school entrance. The ninja then bid Kazuo farewell and with the cover of a smoke bomb disappeared into thin air. “What’s with ninja and smoke bombs?” Kazuo thought. He then walked alone through the entrance and made his way to the main opening. A sign written “Kazutaka’s Ninja School” in kanji could be seen outside on top of the main door. Kazuo climbed the staircase and then entered the building which was as quiet as a church mouse. The walls were painted snow white and the floor tiled with black and white ceramic tiles. “Why does this place seem like its empty?” he thought to himself while walking through the ground floor corridor. Then all of a sudden he heard a female voice behind him that broke the ominous silence in the whole corridor. “Who are you and where do you think you’re going?” “Oh, I’m Kazuo…grandson of Kazutaka Inazuma,” he replied checking over his back. “Pleased to meet you Kazuo, the name’s Natsumi,” she raised out her right hand to greet him. Kazuo blushed as he shook her hand. “I’m pleased to meet you too.” Natsumi’s head was shaved on the left side and had spiky orange hair on the right. She was in her late teens, visibly muscular and had a beauty mark under her left eye. She wore the exact uniform as the masked ninja from before with the “Ninja” insignia on her left chest. After she greeted Kazuo she showed him the way to Kazutaka’s office. They went up the stairs to the third floor where the office was and Natsumi knocked at the door. “Enter!” a deep and raspy voice was heard from inside. The two of them entered inside and were greeted by the Sage. “Natsumi-chan, good afternoon…I see you have already met my grandson here,” Kazutaka said rolling his chair to face his guests. Kazutaka wore a black nagagi, a black hakama and a white haori only worn by the Sage. He had short white spiky hair with a receding hairline. He also had a long white moustache which went below his chin and had wrinkles all over his face. Kazuo thought to himself but didn’t ask how his grandfather had recognized Natsumi and him without seeing the two of them. “Good afternoon Lord Sage,” Natsumi replied bowing down. “Yes I met him just now on the ground floor and he seems to be quite the interesting fellow,” she further added with a smile on her face. “Long time no see Kazuo-chan, I’m sure you may be wondering how I knew who you two were with my face turned backwards from you,” chuckled Kazutaka. “How the…this old man can read minds now?” Kazuo was lost in thought. He then immediately said out loud, “-CHAAANN? I’m now a grown up grandpa I can’t believe you still address me as -chan.” “Physically you may have grown up a bit but mentally you are still the same old Kazuo-chan. I have been waiting for you grandson, welcome to the Lightning village,” Kazutaka replied. Natsumi on the other hand had realized that it was the reflection from the glass window that gave their identities away, and when she noticed this the Sage smiled at her and then said “Natsumi-chan thank you for bringing him here can you please escort him to the other students’ class.” “Yes sir!” she replied and then took Kazuo to the students’ classroom in the first floor. They quickly arrived there and Natsumi entered the class together with Kazuo and introduced him to the teacher, a youthful man in his late twenties with short sky blue hair. He also had blue eyes, wore reading glasses and had a flamboyant aura about him. “Good afternoon Kazuo my name is Hideo Yamazaki and I am one of the teachers here,” he introduced himself to the young lad in a deep alto voice. “Yo what’s up man, so what do you teach? Oh and where are the other guys?” Kazuo fired questions at Hideo like an interviewer. Hideo understood that he had his work cut out for him and then responded, “Well I mainly teach Ninjutsu, Arithmetic and General Knowledge. The other students are out at the grounds for lunch.” Kazuo nodded in acknowledgement. Natsumi then bid them both farewell and when she left Kazuo went to sit towards back of the class. A few minutes passed and students were starting to return. The first was a reserved boy with brown skin and short black hair. He also wore dark shades and trousers with a white jacket that covered his face up to his nose. Hideo introduced the two boys to each other and Kazuo learnt that the boy’s name was Takumi. After the introductions Takumi went to sit at the front and soon afterwards the class started to pile up. A boy named Haru whose hair was the same shade as Hideo’s sat next to Kazuo and they both got along well as they would soon discover that they shared a great many interests. When the whole class arrived Hideo asked Kazuo to introduce himself to everyone and then class commenced. “Alright then class let’s get back to that question we had before lunch,” said Hideo fixing his glasses. “We have a situation here, Ninja A is on a tree and Ninja B is standing on the ground, give with a reason how B would take out A,” he then questioned his students whilst pointing at a diagram on the board. Haru quickly raised his hand and when he was picked by Hideo he answered, “It is Mikoto-chan sir.” Everyone in the room was shocked, one student even started laughing and Mikoto who had been named being the most astonished. She was the class’ blonde delight with fair skin, brown eyes and had the brains to match as well. “Can you please elaborate Mr. Haru,” Hideo then asked. “It is simple really…she will just stand there on the ground naked and while she distracts Ninja A, Ninja B will then sneak in behind the enemy ninja and take him out,” Haru answered with a chuckle and Kazuo joined in the laugh. Haru had a crush on Mikoto and all his advances were rejected since day one. “Such perversion…it is absurd!” Hideo thought shocked to hear the response. “Anyone else cl-” Before he could ask someone else to respond, a furious Mikoto had swept up to the back row as fast as lightning and she gave Haru an intense punch that landed square on his left jaw. “ Ite! ” Haru cried out in pain and thought, “Sheesh…this girl packs quite a punch.” “Hey no fighting in the classroom kids, you can take this out on the training room with supervision from a graduate ninja and not in my class…understood!” said Hideo raising his voice. Mikoto then apologized and said, “Yes Yamazaki-sensei…understood,” before proceeding to go back to her seat. “Well then, as I was saying who can answer that question class?” asked Hideo. “A shuriken or a well-timed kunai with trajectory of approximately sixty degrees from the horizontal will do since this a long range fight setting,” answered Takumi without raising his hand. “That’s correct Takumi any quick throwing weapon will do, but please raise your hand next time,” said Hideo. The Ninjutsu class continued for a further thirty minutes and then came General Knowledge which Takumi and Mikoto both excelled in and it was a competition for answering the questions. An hour later class was dismissed and school was over for the day, the time was around three thirty in the afternoon. Students who stayed in the school went to their dorms and those who didn’t went home. Mikoto shared a dorm with her friend Kohaku whilst Takumi shared a room with another student named Kenji. Haru didn’t have anyone to share a dorm with at that time and Kazuo requested to share one with him. “Yo Haru do you like that girl Mikoto,” asked Kazuo as they walking to their dorm. “Yeah I do Kazuo and she doesn’t like me back,” Haru replied “Well I think her friend that Kohaku girl is hotter because she has a bigger ass. But if you really like Mikoto you shouldn’t be saying stuff that will almost get you killed…she seems like she’s a demon.” They both laughed. There was a short pause and Kazuo said, “What you say we go and peep in the girls’ baths? Hey you may get to see the naked Mikoto you were talking about in class.” “Wait what?” Haru quickly interrupted. “I want to but won’t we get caught? The punishments here can get crazy…what Mikoto did to me is nothing.” “Nah we won’t get caught not when I’m around,” Kazuo reassured as he unpacked his stuff. Before Haru could say anything they heard a knock at the door. It was Natsumi and she had been asked to call Kazuo to the Sage’s office. “Hey Kazuo your grandfather is calling for you,” she said with her usual pleasant smile. Both Kazuo and Haru blushed and the latter asked, “Bro you know Natsumi-san?” “Yeah we met this morning,” Kazuo replied and Natsumi straightaway added, “Yes he’s like a little brother to me.” Kazuo felt those words as they sank deep down and thought, “Of all the things she could say, worse in front of my friend.” “Not cool Natsumi...I’m not your little brother,” said Kazuo disappointed. Natsumi thought to herself, “The Sage was right this kid doesn’t like to be treated like a child while he acts like one,” and then she proceeded to say, “Well if you don’t want me addressing you like a little brother you can challenge me to a fight and if you win I’ll consider you as an equal.” Kazuo was filled with joy when he heard this but Haru discouraged him saying, “Yo bro Natsumi is a graduate…don’t you see that kanji symbol on her chest you won’t win this.” “Don’t worry Haru I got this,” Kazuo proudly replied his friend. They went to the training room and the fight was over before it even began. Kazuo went in rushing head first with raised fists and Natsumi dodged all his attacks. She then held both his arms and gave him a knee kick to the gut, Kazuo fell to the ground with a thud. “Let’s go little bro…grandpa is calling you,” chuckled Natsumi giving Kazuo a hand. Haru also laughed and added with an “I told you so,” to his friend. Natsumi and Kazuo left the training room and went to Kazutaka’s office. “Kazuo-chan…so how did you find your first day?” the Sage asked. “It was shit grandpa, but at least it is better than the Fire village,” Kazuo replied with a somewhat happy face and then he asked his grandfather, “Yo ojiisan can you train me I want to beat Natsumi because she embarrassed me in front of my friend.” Kazutaka and Natsumi laughed frantically, “Kazuo-chan the only way you can defeat Natsumi here is if you challenge her daily but nevertheless I am glad that you are happy here and already making friends…oh and I was calling you here to tell you that I will be personally responsible for your training,” said Kazutaka. Kazuo was delighted to hear this and when Natsumi was dismissed his grandfather took him to the training room to practice martial arts. “Before we begin I should explain the ninjutsu (ninja martial arts) that we teach here is mainly comprised of jujutsu (unarmed combat) and kenjutsu (sword techniques) amongst and today I will be teaching you the former,” Kazutaka explained in a speech like manner. They began their training and spent over two hours with just jujutsu. When Kazuo was now tired they stopped and Kazutaka told him they would resume the next day. Kazuo then went to take a shower and afterwards it was dinner time. He went to the cafeteria together with Haru and they had their dinner with the other students. Kazuo was growing to enjoy his stay in the Lightning village and each day after class he had challenged Natsumi to a match, got his ass thoroughly whooped and went to train with his grandfather afterwards. Meanwhile in the Fire village a week later trouble was looming because a group of about twenty shadow ninja in black hooded cloaks and fully armed to the teeth arrived during the afternoon and waited on outskirts of the village. The shadow ninja were waiting for an opportune time to attack. The leader of the group had white hair and wore a kasa made out of reeds and also a white porcelain mask that covered his whole face. He was also dressed in a black nagagi, hakama and haori which had the Shadow Clan crest on the back. “ Kage-nin …we shall strike at nightfall,” said the leader breaking the ominous silence. “ Hai! Kage-sama,” they all replied in unison. Nighttime came quickly in the Fire village and the shadow ninja were still waiting outside of the village. It was starting to become dark and there was a crescent moon in the sky. “How the crescent moon shines ever so brightly like a well sharpened blade ready to attack. Now then my ninja let us show them despair ,” the leader of the group announced. “Scatter!” With those words they all left in a flash and raced towards the village. This Novel Contains Mature Content Show This Chapter? Yes

Natsumi fired her final arrow. The projectile flew twice as fast through the air and hit its target in a clean headshot. Gen fell to the ground knees first with an arrow protruding on through forehead. He lay facing down on the ground and Natsumi ran forward to confirm the kill. “He’s dead.” She then rushed over to her friend who was also at death’s door, knelt down and gently raised him with her arm behind his back. “Hey Ken…you alright? Talk to me,” Natsumi pleaded tears running down her face. “Let me carry you, there must be a village nearby. When we were on top of the waterfall I could see light from fires in the surrounding area.” No response. She gently placed Ken back on the ground and gave him mouth to mouth resuscitation. They had all been taught the first aid in their first year at the ninja school. After a few moments Ken let out a cough and gasped out heavily for air. “T-There goes m-my first kiss,” Ken chuckled with some difficulty as drops of blood oozed from his mouth. “This isn’t the time for jokes Ken,” she smiled wiping a teardrop from her cheeks before embracing him. “Don’t overexert yourself you’ve lost a lot of blood.” “Okay mom,” he remarked not trying to worry her. “I s-see you f-finally finished off that f-fucker.” “Couldn’t have done it without you,” she replied him. Ken knew most of the organs in his abdomen had been fatally injured and even if he was moved to the village nearby there wasn’t much they could do. Before he could tell Natsumi they heard female voices emanating from the nearby bushes and trees. “Help! Help!” “Hey N-Natsumi…you hear that?” he asked before adding, “Those are p-people who need your help m-more than I do.” “Yeah I did, the voices seem to be coming a few metres north from where we are,” Natsumi replied. “I can’t leave you to die here Ken.” “I don’t have much time left Natsumi…there’s something I need to tell you,” he managed to say all that in one go. Natsumi then listened attentively. “Please look after my cousin Kenji for me and as for my katana…it’s all yours.” He coughed up a bit of blood and then mouthed, “I love y-.” “NOOO! KEN!” Natsumi screamed as she resumed bawling torrents of teardrops. Natsumi didn’t get the opportunity to notify him whether his love was requited or not. She wept for a few minutes with Ken held gently in her arms hoping he would wake. She stopped crying when she heard the screams of voices again. She carried her friend’s body gently and carefully hid it in the nearby bushes before dragging the rōnin’s corpse to hide it as well. After she was done hiding the bodies she took Ken’s katana from Gen’s back, wiped off the blood with a cloth and then tied it to her left side. She went to pick up her shoes and put them on before grabbing her bow and heading towards where the sound had been emanating from. As Natsumi drew closer to the voices they started to become clearer and she could also notice a small hut. She cautiously entered the wooden structure with her guard up and found out that three women in their late twenties had been tied up with their hands bound behind their backs. “Please miss can you help us?” one of them begged. “Right away…let me untie those ropes for you.” Natsumi quickly dropped her bow and unbound them from their restraints. The first woman to speak thanked her countless times before explaining how they’d been abducted. “My imōto had been missing for several hours and it was getting late. Me and my two friends decided to go out and look for her,” said the first woman after being freed. She paused for a moment. “No one would help us so we set off from our village which is nearby from here and followed the river upstream. When we approached Death Valley we knew of the many stories about women and girls being kidnapped but we couldn’t just wait…what if it’d been my imōto as well? That was all that ran through my mind.” “So what happened when you got here?” Natsumi asked. “We found two bodies already nailed to trees,” she broke into tears. “My imōto and her kareshi …his eyes and dick had been gouged out! Who the fuck does that! Before we could do anything we were knocked out by a scruffy looking man and woke up in this very hut. When we woke up he violated us and then told us we were each gonna end up on a tree just like my imōto.” Natsumi stared at the other two women present and she could tell they had gone through some traumatic ordeal. They were so frightened not a single word could come out of their mouths. She gave her condolences to the first woman and also told her that she too had lost someone dear as well. “As for that rōnin, you needn’t worry about him. Ken and I finished him off.” The lightning kunoichi escorted the three women to the nearby village and ensured that they all arrived safely to their homes. She was offered a place to stay the night by the first woman and she gladly accepted as it was still quite dark outside and she needed to replenish her energy. The next morning before the birds started chirping Natsumi bid the woman farewell and was on her way back to her own home, the Lightning village. Meanwhile that morning at the Fire village news of the royal family massacre was in almost every room. Kenzo who had been hiding in the Inazuma shrine was devastated when he arrived at the royal palace to see everyone dressed in black and hearing of his family’s demise. The twelve year old prince started wailing sorrowfully and was comforted by some of the workers present. Without a daimyo or an adult member of the royal family the young prince was promoted to regent daimyo by a group of elders, advisors and a few royal samurai who were present in the palace. The elders and advisors aided Kenzo in the necessary preparations for the royal funeral. Sooner rather than later the whole village would be dressed in black and mourning the great loss. Back at the Lightning village Kazuo and Haru had finalized their week long plan of peeping into the girls’ baths. The deadly duo woke up just as the birds began to chirp their beautiful songs and made their way to the boys’ baths before breakfast began. As they entered the bathroom they could hear the voices of Mikoto, Kohaku amongst other girls in the next room. The duo made sure they were the only ones in the boys’ side before carrying out their plan. “Now’s the time,” Kazuo whispered over to Haru who nodded back. They approached a ventilation outlet that was on the ceiling at the side of the bathroom. It was small enough to allow someone with a relatively small build to enter. Haru raised Kazuo on his shoulders and the latter unloosened the screws before opening the outlet. “Yes!” Kazuo exclaimed in a whisper when the last screw was undone. Kazuo entered the vent pipe and helped raised Haru with his hands. The duo then crawled over to the girls’ whilst side facing each other. The stopped at the central vent outlet where they could see through the metal grid. “We hit the jackpot,” Haru told his fellow degenerate. “Yes we did,” replied Kazuo with a grin on his face. “Yo I can see her tits!” he added with an exaggerated nosebleed. “Who’s? Hey lemme see,” Haru requested trying to scoot Kazuo over. “Hey Haku did you hear that,” Mikoto looked around to see where the sound was coming from. “What Miko ?” replied a startled Kohaku. “Up there…in the vents. I think there’s someone in there.” Kazuo and Haru were as quiet as a school on weekends. “Shit we’re busted,” the latter whispered. All the girls present shrieked trying to cover themselves up with their hands and towels. “Oh no…not perverts!” one of them yelled out. “Just stay quiet and crawl back to the boys’ side,” Kazuo whispered to Haru who then did as he had been instructed. As Haru jumped to the ground on the boys’ bath he was greeted by an unexpected guest. “What were you doing in the vents?” “I-I…” Haru stammered before turning to see who it was. The guest was revealed in the steamy room to be none other than the goody two shoes Kenji Nakamura. “Hey Haru, I asked you a question.” Kazuo could be heard crawling towards the opening and Haru wasn’t in a position to warn him. “Nothing!” Haru exclaimed the first thing that came to mind. It was a clever effort to try and dull Kazuo’s steps with his voice and also warn him at the same time. “I thought I heard a sound and wanted to see where it leads that’s all.” “Wait who else was up there with you?” Kenji further questioned sternly trying to move Haru aside so as to check the vent. “No one!” the reply came almost instantaneously but Kenji could see through the façade. “Let me guess it’s the Inazuma boy,” Kenji sighed with his arms folded. “Hey Kazuo I know you’re up there! Get down here before things get worse,” he shouted loud enough for Kazuo to hear. “Shit now we’re really busted.” Kazuo couldn’t think of anything else to do so he got down from the vent and stood beside his only friend. He wanted to tell him how he had messed up by failing to close the vent behind him and also making a fuss when they were carrying out their task but now wasn’t the time for that. “I’ll be sure to notify our seniors about this punishable offense,” Kenji grimaced in disgust. Since he was already done with his bath he took his clothes and prepared to leave. “Damn perverts!” “Hey wait…Haru wasn’t in on any of this. It was all me,” Kazuo tried to plead to Kenji but the latter kept on moving and he shut the door behind himself as he left the bath. Kazuo and Haru remained behind to take their baths. They could still faintly hear the girls’ in the next room trying to figure out who the pervert was. “Yo Haru…what’s that guy’s deal?” “Who? You mean Kenji…uh don’t mind him he’s like that. He thinks he’s cool like his cousin Ken.” “Him…cool?” Kazuo pointed to the door making a questioning frown. “Doesn’t he know being a nice guy won’t get him any girls?” The duo finished their taking their baths, went to their rooms to get dressed and then made their way to the cafeteria before the first lecture for the day began. After they were done with their food they proceeded to the classroom and when everyone had settled down their teacher had an announcement to make. “Okay good morning class.” “GOOD MORNING YAMAZAKI-SENSEI!” the students shouted. “Before we start today’s lesson Kazuo and Kenji are being called to the Sage’s office.” This Novel Contains Mature Content Show This Chapter? Yes

“Now that you are done packing Kazuo-chan…shall we go?” “Yeah, yeah old man…” Takumi and Mikoto stared at each other shocked at how Kazuo talked to the Sage but didn’t say a single thing. The four of them made their way to the main gate without uttering a word before Kazutaka broke the silence. “You know the three of you remind me of a trio I once personally trained,” he said stroking his beard the usual way. “Ah yes…Shin, Asuka and Hideo. They were exactly like you three.” “Lord Sage, by Hideo you mean Yamazaki-sensei?” asked a curious Mikoto. “Yes indeed Mikoto-chan,” replied Kazutaka. “And I am sure you are familiar with Asuka-chan. You are quite like her when she was your age.” “Sugoi!” Mikoto exclaimed out loud in excitement. “Yes! I sure do Asuka-san graduated the top of her class. She’s the strongest kunoichi in this village and huge inspiration to me.” “Not just kunoichi young lady,” the Sage added with a smile. “She’s the second strongest shinobi in this whole village. When you return from your trip she would have also returned from her own level S mission abroad. I will be sure to introduce you to her.” “Sugoi desu ne!” the young kunoichi exclaimed a second time. “Thank you so much Lord Sage.” “…And I’m guessing that means I’m Hideo-sensei,” Takumi spoke for the first time. “Affirmative Takumi-kun…and you may be quite smarter than he was at your age,” Kazutaka acclaimed him. “Hey then only Shin is left,” Kazuo interrupted abruptly. “Who’s he?” “Funny you should ask Kazuo-chan,” Kazutaka grinned as he faced his grandson. “The two of you have actually met before. He is the ninja who escorted you into the Lightning village.” Kazuo jogged his memory to the first day he arrived at the village. “Oh that masked guy with the white hair?” he questioned. “Yes…that is Shin-kun.” “No way ojiisan, I’m nothing like that man!” Kazuo cried out in annoyance as he shook his head. Kazutaka burst out in laughter and the other two joined in. “If Shin-kun would have been here he might have probably said the exact same thing,” Kazutaka affirmed. He paused for a moment, “You two are more alike than you may know. When he was your age Kazuo-chan he was just like you.” The four of them carried on with small talk and in no time they had made it to the main gate. The new three man team got their passports cleared and they bid the Sage farewell. “Farewell Lord Sage,” said Takumi. “Bye, bye,” Mikoto waved her hand with a smile beaming from ear to ear. “Sayonara ojiisan,” Kazuo was the last to say goodbye to his grandfather. “Farewell you three…safe journey and I hope to see you soon.” It was in the early morning when the trio set out for the Fire village and as they traversed the route that Kazuo now knew by head not a single a single word was uttered between them. After several minutes in the dead silence Kazuo tried to break the ice with small talk but it was to no avail. Mikoto was still infuriated by what had transpired the day before whilst Takumi ever indifferent. When they had covered much distance and the Lightning village no longer in sight they were abruptly met with a challenge that Kazuo remembered all too well. It was a group of twelve bandits whose leader was the one who had fought with Rohan. “Wait a minute I remember you…purple haired brat!” he shouted. “Where is your samurai friend?” “You!” Kazuo recognized the spikey haired gang leader as he took up a defensive stance with Takumi and Mikoto on his right and left respectively. The bandits began to encircle the trio and Mikoto let out a whisper. “Hey Takumi, what do we do?” “They want to trap us with a pincer maneuver,” came the response in a low tone. “I’ll create a distraction, follow my lead.” In that moment Takumi dropped a smoke bomb and used the cover of the smoke hide in the bushes on the right side. Mikoto followed suit and did the same on the left side. Their goal was to outmaneuver the advancing group and silently take them out from behind. Defenses against a pincer attack had been thoroughly covered in Hideo’s lectures and now it was time to put the theory into practice. “Not again,” Kazuo thought recalling his dislike of smoke bombs as he tried to see through the cloud of white. “Ha ha…a smoke bomb? This will be easy pickings,” one of the bandits snickered mockingly as he broke the silence. “Come out, come out wherever you are,” the leader shouted. “We aren’t gonna hurt you.” The area went dead silent again with the cloud of smoke still obscuring everyone’s vision. Suddenly a yell similar to that of a dying animal was heard. One of the bandits was down. Sounds of fighting and grown men screaming soon filled the air as the smoke cleared. It was revealed that Takumi had stealthily slit two bandits’ throats with a kunai whilst Mikoto on the other hand had knocked out three. A shocked Kazuo stood frozen in the exact spot as he tried to figure out what had transpired. Unlike Mikoto, Takumi was not as skilled with unarmed combat so he relied heavily on subterfuge with pyrotechnics and throwing weapons. With the bandit gang now reduced to seven they realized that these were no ordinary children. The remaining members got even more serious and took out their weapons with the intent to kill. “Haa!” a bandit rushed towards a frozen Kazuo with an axe in hand. The young lad had to quickly snap back into reality and think of a way to defend himself. Kazuo saw the axe swing directly towards him and his body reacted on its own. He swiftly ducked and leapt to the side with the blade of the axe missing his jacket by a lick of paint. As he landed on one knee he took out two shuriken whilst the bandit removed his axe from ground and then in rapid succession threw them straight at the man. As the shuriken dug deep into the bandit’s back he let out a scream and left his axe. “I will kill you…you brat!” he roared as he rushed towards Kazuo with clenched fists. Kazutaka’s jujutsu lessons were needed now more than ever. Kazuo a right and then left with ease but then a second right connected to his cheek and sent him flying. He landed abruptly with his back against a tree and lay there unconscious. The bandit then removed the shuriken from his back and walked steadily towards his axe. Meanwhile in that time Mikoto and Takumi had each taken out a single bandit. She was now fatigued and up against two bandits whilst Takumi faced the last one. “There is no where you can run off to now girl,” said the leader of the group brandishing a kunai. “It’s now two against one and your silly little tricks won’t work against us.” “We’ll see about that!” Mikoto retorted with a grin. She rushed forward with the fists that had already knocked out four of the bandits. “ Baka! ” the leader laughed as he dodged Mikoto’s punch. “Too slow.” The two bandits managed to overpower and subdue the girl. The leader proceeded to lower her trousers whilst the other bandit restrained her deadly arms. Takumi who had barely got out of his own fight alive observed as colleagues were about to be killed and violated. He realized that he only had one kunai in hand and was quite far from either Kazuo or Mikoto. Who would he save? “I’m gonna enjoy this,” the leader grinned as he tightly held a fidgeting Mikoto by her waist with one hand and reached for his trousers with the other. Before he could proceed any further Mikoto connected her knee to his groin with so much force that a cracking sound was heard. She was not yet done! In that instant she swiftly jerked backwards and head-butted the other bandit right on his nose. The bandit let go of his grip and held his nose which had started bleeding before receiving a knockout punch. The leader who was on the ground, held onto his precious orbs which would never sire any offspring and let out an inaudible whimper. “I see you don’t need my help there,” Takumi applauded her and she smiled before falling onto the ground. Just then the last standing bandit swung his axe towards Kazuo. Before the bandit could connect a fatal blow, the seemingly unconscious youth who had been playing possum rose up in a flash with kunai in hand. He swiftly rushed forward and stabbed the bandit right on his stomach. Kazuo drove the blade deep into the bandit’s innards and the latter dropped his axe the ground as he let out an agonizing roar. A stream of blood then splattered all over the place like a broken fountain as the bandit also plummeted to the earth. A blood stained and fatigued Kazuo also dropped to his knees before landing on his back. Takumi then raced in Kazuo’s direction as he saw him falling down. “Are you alright?” Takumi raised out his arm. “Yeah…thanks,” Kazuo grabbed the arm and sat up. Takumi and Kazuo went over to help Mikoto. When she got up the trio tied the bandits who had been knocked out to some nearby trees before leaving the scene. They carried on the rest of their journey at a steady pace. They were too exhausted and injured to run. “So you’re telling me that you guys learnt how to fight like that from those crappy Hideo lectures?” Kazuo inquired. “Affirmative,” the reserved Takumi replied. “He taught us everything we know,” Mikoto added in seeing that they were now talking to Kazuo. “Cool!” Kazuo applauded. “Did you always want to be ninja?” “Well I don’t know about Takumi here but I for one have always wanted to be the strongest kunoichi in the Lightning village after Asuka-san of course. Just like her the Lord Sage took us in.” “Asuka? Grandpa mentioned her before,” said Kazuo. “So she’s really that strong then. I’d like to challenge her!” he added with a determined look. Mikoto and Takumi stared at him as if he was crazy. “What?” Kazuo asked. “Then you have a long way to go,” Takumi said. “We are just underlings who barely got out alive with these pushovers. Asuka on the other hand is a Sage level ninja and she wouldn’t have even taken a second to finish them off.” “He’s right,” said Mikoto. “I see,” Kazuo affirmed. “I’ll have to train even harder then.” “What is your goal?” Takumi asked facing Kazuo. “Nah, you go first man.” “Fine. Have it your way then.” They resumed the silence. It wasn’t that Kazuo didn’t want to respond but rather the question had really hit him unexpectedly and he had to really think about it. “Well…I know what I don’t wanna be,” he then said after a while, “everyone back home wanted me to be just like my father and be the next daimyo.” “Is that why you came to the Lightning village,” Mikoto asked. “To run away from it all?” “It wasn’t of his own volition,” Takumi interrupted. “He was-” “He sent me away,” said Kazuo before Takumi could finish. “My father, and now I’m going back.” “Sorry,” said Mikoto. “What’d you do for him to do that?” “…a lot of bad things,” replied Kazuo, “but I didn’t mean it, all I ever wanted was for him to notice me and be happy with who I was.” The silence resumed. Then shortly after Takumi said, “I hadn’t answered you by the way. My goal is to return to the Artisan country where Sage Kazutaka found me as a child and invent tools that can help the people of Nihon." “I’m sorry too guys,” said Kazuo. “I must look like an asshole complaining about my old man when you grew up without any parents.” “It’s alright, the Lord Sage and the school are like family to us,” Mikoto smiled as she stared at Takumi. “Yes indeed…she’s right.” “Okay guys we’re almost there,” Kazuo announced. “The village is right up ahead.” When they arrived in the Fire village it was now in the evening. They were quickly welcomed by two samurai at the gate and escorted to the royal palace. Along the way Kazuo noticed several civilians all clad in black. “What’s going on? Why are they all dressed in black?” Kazuo questioned the samurai. “The last time everyone wore black was when Grandma Natsue died.” “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this young lord,” one samurai said, “but when the shadow ninja attacked the daimyo and the royal family were k-” “N-No, no way,” Kazuo muttered. “It can’t be oka-san.” Kazuo was beyond shocked. He paused for a bit and trembled as veins started to show on either side of his temples. His eyes were glassy. He was trying to resist the urge to let out a downpour of salty water from them. “My deepest condolences Kazuo,” Takumi consoled him. “I am truly sorry for your loss,” Mikoto added placing her arm on his shoulder. They made their way to the royal palace which was silent and were welcomed by the regent daimyo with a council of advisors. “Welcome home cousin,” Kenzo walked forward to greet Kazuo and his colleagues. “I’m sure by now you’ve already heard the news…the daimyo and everyone else in our family was brutally murdered by those despicable kage-nin.” The two royals embraced. Kenzo was an intelligent and reserved young boy with short black hair and brown eyes. He also wore a black nagagi and hakama in mourning and carried himself with the aura of a natural born leader. “Sorry to disturb the reunion my lords, but on to more pressing matters,” one of the advisors said out loud, “the issue of Kazuma-sama’s succession.” “With Kazuo, the true heir having returned it is of no concern now is it,” another added. “But he was banished by Lord Kazuma himself!” the third one exclaimed. The royal palace suddenly erupted with chaos as the three old men argued amongst themselves. “I DON’T WANT IT!” a furious Kazuo shouted and the whole room went silent again. When everyone was quiet he proceeded, “oka-san and the old man both knew this and heck the whole bloody village probably knew that I didn’t wanna be daimyo. Kenzo here is the better and more suited option, and that’s if he wants it as well.” “If it is your wish cousin then I would be greatly honoured.” “Yes it is.” “May we have the room please,” Kenzo announced. Before Mikoto and Takumi headed out he said, “No you two may remain.” When everyone else had left the room Kenzo carried on, “when the kage-nin attacked I was busy going over some scrolls and other manuscripts in the Inazuma shrine when I came across a purple scroll which I do believe is addressed to you cousin.” “I’ll check it out thanks Kenzo.” “Before you leave for the shrine there is also something else that you should know,” Kenzo added, “when I returned to the palace after the attack I overhead some peasants say that the kage-nin were after you. I also have reason to believe that their next attack will be on Kaminari no Muri (The Lightning Village).” “Shit! We have to send a messenger bird then,” said Kazuo. “Yeah we need to notify the Lord Sage and everyone,” Mikoto added. “It would be ill advised for Kazuo to return to the Lightning village,” Takumi who’d been silent all along finally added his input. “For some reason they are seeking him, so his best bet is to either wander the lands anonymously or stay put in a village or country where they’d least expect. The latter of course isn’t an option because we as a ninja village have foes in many lands and a daimyo’s son as well as the Sage’s grandson would make for quite the ransom.” “He’s right cousin,” Kenzo affirmed. “Let us wait and hear from grandpa then, but before you head how about a meal? You three look famished.” After the trio were served a hearty supper of rice and pork with miso soup by the royal servants they made their way to the Inazuma shrine. As they passed through a torii (gate) the wooden structure with a thatched roof was if full view. “Woaahhh, this place looks old as hell,” Kazuo announced after they entered the shrine. “So this is where Kenzo always spends his time…could never be me.” “Purple scroll? With all these books? That’ll take a while,” Mikoto sighed before she turned to see that Takumi had already begun the search. “Oh it’s on! You may be the top student when it comes to academics but I’ll be the one to find this scroll first.” Kazuo on the other hand wondered about in search for anything other than a book to occupy his mind. It took Takumi about fifteen minutes to find the scroll and he called the other two to view its contents together. Takumi rolled the scroll open and the trio viewed what it said: To the violet flower whose blood flows the same as Raijin I bestow upon him the power of Light Kneel therefore where once stood the Legendary Sage of old And receive his might before the hour of the Night For darkness gathers in the fold in preparation to fight He whose brightness makes even the shadows cower. “What does that even mean?” Kazuo scratched his head. Mikoto was also in the darkness before she remember what Kenzo had mentioned. “The daimyo said something about this scroll being about you Kazuo-kun. I’m not sure about the rest but the violet flower must be in reference to your hair.” “Oh,” Kazuo came to the realization as he pretended to be following. “Power of the light, where the Legendary Sage once stood,” Takumi muttered to himself as he paced about. “This being a shrine, where then would a Sage stand? Of course!” Takumi searched the area, “Kazuo does this shrine have an altar?” “The last time I came here I was too young to remember man.” “The power of light, hmm…” Takumi thought out loud. “Light!” He stared at the gable window which was still letting some dim light pass through. Following the direction of the light with his hand he pointed to a wooden cupboard. “Let’s remove those books.” The trio removed the books and moved the cupboard to the side to reveal a small golden table that had a thirty centimeter sculptured figurine that stood holding a shakujo (staff) in hand. “The Legendary Sage!” Mikoto shouted trying hard not to show too much enthusiasm at being defeated by Takumi. Engraved on top of the table were the kanji: Yin and Yang The push and pull As above so below As within so without Where there is light there is shadow Takumi removed the table and told Kazuo to kneel where it stood. When Kazuo did so they heard a squeaking noise from the wooden floor. “Hey Kazuo do that again,” ordered Takumi. “Do what exactly.” “Kneel!” He rose and kneeled for a second time and the floor repeated the exact same noise. Mikoto had also caught up speed so she lightly knocked on the plank Kazuo was kneeling on and a hollow tapping sound echoed throughout the shrine. “It’s a false floor,” she said before she punched the plank right open. As they checked to see what was inside the three of them noticed a long box that had the kanji “Raijin” on top of it. Mikoto carefully removed the box from the floor and Kazuo did the honours by opening it. After doing so they were astonished to discover that inside was a straight sheathed katana. Kazuo held the blade by the handle and removed it from the box. When he unsheathed the katana by an inch he was instantaneously struck by lightning. For a split second the whole shrine became blinding white. Mikoto and Takumi were pushed away a few metres by the tremendous shockwave from the thunder strike. A few seconds later when the colour of the room returned to normal Kazuo dropped to the ground and Mikoto rushed over to him. “He’s unconscious!” This Novel Contains Mature Content Show This Chapter? Yes

“OOOOOH!” the students could be heard making noises. “Yes Yamazaki-sensei we’ll be on our way,” Kenji replied with a hint of a grin on his face. He was happy because he thought that he and Kazuo were being summoned to discuss what had taken place earlier that morning. The two boys left the classroom and then walked to the Sage’s office with Kenji leading the way. The remaining children in the class especially the girls started gossiping as to why the two boys had been summoned. Hideo wasn’t having it so he quickly silenced them in one shout before proceeding to begin the lesson. When Kazuo and Kenji arrived at the Sage’s office the latter gently knocked on the door. “Enter,” came the raspy voice from inside. Kenji opened the door and the two boys were welcomed by the Sage and Natsumi. Kenji’s smiled turned upside down when he spotted his cousin’s katana on Natsumi’s side. “Where’s Brother Ken?” Natsumi quickly rushed over to Kenji and gave him a tight hug. “I’m so sorry Kenji-kun,” she said as tears began running down her cheeks. “No…” Kenji replied with a devastated look on his face. “You were together on a mission weren’t you Sister Natsumi? Why is he not with you?” he further questioned as tears began to fall down his own cheeks as well. “Kazuo-chan, let us give these two a moment for a bit,” the Sage hinted at his grandson for them to go outside. As they walked Kazuo was only thinking the worst. How was he going to explain what he had done to his grandfather? Thoughts of being banished again also ran through Kazuo’s mind and he wondered where he would go this time. When they were outside the Sage closed the door and began to speak. “Kazuo there is something I need to talk to you about,” said Kazutaka stroking his long and white chin beard. He always discarded of the –chan honorific whenever he was being serious. “We received a messenger bird from the Fire village at day break. They were attacked by the shadow ninja yesterday…” Kazuo sighed in relief. “Wait what? Are oka-san and the old man okay?” “That part I am uncertain as the letter does not state any much further.” “Shit. I know I said I never wanted to see them again but I hope they’re alright.” “So what’s the way forward old man?” Kazuo asked breaking the short silence. “I wanted us to send a team of ninja to gather Intel and find out what took place and why the village was attack. However most of our graduates are out on other missions,” replied Kazutaka. “Would you be okay with going to the Fire village with two other ninja from your class?” “Yeah sure old man…who?” “Takumi and Mikoto…the two of them are the closest to graduates we have in this village.” “Not those two.” “Alright old man…what can I say,” said Kazuo trying to hide his obvious disappointment. “I’m guessing that’s all, so I’ll be off then.” “Not so fast Kazuo…I heard about what you did today and I could tell you thought I had called you for that,” Kazutaka laughed out loud as he stroked his beard. “Go and wait for me at the training room.” Kazuo shyly placed a hand behind his head and apologized. When he was sternly told not to repeat what he had done he bid his grandfather farewell and took his leave. Kazutaka returned to his office after confirming that Natsumi and Kenji had quieted down a bit. Natsumi had gently broken the devastating news to Kenji who after a while accepted it and hugged her back. Everyone knew that death was commonplace for shinobi and the Shinigami visited them regularly. Kazutaka offered his condolences to Kenji and the young lad although still pained by the loss thanked the Sage. “Ken would’ve wanted you to have this Kenji-kun,” said Natsumi taking out the katana and offering it to Kenji. “I don’t think I’m ready to wield that blade yet Sister Natsumi,” Kenji wiped the tears off his face. “I will take it when I’m worthy to wield it and until then may you please hold on to it for me.” “Alright then,” Natsumi replied before facing Kazutaka. “Lord Sage, we’ll be off then.” She bid farewell to the Sage and took Kenji out for a walk. Before the two boys had arrived in his office Kazutaka and Natsumi had been discussing what had occurred during the mission. He assured her that Ken and Gen’s bodies would be retrieved and brought back to the village. A ninja was still as valuable whether alive or dead even more so with the latter. Bodies of highly skilled shinobi and rōnin were the most valuable as they held many secrets about that shinobi and their abilities. When Natsumi and Kenji left his office Kazutaka went to the training room to meet with Kazuo who was waiting for him. Along the way he was thinking of what could have occurred in the Fire village and why it was attacked. “You may be wondering as to why I asked you to wait here Kazuo-chan,” were the first words he uttered upon entering the training room. “Yeah I thought maybe it’s for training or something,” Kazuo retorted holding his chin with his left hand. “Well not quite, you may be my grandson but I still have to treat you like everyone else. What you did is worthy of expulsion but I have decided to give you a punishment far worse!” he paused for a moment. “Now then give me a hundred pushups.” “A hundred pushups you say?” Kazuo blurted out loud interrupting his grandfather. “That’s easy old man.” “I was not finished yet, not just any pushups but rather Hindu pushups.” “Shit I’m fucked. I’ve heard about those from Rohan-sensei, he said next to one arm these are the worst.” “By your silence I am guessing you do not know how these are done. I shall demonstrate once.” Kazutaka showed his grandson how the Hindu pushups were done. Kazuo struggled to get through the first ten. His arms were starting to ache and tremble. “What are you doing? We are just starting and you have ninety more to go!” “Hey old man this shit isn’t easy.” “If it was easy it wouldn’t be punishment now would it? Get back to it and stop wasting time.” Kazuo resumed the strenuous task. Some minutes elapsed and he was now halfway and sweating profusely. Kazutaka kept on ordering Kazuo to continue each time he stopped for a moment to catch his breath. When thirty minutes had passed since Kazutaka entered the room Kazuo had completed the hundred Hindu pushups. His grandfather then requested a further hundred sit ups and squats from him which all in all took him another thirty minutes to finish. At this point Kazuo looked as if he had just got out of a river. “That will be all-” “That’s it right?” Kazuo rushed in trying to get up with his hands which felt like they were made of jelly. “I’m done with this shit.” “That was only the warm up,” Kazutaka continued before clearing his mouth. “Shall we head over to the main event?” “Oh man,” Kazuo grunted in annoyance. The young boy got up with much difficulty and was escorted by his grandfather to the school’s assembly pointed where two buckets and a long bamboo stick awaited them. The students’ classroom was at a vantage point to where the assembly point was, this meant that all the students could clearly see Kazuo and his grandfather from the first floor windows. Kazutaka instructed Kazuo to fill the buckets with water from a nearby tap. After placing a bucket on either side of the stick he was further instructed to raise the stick whilst it was hooked within his hands as if he had been tied to a cross. Kazuo grunted as his legs started wobbling. He observed his grandfather going to stand under the shade of a nearby tree with his hands behind his back. “Now then Kazuo-chan…give me a hundred squats.” “A h-hundred w-what?” Kazuo murmured trying to hold the stick steady. “You can’t be serious ojiisan.” No response came from Kazutaka. He was dead serious and Kazuo came to that realization sooner rather than later. Kazuo began his punishment counting each squat throughout the whole ordeal. The warm up in the training room paled in comparison to this. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky and the sun’s heat was so unbearable that it made the exercise tenfold as difficult. “T-twenty two…t-twenty t-three…” Kazuo grunted to himself whilst dripping bucketsful of sweat. “Damn man,” Haru thought as he stared at his friend through the window. “Kazuo is out there serving punishment for the both of us while I’m here.” There was a rumble of voices in the classroom especially from the girls who had come to the conclusion that the pervert from that morning was Kazuo. “Shhh quiet down everyone, we’re still in class,” Hideo ordered his students. He looked around the classroom and spotted Haru lost in a world of his own. “Earth to Mr. Haru you seem to be lost in wonderland.” Haru jolted back into reality, “Y-yes sir.” “Would you care to answer this arithmetic question?” asked Hideo. “What is the square root of negative one?” “I-I,” Haru stuttered. “Correct!” exclaimed Hideo quickly before Haru could say any further. Takumi and Mikoto laughed. Several minutes elapsed and Kazuo was now in the seventies looking like he had jumped into a pool full of water for the second time. He kept on enduring through the pain with only one goal in mind, reaching a hundred. His wrists, back and thigh muscles now felt like they had been stung by a dozen wasps. “N-ninety eight, ninety n-nine…” Kazuo struggled but summed up the last bit of energy he still had. “O-one H-hundred!” he fell to the ground feeling though as he had lost all sensory of his limbs. He was still conscious but couldn’t move an inch so he lay there on the ground next to the buckets with water pouring out of them. The sun was still up in the sky but not as hot as before because it was now hidden behind a few clouds that had gathered up. Kazuo had taken close to an hour to complete the punishment. “Well done,” Kazutaka applauded. He rose from a small wooden chair he had picked up from nearby whilst his grandson was still busy with the punishment. “That will be all Kazuo-chan. I do hope we will not have a repeat of what occurred this morning.” Not a single word came from the young lad on ground. He just lay there and stared at his grandfather. “You know it is not what you did that got you punished. Because almost every pubescent shōnen fantasizes about that,” Kazutaka said walking towards his grandson at a steady pace. “It is that unfortunately you got caught. If you had been in a mission in enemy territory you would have been killed.” Kazutaka kneeled on the ground with one knee and offered his right hand to Kazuo, “There are three tenets we Lightning shinobi have and if you follow these you will never go wrong. One, never be defiled by money. Two, never be defiled by sake . And lastly never be defiled by women or men with the case of kunoichi. Not only does money, sake and sex cloud one’s judgment they are also fuel for the ego and a ninja filled with ego is an easy opponent to defeat.” That short speech went right over the young Inazuma boy’s head. Kazutaka chuckled to himself and helped raise his grandson with the young lad’s arm over his shoulder. Kazuo’s legs were so wobbly he could barely move so his grandfather gave him a piggyback ride to his room. “Alright I guess I will have to carry you to your room Kazuo-chan,” the Sage smiled staring up at the clouds in the sky. Kazutaka left his grandson to rest. It was now lunch time so he made his way to Hideo’s classroom and notified him of what had occurred. He told the teacher about Kenji’s loss and the attack on the Fire village. “On that last note Hideo-kun I’ll also be requesting Takumi and Mikoto to accompany Kazuo to the Fire village to investigate what exactly transpired and why.” “Understood Lord Sage,” Hideo replied. “Those two are at the top of my class. I’ll be sure to talk to them about the mission.” “You have my gratitude Hideo-kun,” Kazutaka thanked him. “Please ensure that they are okay with it, this is a level B mission.” “Noted Lord Sage…” With that the two men bid each other farewell and Kazutaka returned to his office. When lunch was over Hideo resumed his last class. Before the lecture began he notified the students the reason for Kenji’s absence and they were all devastated. When the last lecture for the day began time flew by so quickly that it was now dismissal. “Okay everyone that’s all for today,” Hideo announced and before the students could race out of the classroom he added, “Will Mikoto and Takumi remain behind and as for the rest of you…class is dismissed.” Hideo remained behind with his top two students and got them up to speed with what the Sage had told him. They were both filled with great joy at the thought of their first level B mission. “Oh and you will be going with the Sage’s grandson…Kazuo.” “WHAAAAT!?” the two students exclaimed in unison. Hideo face palmed and let out a sigh. “I should’ve known they’d react like this.” “So I’m guessing you’re not okay with going with him?” “Absolutely not!” Mikoto rushed in. “I wouldn’t say I’m for or against it,” Takumi added more calmly. “I mean he does know the place and the Lord Sage must have a reason for picking him. We may not see eye to eye but that really doesn’t matter. All that matters now is the mission.” “Exactly Takumi-kun,” Hideo commended the fourteen year old. “You catch on real quick!” “That’s something I didn’t consider,” Mikoto said in a low voice but the other two heard her. “Well if it’s for the mission then I guess I’m okay with it. But if he tries anything funny may I have permission to beat his ass?” Hideo and Takumi burst into laughter. “Permission granted Mikoto-chan,” Hideo smiled. The two students said their goodbyes to their teacher and then made their way to the Sage’s office. “Takumi, Mikoto…good afternoon and welcome,” Kazutaka greeted them. “I am sure your sensei Hideo has briefed you on the mission to the Fire village. I would like to confirm that you are okay with accompanying my grandson. This is a level B Intel gathering mission and when you have completed it you are to report back here.” “Hai!” they both agreed simultaneously. “Alright then if you are both in agreement you can proceed to pack whatever you may need and we shall rendezvous here in an hour’s time.” “Yes Lord Sage,” they said again. Mikoto and Takumi each went to their rooms and packed their things in preparation for the trip. Mikoto bid her best friend and roommate Kohaku farewell and then met up with the Sage and Takumi already waiting for her. The trio then went to Haru and Kazuo’s room. They found the latter alone and about to finish packing his satchel. The two hour rest, some yoga stretches and a shower had done his body a great deal of good. Kazuo had already said his goodbyes to Haru before he left the room several minutes ago. “Now then shall we go,” said Kazutaka. This Novel Contains Mature Content Show This Chapter? Yes

This Novel Contains Mature Content Show This Chapter? Yes

“If you want to get to my grandson you will have to go through me first… uncle ,” said Kazutaka as he brandished his katana. “You shall pay with your life for what you did to my family.” Kagemaru and Asuka were startled upon hearing the words ‘nephew’ and ‘uncle’ being thrown around. “Ah yes, the daimyo-kun and the other royals…such a boring lot,” Kagero yawned. “However that wife of his…” he made a gesture gripping her breasts with his left hand. “What fun she was,” he smiled his usual smiled as he glared at Kazutaka. The Sage snapped at the mention of his daughter in law and performed an iai to which the Kage blocked the attack with his staff. “Not so fast now are we,” said Kagero as the steel blade scratched against his black shadow staff. “Old age getting to you…nephew?” Seeing that the fight had commenced the other two Asuka and Kagemaru also began their own battle. Meanwhile the assassins taken down a total of ten battle corp. ninja. Natsumi who had been scouting undercover from a flat concrete roof shot an arrow at one of the assassins who tried to move away but it pierced through the muscle between his shoulder and clavicle. He looked up and threw a kunai at Natsumi but the latter saw it coming and evaded the attack. She then fired a continuous stream of arrows which resulted in the ansatsu seeking cover from the unending torrents in the adjoining buildings. “Where is he,” Natsumi thought and after a few minutes she felt the cold edge of a katana edge on her neck. Her heart began to race. “Where is Kazuo Inazuma? If you tell me where he is I may spare your life,” said the assassin who had somehow silently made his way up to the roof top. Natsumi inhaled and exhaled deeply as she gently placed her bow on the ground. “Okay, I’ll tell you where he is,” she said raising up her hands in surrender. She had one knee on the ground and with the corner of her left eye she could make an image of the assassin on the reflection of his blade on her shoulder. When she saw the blade shake and swerve backwards with the intent to kill her she immediately ducked her head. The katana edge only sliced through the tip of her spiky hair. Her head and neck were saved. As she observed the ansatsu’s sword pass her she noticed he was wide open. She quickly drew a tanto (short sword) from her waist and in a swift circular motion drove it into the assassin’s gut. When her opponent tried to counter with a one arm swing she blocked the attack with one hand and removed the tanto with the other before plugging it into his jugular vein. When the blade was removed the ansatsu placed a hand on his neck in an effort to stop the blood from gushing out but it was to no avail. He fell to the ground and a pool of red formed beneath him. “So that’s why his hand was shaking, he’d already lost a lot of blood from that first arrow.” She noticed the trail of blood the ansatsu had made getting to where she was. “You should have killed me when you had the chance,” she said staring directly at his eyes which were visible through his masked uniform as they lost their light. Natsumi cleaned the blood from her tanto with the shadow ninja’s uniform before sheathing it. She went over to her bow and when she took it she raced on top of concrete tiled and flat roofs in search of other shadow ninja to kill. In the time Natsumi had left her initial opponent Hideo and Shin had separately met with ansatsu and were also engaged in battle. As she jumped over the roof tops she suddenly stopped when she saw another ansatsu standing next to a corpse on the ground below. When she drew near ensuring that her presence hadn’t been detected she saw that the body was Ichika. They graduated together and she had decided to join the battalion corp. The only thing on Natsumi’s mind was to avenge her old friend. In the time Natsumi had started fighting her second opponent, the Sage and Asuka were now several minutes in their own battles with each side seeming to be evenly matched. Kagero had already broken his staff in two and using his dual wielding against Kazutaka. However the village’s prodigy Asuka realized that Kagemaru had not begun to use his projection and only stuck to defending with his spear. Feeling disrespected by this gesture she fought even harder. “I see you’re still holding back,” she smiled. “Won’t you show me that technique of yours?” “I do not need it,” Kagemaru finally said before raising his spear. “This will do.” “I see,” her sweet smile turned into a menacing grin. “You force me use something I have been saving to secure my spot as the next Sage.” Asuka touched the tip of her left ring finger with her thumb. “I am grounded…Lam,” she chanted the phrase in her mind. “The prithvi (earth) mudra,” Kagemaru thought before saying, “so you are familiar with light and dark magic I see…this will be int–” His sentence was cut short as he saw a high speed punch coming to rearrange his face. He moved to the side in the nick of time with the knuckle dusters missing his well chiseled face by a hair’s length. “Shit!” Asuka didn’t give her opponent a break. She followed the punch with a high speed barrage of punches and kicks that were now faster and stronger by tenfold. Kagemaru dodged some of the attacks and made use of his spear to block others but when the last punch hit the centre of his spear it broke in two. He jumped backwards before the punch could land on his chest and created some distance between them. “You’re using the earth mudra to amplify the strength of your dusters as well as increase your speed,” said Kagemaru. “But I’ll show you the difference in our abilities.” Kagemaru brought the two pieces of his spear together and the broken tips became a black fluid like mass that wove and connected together. Whilst holding on to it with one arm he made a prana mudra with the other. “Tōei!” he exclaimed before throwing his weapon at Asuka. The lightning kunoichi moved to the side and dodged the spear in time but as she witnessed Kagemaru twisting his free hand whilst the other held onto the mudra. The spear followed suit and changed its path midair. It flew towards Asuka and followed her wherever she went. She ran to a tree and veered off to one side before impact and the spear pierced through the trunk. It got stuck off course for a few seconds as Asuka hid in some nearby bushes and Kagemaru summoned it to him. “You can’t hide there forever,” he said as he approached her. Kazutaka stared at his pupil’s fight and thought, “I have to end this quick.” “I am you opponent,” Kagero reminded him as he swung his weapons. “You’ll lose an arm if you keep staring at them.” Kazutaka held his katana tightly with both hands and managed to block the attack. Kagero kept advancing as his nephew took on the defensive. Sounds of metal clanging filled the empty school yard as the two warriors violently clashed against each other. The Kage wasn’t giving the Sage a moment’s rest from the successive hits with his rods. Kazutaka jumped back a few metres and created some distance between them. “You’re surely better than that nephew,” Kagero mocked. “You disgrace my brother Kazuro by wielding that blade.” “You shall not mention my father’s name in vain,” Kazutaka replied his face red with fury. “Lest you wish to keep that tongue of yours…uncle.” “Ha-ha, now we’re talking bring it all out…all that rage !” Kazutaka brandished his katana with a single hand and took in a deep breath. He proceeded to raise the other hand with four fingers save for the thumb all standing upright. When he placed his Agni (fire) mudra in front of his face he exhaled. “ Kagutsuchi: Shōkyaku suru (Fire God: Incinerate)!” At the mention of those words the sword’s sixty centimetre blade was lit ablaze with a gentle orange yellow flame that made a crackling sound. Kazutaka pointed his sword at Kagero and glared at him with the eyes of death. This Novel Contains Mature Content Show This Chapter? Yes

The hundred years spanning between the Sengoku and Edō period saw an era of chaos and war in Nihōn , the land of the rising sun. Countless lives were lost and rivers of blood shed as numerous clans fought for dominance. However after years of conflict some clans began forming alliances in a bid to usher in an era of peace and also strengthen their relations. One such alliance to arise was between the Kasai and Inazuma clans of the Fire and Lightning villages respectively. In order to maintain good relations between the two clans the prince of the Inazuma clan married the princess of the Kasai clan and they had two sons. Several years later their oldest son became daimyo of the Fire Village. His name was Kazuma Inazuma and he would also have a son of his own son who he named Kazuo meaning harmonious young prince. Kazuma led the Fire village justly and was respected by the masses for his rationality and humility. As a result of his father’s absence due to the fact that the daimyo was always busy with work, Kazuo grew up without the fatherly attention he so dearly desired. When his son turned five Kazuma had him begin training with his most trusted samurai Rohan who became like a role model to the young boy. Alas to gain his father’s attention Kazuo also began to act out with pranks in the royal palace. He became infamously known as the purple haired brat. His escapades would range from the trifling to the more serious ones which would even end up with servants getting injured and ultimately him being banished from the Fire village. This Novel Contains Mature Content Show This Chapter? Yes

Mikoto started to panic after checking Kazuo’s pulse. His skin was ice cold and his heart had stopped beating. The ever calm voice of reason Takumi on the other hand thought hard as to what course of action to take next. This time Mikoto was on par with him. First Aid! They’d both came to the same conclusion as Mikoto began to press against Kazuo’s chest with both hands in an effort to revive him. “You’ll have to blow into his mouth,” she said finally midway through her resuscitation efforts. “No, you do it.” He proceeded to read from the scroll that was next to the katana. “You’re the one who took that course with your friend Kohaku.” “Argh!” she grunted. “If you ever speak of this… you’re dead .” Meanwhile Kazuo traversed a dark plane that was pitch black save for a small white light in the distance. It was cold and the silence too loud as he walked towards the brightness. “ Wait …” a deep voice beckoned to him and he felt a hand on his shoulder. “What is it that your desire?” “To exact my revenge on the men who killed my mother,” he managed to let the words escape his mouth. “Well then Inazuma Kazuo,” the voice answered. “You won’t find that which you seek there.” “W-wait, who are you?” Kazuo turned his head and couldn’t see a thing in the pitch black darkness. “Where the hell am I? How do you know my name?” “I know everything about you my dear boy,” the voice said. “If that which you seek is back in the world of the living then you shall not find it in that light. For to enter it is to surely die . Take my hand and I shall show you who you are .” Kazuo having nothing more to lose took a leap of faith and raised him right hand forward. Another hand held on to his and they were instantly teleported into a snow white three dimensional plane with no end. He could now see the figure of the man who had been speaking to him. He greatly resembled the statue from before in the Inazuma shrine. He had deep blue spiky hair and a moustache to match that covered all of his jawline and philtrum. He also wore a black nagagi and hakama as well as a white haori and had a katana sheathed on his back. “ Orewa Inazuma Kazuro (I am Kazuro Inazuma) ,” his voice echoed the plane majestically. “ Densetsu no Sennin desu (The Legendary Sage)!” “G-great g-grandpa,” Kazuo trembled both shocked and amazed. “D-does that mean I’m d-dead?” “Your soul exists in an equilibrium unknown to neither life nor death,” said Kazuro. “The astral plane. I shall open your mind grandson.” Kazuro gently placed his thumb on his grandson’s forehead and then passed a number of his memories were transferred on to him. The young Inazuma fell to the ground as his feeble mind tried to process all that information he’d received. “It may be much to take in for now but that was just a handful of my memories to show you who you are and where you come from,” said Kazuro. “But on to more important matters, time moves differently in here than out there. For every hour spent in the astral plane is equal to a minute in the world of the living.” Kazuo tried hard to follow with what his great grandfather had just said. “I see.” “We should consider that your body out there is unconscious, which means–” “If I spend too much time in here I will die out there.” “Precisely.” “Now grandson there are shadows on the wall and they gather to serve an even greater darkness that even I in my own time could not face. The katana, Raijin (Lightning God) that brought you here is one of four that I forged in my youth and only you my dear boy can truly wield them and bring the darkness into light.” “That means avenging mother, father and everyone in my family including Rohan.” “Indeed grandson,” came the reply. “Alas I myself have long since left the world of the living so when you touched that blade the fragments of my ki within you were ignited. For you to conquer the shadows you shall need to journey to the Earth and Water countries to retrieve Dōjin (Earth God) and Suijin (Water God) respectively.” “How will I face them off, I barely know any jujutsu let alone kenjutsu?” “Getting on to that once you’ve retrieved these legendary blades you are to go to a kensei (sword saint) from Yamaguchi port named Nakamura Hanzo who shall train you to master them.” “Can’t you train me great grandpa?” “I am afraid this type of training will need you to be out there physically and Hanzo-kun is the most suited person for the task. But no worries my dear grandson there is something however I can help you with this side to prepare you for the battles to come.” “What is that?” “To conquer your very own shadow…so take my hand.” Kazuo did as he was told and held on to his great grandfather’s hand. They were instantaneously teleported back to where they were before. Kazuro walked with his great grandson and explained to him that they were in his subconscious or shadow plane. As they navigated through the shadow plane they came across a dark silhouetted figure who was made visible by a light that Kazuro had conjured. The figure looked exactly like Kazuo but all black like a shadow. “I’ve gotta fight that…thing,” said Kazuo facing his great grandfather. Kazuro nodded. “Mind you we have been here for about twenty minutes which means about twenty seconds outside so time is of the essence.” After acknowledging what he’d been told Kazuo dashed towards his shadow. The battle of the self against the shadow had begun. He threw five rapid punches and zero landed on his opponent. He tried connecting a left uppercut followed by right leg kick which the shadow blocked using both hands. The shadow who’d been firmly holding onto Kazuo’s right leg then connected a reverse roundhouse to the latter’s left jaw. Kazuo was sent flying through the dark plane and landed on his butt before he rose up to fight again with even more determination. The unarmed combat resumed and it was like he was fighting a mirror version of himself. Each right or left fist or kick was countered by a left and right fist or kick respectively. It continued like that for a further thirty minutes. “When you fight yourself try to be better than the self from yesterday, the self from a second ago,” said Kazuro. “Forget all that which you have learnt up until now and fight in a way that you’ve never fought before.” The young Inazuma took heed of the older Inazuma’s advice and began fighting in a style different from what he’d grown accustomed to. Instead of a left punch he’d throw a right. Where he’d normally block an attack he instead countered or ducked before connecting a reverse kick to his opponent’s Achilles’ heel. When the aforementioned instance occurred his shadow lost its balance and landed on its back. “My boy!” Kazuro was impressed. “Here…catch!” he threw his katana towards his grandson. When Kazuo grabbed hold of the katana a black katana also materialized in the hands of his shadow. “Now it is to the death,” said Kazuro, “If you want to leave this place you will have to kill your shadow .” The shadow charged forward with katana in hand and all that could be heard in the dark plane was steel hitting steel. It was the first time Kazuo wielded an actual katana. Before he had trained with Rohan using bokken (wooden swords) . Now it was the real deal! He thought. When he got sidetracked for a split second his shadow grazed through his cheek leaving behind a cut. He held his wound and yeah it was real alright. Kazuo charged forward both hands tightly gripped on his weapon. When his shadow slashed its own katana to the right he slid in between its legs. The blade had missed his upper body by a hair. He appeared behind his shadow with katana in hand and sliced through its neck. The shadow’s head shot up into the void of black before it dropped to the ground and vanished into thin air. “Well done my boy you have conquered your shadow,” Kazuro congratulated his grandson. “You have fortified your will for the battles to come. Remember that a fighter without ego in a battle is a fighter whose will can never be broken.” “T-thanks great grandpa,” sighed a fatigued Kazuo. “How do I get out this place?” “There are three ways of entering this plane and those are through tōei, mindfulness meditation or a near death experience,” Kazuro explained. “The first two are quite difficult to fully master and only a select few individuals can actually enter this place using them. The last method however is the most dangerous of all, the lightning bolt that struck you could have killed you if it were not for my ki.” Kazuo tried to follow but the explanation had entered through one ear and left through the other. “In short, since you came here using the third method you will exit in a similar manner.” “W-wait that means–” “Yes,” Kazuro affirmed. “You will have to die here.” Kazuro reclaimed his sword from his great grandson and faced it towards him. “ Chotto matte (wait a minute) ,” Kazuo raised his hands in front of his face. “What if I don’t return back?” “We have been here for roughly four hours now which corresponds to four minutes out there,” Kazuro reminded him. “Time in this case is not on your side…observe.” The Legendary Sage outstretched his left hand into the dark void and an image of Mikoto diligently trying to resuscitate Kazuo showed. “With each minute that your mind is deprived of air,” Kazuro added, “you run the risk of breaking it beyond repair.” “Okay great grandpa,” Kazuo lowered his guard and let his arms fall to each side. “Let’s do this.” Kazuo felt the blade as it dug its way into his heart. He felt as though his organ had been struck by a small bolt of lightning. Badum! He heard it beat. “Farewell grandson…until we meet again.” “Goodbye great grandpa.” Mikoto breathed out into Kazuo’s mouth filling his lungs with much needed air. She was now out of breath and hope having repeated the procedure several times. It was useless she’d thought. When she caught her breath to prepare to try again for the last time her patience unexpectedly rose up at that moment gasping for so much air as if his life depended on it. The look on his face was like that of a person that had been resurrected from the dead. The young kunoichi jumped up and down and almost gave her patient a big hug before remembering he was the guy who’d peeped on them in the girls’ bath a day before. Takumi drew closer with a scroll in hand to welcome the Inazuma youth to the world of the living. “Welcome back Kazuo,” he said. “We thought we’d lost you there,” Mikoto added. “Never doubted our medic here for one second,” said Takumi. “Yet you didn’t even do anything to help,” she thought to herself before saying, “but you stood there Takumi, as if nothing was wrong.” “Panicking wouldn’t have helped the situation Mikoto,” Takumi paused for a bit. “I knew where my skill set lay and you’re the better medic after all. In that time Kazuo was out I deciphered the rest of this scroll.” Her face lightened at words ‘better medic’ realizing that there was something else he view her in high regard other than just unarmed combat. Takumi looked at Kazuo who looked like he’d seen Death himself. “Hey Kazuo, I know who the Legendary Sage is.” “Yeah my great grandpa,” were Kazuo’s first words after paying his oxygen debt. “Yes, indeed and this katana,” Takumi pointed to the blade that was the cause of their predicament. “Wait how did you arrive at that conclusion?” “When I was gone I met with him and he told…well showed me everything about me and my clan.” “So I am guessing he already told you about these legendary katana,” Takumi surmised. “His gift to you to defeat an evil that he couldn’t.” “Yes he told me all that.” “So what course of action will you take…going forward that is?” “My goal is simple really...” “And that is?” “Revenge!” Kazuo’s face showed an ominous look the two of them had never seen before. Having fortified his will he was determined to avenge his family by doing to the perpetrators far worse than what they’d done to them. Mikoto could feel a dark aura about him too so she tried to lighten the mood. “Hey Kazuo…so how’s the other side like?” she smiled. “Dark as fuck!” he chuckled facing towards her. “I don’t wanna go back there.” “That’s pretty scary!” “Yeah it is,” he placed his hand behind his head and smiled. “Oh and thanks for kissing me back to life.” The two boys could’ve sworn that they saw steam coming out from a flustered Mikoto’s ears and nostrils. Her face went crimson. “Oh no! K-Kazuo,” said Kazuo mockingly as he made an impression of her. “Don’t die!” Takumi let out a chuckle noting the Kazuo they’d grown to know return to his usual self. Kazuo was still busy with his imitation when he felt a right fist introduce itself to his left cheek. It was lights out for him. He lay motionless on the ground with a smile from ear to ear and an exaggerated nose bleed. “Darn you pervert!” Mikoto shouted in annoyance. Back in the Lightning village Kazutaka was busy with some paperwork in his office when he abruptly received an audience from a familiar face dressed in a black ninja suit he hadn’t seen in several months. “Just like you,” his raspy voice sounded. “To enter my office without using the door Asuka-chan.” “Yo it’s been long hasn’t it,” the hooded kunoichi rose up. “Taka-sensei.” “Yes indeed, it sure has.” She was a visibly masculine woman whose body still showed more of its feminine side. Under her hood she had deep scarlet hair that was neatly laid back and went up to her shoulder. “There’s little time to catch up so I’ll get straight to the point,” said Asuka. “I gathered some intel on a recon mission in the Shadow village which suggests that they intend to attack our village in three days’ time. That’s why I had to immediately rush here to notify you.” “Thank you for the information Asuka,” replied Kazutaka. “We need to notify the Intel and Battalion Corps so they ready for battle. I shall also inform your fellow S-level nin Hideo and Shin to make the necessary preparations. The trip from there to here on foot is roughly five days. Which gives us more than a week to prepare.” “Noted,” she replied. “What of the graduate shinobi and undergrads?” “The graduates will also be recruited and as for the undergrads they shall be responsible for ensuring that the rest of the village is under lockdown before the day comes.” “Understood, I’ll notify their respective supervisors,” she responded. “I’ll be off then.” After Asuka left Kazutaka rose from his seat and went towards a window that faced the village. He faced above the sill where on top of the curtain rail was a katana that was held in place on its saya with a fire design by two hooks that were hammered to the adjoining wall. “It has been a long time since we last fought together has it not,” he spoke to it. “ Kagutsuchi (Fire God) .”  This Novel Contains Mature Content Show This Chapter? Yes

“KAAAZZZUUUOOO!” a scream from a female voice echoed in the royal palace. “What has the purple haired brat done now?” one servant asked another as they were cleaning in the royal chambers. “Careful addressing the young prince like that. These walls have ears you know,” replied the other servant whilst she was thoroughly moping the ceramic tiled floor that now looked like a mirror. “Last time I heard he started a fire in his manservant’s quarters,” the first servant added as she dusted the royal ornaments. This time the thirteen year old prince had been caught peeping in the women’s baths. It may have seemed like a minor prank as supposed to the far worse he usually committed, however even now his mother had had enough. Later that night his father and mother, Kazuma and Natsuhi respectively made time to sit their son down and have a long talk with him. Natsuhi was a gorgeous woman in her early thirties and she wore an orange floral kimono which further accentuated her curvaceous body. She had long violet hair whose colour her son inherited. Her hair was rolled into two buns one on each side and she also had bangs that covered her forehead. Kazuma on the other hand was in his late thirties, a handsome man with short black hair who looked younger than his age. He also wore glasses, a black nagagi with a white hakama and also an orange haori which was strictly worn by Fire daimyos. “Inazuma Kazuo, why do you always have to act out in order to get your father’s attention when you know how busy he is?” asked a concerned Natsuhi. “Last time a man almost died because of you and now this!” Kazuo could notice the fury in her eyes and this was confirmed by the fact that she only addressed him by his full name whenever she was angry. “I have been telling you that the boy has no manners Natsuhi, he’s a disgrace to the Inazuma name,” Kazuma said facing his wife. He then turned his gaze towards Kazuo, “Look at your uncle Keiji’s son Kenzo who’s a year younger than you but is well-mannered and disciplined.” “Don’t compare me to Kenzo, old man when you’re never there,” Kazuo snapped back at him. “ Kono gaki… I am the daimyo of this village not your babysitter!” Kazuma bellowed furiously. “Language Anata… our son is no brat he just needs proper guidance in the right direction,” Natsuhi interrupted her husband. Kazuma paused for a moment to calm himself down and then said to his son in a lighter tone, “You as the heir to the throne should be focusing on succeeding me in the future, why don’t you grow up Kazuo and stop playing these stupid games of yours?” At that instant Natsuhi quickly came up with an idea, “Anata, why don’t we send him to your father?” “You are right Natsuhi, sending him to otō-sama is a great idea. Maybe he can teach the boy a thing or two, because I have had enough of his nonsense,” Kazuma replied her. “Hey wait a minute…” Kazuo immediately interrupted. He was worried that his parents were making decisions on his behalf. “Don’t I get a say in any of this!?” “No you don’t! It’s decided, tomorrow morning you’re going to your ojiichan in the Lightning village and that’s final,” replied Kazuma. “Shit…not that old man,” Kazuo thought and then shouted, “I wish I never see you guys ever again!” Kazuo violently slammed the door right behind him and then ran off to his room. The next morning arrived quickly and he woke up tired because he didn’t get much sleep the previous night thinking about what his parents had told him. To add on that morning he had to prepare his own bath and breakfast because his manservant had been ordered not to do so for him. When he was done with bathing and eating he packed his stuff in his satchel and his father called him to send him off in front of everyone. “Inazuma Kazuo, you are hereby banished from the Fire village for all the trouble you have been causing,” Kazuma’s voice echoed in the royal chamber. The young prince looked at his parents spitefully for the last time and the samurai Rohan escorted him outside of the royal palace. “You know you had this coming young prince,” he told the boy as they were walking in the streets of the Fire village. Kazuo rarely went outside of the royal palace so almost everyone was staring at him and knowing how news travelled fast in the Fire village most of these people staring were talking about how the daimyo banishing his own son from the village. “I will only take you half the journey,” Rohan said as they exited the Fire village gates. “I have never actually walked to the Lightning village before, it was always on a horse drawn carriage or palanquin,” said Kazuo. “Well then there’s a first time for everything now isn’t there?” replied Rohan and he further added “The journey ahead is quite long and filled with rōnin and bandits that’s why I’m taking you halfway. Oh and last night your parents had already sent a messenger bird to your grandfather notifying him of your departure today so I’m sure there’ll be someone waiting for you along the way.” The two of them continued to talk and reminisce as they walked. The Fire village was now only showing in the distant horizon. Then unexpectedly they were met by a group of five bandits who had been hiding in the nearby trees. “Where do you think you’re going,” one of the bandits asked. He had short spikey hair was chewing on a blade of grass. “You will let us pass through,” Rohan replied taking a defensive stance in front of Kazuo and also about to draw his katana. “Ha ha…what can one samurai do against the five of us?” questioned another bandit who was bald and quite overweight for a man his age. The bandits drew their weapons and circled in towards Rohan and Kazuo. The first bandit threw a kunai with a poor aim and Rohan didn’t even use his katana to stop it. “You’re not worth me using my blade,” said Rohan as he sheathed his sword and advanced towards the bandit with nothing but his fists. Rohan punched the initial bandit right on his jaw and sent him flying towards some bushes and then gave the chubby one a roundhouse kick to his huge stomach and also knocking him out. Two bandits were down for the count and only three were left. Rohan was simultaneously fighting the remaining two of them when the third one jumped up behind Kazuo. “Young lord!” gasped Rohan trying to warn Kazuo as he gave one of the bandits he was fighting an uppercut and knocked him out. Kazuo tried to defend himself with a kunai but was easily blocked and pinned down. “Stop right there samurai…I got your boy now,” said the third bandit who was more muscular than the others as he was on top of Kazuo restraining the young prince. “Leave him alone…it’s me you want,” pleaded Rohan whilst thinking of a way to save Kazuo. “No...I heard you refer to him as a lord, so that means he’s from a noble clan,” the bandit replied. He then said, “…you will give us all the money you’ve g-.” Before the bandit could finish his sentence Rohan had sent a five star shuriken flying right through his head. “ Nani! What the hell have you done? He was one of us!” shouted the remaining bandit who had been fighting Rohan. He was now enraged by the loss of one of his friends. “Bloodlust?” Rohan thought to himself seeing the last standing bandit he’d been fighting rage towards him with a katana. He realized that this time the bandit was now fighting to kill. Rohan then also drew his own blade and the battle resumed now more intense than before. Kazuo could hear the heated clash between the two swords… a battle to the death! The two of them fought for a while and Rohan realized that the other bandits were starting to wake up. He had no choice but to take down the bandit he was fighting. “You fought with honor,” Rohan acknowledged as he slit the bandit’s throat. Two bandits were now dead and the other three who were weaker than the former regained consciousness. They realized that Rohan had killed two of their fellow bandits. They looked at each other and the bandit with the spikey hair fearfully shouted “scatter!” and they all ran away, never to be seen again. Rohan wiped off the blood from his katana with a cloth and then sheathed it. He had taken a beating but wasn’t injured that much. “ Yikuzo Kazuo-sama ,” said Rohan facing Kazuo and they were back on their journey. “Shit! That was crazy what you did back there Rohan…I’m sorry I didn’t realize when that bandit jumped behind me,” Kazuo apologized. “It is alright young lord, I’m glad you headed my warning and reacted swiftly by taking out that kunai,” Rohan replied giving Kazuo a pat on the back. They walked for about fifteen kilometers without any trouble and Rohan said, “We have now travelled half the journey, the lightning village is another ten or so kilometers from here and this is where I’ll leave you Kazuo-sama.” “Surely you can go with me till we reach the village Rohan-sensei,” Kazuo pleaded about to cry. “Don’t cry young lord, this part is now safer as we have reached Lightning village territory and much of it is heavily guarded by ninja so you will be alright,” replied Rohan. “If anything happens remember what I taught you… Sayonara Kazuo-sama .” “ Sayonara Rohan-sensei ,” Kazuo bid the samurai farewell. Kazuo carried on the journey alone and only stopped for a break after walking five kilometers. This time he could feel that the distance unlike when he was walking together with Rohan. He stopped for a few minutes and was back on track. As he walked his mind was filled with thoughts of what had happened the previous day. “I can’t believe those guys…sending me to grandpa’s ninja school,” he thought to himself. All of a sudden he heard a sound emanating from the nearby bushes. “Wait, what was that?” he whispered. A masked ninja with a spiky white pony tail and wielding a katana appeared right in front of Kazuo. He said in a deep voice, “Stop right there…” This Novel Contains Mature Content Show This Chapter? Yes

Two days had passed with the trio in the Fire village after they sent their report via messenger bird. On the third sunny morning the Sage’s own black hawk flew in with a directive instructing them to remain in the Fire village until further notice. That very same day was the day for the Royal Funeral. The bodies of the royal members were prepared for cremation with great care as was custom to burn the bodies of royals in the Kasai clan. A huge service was held for the deceased royals with the majority of the villagers in attendance inside and outside the palace to pay their respects to their daimyo. After the cremation near the Inazuma shrine which was only attended by palace members everyone else then returned to their homes. On the next day the official announcement of Kenzo as the new daimyo was made and he would be inaugurated after the mourning which meant after another three days. Since the day of his near death experience Kazuo continued to practice kenjutsu with his new sword Raijin without being electrocuted. He also trained and improved on his jujutsu skills with Mikoto who would later visit the village’s hot springs resort to refresh her mind and body. Takumi on the other hand spend most of his time with the new daimyo. If they weren’t reading historic texts in the Inazuma shrine they were playing shōgi in the royal palace. The trio’s stay in the palace was marvelous especially for Takumi and Mikoto who got to do some of their favorite hobbies as well. Takumi also got to visit the village’s blacksmiths and worked on improving his melee weapons. The two especially Mikoto who also made sure to request dango (dumplings) everyday truly felt like royals in their stay in the palace. When the five days Sage Kazutaka had estimated were reached Kagero with a group of close to thirty shadow ninja arrived in the Lightning village right on time. The group of ninja all dressed in their distinct black and armed to the teeth stood outside the boundary of the Lightning village. The Lightning ninja on the other hand had readied fifty Battalion Corp. ninja as their main line of defense thanks to the Sage’s guard who were the S level ninja Asuka, Hideo and Shin. The shadows were outnumbered thanks to the battle in the Fire village where they lost many of their men but were they outmatched? As the shadow ninja reached the Lightning village wall where the main gate was sealed shut they silently awaited their leader Kagero’s instruction. “Kagemaru and four ansatsu (assassins) follow me,” he instructed in his deep voice. Kagero threw a kaginawa (grappling iron) up the four metre tall wall and once hooked to the top he used the rope attached to climb. Kagemaru and four other assassin level kage-nin who had been summoned also followed suit and climbed the wall once Kagero had reached the apex. From the top he instructed the six ansatsu and twenty foot ninja who remained on the ground to wait for his signal before infiltrating the village. “How strange,” said Kagero scanning the village. “This place seems to be deserted, it’s like they knew of our arrival. Well then that makes things all the more interesting doesn’t it kage-nin?” “Hai Kage-sama!” four assassins except for Kagemaru affirmed. At that time in the Ninja school, a battalion kunoichi made her way to the Sage’s office to announce the arrival of the shadow ninja. “Good morning Lord Sage,” she said, “the shadow ninja have arrived and six of them are currently on the village wall.” “Thank you Ichika,” replied Kazutaka in his usual thinking position with his hands clasped together. “You can return to your post and notify the other battalion shinobi, the shadows came to us so we have the element of surprise. We will use our knowledge of our village to finish them off in a swift pincer maneuver.” “Yes sir!” she speedily left the office. Kazutaka rose up instantly, then took Kagutsuchi and left to join his S level ninja at their rendezvous point. The trio were fully clad in the blue and grey lightning ninja armor and ready for battle. The Sage was in his usual attire and had his katana in hand. “Lord Sage it’s been long since we saw you wielding Kagutsuchi,” said Shin. “Taka-sensei knows the shadows mean business Shin,” said Asuka. “I’ve had an opportunity to see how their assassins fight and they’re ruthless. Be wary of the one named Kagemaru, he uses some form of sorcery they call tōei.” “Sorcery?” inquired a skeptical Shin, “you’re joking right Asuka.” “I am afraid she is not,” said Kazutaka. “It is very much real.” In the meantime Kagero gave his assassins another instruction. “You four scatter and scout the village and find out where the Inazuma boy is. If anyone stands in your way…kill them.” The four assassins raced off in different directions. “Kagemaru you’re with me, let’s go.” Kagero and his son made their way to the biggest building in the village which was the Ninja school. “Guys they’re making their move,” Hideo finally said adjusting glasses. “Four of them just scattered and left their spot followed by the remaining two who seem to be headed to the school.” “Yes,” acknowledged Asuka. “Well then, let us give them a warm welcome shall we,” said Kazutaka before signaling to Hideo and Shin. The two understood what it meant and without word left the scene. Asuka remained behind with Kazutaka on their vantage point on top of the school. “I noticed Shin has never encounter any majutsu-shi (sorcerers) .” “Yes, that’s the price of living mostly in the village and never exploring other lands as much as you,” he paused before continuing, “I do hope that the two enemy shinobi headed here have the sorcerer and when it comes down to it I’ll have to use that technique.” “I thought you would at least teach them about it.” Kazutaka chuckled. “Other than you only Hideo knows about Kagutsuchi’s true ability.” “Of course he’d know,” replied Asuka. “He was and still is the brains of our trio.” “Affirmative, Shin can be impulsive at times and he is not yet ready to learn about sorcery,” said Kazutaka. “Because for it to work it requires belief and a calm state of mind first and foremost. He has neither.” “Well today if he’s lucky,” Asuka laughed, “he’ll be a believer.” As Kazutaka joined in their laughter was immediately interrupted by the arrival of two shadow ninja at the gate of the Ninja school. Asuka confirmed their identities as Kagero and Kagemaru, the Kage and his firstborn son. The two Lightning shinobi made their way down from the vantage point to greet the unwelcomed guests. As Kagero and Kagemaru traversed the empty school yard two shuriken came flying straight at them. They dodged the projectiles with ease but before they let their guards down two kunai knives came flying in their place followed by Kazutaka who appeared from behind Kagero with his katana point aimed at his opponent’s neck. The kage-nin blocked the kunai with their weapons and just as Kagero was about to dodge the sudden attack from behind Kazutaka’s blade edge sliced through his porcelain mask missing his neck by only a few inches. The mask broke in two and the pieces fell to the ground. Kagemaru had little time to react as Asuka rushed from his right with her silver high carbon steel knuckle dusters in hand. Asuka’s steel punch connected square onto Kagemaru’s face and broke his mask in the process. “ Kuso! Hayai (Shit! He’s fast) ,” thought Kagero jumping into a backflip which resulted in his kasa also falling down. The four ninja faced each other as they took up their fighting stances. The Sage versus the Kage whilst the daughter of the Light faced the Shadow’s son. The two shadow ninja’s faces were in full view having been brought into the light. Kagero’s old and short scruffy white hair was now in clear view as well as his dark brown eyes, small moustache and slightly wrinkled face. Kagemaru had a well chiseled and clean face, his father’s eyes and a long scar across his left eye. “Long time no see nephew ,” Kagero smiled menacingly. “How fast you’ve become.” He spun his staff shortly and held it with his right hand whilst his left was outstretched in front of his opponent. “You probably know why we are here…” Kagero surmised. “Where is the boy?” This Novel Contains Mature Content Show This Chapter? Yes

The fire from the katana reciprocated with Kazutaka’s breathing. When he inhaled it decreased its intensity and increased when he exhaled. Kagero was more excited than in awe as he noted this phenomenon. Even Asuka and Kagemaru paused for a bit to marvel at Kazutaka who had finally revealed his secret technique. “With this fire I shall purge you of your sins before sending you to hell…” As if in a flash Kazutaka charged at Kagero with an intense urge to fulfill his desire of reducing him to ash. Unfortunately for the Kage he couldn’t dodge this one. He managed to place his rods in front of him making an ‘X’ but it was useless. When the slash was inches away from his opponent Kazutaka exhaled deeply and the flame violently increased its intensity. The katana sliced through Kagero’s rods with much ease and his black nagagi was set ablaze in the process. The Kage tore off the top part of his clothing that had caught on fire and increased the distance between the two of them. He rolled on the sandy ground so that any flames that had remained would be extinguished. His muscular torso was now bare and showed some slight burns which would’ve been severe had be not removed the garment. “Kagutsuchi dainimaku: Onibi (Kagutsuchi’s second act: Demon Fire).” The gentle crackling had turned into a violent sizzling as the intensity of the flames on the blade had now increased by tenfold. They remained constant with their scorching heat regardless of Kazutaka’s breathing. “Shit! Those flames are quite hot , ” Kagero spoke while seated on the ground. He then glared at Kazutaka with his menacing smile, “but not as hot as your daughter in law.” The Sage ran towards Kagero even more infuriated. “Baka,” Kagero chuckled to himself. When Kazutaka was now at close range Kagero threw some sand into his eyes. Kazutaka’s vision was impaired as he tried to rub the sand from his eyes. This gave Kagero ample time to race for his weapon that’d been shattered into several pieces. “Kagemaru! Fix mine too,” he ordered his son who was still busy with his own fight. No response. “I haven’t got all day you imbecile!” Kagero shouted. “Don’t make me use that ...” Kagemaru’s heart skipped a beat but he quickly composed himself before Asuka who was still trying not to be impaled noticed. With one hand whilst the other guided his spear Kagemaru begrudgingly fixed his father’s staff. At the same time Kagero got his weapon back Kazutaka had also gained his sight. This time around the Shadow leader was the one who was defending. He dared not break his staff for a second time lest he shorten the distance between him and Kazutaka even further. He made use of his fortified staff to block and avoid the fire attacks. They continued to fight like that nonstop for a further fifteen minutes with each side ensuring not to let the other get the better of him. Kagero however was still taunting Kazutaka with how he singlehandedly finished of all the members of the royal family and their guard Rohan. Alas Kazutaka wouldn’t fall for that trick again. He was now determined not to let his anger cloud his judgement. Meanwhile Hideo had just managed to trap and finish off his own opponent by blowing him to smithereens with some explosives. He looked as though unscathed but that fight with the ansatsu had been his most challenging yet. He collected himself and searched the village for other shadow ninja to take down. Along the way he came across corpses of fallen comrades and was determined to not let their deaths be in vain. Natsumi had also managed to take out the shadow ninja who killed Ichika with two arrows to the head. As the ansatsu’s body lay dead on the ground she collected some of the arrows that’d missed their target and restocked her quiver. She also took the assassin’s katana before leaving the scene in search for other enemy shinobi when she met with Hideo. “ Senpai (Upperclassman) hi.” “Hi Natsumi-san, I am glad to see that you’re alright,” he greeted her, “what’s the status?” “I took out two enemy ninja on my end.” “I got one of them and found six of our shinobi along the way.” “Make than seven,” she held the tears from her glassy eyes. “They got Ichika.” “ Gomen nasai (I am sorry) ,” he consoled her. “I am sure she fought well.” The two embraced as Hideo assured Natsumi that the deaths of their fallen comrades were not in vain. “Let’s regroup with the others and plan our next course of action,” Hideo added. “Cool.” They left the scene and ran to where the other battalion corp. shinobi were. Along the way they linked with Shin who was also headed to the same place. He looked like he’d seen better days but had actually managed to behead his opponent with his katana. He informed them that he’d counted three more bodies of their fellow Lightning shinobi. The trio deduced that the enemy’s back up was waiting behind the main gate. When they arrived at their destination they restocked on weapons whilst others received first aid from Medical corp. shinobi. All those who were injured and could no longer battle were to remain behind in the care of the medics. In the Lightning village the Medical and Intel corps were to never be on the frontlines when it came to battle. It was the sole duty of the Battalion corp. to take on said task of being the first line of defense against any enemy attack. “Natsumi-san you will lead the Battalion corp. to the main village entrance and then secure vantage as well as hidden points near the gate,” said Hideo. “Understood senpai.” She took the group of about forty battle shinobi to the main gate as she had been instructed. Hideo and Shin made their way to the ninja school to help out in any way they could there. “Hey Shin-san can you still fight?” “O-of course I can still fight man.” “Alright sheesh…just checking.” The silence resumed and before long they’d made their way to where the Sage and Asuka were still involved in their heated battle against the shadow leader and his son. Shin’s jaw dropped to the ground when they arrived at the battle scene. His eyes couldn’t believe what they were witnessing. He was beyond shocked! How could a black spear like weapon move on its own midair? And how was the Lord Sage’s Kagutsuchi lit up like that? His skeptic mind was working overtime trying to make sense of the illogical phenomena that lay before his eyes. “I know your mouth’s wide open underneath that mask,” Hideo quietly laughed at Shin who stood like a statue trying to process what was in front of him. “Earth to Shin…earth to Shin, this might be a lot to take in but we’ll explain it all once we’re done with this battle.” “No fricking way man,” words exited Shin’s mouth at last. “She was telling the truth.” Hideo nodded. “You knew? About the Lord’s Sage too?” Shin’s voice was getting louder and louder. “And you didn’t tell m–” Shin was silenced by a hand gesture from Hideo. “Shh, they haven’t seen us yet.” It was too late! The four shinobi had heard Shin’s loud mouth. Kagero quickly concluded that the presence of these two Lightning ninja there meant that his assassins had been taken down. He had managed to even the odds against Kazutaka after noticing that the flame attacks had gotten weaker. However he still maintained a safe distance from him. Thanks to his full length staff he was more suited in middle range combat than his opponent. When Hideo realized that their cover had been blown he got out followed by Shin. “Need a hand?” he asked Asuka who had now gotten the hang of defending against the guided spear. As Hideo waited for a response from the kunoichi, Kagero suddenly threw a spherical object upwards which exploded in the air and created a cloud of black smoke. A shadow ninja who’d positioned himself at a vantage point on a tall tree branch outside the wall saw the black smoke and relayed the message to the ninja on the ground below. Kaginawa were sent flying on to the wall and the shadow ninja made their ascent in rapid succession. When half of the shadow foot ninja had made their way to the peak of the wall they were welcomed by a bombardment of arrows flying straight at them. Natsumi managed to knock five of the ten foot ninja off the wall with clean headshots. When the ansatsu got up they began to even up the numbers by throwing projectiles of their own such as shuriken and kunai. “Fuck we’re screwed!” Natsumi thought. “Everyone don’t let them get beyond this point! Archers shoot them down.” she shouted. Back at the school after Kagero had thrown the smoke bomb into the air everyone realized what it meant. The signal for backup had been made and Kazutaka and his pupils weren’t sure of the number of shadow ninja who’d been waiting behind the wall. What they knew was that if they were just as bad as the ansatsu they’d faced then the Battalion corp. was in a deep shit. “All good here,” Asuka finally responded dodging Kagemaru’s spear. “I’m sure they need you that side more than we do here.” “Alright,” Hideo responded. “We’ll leave you to it then.” “Cool…I don’t need to remind you two that I’m as strong as the both of you combined,” Asuka grinned before advancing towards her opponent with a clenched fist. “You don’t have to rub it in Asuka,” an annoyed Shin complained. “Women!” he thought to himself. Kazutaka signaled to Hideo and Shin that he and Asuka had it covered. “Hey come on Shin let’s go,” said Hideo. Hideo dragged Shin by an armed and they raced to the main gate in the hope that it hadn’t been too late for them to aid their fellow comrades. Back on their fight Kagero noticed that Kazutaka was getting slower and weaker. He fought as though it’d been a long time since he took up the sword. Asuka too began to feel like a prey being toyed with when she realized Kagemaru wasn’t totally present in their fight and was rather holding back from using his full power. Kagero pretended to slow his movements as well but kept on taunting his opponent’s ego. Kazutaka swung his katana to the right with one arm hoping to slice Kagero’s head clean off. The latter slid and ducked from the attack. As Kagero passed underneath Kazutaka’s exposed left arm he pulled out a tanto and sliced the arm clean off from the shoulder joint like butter falling onto a hot knife. “Told you that if you weren’t paying attention you’d lose an arm,” Kagero chuckled devilishly after skidding to a stop. Kazutaka jumped in reverse trying hard to ignore and work through the severe sharp pain. He thought fast and used his flaming katana to cauterize the wound and prevent any further bleeding. If he was intent on ending things now was the time to do it and soon because he was also running out of ki to keep the fire burning. This Novel Contains Mature Content Show This Chapter? Yes

Kazutaka managed to stop the wound from bleeding and summed up much of his ki to charge at Kagero. When he was in range he drove his katana to the ground. “Last Act: Highway to Hell,” he said in a low raspy tone. A ring of fire instantaneously formed around the Sage and his opponent. The orange red flames rose up to about two and a half metres from the group encircling them in a prison of fire. “Now you shall not be able to run away…it ends here,” said Kazutaka. The Sage leaped towards Kagero in a single jump and cut through his staff. He gave the shadow leader a knee to the chest which resulted in the latter falling down. Kazutaka subdued his uncle on the ground as he pressed his knee on top of him. He placed the edge of his blade near Kagero’s neck. The intensity of the flame was low enough not to instantly burn the shadow ninja to crisps but the blade however was still red hot. “What is it that you want from my grandson?” he inquired. Kagero went quiet as a meditating monk. “Speak now before I burn you straight to hell!” Kagero snickered. “I do not fear death…if you kill me now my children will have their revenge .” Kazutaka placed the scorching side of the blade on Kagero’s cheek. The Shadow leader let out an agonizing roar. The gruesome torture continued as the Sage directed his katana at several parts of his captive’s exposed body. Kagero had burns all over his face and torso but still didn’t answer Kazutaka’s question. During that time Natsumi, Hideo and Shin together with what remained of the battalion corp. faced off a group of twenty one shadow ninja. These savages had six ansatsu and fifteen foot ninja whilst the Lightning’s battle shinobi were reduced to their thirties. At the school Kagemaru and Asuka’s fight that was going nowhere was then interrupted by a Kagero. “Kagemaru! I know you can hear me…use that!” he shouted his body now more red than his natural skin tone from being singed. “Or I’ll do to your sister what I did to your mother.” At those last words Asuka observed change in Kagemaru. His heart skipped a beat at the mention of his mother and his demeanor was that of sheer despair. It was like his father’s sentence had struck a nerve deep in his psyche. Asuka swiftly increased the space between her and Kagemaru when she saw an ominous black aura emanating from him. She was terrified by the insane level of bloodlust that permeated from his killer gaze. Before Kagemaru seemed like he’d been indifferent with regards to the battle now he was out for blood. He raised his right hand with his fingers outstretched and paced directly at Asuka. “TŌEI!” The sinister black aura grew denser as it consumed Kagemaru whose pupils had rolled up his eyelids making his eyes appear snow white. His shadow spear faded into nothingness as it enveloped his whole body. The ominous shadow was then projected straight towards Asuka who was then transferred into a world of black. Whilst in the dark void she began seeing flashes of when she was alone and an orphan in the Lightning village. Back when she had nothing and no friends to keep her company. All of a sudden a group of black vipers appeared. They climbed and tightly wrapped themselves around her body. She could barely see them but felt every single one entangled on her. When they began biting her all over her body she went into a state of shock. Her heart was racing and her body started making haphazard jerking movements. Meanwhile outside Asuka’s subconscious mind her actual body was exhibiting the very same seizures the only difference being there weren’t any real snakes. Unfortunately for Kagemaru he too was fully experiencing all that was going through Asuka’s mind. Her deepest and darkest fears were also taking a toll on his mind. “Aaaah!” screamed Kagemaru as he fell to the ground with the same seizures Asuka was having. “Oh no…Asuka!” exclaimed Kazutaka seeing his pupil with the corner of his eye. “What have you done to her!” he roared at Kagero. “W-we just fucked…with h-her mind a little,” Kagero cackled menacingly in between coughs. “It is b-beyond repair now…” Kazutaka ignored his opponent who was laying on the ground having seen better days and jumped out of the ring of fire. He raced for Asuka who was now frothing saliva from her mouth and placed two fingers on her forehead. The prana mudra having been activated by deeply inhaling in and out he was transported into his pupil’s psyche where he saw her inner self with the snakes. “Asuka-chan can you hear me?” There was no response. The Sage took out his katana and singed the vipers that were on the ground before cutting down those that entangled Asuka. When she was freed from her bondage he held her with one arm and spoke again. “Asuka-chan, none of this is real,” he told her. Tears were almost falling down his wrinkled face, “they tried to mess with your mind using a high level shadow projection technique. You’re the strongest shinobi in this village and soon enough my title will be yours. I know you can fight this! Wake up my dear.” Some seconds later after the Sage’s words the seizures and the frothing stopped. However she was still unconscious so he urged her even further. And after some few minutes her fingers twitched. “Yes! You can do this Asuka-cha–” Kazutaka was abruptly brought back to reality with Kagemaru’s spear impaled on his back. The shadow ninja who lay on the ground on his belly having just recovered from quicker his shared experience with Asuka had luckily missed the Sage’s vitals. Kazutaka felt a metal taste on his tongue as he spat some blood on his hand. He removed the weapon from behind him and then cauterized the entry and exit wounds with his katana to prevent further bleeding. “I truly am at a loss of time…I may have managed to stop the bleeding externally but that bloody cough suggests hemorrhaging,” he thought to himself before facing Kagemaru. “I did not consider that trying to save Asuka in her mental plane would mean my body is left vulnerable outside. Something tells me that Kagero may be using some form of spell to control you.” He then spoke to the shadow ninja, “tell me Kagemaru…what it is that you want from my grandson?” Kazutaka stared deep into the young adult’s eyes and could see a terrified soul. “I-I don’t k-know,” Kagemaru stammered trying to piece the words together. He was still recovering from the previous mental scarring ordeal. “He must have somehow put you up to this, because during your fight with Asuka you did not even have any malice until now. For that I shall spare your life because this has never been your fight to begin with…” Kazutaka then announced, “Alas for your father…it is time he met with his ancestors.” And with those words he walked at a steady pace to the ring of fire. His body wouldn’t let him jump for a second time due to fatigue so he made use of Kagutsuchi to create an opening for him to enter the fire prison. Inside he saw Kagero crawling at a snail’s pace in the opposite direction. “I am already at death’s door but I shall be taking you to hell with me uncle,” said Kazutaka as he walked towards Kagero who kept crawling. “Jigoku no mon: Kasō (Hell’s Gate: Cremation)!” The yellow orange ring of flames encircling then faded to blue and drew even closer. Kagutsuchi’s scorching blue flames which were a thousand times hotter than the orange ones burnt everything within their radius that was getting smaller and smaller by the second. This Novel Contains Mature Content Show This Chapter? Yes

-Chapter 2- “Wait, you blacked out last night?!” Chisa Ando’s concerned voice echoed throughout the noisy cafeteria. Thankfully, only a few students turned their heads, as the large noisy room had already masked the outburst from reaching more ears. “Not so loud!” an embarrassed Yuko exclaimed, waving her hands in front of her. She then looked around nervously, waving away the handful of people glancing their way, assuring them that things were fine. “Sorry, sorry… But still though, seriously? Are you okay?” “Yes, I’m fine. I was in a panic this morning, but I’ve calmed down…” Yuko replied, before taking a bite out of the rolled omelet from her lunch tray. “I swear, I’ve been worrying about you ever since we met, but that sounds like a whole new level of weird. At least you seem to be fine now…” Rumors of the girl who’d come to the gate that morning in a ripped uniform had already started to spread. Chisa was a bit annoyed at something like that involving her close friend becoming such a hot topic so quickly, but she chose to keep out of it, despite usually being the type to at least listen in on recent rumors. Yuko had already told Chisa the basics between classes, but hadn’t been able to give her the whole story until lunchtime. Of course, with her own memory of the events so hazy, all she could really tell was the story of how she’d fallen asleep on a bench before waking up in her bed the next morning in a daze, plus the resulting aftermath of trying to go to school in that state. “So you met the student council prez, Kawagoe?” Chisa inquired. “Oh, yeah… It was pretty awkward. I didn’t really understand what happened myself, so I wasn’t able to tell her anything of note… She said she’d get in touch with me again later.” “Whoa. You know, she’s pretty popular. The famous ‘ice queen of the student council’ is the current nickname making the rounds, I think. It’s amazing that you got to chat with her one-on-one.” “Is it really that big of a deal?” Yuko asked, scratching her head. “I mean, the student council hosts all kinds of events throughout the year. They must interact with regular students all the time. Plus, her term only just started… Can she really be that famous already?” “Yeah, that’s true I suppose.” Chisa nodded. “But I dunno what it is. It’s only barely been a month, but something feels different this year. Maybe it’s just the difference in things here in high school compared to the middle school…” “Maybe so…” Yuko tilted her head in response. She didn’t regard Kanna Kawagoe as anyone particularly impressive, though she was aware of the status that came with being the president of the student council. As the girls continued to eat lunch, they eventually changed the subject to their usual idle chatter, and before long it was time to return to class. “Ugh… We’ve got math next.” grumbled Chisa. “Going into such a brain-melting subject right after chowing down at lunch is some major emotional whiplash…” “Yeah, I get it.” Yuko replied, patting Chisa on the shoulder as they walked back to the classroom. Soon, the two arrived back at classroom 1-B, and as the students began flooding in, Yuko took her seat in the back by the window. Just as the last few students hurried in, the bell tolled, and it was time for class to start. After a few moments, Karuto Taniguchi, the 1st year math teacher, entered the room with his usual stern expression and refined posture. “Good day, class.” said the teacher, adjusting his tie. “Today we’ll be getting started on the next chapter of the textbook. Your tests from yesterday are still being graded, but should be done by the end of the week.” Several students groaned, nervous of what kind of score they could’ve ended up with. Paying them no mind, the teacher turned and began writing on the board. “Please open your textbooks to the page written here, and I’ll begin to explain the new formula…” he instructed, turning back to the class. Yuko did as instructed, just as the other students did. Mr. Taniguchi was a teacher quick to jump to the point, and he’d often enter the room just like this, ready to kick off his lessons with little buildup. However, as Yuko finished opening the textbook, she noticed that an odd silence filled the room. It’s not that such a pause was unusual, but usually Mr. Taniguchi would begin summarizing something or other as the students were getting their stuff out. Curious, Yuko lifted her head. “Eh…?” Her eyes met the teacher’s. It was just a moment, so no one else really took note of it, but for that brief instant, Mr. Taniguchi was looking straight at Yuko. “Yes, so in this chapter, we’re building off the fundamentals of last time. See, this equation right here…” As if their eyes hadn’t met at all, Taniguchi turned and began explaining as he usually would. The other students nearby didn’t even notice. “What was that all about…?” Yuko whispered to herself under her breath. Although it somewhat unnerved her, as the lesson continued and the day went on, Yuko wouldn’t think much of it, and by the end of the day, she’d already put it out of her mind. --- Classes were over. The school’s bell had chimed just recently, and the halls of the school were packed with students going to and fro. Compared to yesterday, Yuko took things at a casual pace today. After all, it was a day off from her job at the café. “I’m off, Yuko!” waved Chisa, as she pranced out of the school, headed toward the theater for another day of her club. “Break a leg, Chisa!” Yuko responded, waving with a smile. Since Yuko had the day off of work today, and also had no club to attend, that meant her whole evening was free to spend as she pleased. Though after the chaos the night before, and how hectic things were this morning, Yuko had the urge to just go relax in her room for the rest of the day. But, not wanting to let the free time go to too much of a waste, Yuko decided to make one stop before going to the dorms. “Do!” a shout resounded from the dojo. Quietly joining in with a small group of spectators, Yuko observed an armored student land a body strike on their opponent with a wooden sword. This was, of course, the kendo club. “Good work, everyone! Now that we’re all warmed up, let’s get some real practice matches going. Take a quick breather.” the coach instructed. Yuko had stopped by and watched the kendo club a handful of times before. She somewhat admired the dedication it took to devote oneself to a sport like this. Just then, the rest of the onlookers around Yuko began to murmur among themselves as one of the kendo club members approached the crowd. “Hey there!” said the student, removing his helmet, revealing the familiar face of Tanabe Murakami, smiling at Yuko. “H-hello, Murakami! I knew you had club today, so I decided to come watch for a bit.” Yuko replied, blushing just a bit. The whispers of a few of the girls nearby made her embarrassment even worse. “Of course, I’m always glad to have you here. It does help having someone nearby I can try to show off for, haha!” Tanabe smiled. “I-I just think it’s an interesting sport! It must take a lot of practice to handle the sword so well, perfecting such specific movements!” “It was pretty tough at first, but I’m mostly used to it now. It’s like my body has synchronized, and now I know how to move on instinct!” Tanabe responded, showing off his posture as an example. Following that, a handful of other onlooking students moved forward, asking Tanabe some other questions, somewhat overwhelming him. “Hey Murakami, we’re getting started! Let’s go!” called the coach, now having things prepared for the next practice session. “Yes sir!” replied Tanabe. “Yuko, everyone, thanks for dropping by! I gotta get back to practice!” A few students cheered as he walked back, returning his helmet to his head. Yuko also waved from the crowd. From there, Yuko stood by and watched a handful of practice matches. While some may view kendo matches as relatively rigid and boring compared to more elaborate methods of swordplay, Yuko found a unique beauty in its refined flow of motion, almost like a dance. Eventually, Yuko decided she should head back to the dorms, and quietly left the dojo. The dojo was a bit of a walk away from the school, but not as far as something like the shopping area or library. It didn’t take long at all for Yuko to get back to the dorms after walking for a few minutes. Yuko sighed as she made her way back inside. In the lobby of the dorm she saw a few students lazing about, as well as some cooking club members heading in and out of the dorm cafeteria, preparing dinner meals. All a very common sight for this time of day. However, despite the familiarity the rest of the day brought, Yuko’s mind would drift back to her bizarre morning, and her lack of memory of the night before. It’s extremely uncomfortable just… not knowing what happened. I thought I might remember more as the day went on, but I still have no clue… And why did I feel so strange this morning? Yuko sighed as she walked through the lobby, before taking note of the student manning the reception desk. Having an idea, she approached. “Excuse me.” Yuko said, reaching the desk. “Do you happen to be the same person who was here last night?” The job of the person at the reception desk was to operate the computer, which would automatically scan the student ID’s of every student entering and exiting the dorm through the sensors set up on each side. It wasn’t a particularly exciting job, since it mainly consisted of people-watching and making sure the computer system was running properly. “Yeah, I was. Is something the matter?” the confused student asked. “Oh, um… Well, I was just wondering, did you see me arrive here last night? It was probably after the new curfew.” “Um… oh! Yeah, I think I saw you. You were the last to come in, right?” the student answered, moving to check the computer. “Yeah, the system here shows you returning just after 9:30.” So what the president said was true after all… Yuko crossed her arms and thought for a moment. “This may be a strange question, but did anything seem… off, about me last night?” Yuko asked. “Uhh… Sorry. I noticed you walk in, but I think I was eating and watching this TV here at the time, so I didn’t really pay that much attention…” the student replied apologetically, patting the small television beside the computer monitor. “Oh, well, don’t worry about it, then!” Yuko smiled, before bowing and walking away. Well, I tried, but it seems that wasn’t of much help either… Though, apparently I did indeed return here on my own… But why can’t I remember that? Yuko’s mind only filled with more questions as she rode the elevator up to her dorm room. --- After considering a variety of factors, Yuko had decided it’d be best to take a bath sooner than later. While she normally preferred to bathe after eating dinner, tonight she decided to head to the baths first. It was already half past eight, so considering the new curfew, most students were probably back and eating dinner right about now. The dorm’s public baths were usually most crowded between 10 and 11, so Yuko figured it’d be nice to go now while there weren’t many others inside. After passing through the main lobby, Yuko entered the bath area’s entryway and bowed to the student at the desk before entering the women’s side. Now in the changing room, Yuko quickly undressed and left her clothes in the locker. Wrapping herself in her favorite pink towel, she entered the baths. As expected, relatively few others were around. Having a quiet bath like this is nice once in a while… Yuko smiled while sitting down at the showerhead, making use of the soap, shampoo, and conditioner, before turning on the water. Since Yuko typically bathed at the usual hours, the baths were often relatively crowded. The spacious bath hall would be filled with friends chitchatting as the day came to a close, and tended to get relatively noisy. Yuko could recall countless memories, both here in this bath, as well as the middle school dorm’s baths, when she and Chisa would get caught up chatting about all kinds of things, and end up staying in the water too long. Yuko chuckled, thinking back to those memories while washing her hair. After getting all cleaned up, Yuko got into an empty corner of the large tub, and soaked in the water. “Ahh… Nothing beats a warm bath.” Yuko smiled, with a relaxed expression. Yuko realized she definitely needed a moment like this to just relax and relieve the tension of the past 24 hours. Regardless of whatever happened, she took solace in the fact that at this moment, she was feeling calm and as good as ever. “Oh, Ms. President!” a nearby girl’s voice echoed in the bath. Opening her eyes, Yuko looked in the direction of the voice and saw a girl who had just left one of the showerheads waving at another girl she was passing by. That girl, walking towards the bathtub at this moment was student council president Kanna Kawagoe. “Oh my.” Kanna muttered on instinct upon reaching the bathtub. Naturally, her eyes had met Yuko’s. “What a coincidence it is you meet you in such a place.” she continued, getting into the tub, facing across from Yuko. “Y-yeah… Thank you again for this morning.” Yuko stammered out. The president still made her pretty nervous for some reason. Kanna’s piercing glare only made her shrink back more. “I had only performed as would be expected of one in my position.” Kanna replied, dismissing Yuko’s gratitude. “Oh, okay…” Yuko looked down at the water. An awkward silence had formed as the two soaked in the warm water, face-to-face. Yuko figured it was only natural, considering they’d only spoken for the first time that morning, and under very unusual circumstances. However, as time ticked on, the one to break the silence was, surprisingly, Kanna. “Shall we continue the discussion from this morning?” she asked bluntly, taking Yuko by surprise. “Huh? O-oh, well… I don’t really think I have anything new to say, though…” Yuko glanced back at Kanna apologetically. “Do you mean to imply you still remember nothing?” Kanna asked sternly. Yuko shrunk back into the bathwater. “Y-yeah… Even after sorting through my thoughts all day, I still only remember what I told you…” she meekly answered. After a small pause, Kanna shook her head. “I must be honest, Maeda. I just do not believe that.” she flatly replied. “H-huh?” Yuko was taken aback. “Wh-what do you mean, Ms. President?” “What I mean is… I believe you are lying to me.” Kanna glared at Yuko. “What…?” Yuko was surprised. She had believed that everyone up until now had been taking her seriously, and understood that she’d had some kind of abnormal experience that left her rattled and confused. She still had no idea why she couldn’t remember the night before, but she never expected anyone to ever claim that her lack of memory was a lie. “It is simply my own logical conclusion.” continued Kanna “Despite breaking curfew, you did eventually return to the dorm on your own. You claimed to have fallen asleep at the park, and lack the memory of what took place after. However, such an awfully convenient case of selective amnesia seems exceedingly unlikely.” “B-but… Even if you say that, I really can’t…” Yuko mumbled. “I considered the possibility of sleepwalking as well, but to manage uninterrupted travel from Rigel Park all the way to your own dorm room without waking is also an exceedingly unlikely occurrence.” “N-no, but…” “Regardless, the school uniform you owned had still been torn. Knowing you had to get a new one anyway, it is not farfetched to assume you simply came to school as-is, and claimed to have lost the memory of what happened to your uniform. A perfect excuse to not have to explain what actually occurred.” “Ngh…” Yuko was frustrated. Frustrated and upset. This time in the bath was supposed to be her first true moment of peace and solace. Like a calm detour after a long day of trying her best to act normal following such an unusual series of events. Her lack of memory of the night before did honestly scare her, and it had been looming over her in the back of her mind all day. To then have that peace shattered, and to have someone like Kanna accuse her of making it all up… Yuko couldn’t hold it in anymore, and her built up frustrations caused her to snap. “Shut up!! You don’t know what you’re talking about!!” Yuko screamed. As her shout echoed in the bath, the numerous other girls bathing in the room all turned their heads to see what the commotion was. “Resorting to hysterics after having your lie exposed? How typical of a truant like you.” Kanna retorted, feeling a bit of anger herself at having been screamed at. “What?!” Yuko exclaimed, standing up in the water. “You can’t just label me like that! I’ll have you know I’ve gone to class every single day I was healthy! I won’t let you treat me like some delinquent!” “Laughable!” shouted Kanna, also rising to her feet. “If you wish to be treated with respect, then I expect you to be truthful and corporative! A liar who hides important information is no better than such a delinquent!” “I didn’t expect the student council to be full of such snobs! Sorry I ever thought I could rely on you!” Yuko was shaking. She hated this situation, and lashing out emotionally like this was so unlike her, she struggled to maintain what little composure she still had left. Opting to take her leave now, Yuko moved to exit the bathtub, but then… “Eek!” Yuko squeaked as Kanna pinned her to the wall. Kanna’s right hand lay flat against the wall beside Yuko’s head, and she glared up into Yuko’s eyes, their faces mere inches apart. “I will uncover the truth. I shall not let those things run rampant around my school any longer.” Kanna whispered in a low, threatening tone, before turning her back to Yuko and leaving the bath on her own. The other girls in the bath were stunned and whispering amongst themselves. Still confused, frustrated, and shaking, Yuko simply crumpled back down into the bathwater. Unable to bear the eyes of the surrounding girls, Yuko decided to take her leave as well. Leaving the baths, Yuko couldn’t get Kanna’s words out of her head, and upon arriving back to her dorm room, she could only collapse onto her bed. Unable to bear the tense frustration built up inside, tears began to spill forth, and Yuko cried into her pillow. --- Rigel park. As the moon high in the sky reflected off the surface of the pond, a small stone was tossed in, cracking the image captured in the water. The large clock nearby had both hands pointing upward. It was just about midnight. “I suppose there are no disturbances tonight.” spoke the girl who tossed the stone. It was, in fact, student council president Kanna Kawagoe. “Perhaps so.” her partner replied. They stood in the shadows, leaning against a nearby tree while Kanna gazed into the water. “It seems that with the new curfew in place, perhaps the culprit realizes we are on their trail.” Kanna reasoned. “Speaking of which, you mentioned you encountered that girl again, right? Anything new to share?” “Yuko Maeda… I know she must be involved. However, I cannot get a read on her at all.” Kanna sighed, tossing another rock into the water. “Looking at her records yielded no results either. She transferred into the middle school from Central, like most other students. Of course, I have no access to those materials, as they are outside of this district.” “Earlier, you said she could be the culprit… because she killed that magic beast.” During lunch, Kanna and her partner had both visited the security building and checked the footage of Rigel Park’s security camera. Although the footage was fuzzy since the camera was a ways away, they could tell that Yuko Maeda seemingly killed a magic beast. “Correct.” Kanna answered. “Magic beasts cannot be tamed easily. There have been tales of even seasoned beast tamers suffering near-death experiences from rampages caused by a magic beast they attempted to control. For it is a totally different process from manipulating ordinary animals.” “So you believe what we saw on that camera feed was the pet turning against the master, and getting punished.” “That is… correct.” Kanna crossed her arms, deep in thought. “You seem uncertain.” her partner prodded. “When I encountered Yuko Maeda in the bath, I did not plan to engage, but I chose to provoke her just a bit. I wanted to see her reaction upon her lie being exposed.” “How’d that go?” “She was stunned. Angry as well. I could not tell if it was due to a lie being exposed, however. If her presumed amnesia were true, she could very well have just felt a sense of betrayal at my words.” “Such selective amnesia is much too convenient, though. Even in the camera footage, we saw her walk away as if the whole ordeal was just a minor inconvenience. You confirmed she returned to the dorm on her own as well, right? It’s suspicious.” “Exactly.” Kanna nodded. “No ordinary human from this world could stand against even a basic magic beast like that one. There is no other explanation for what we saw. She must be the one responsible for summoning these magic beasts in the first place.” Kanna thought back to the injured students she’d interviewed these past couple of weeks. All were injured late at night, on their way home from jobs or late club activities. She eventually realized magic beasts were loose on the school grounds of the eastern district, and swiftly used her authority as student council president to enforce a curfew. “Last night, when we found the remains of that beast…” Kanna continued. “I thought this was our big chance. And that one of the magic beasts finally rebelled against their tamer.” “So when we found the security camera footage, the dots connected and you were sure we’d found our culprit.” “Right.” Kanna nodded. “And yet… Doubt still lingers. I cannot explain why…” Kanna turned from the pond, and faced her partner, who still rested on the tree. “You have seen her as well, correct? What do you make of Yuko Maeda?” Kanna inquired. “Yes, I’ve known her for a little while now… I even saw her today. She’s never really struck me as someone capable of this kind of thing. But appearances can be deceiving.” “I share the same impression.” Kanna agreed. “When I met her this morning, I thought her merely a victim. The selective amnesia was strange, but not too farfetched if she experienced a traumatizing encounter with a magic beast. People of this world know nothing of such creatures, after all. But… the camera footage tells a different story.” The two stood in silence for a moment. Their patrol that night yielded nothing, and they were both left to work with only the clues they already had. In the worst case scenario, the culprit they were after would lay low, and they’d never catch them. Even if such a scenario came with the benefit of no more magic beast attacks, Kanna knew she couldn’t afford to let such a dangerous individual stay at this school. In which case, if they have a lead pointing to the culprit, would it not be wise to pursue that lead to the end? “What are you going to do?” asked Kanna’s partner. “Well…” Kanna pondered. “I would prefer to resolve the issue quickly. The month is almost over, and I don’t want to leave information on an unresolved incident for the high priest.” Kanna sighed, and then turned back toward the shining pond. She strongly considered her responsibilities, and what her role here at this school was. After mulling things over, she finally made her decision. “I cannot hesitate now.” Kanna asserted, as the breeze blew through her hair. “I will confront Yuko Maeda, and force the truth from her, personally.” The late-night hunter had declared her resolve. Kanna Kawagoe had decided that Yuko Maeda was her enemy. --- “Yuko… What are you doing?” Chisa asked her friend, a bit bewildered. It was the next morning. Wednesday, April 26th. That morning, Yuko had met up with her friend Chisa for breakfast, as they’d do somewhat regularly. The two left to walk to the school building, when suddenly Yuko had ducked and hidden herself behind Chisa. Left at a loss, Chisa could only ask what brought about such strange behavior. “Over there… It’s her.” Yuko pointed, timidly. “Hmm…?” Chisa looked over in confusion. “The student council president…? What about her?” In front of the school gate stood Kanna Kawagoe, the student council president, alongside some other members of the council. It was common to see at least a few council members out there in the morning to greet all the incoming students. Sometimes they’d even be handing out flyers for school events or local promotions. Today, however, there wasn’t anything like that, and they were just greeting the students as usual. “We kinda… Don’t get along.” Yuko murmured. “Huh?” Chisa was baffled. Needless to say, Yuko had yet to tell her anything about the awkward encounter in the bath the night prior. Rather, Yuko wished she could just forget the whole thing. “I’ll tell you about it later…” whispered Yuko, pushing Chisa forward. “Alright, alright…” Chisa began to move. The two approached the gate slowly and awkwardly. A handful of passing students tilted their head at Yuko clinging to Chisa’s back, but didn’t really pay it much mind. As the two reached the front gate of the school, Chisa attempted to casually walk sideways into the schoolyard, with Yuko hiding right behind her. Naturally, they stood out like a sore thumb. One of the council members looked over in confusion. “What are you doing over there?” called the council member. As if on cue, the other members, as well as some other students, all looked her way. “Uhh…” Chisa froze in place. “J-just, you know, doing some mid-walk stretching! Gotta get that blood flowing early in the morning! We’ve got another long day of school & clubs ahead!” she spouted, awkwardly moving her body in strange ways that vaguely resembled stretching. Everyone nearby merely stared at her in silence. Stifled laughter could be heard from a few passing students. Chisa’s face began to turn red. “You do not have to hide from me, Yuko Maeda.” Kanna stepped forward, clearly seeing through what was happening here. “I-I’ve gotta get to class!” Yuko shouted, bolting from behind Chisa, and running toward the school building. “H-hey, don’t leave me here alone, Yuko!” Chisa shouted. Left wondering what to do, she quickly bowed to the council members before running off after her friend. “What was that all about?” one of the council members asked Kanna. “Pay it no mind.” Kanna replied, sighing. Despite her resolve, Kanna still didn’t know what to make of Yuko as a person. Regardless, she’d already made her decision. As Kanna and the other council members reoriented themselves and returned to greeting the incoming students, a troubled expression had found itself upon Kanna’s face. --- “Wah!” Yuko squeaked, hiding behind Chisa again. “Hey!” Chisa yelped, before realizing that Kanna was on the other side of the room. It was lunchtime, and tons of students had gathered in the cafeteria to get a meal. Yuko had once again ducked behind Chisa upon seeing Kanna some distance away, talking to one of the cooking club members. “You’ve seriously gotta tell me what’s going on. Why does the prez spook you so much?” Chisa asked, after letting out an exasperated sigh. “… She’s scary.” “Scary? I mean, I guess she does tend to have that cold glare on her face. But she tries to smile and stuff during speeches and stuff. Remember the entrance ceremony?” Yuko’s brief explanation didn’t get through to Chisa. But honestly, she didn’t mind. Yuko had been wondering all day whether to talk with Chisa about what happened, but in the back of her mind, she worried Chisa might start thinking her amnesia was a lie as well. Though rationally she knew her friend wouldn’t be so dismissive. The two eventually got lunch and ate without ever being noticed by Kanna. Before long, the school day came to an end and the two friends parted ways. Yuko had a shift at the café today, so she went ahead and walked straight there after school. As she arrived, the boss was already inside setting things up. “Wow, you’re always here so quickly, boss…” Yuko muttered on instinct after entering the shop. “Oh, hey Maeda!” Boss replied cheerfully. “Yep, I get special permission to leave my last class early so I can get here and start setting up. Things work a bit differently once you’re a third-year like me, haha.” “Oh wow.” Yuko had a sense of it already, but she continued to be impressed by how much the upperclassmen help things run smoothly. It’s no surprise their class schedules allow enough leniency to accommodate the extra responsibilities. Suddenly, Yuko had a realization. “Hey, um, Boss… Since you’re a third-year, do you happen to know the student council president?” Yuko asked, with hesitation. “Hm? Kan-chan? Yeah, she’s actually in my class! Class 3-A.” Boss smiled. “K-Kan-chan…?” Yuko repeated, caught off guard by the strange nickname. “Yeah, everyone in our class calls her that! She’s basically the head of the school, you know? The fact that someone like that is in our class kinda makes her our pride and joy. Plus, she’s way cuter than you’d expect. She’s so short and works so hard, you can’t help but root for her, you know?” Yuko was taken aback at Boss’s unexpected gushing. She only asked on a whim, but she truly didn’t expect him to be so familiar with her, let alone be in the same class. “I-I see… Say, don’t you think the president can sometimes be a bit, um… scary? Or like, mean?” “Can’t say I’ve ever seen her that way…” Boss answered, tilting his head. “Oh! I get it! You totally got lectured by her, didn’t you?” “Huh?!” Yuko jumped. “You probably didn’t make it back by curfew the other night, did you? I told you to let me know and I’d take responsibility. Man, if you got chewed out by Kan-chan because of me, I’m really sorry. But don’t hold it against her, she takes her job as the president seriously.” the Boss bowed to Yuko apologetically. “Oh, no it wasn’t that!” Yuko exclaimed, realizing the misunderstanding. “I mean, I did miss curfew, and ended up lectured by her, b-but it doesn’t have to do with that! Or rather, um… oh, nevermind!” Yuko was flailing around, with all the information jumbled up in her mind. Boss simply smiled wryly, confused over what she was trying to say. “Well, regardless. If you need me to talk to Kan-chan, just let me know, okay?” “Yes, thank you! I mean, don’t worry about it, but I’ll keep the offer in mind!” Yuko replied frantically. “Anyway, go clock in and get ready, we gotta prepare for the opening rush!” “Yes, sir!” Yuko saluted and dashed off to the back rooms. --- “Busy day today, huh?” Tanabe Murakami smiled at Yuko, having returned to the counter after saying goodbye to some customers. “Yeah, I’m exhausted, haha.” Yuko smiled wryly. The time was nearing 7:30 in the evening. The sun had already dipped below the horizon, and Boss had just flipped the sign out front to the ‘closed’ side. “Let’s get everything put away so we can close up!” shouted the Boss, clapping his hands. Yuko, Tanabe, and the other employees all got to work quickly. As Yuko started storing all the washed dishes in the cupboard alongside Tanabe, the two continued to chat. “Murakami, how’s kendo been going?” Yuko asked. “It’s been pretty tough lately, if I’m being honest.” Tanabe scratched his head. “Our first big match against the middle school team is coming up, and I feel like they expect a lot from me.” “Oh, I see.” Yuko nodded. “But it’s just the middle school team. A lot of the members, even you, used to play for their team, right? Surely you have an advantage.” “It is true that we’ve got more experience. But let me tell you, those middle school teams work hard. They know they’re the underdogs so they always go above and beyond. The matches can be a lot closer than you’d think.” “That’s pretty amazing! I didn’t pay much attention to any sports clubs in middle school, but I suppose it makes sense. The team’s only regular opponents would be the older kids from the high school.” “Yeah, it can be a bit tiresome.” Tanabe laughed. “But we do sometimes have matches against the west district teams. Those are only a handful of times throughout the year though.” “You’re right!” Yuko recalled. “I remember whenever those matches happened, people would make a big deal out of it because of how rare it was to see students from another district.” “Indeed. I believe the first exchange match for kendo is coming up in June. Gonna cheer for me?” Tanabe smiled jokingly. “Of course!” Yuko pumped her fist. The two soon finished their work and clocked out. After changing out of their café uniforms and getting their stuff together, they both happened to exit the café at the same time. “Oh, um… Want to walk back together?” Yuko asked, looking up at Tanabe. “Sure thing.” he smiled back. The walk to the dorms wasn’t far, but the two enjoyed the cool night breeze. It was 15 minutes til curfew, and the two could see several other students rushing back as well. “This new curfew feels so odd.” Tanabe said, watching the passing students. “I’m used to having dinner at the café around this time, and then working for another couple of hours before heading back, haha.” “Yeah, I know what you mean, haha.” Yuko laughed. “So, anything new with you?” Tanabe asked, not sure what else to talk about. “With me? Um…” Yuko said, thinking back. Unfortunately the most prevalent events she could think of were her recent amnesia and her friction with the president. “So you have your own troubles too, huh?” Tanabe spoke, having noticed Yuko’s troubled expression. “Yeah… pretty much.” Yuko smiled apologetically. “I’ll tell you about it some other time.” “That’s cool with me. It’s up to you.” said Tanabe, patting her shoulder. “Looks like we’re here.” The two had arrived in front of the high school student dormitory. The two said their goodbyes before parting ways and heading to their own rooms. Yuko exited the elevator and walked down the hallway towards the door to her room, but as she approached she noticed something odd. “Hm? What’s this?” she murmured, spotting a small envelope taped to her front door. There was nothing written on it. Yuko frowned, thinking nothing good could come from the letter. After taking the letter, she opened the door and entered her room. Now alone in her own private space, she let out a deep sigh before dropping her bag to the floor and flopping over onto her bed. Of course, she was curious about the letter, but more than anything she was tired. “I guess I should see what it says…” she mumbled to herself. Flipping over on the bed, she held the letter up above her and slowly ripped it open. Inside was a small piece of paper with a simple message. “THE TRUTH WILL COME TO LIGHT. RIGEL PARK, MIDNIGHT TONIGHT.” “… Of course.” Yuko sighed. Yuko didn’t know for sure who the letter was from. It didn’t list any kind of sender, after all. But she could hazard a guess that it was probably Kanna Kawagoe. Though Yuko couldn’t help but feel that reaching out in such an abstract way was strange, even for her. “Why does she want me to go out at midnight anyway? Aren’t we not allowed to go out after 8?” Yuko grumbled, thinking maybe this message wasn’t from Kanna after all. But if that’s the case, who could it possibly be from? Honestly, Yuko didn’t really want to go. But if going gives her a chance to get some answers, and puts an end to this stressful ordeal, she figured she might as well. The night passed quickly. After a quick bath, Yuko grabbed dinner at the cafeteria, before returning to her room. She passed her time watching one of the school’s older shows rerunning on TV and reading some books, waiting for the time to come. Once 11:30 hit, Yuko quietly slipped out of her dorm room. Instead of using the elevator, she took the stairs down until she was in the main lobby. Naturally, it was mostly deserted at this hour. Yuko made her way to the front door and slipped out. The sensors would register her passing through, but she figured since this was likely instigated by the president herself, she’d be let off the hook. The dark, quiet streets were somewhat eerie as Yuko made her way to Rigel Park. The breeze caused trees and bushes to rustle, and the distant sounds of animals going about their business created a somewhat unsettling atmosphere when combined with the limited lighting. As the clock started to near midnight, Yuko had reached the pond in Rigel Park. No one else was around, so she decided to just wait for now. It’d been only a couple of days, but being here again gave Yuko an unpleasant feeling. She glanced at a nearby bench, recalling falling asleep on it. She slowly walked over to it and placed her hand atop it. “This is where it all started…” Yuko mumbled. “Why can’t I remember waking up here…?” Yuko had tried countless times over the past two days to remember what she did after waking up on the bench, but it was all a blur. Yuko had always been a bit sickly, but she’d been feeling much better lately, so the current situation frustrated her. Her fingers clenched the bench, and her brow furrowed as she tried desperately to shake this uneasy feeling. It was at that moment when she heard it. A distinct rustling from the bushes nearby. Yuko’s body froze up instantly. A sense of dread washed over her and a strong feeling of déjà vu kicked in. It took only an instant for her to realize something was wrong. Something inside her body was heating up. Burning. Slowly regaining her composure, Yuko turned around and faced the shrubbery that she’d heard the noise from. Perhaps laying her eyes on it was the trigger, or maybe it was already coming back to her. Regardless, the instant Yuko locked eyes with the large, wolf-like beast with glistening steel fur, a part of Yuko’s memory that she’d blocked out came flooding back. The sense of fear and dread. The pain of having her arm bitten, and having her back slashed. The fear of death as the creature pinned her to the ground. Although her memory once again stopped short, the distinct memory of being attacked by this magic beast had returned to Yuko’s mind. “Damn you… Damn you…” Yuko’s body shook. The terror paralyzed her, but more than anything, her anger at all the trouble this creature had caused her started coming out. The creature slowly approached, one step at a time. Yuko’s instincts were screaming at her to run, but her body wouldn’t respond. Burning. Something inside her was burning. Tears began to spill from Yuko’s eyes as the beast poised itself, preparing to attack. Yuko knew there was nothing she could do. She steeled herself for the incoming pain, but… “Gwooagh!” the beast cried. Its voice distorted in pain. It happened in an instant. A huge chunk of ice came out of nowhere and pieced right through the stomach of the beast. The twinkling of the moonlight on the surface of the ice was quickly blotted out by the creature’s blood dripping onto the surface of the ice. And just a moment later, the beast collapsed. “Wh-what the… hell…?” Yuko could only stammer, confused. And then... “I see, so I was correct after all, Yuko Maeda.” A familiar voice boomed. It came from the direction of the pond. Yuko turned to face the speaker who had addressed her. “H-huh…? You… but…” Yuko was speechless. A girl was floating in midair above the surface of the water. She donned a bizarre outfit, somewhat resembling a kind of medieval armor, but with ice-like patterns, adorned with frills and other flowing fabric. In her hand she held a long spear, from which extended a blade made of ice. Upon seeing the floating girl’s face, Yuko recognized her instantly. This girl was Kanna Kawagoe. “The culprit behind the recent magic beast attacks on campus… is you!” Kanna declared, pointing at Yuko with the tip of her spear. After struggling with the oddities surrounding her brief amnesia from Monday night, Yuko had hoped to bring closure to it all by coming back to the park. She was ready to talk things out with whoever was behind the letter she’d received, and try to put the whole thing behind her and move on. Alas, with her mind now struggling to process the baffling situation she had now found herself in, Yuko realized her troubles were only just beginning. [Chapter 2 END]

-Chapter 6- “Thank you for your hard work, take care on the way back to the dorms.” Kanna was seeing off the volunteer computer club members who were assisting with restoring the security camera’s network. Apparently, the big issue was a lot of missing and broken data on the computers, so it took a while to get everything back to how it was before. The computer club was skilled, but they weren’t exactly familiar with the structure of how the security programs were built, which is why it took most of the day to restore it. Regardless, hours of potential footage was lost because the cameras just weren’t operating at all after the program was broken. There was no recording for the timeframe when the patients would’ve disappeared. Regardless, Kanna was determined to stay and browse the existing footage for just a little longer to find any kind of clue she needed. “It seems the culprit has perfectly covered their tracks this time…” Kanna sighed, as she watched the screens. All kinds of footage played forwards and backwards at increased speeds, but without anything from the time of the incident, there likely wouldn’t be anything of note. “Hm? Hold on…” Kanna stopped one of the recordings. She thought nothing of it at first, but refocused on it to make sure. She rewound the footage and watched it play back. “What is that person doing… there?” Kanna was perplexed. Someone in the video was in a place that felt strange to her. But why? Kanna thought. With all of her might, she thought hard. What was that person doing in that place? “No, that is…” when Kanna saw what that person was carrying, a terrifying realization occurred to her. It was something she’d vaguely considered, but had prayed that she was wrong about. “But why…? What the hell… is this?!” Kanna slammed the desk with her fist. This was no time to be sitting around watching recordings. Kanna Kawagoe realized she would have to act fast to resolve this situation. --- “Ah, that must be Kanna.” Yuko muttered to herself, glancing over to the doorway. “Guess it’s time to head out.” Yuko had just recently finished eating dinner, and was spending some time browsing the school’s internet while she waited for Kanna to come get her for their patrol that night. It was a relatively relaxed evening for her, but things were about to take a turn. After closing the browser and shutting off the computer, Yuko got up and walked to the doorway. Opening the door, sure enough, Yuko found Kanna standing on the other side. “This is bad! We must move quickly!” Kanna urged quietly, trying not to make too much noise. “Wait, what? What happened? Did you get the cameras fixed?” Yuko was taken aback by the sudden urgency. “Yes, I shall explain on the way.” Kanna answered. “But more importantly, Chisa Ando is missing!” “What?!” Yuko was shocked. Realizing the gravity of the situation, Yuko quickly got ready and left the dorms with Kanna in a hurry. The two were now walking at a quick pace down the street as the moon above illuminated the dark sky. “So what’s going on?” Yuko asked. “What do you mean Chisa’s missing? She was with us when we came back to the dorm!” “When I returned to the dorm, I tried to find her to ask a question, but she was nowhere to be seen around the dorm facilities, nor was she in her room.” Kanna explained. “I checked the computer at the front desk, and there was a record of her leaving the dorm on her own. She must still be out here trying to search.” “But why would she…?” Yuko knew Chisa was concerned about the missing patients, but she was troubled that Chisa would go out like this when it’s dangerous. Then again, it’s not like most of students actually knew the truth behind the ‘animal attacks’ going on. Most didn’t particularly take the curfew seriously, even though they abode by it. “I do not know.” Kanna shook her head. “But if things have gotten truly bad, then we may find her at our destination.” “Wait, where are we going anyway?” Yuko suddenly realized she didn’t know where they were headed. She’d followed Kanna down the streets, but now they were heading east and had just gotten to some woodland trails near the foot of the mountain. “We are going to the secret location I mentioned this afternoon.” Kanna explained. “Oh, right! You did mention something like that.” Yuko recalled Kanna mentioning some secret place that hadn’t been searched yet earlier, and how it’d have troubling implications if the missing people were found there. “Are you sure we’ll find anything there, though?” “Before, I had only considered it a slight possibility, but...” Kanna grimaced. “Now, whether we find them there or not, I believe we are sure to find something there…” Yuko simply nodded in response. The two continued to follow the path of the mountain uphill. Eventually they left the main trail and were cutting through some bushes before arriving at a cliff-face. Kanna stopped in front of the stone wall. “Is this where we were going?” Yuko asked, somewhat confused. “Correct. This way.” Kanna slowly paced along the side of the stone wall before them. Yuko followed behind her. Soon, the two arrived at a strange dip in the face of the cliff, and turning into it at a certain angle, a small pathway leading inside was revealed. It was a cave. Slightly hidden from view, it would be difficult to notice from the outside. “Whoa, I didn’t know there was a cave out here.” Yuko was surprised. There had been times students would come out to these woodlands around the mountains, whether to relax, exercise, or camp. But she’d never heard of there being a cave anywhere around here. “The arrangement of the rocks makes this path difficult to notice. But once you know of it, it is not difficult to find.” Kanna slowly set foot into the cave. “You sure it’s safe down here?” Yuko asked, worried. “Rest assured. I know this area well.” Kanna replied. The two walked through the rough interior path in darkness until suddenly, after taking a few turns, they’d ended up in an area unlike anything in the cave up until then. The floor and walls were all paved, turning into a proper man-made walkway. The walls were adorned with torches, lighting the way. “Wait, what is this place?” Yuko realized this was no mere cave. “On the last day of every month, my partner and I come to this place.” Kanna started to explain. “As magic knights, it is our duty to regularly report on our activities in this world to the High Priest. This is the objective of our Special Task Force: to study and understand the way of life of the people in this world.” “So that’s what this is all about…” Yuko still had trouble wrapping her head around the whole ‘other world’ aspect of what she’s learned from Kanna. Still, she did her best to follow along and take Kanna at her word. “So that means this place is…” “Right.” Kanna nodded. “This underground chamber is where we materialize the Gate each month. It is like a doorway to our world, wherein we can communicate with the High Priest. Other than our monthly reports, we often exchange goods and letters from friends and family as well. Anything we require from our world, we make sure the High Priest can get to us. In turn, we offer up anything of interest from this world to them.” “I see…” Yuko began to understand. “But… why here, though? Why are you and your partner here at Starlight Academy? Compared to the world at large, this is a pretty closed-off community.” This was one of the main things Yuko had quietly wondered about ever since Kanna revealed her identity. Why here? The world is a big place, and the small closed-off community inside the school known as Starlight Academy was just a tiny part of it. In a sense, the place was like a glorified orphanage, but instead of being adopted and taken away, the children instead grow up independently in the school’s enclosed community, only leaving for the world at large once they reach adulthood and graduate. If the people of this other world were so keen to learn about this one, why send people to act as students in such a closed-off environment? “You are correct.” Kanna shrugged. “If I were to give a simple explanation, I would say this isolated community is advantageous. Like an easy stepping stone to understanding the basics of life in this world, without the risk of venturing out into larger society and inadvertently causing a large-scale disruption.” “I guess that makes sense.” Yuko thought, though still not entirely convinced. “Heh… Though, there is a simpler explanation.” Kanna gave a wry smirk. “The fact of the matter is, Akihito Hoshikage was the first person from this world to make contact with our world, Alviquan.” “Wait, you mean the founder of Starlight Academy?!” Yuko was surprised. “Correct.” Kanna nodded. “He and his four district managers are 100% aware of the existence of Alviquan. They are also the ones responsible for allowing my partner and I to enter this school for our mission. It is all just a convenient deal this school formed with the church and royal family in Alviquan.” The two had been walking rather slowly since Kanna began explaining the location and her relation to it, but both now stood before a large door at the end of the passage. “I am afraid our chat must end here.” Kanna grimaced. “If I am correct, the culprit is inside.” “Wh-what?!” Yuko tried to whisper. “Why would the culprit be here?” Kanna looked at the ground, clearly displeased. “Listen, Yuko Maeda…” Kanna looked Yuko in the eyes. “I really should not have brought you here, but considering both you, and perhaps your friend, are involved, I felt it only right.” “Kanna…” Yuko whispered, as Kanna placed her hand on Yuko’s shoulder. “I have chosen to believe in you, and the potential you hold inside.” Kanna’s eyes narrowed. “That means you too, the one inside. Please, believe in me as well.” “???” Yuko didn’t entirely understand what Kanna meant. But Kanna wasn’t speaking only to Yuko. She was speaking beyond Yuko Maeda, to the ‘other Yuko’ inside. It was a big risk. The last time the other Yuko surfaced, it had clearly declared its intention to kill Kanna. Even now, that motivation could still exist. Kanna knew this, yet she still chose to bring Yuko here. Straight to where she believed the true culprit was hiding. Turning back toward the large door in front of them, Kanna slowly placed her hand on it, and began to push it open. Slowly, a large room on the other side came into view. Much like the hall, it was a clearly man-made space. A large round table circled by chairs was in the center of the room, and various boxes lay scattered along the walls. On the ceiling, a basic chandelier was lit, illuminating the room in light from above. But most noticeable of all was the large mirror fixed on the opposite side of the wall. The room gave off a rather grand vibe, despite there not being much inside. However, as the two set foot into the room, they both realized there was more inside than there first appeared. Five students lay against the right-side wall, all wrapped in vines. They seemed unconscious. And the person standing before them, magic crystals in hand, was a familiar person: the teacher, Karuto Taniguchi. “M-Mr. Taniguchi?!” Yuko was stunned. But just by seeing what was happening here, she realized what was going on. “Y-you’re the one behind all of this?!” “Oh dear.” the man with the cold glare turned toward Yuko. “So you’re here too, Maeda…” “Why… why are you doing this?” Yuko nervously asked, while glancing at her friend Chisa, who lay unconscious and wrapped in vines like the rest. “Hmph.” Taniguchi turned his attention away from Yuko, as if he didn’t care to even talk to her, instead directing his gaze at Kanna. “You truly are reckless, Crygahl... bringing that girl to a place like this.” “Wait, that name is…” Yuko gasped, looking over to Kanna as well. “… What is the meaning of this?” Kanna asked quietly, her fist trembling. “Hmph. I don’t expect a mere dog of the royal family like yourself to understand my reasoning at all.” the indifferent teacher merely shrugged her off. “I asked… WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, KURT TORKALV?!” Kanna shouted in an angry fury. Between her anger, and the sudden mentioning of the name ‘Kurt Torkalv’, Yuko put the pieces together and realized what was going on here. “Wait, is Mr. Taniguchi… that partner you always mentioned, Kanna?” she asked. “Yes.” Kanna began moving toward him, step by step. “This man is, or rather, is supposed to be, a magic knight for the kingdom of Alviquan, just like myself. So I ask once more… What are you doing?!” “Hehehe.” Taniguchi laughed in response. “This is simply an experiment, Crygahl. Must I explain myself?” “You know damn well that revealing our power to outsiders is prohibited. Let alone whatever this is!” Kanna took another step toward her traitorous partner, pointing at the five victims lying against the wall. “Furthermore…” After a few more steps, Kanna now stood directly in front of him. “What is a wood magician like yourself doing making use of magic beasts like some kind of beast tamer?” “Hehehehe…” the man’s cold face warped into a grin as he continued laughing. “Why, I could answer you in words… But I prefer to lead by example.” “Wha-?!” It happened in an instant. Kanna soon found herself flung to the ground after a punch landed directly in her face. “Huh?!” Yuko was baffled by what she’d just seen. The one who punched Kanna was not the scheming teacher in front of her. It was one of the five patients. A male student was on his feet, standing still right after punching Kanna. But his face, rather, his eyes… were completely blank. “What… the hell?” Kanna was baffled. Placing her hand on her cheek, she looked back at the dazed boy who punched her. “Amazing, isn’t it?” the smirking teacher asked. “A wonderful result, if I do say so myself. I’ll admit, I was worried for a while.” “Damn it…” Kanna once more rose to her feet. “What did you do to them?!” “They’ve become prototypes for the perfect soldier...” Taniguchi’s voice grew cold. “Perfect for eventually taking down the royal family.” “Taking down the… Wait, are you saying you…?!” Kanna gasped. “The beasts must’ve given it away, right?” “So this is the work of the rebel army…” Kanna grimaced. “What does that mean, Kanna?” asked Yuko, who was starting to get confused by the direction of the conversation. “It is a long story…” Kanna sighed. “But the short of it is that Alviquan has a number of enemies, both outside and within. Needless to say, the rebel army is an enemy from within.” “How kind of you to include us as ‘within’ in your explanation… Even though you spoiled nobility clearly don’t see us that way!” Taniguchi shouted. “I do not understand, Torkalv. Why are you working with them? You are an elite magic knight just like myself!” Kanna shouted, before turning back to Yuko. “Listen, the rebel army is a movement formed by those whose magic power lacks higher potential. This is why so many in their ranks are beast tamers: magic users who use their magic to control animals. It is a skill they master because their own magic lacks the capacity to fully utilize the element of their affinity.” “I think I get it…” Yuko nodded. She still didn’t grasp the specifics, but Yuko understood at this point that Alviquan magic users tended to have an elemental specialty. If there were people who couldn’t adequately tap into their element, then it stands to reason they’d try to find some other application for what magic they could use. “So, why then…?” Kanna turned back toward the teacher. “Why is someone as skilled in wood magic as you working with them?!” “Nothing special…” Taniguchi’s face became blank once more. “Just simple revenge.” With the snap of his finger, three of the four remaining students against the wall all rose and began to move. Only Chisa remained slumped on the ground. Before Kanna could do anything, she found herself surrounded. And Yuko… “Ahhh!” Yuko cried as a girl, who happened to be Honda, pinned her from behind. “Yuko!” cried Kanna, who couldn’t go to her aid due to the three students keeping her from moving. “Do you understand the results now, Crygahl?” Taniguchi asked. “The pathetic humans in this world who have no capacity for magic at all are no different than animals. Using magic beasts like the Razor Wolves, whose fangs and claws secrete magic power, it’s easy to introduce magic into their body, and then use modified beast-taming techniques to control them. It was a theory the leaders came up with not long after I reported to them about how different the humans of this world are.” “So you’ve been a spy for the rebels this entire time…” Kanna glared at her former partner. “Correct! Hehehehe.” Taniguchi laughed. “So what now, Crygahl? Will you strike down these innocent students to try and stop me? Surely that won’t go over well with the Head Priest. Hahahaha!” Kanna had found herself caught in a conundrum. Taniguchi was using innocent students as a shield to keep her from stopping him with force. It was a bit of a gamble, but he knew that Kanna likely wouldn’t attack anyone she knew was innocent and unrelated to the situation. Taniguchi began thinking to himself, preparing for the next stage of his plan. Excellent. I’ve got us locked in the perfect stalemate. Just as planned. Now, I can use what’s here to open the Gate early, tweak the coordinates with the instructions I received, and get myself and these prototypes out of here. Sorry Crygahl, you’re already too late to stop me! Hehehe… It was at this moment, when Taniguchi had planned out his escape, that something unexpected happened. “Kanna!” it was a shout from Yuko. Taniguchi had completely taken his attention off of her once he made sure one of the puppeted students had restrained her, and yet… “Wait, why is she free?!” Taniguchi was shocked to see Yuko wasn’t restrained at all. And the body of the student who restrained her, Honda… was laying limp on the floor. “Take this!” Yuko shouted, as she tossed something to Kanna. “Wait, that’s…!” Taniguchi realized what it was. A purple gem stone flew through the air. That’s right… it was the crystal from the magic beast. --- Earlier that day, when Yuko and Kanna had gone off to search the woods on their own during the missing patients incident, the two merely spoke briefly about the situation before returning back. But on the way back, Yuko had remembered to bring something up to Kanna. “Hey Kanna, I just remembered… Do you know what this is?” Yuko asked, pulling the purple gem from her pocket. “Ah, that is the life gem of a magic beast!” Kanna exclaimed. “What are you doing with such a thing?” “I don’t know. I just found it in my bag early on Tuesday morning… I meant to bring it up to you sooner but kind of forgot about it for a while.” “I see…” Kanna pondered. She realized that the ‘other Yuko’ must’ve decided to take it with her after killing the magic beast on Monday night. “Does this do anything special?” asked Yuko. “You know, like those crystals you used on me before.” The two looked away from one another briefly, blushing as they recalled how exactly those other crystals were used. “Well…” Kanna began. “Those life gems are typically what help a magic beast regulate the flow of magic within their body. A creature having one of those on its body is the sign that they are a magic beast, and not any ordinary animal.” “I see…” Yuko looked at the gem curiously. “Because they channel the type of magic flowing within a magic beast, they are sometimes used to drain the magic from an opposing magic beast. That method is not particularly effective in a dangerous situation though, so it is not often employed.” “Wow, neat.” Yuko nodded along. “Hey, can I hold on to it?” “I suppose there is no harm in letting you do so for now.” Kanna shrugged. It was a simple, brief exchange as the two walked back to the security building. Neither knew how useful this exchange of information would be just a few hours later… --- “Take this!” Yuko shouted, tossing the magic beast’s life gem to Kanna, who was still surrounded by the puppeted students. Kanna immediately realized what had just happened: Yuko still had the life gem with her. When Honda had restrained her, Yuko may not have been able to use her strength to break free, but she was able to grab the gem in her pocket and suck the magic out of Honda’s body. After all, the only magic inside her would be that which the magic beast secreted into her body through her injuries. Since the gem could drain that same type of magic energy, it’s the perfect object for countering these students who were being controlled due to that very same magic. “Wait, that’s…!” Taniguchi, the one who created this whole elaborate means of controlling people, realized this one flaw, and was shocked to see that Yuko of all people had not only figured it out, but even happened to have the gem with her to use. He figured the one gem he’d lost track of was likely in her possession, but he never expected her to be carrying it around. “Got it!” Kanna snatched the gem from the air, and swiftly pressed it against one of the students surrounding her. “Hah!” In a matter of moments, the student’s body began convulsing before dropping to the floor, just like Honda’s. Kanna quickly followed this up by pressing it against the other two, who also collapsed in no time. “Tch…” Taniguchi was shaken. “Damn prototypes…” “Heh.” Kanna smirked. “It appears your perfect prototypes were not so perfect after all.” Without these students effectively serving as hostages between them, Kanna no longer had any reason to hold back. “You shall not go unpunished, Kurt Torkalv!” Kanna shouted, before materializing her staff and unleashing her magic power. Kanna’s body glowed a bright white, flooding the dim room with light. Moments later, Kanna stepped forward as the brightness dimmed. She now donned her magic armor, the knightly armor covered with frilly adornments. The tip of her staff had already formed its blade made of ice, and Kanna held it at the ready. “Damn it…” muttered Taniguchi, frustrated. “I wanted to get through this without fighting you, but I guess at this point I have no choice…” “Nn!” Kanna quickly realized what he had planned. “Not so fast!” Kanna tried to rush forward to stop him, but was too late. “Garden of Thorns!” Taniguchi had pressed his hand to the ground quickly and activated his magic zone. The dim room they were just in vanished in an instant, and a purple sky with a red moon hung overhead. They were now in the middle of a courtyard filled with rosebushes. In the distance, many sharp, jagged trees stood tall along the horizon. “Hah!” Taniguchi jumped into the air and quickly materialized a small wand. From the tip of the wand, a large wood-like whip emerged as Taniguchi glowed. After a burst of light, Taniguchi also donned a bizarre armor in place of his clothes. Chainmail covered his abdomen and thighs beneath his armor, while long gloves went up to his bare shoulders and small steel gauntlets adorned his wrists. “What on earth…?” Yuko was stunned by the sudden change in scenery and fell to her knees. She looked around, and it seems the other unconscious students weren’t brought into this place. It was just the three of them. “Get back, Yuko Maeda.” Kanna warned, as she too rose into the air to face her opponent. “From here on, it is a battle between us magic users.” “R-right…” Yuko clutched her chest. She started to feel a strange burning sensation inside. Still, she rose to her feet once more, and moved to make some distance between herself and the two armored combatants. “Perish!” Taniguchi shouted, as he swung his glowing whip in the air. All of a sudden, vines shot out from the rosebushes below, aiming straight at Kanna. “Deep freeze!” Kanna pointed her glowing spear their way, and the vines all froze with ice before making contact. “You must be a fool to think I would let myself be caught so easily!” Kanna dashed forward through the air, shattering the frozen vines, and aimed her spear toward Taniguchi. “Kh!” the teacher grunted as he blocked the thrust with his whip, growing an extensive tangle of branches from its base to act as a shield. He swiftly dashed away before swinging the now awkwardly-shaped whip at Kanna. With that swing, however, the tangled branches broke free and shot toward Kanna like bullets. “Gh!” Kanna quickly tried to dash out of the way. However, some of the branches did land, causing some scrapes from the impact. “You must do better than that!” Kanna shouted, dashing straight at Taniguchi after the flurry of branches had passed. Unable to block, Taniguchi decided to plummet downward in order to dodge. Just as Kanna’s strike missed, he swung his newly formed whip, and this time it wrapped itself firmly around Kanna’s waist. “I got you!” he shouted. Stopping in midair and turning quickly, he used the force to pull Kanna and launch her straight into a pit of thorny rosebushes. “Gaah!!” Kanna shouted as the prickly thorns punctured her skin. “Don’t underestimate me, Crygahl!” Taniguchi gloated from above. “I’ve been making sure to stay prepared for our eventual confrontation! I knew this battle would happen someday!” “Indeed…” Kanna grunted as she pulled her body up from the thorned plants. “You seem far more prepared to counter my fighting style than I had expected.” Kanna hovered up, free from the rosebush. Her outfit was torn in places, her skin was scratched up all over, and she was bleeding from numerous wounds. Thankfully, Kanna’s armor had been able to shield a lot of her body from harm, but the pain was still getting to her and her stamina was draining fast. She realized the thorns likely had some sort of poisonous properties. This is going to be difficult. Ordinarily, the advantage would be mine, but since he activated his magic zone first, he has the advantage of terrain… In a battle between magic users, it’s said that whoever activates their magic zone first has the advantage. After all, in a magic zone, the user has access to all kinds of things related to their element, which they’re free to manipulate. In this case, Taniguchi can use all of the greenery in his Garden of Thorns magic zone to his advantage. In comparison, Kanna could only fight with the magic she could conjure up at any given moment, with no advantageous terrain to make use of like the pillars of ice from her own magic zone, the Ice Planet. “However, I shall not waver!” Kanna shouted, lifting her spear up high. “Deep Freeze: Excess! Hyaaah!!” with that, the ice blade of her spear shattered and Kanna tossed the staff to the ground. Landing upright, a burst of light exploded from the staff as the ground all around it froze over. Soon, the freezing reached the various rosebushes, and they all began to freeze over. “I shall not let you have the advantage!” Kanna declared, now channeling magic into her hands, as small ice daggers formed in her grip. With that, Kanna dashed through the air towards Taniguchi once more. “Grr!” Taniguchi quickly tried to block the swing of her dagger with his wooden whip, but the blade of the dagger cut right through. The teacher continued to retreat backwards from there, narrowly dodging each of Kanna’s swings. With the rosebushes below getting frozen over, he couldn’t send any vines up to hold her back. “Gyaaagh!” Taniguchi screamed in pain. Kanna got a solid hit in on his arm, giving him a deep cut as his blood stained her dagger of ice. Bearing the pain, Taniguchi swiftly flipped his body and kicked Kanna away. Managing to take the brunt of the hit with a quick block, Kanna landed firmly on her feet on the ground, before buckling down on one knee. “Curse those blades of yours…” Taniguchi grunted. “You knew close combat was a weakness of mine.” “Of course…” spat Kanna, breathing heavily. She was really starting to feel the effects of the poison now. “Years may have passed, but I remember our sparring matches during the magic knight training exercises…” “Unfortunately… that won’t save you!” shouted Taniguchi, when suddenly, the pavement on the ground surrounding Kanna caved in. “What?!” Kanna was startled. Large, thick branches erupted from the earth beneath the pavement and wrapped themselves around Kanna’s limbs. She’s been totally taken off guard. “Aaauugh!!” Kanna screamed in pain as the hard wood squeezed her body. She was totally stuck, and her arms and legs were being crushed. “Hahaha! My Garden of Thorns is more than just a depository of roses and vines, my dear! Large tree appendages lay in the Earth beneath the pavement, ready for me to use anytime! It’s the ultimate secret weapon of my magic zone, which I never even used in training!” Taniguchi gloated, while Kanna continued screaming in agony. “Oh no… oh no…” Meanwhile, Yuko was seeing everything unfold from some distance away. Feeling weakened from the burning inside, Yuko’s breathing was ragged as she watched the two powerful magic users go at it. But now… things were looking difficult for Kanna. Yuko feared what was coming. What would happen if Kanna lost? What would happen to her? What would happen to the other five students? What would happen… to me? Yuko’s body began to shake as panic set in. The echo of Kanna’s agonized screams were all she could hear in this bizarre, cold garden. This whole time, Yuko had only been relying on Kanna. She was the expert. She knew what was going on better than anyone, and she promised to protect Yuko. And yet… “Kanna… no…” Yuko slowly rose to her feet, and tried desperately to go to where Kanna was. However, the ground was slippery with ice due to Kanna’s earlier spell, and Yuko ended up slipping and falling down on her face. Something’s… burning… Despite the cold floor beneath her, Yuko was burning up inside. But even as she was falling apart, Yuko could only focus on the situation before her. “I’m… so helpless…” Yuko mumbled, trying to rise to her feet once more. “Kanna fought… so hard… But I… couldn’t do… anything…” Yuko was now on her feet again, barely trudging along. Kanna’s hoarse voice sounded about ready to give out. “Is this the end… for Kanna?” Yuko coughed as she took another step. “Is this the end… for me?” No. Yuko suddenly heard a voice from within her own mind. She blinked, unable to understand what she’d just heard. We will survive. After hearing those words within her mind, Yuko Maeda lost consciousness. --- The kingdom of Alviquan was a large, prosperous nation that occupied the northern part of a small continent. This kingdom was an aristocracy defined by magic, where the higher-class and nobility tended to carry higher affinity for magic usage. The outskirts of the kingdom were home to many small villages, all mostly run by people whose magic power was unrefined. Finding a magic user skilled in one of the core elements was rare in these parts. As a result, they were often discriminated against by the magically skilled upper class. Despite this, those who lived their lives in those border villages would often do their best to live, day by day, regardless. Representatives of the kingdom’s magic knights would sometimes scout for individuals skilled in magic from these backwoods villages, usually offering their family an enticing compensation to allow them to take these skilled individuals in as new recruits. Such was the case of a young boy skilled in wood magic named Kurt Torkalv. From a young age, Kurt’s parents adored him, and the magic he was able to harness was of amazing benefit to their work on the farms. When he was finally recruited by the magic knights, the whole village cheered for him. He was an icon they could be proud of, as they never imagined someone from their small village could ever become a magic knight. What is the goal of a magic knight? In simple terms, it is to protect the kingdom of Alviquan. By nature, this means that there must be something to protect them from. In this case, that would be the vampires: intelligent monsters that have their own civilizations on the south side of the continent. Alviquan’s magic users have been at war with the vampires for generations. It was a widely-known struggle across the lands. Skirmishes between the sides would break out from time to time in various locations. Kurt was, of course, proud of his role as a magic knight. He trained hard every day refining his wood magic, and swore to protect all citizens of Alviquan from the threat of the vampires. One day, however, tragedy struck as Kurt heard a peculiar rumor. “A certain village in the backwoods is becoming infested with vampires.” Upon learning that this certain village was his home town, Kurt immediately tried to make his way back home. However, by the time he arrived, the kingdom’s ‘solution’ to the problem has already been enacted... Kurt arrived home only to find the village ablaze. His parents, his friends, everyone in the village who was dear to him. In an instant, all of them were gone. Not just because of an infestation of vampires, but because the kingdom thought so little of the village’s people, that burning the whole place to the ground was the option chosen. Is this what it means… to protect the people of Alviquan? A rage built up inside Kurt that day. A fury and resentment for the very society he had lived in. Anger at the hypocrisy that the nobles preached. One could say he was never the same following that day. It wasn’t too long since then that Kurt heard from a relative who lived in a different village. It was his uncle; the brother of his late mother. It was during a memorial service being held for the lost villagers when Kurt was taken aside by his uncle. “You understand, right? How awful this kingdom really is? We can’t let them get away with this.” Easily swayed by this simple sentiment, Kurt found himself being introduced to the rebel army by his uncle. This renegade group aimed to overthrow the kingdom and its royal family. Their speeches and philosophies truly resonated with Kurt, who was still hurting over the loss of his family and home. The group, which comprised mostly of beast tamers: magic users who managed to train their unrefined magic in order to control animals, were happy to welcome in an authentic magic user like Kurt. After all, he was not only skilled in wood magic, but also had formal training as a magic knight. He became the perfect ‘spy’ for their activities. Kurt’s teenage years and early adult life saw him living the life of an average magic knight in the capitol, while sharing secrets and working with the rebel army whenever he’d visit his uncle during his time off. One day, however, Kurt found himself becoming part of a special mission: to blend in and investigate life in an alternate world. Kurt was at first frustrated by the selection. Being a part of this mission would mean he’d have to spend 3 years away from Alviquan, in this bizarre alternate world they’d somehow discovered. Despite his hesitation, the rebel army saw it as an opportunity. After all, if Alviquan was still learning about this world, then they could find some way to use it for their purposes as well. Kurt would still be able to exchange monthly letters and gifts from family during the operation, so consistent contact with his uncle was still possible. The two made sure to establish a secret code for their messages that only they could understand. And thus, along with his partner, a newer knight named Canah Crygahl, Kurt began to live in this strange other world, disguised as a school math teacher named Karuto Taniguchi. Living in another world felt alienating. Within Starlight Academy’s small community especially, he knew that he and Canah stood out. He worried about the viability of the mission. But then, something strange happened. The other students eventually began to open up to Canah. Kurt was shocked by the turn of events, though he kept it to himself. Deep inside, perhaps he also longed to make such connections. However, his reserved, serious-minded personality stopped him from trying to approach anyone earnestly. Plus… he was still fixated on finding a way to use this place against the royal family. The monthly letters with his uncle, where they’d discuss potential ideas in code, were all he could think of much of the time. Eventually, after a couple of years, a plan was settled on: try using magic-emitting magic beasts such as the Ravor Wolf to experiment on some students, and see how viable it is to control them with beast tamer magic by introducing the beasts’ magic into their body. It was a fascinating theory: Using the magicless humans of this world like animals, and creating an army of them to help overthrow the royal family back home. To go with this plan, Kurt did his best to kill any empathy in his heart for the people of this world. They were nothing. If they had no magic at all, did they even classify as ‘human’? These are the excuses he tried to tell himself, bolstered even further by the distance between him and everyone else. Eventually, he received the experiment’s instructions in a letter from his uncle, along with the magic capsules for a couple of Razor Wolves. The capsules were hidden within what looked on the surface to be simple pastries from a family member. Although gifts were usually inspected, confections and other foods generally weren’t looked over in any great detail. And so, while working in secret behind the back of his partner Canah, Kurt began to release the magic beasts into the wild in order to secure some test subjects. When the time was right, he began his test. Channeling his magic through a bouquet of flowers he left nearby, he turned the injured students into walking puppets, and guided them to the room with the Gate. His uncle had secured a magic formula Kurt could use to hijack the Gate and allow Kurt to return to Alviquan in secret. Everything was going according to plan, Kurt just had to take out Canah first. However, a certain anomaly in the whole ordeal had been bothering him, and until the end, he never accounted for it. He never accounted for the appearance of Yuko Maeda. --- Burning. It was all burning. Just like the flames he saw the day his home was turned to ash, Karuto Taniguchi could only watch in despair as his entire magic zone, Garden of Thorns, was set ablaze. In the center of the fire, a lone girl stood. A powerful aura surrounding her, her hair danced in the air. In her arms, she carried the limp, barely conscious body of Kanna Kawagoe. This was indeed the other, darker personality that resided within Yuko Maeda. The burning garden in which they stood was all the result of a sudden outburst of her fire magic. “Dammit… no…! This wasn’t supposed to happen!” frustrated, Taniguchi shouted in disdain at the girl with the cold glare standing before him. “Yu… ko…” Kanna muttered, looking up at the other Yuko’s cold expression. After glancing at Kanna’s face, this Yuko set her down on the ground away from the fire, and began to approach Taniguchi alone. “I won’t be stopped here!” Taniguchi materialized a new whip from his wand and with a mighty swing, tried to strike the other Yuko with it. However, the whip, with its properties made of wood, merely burned up when confronted by the burning aura surrounding Yuko’s body. “No… no…!” Taniguchi stumbled backwards to the ground. He had heard from Kanna that Yuko’s strange other personality had seemingly used fire magic before, and even that Yuko herself bizarrely had an affinity for it, despite being a human from this world, but he never expected her magic to be this powerful. Naturally, as a wood magician, fire was a critical weakness of his. As the garden around him burned, causing his composure to collapse as he recalled his trauma, Taniguchi was overcome by only one emotion: fear. The cold, ruthless girl of the flames now stood before him. “P-please, spare me! I-it wasn’t even my idea! I was just... just…!” Now fearing for his life, Taniguchi tried to plead, using the last bit of reason he had left. You see, this entire time, in the very back of his mind, one aspect of this plan had always rubbed Taniguchi the wrong way. Just like everything else, for the sake of his revenge, he ignored it. He ignored everything, to make himself believe he was in the right. But when given time to really think about their plan: turning the lesser, magicless humans of this world into mindless slaves for battle. One thought had always popped up in the back of Taniguchi’s mind: Doesn’t this make us no different from the vampires, creatures who turn our world’s humans into their servants with a mere bite? Ignoring this core contradiction, Taniguchi went forward with the reckless plan anyway. After forcing himself to accept the necessity of his actions for a long, long time, finally as the plan crumbled around him, Taniguchi could only feel regret for ever agreeing to carry this out. Perhaps, he began to regret many other choices he’d made since the day his home burned down as well. Alas, “Die.” was the only word Taniguchi got to hear from the lips of the other Yuko, before his body was consumed by flames. --- “Mnngh…. Huh?” muttered Chisa Ando, who was slowly starting to regain consciousness. Slowly, her eyes opened just a bit. She was in a strange, stone room she didn’t recognize. Looking around, she saw various other people on the ground some ways away. One of them was Honda. “Hon… da…” Chisa started to blink. Next, in the center of the room she noticed her friend Yuko and the student council president Kanna, both standing together. The two turned to her, noticing the noise she was making. “Huh…?” Chisa, whose mind was still fuzzy, felt confused. Certainly, her friend Yuko was standing there… But she’d never seen that kind of expression on her face. It felt… so cold. Having just barely processed that incongruity, Kanna moved toward Chisa, inadvertently blocking her view of Yuko. “It is not yet time to awaken, Chisa Ando. Please, continue to sleep just a bit longer.” Kanna spoke to her softly. “Right… okay…” Chisa replied in a daze, before slowly drifting off to sleep once more. Before letting her consciousness return to the land of dreams, Chisa took note of something in the back of her mind. What an odd scent… like something was burnt… [Chapter 6 END]

-Chapter 5- Turning back the clock just a bit, before Kanna made her way to Yuko’s dorm room, she was engaged in a phone call, using the phone in her own room. Starlight Academy has its own internal phone lines that operate independently within each district. Most buildings have rooms with wall phones installed that connect to their district’s phone network, so there are plenty of phones for use. Naturally, each student dorm room has a phone installed, making for a popular means of communication among students. “Is there anything I should be doing tonight since I’m not joining you on patrol?” the voice on the other end of the line asked. It was the voice of Kanna’s partner; the other magic knight from Alviquan. “I do not believe so.” Kanna answered. “You are free to take the night off, or watch us from a distance in the event the culprit attacks. Regardless, I believe you are quite busy anyway, so a break is probably useful.” “True.” The partner replied. “It’s been tough keeping up with school work while still dedicating the nights to these patrols. I think I’ll take the night off and get some things done.” “Sorry again for taking up your time.” Kanna apologized, bowing despite there being no one there to see her. “Still, it is an urgent matter only we can deal with, and thankfully we might be approaching a resolution.” “So you’re certain that girl Yuko is innocent?” the voice across the phone asked. “I cannot be completely certain.” Kanna responded. “However, I find it exceedingly unlikely. I still do not know the true nature of her other self, but I cannot fathom it to be responsible. Especially considering the letter she received.” “A fair point.” The partner conceded. “But couldn’t the girl’s other personality have written that letter for her primary self?” “Unlikely.” Kanna shot down the idea. “Whenever Yuko changes, she appears to suffer a distinct lapse in memory. There would not have been an opportunity.” “Right, I understand. Well, I’ll leave her to you as usual. Contact me if you need to. I’ll be here.” “Of course. Have a goodnight.” Kanna hung up the phone. Kanna stood facing the phone for a moment. It’s not that she and her partner were unfamiliar with one another, they’d come to this world together after all, but they actually didn’t tend to interact much. They saw each other in passing on the school grounds plenty of times, and they did meet up once a month when reporting their status to the head priest of their world. But outside of such situations, they never tended to interact much. This bizarre situation with the magic beasts was the first time they’d had to actively work together to solve a crisis. They get along well enough, but there are times when Kanna could sense a kind of distance between them she couldn’t put into words. Regardless, they shared common history, both being from the kingdom of Alviquan, and holding status as magic knights who serve said kingdom. They were trusted allies with a shared secret. “Yet, the distance between us remains the same.” Kanna muttered. “Perhaps I am too standoffish.” she wondered. Maybe once this situation resolves, Kanna would try to get to know her partner a little better. Regardless, Kanna quickly set aside such lingering thoughts, instead moving on to preparing the crystals needed for her upcoming visit to Yuko’s room. --- “You asked about my partner, but there is really not much I can say.” Kanna spoke, answering Yuko, who was still curious about Kanna’s mysterious partner who was skipping the night’s patrol. The two girls were currently strolling through the empty business area. The water from the fountain shining just a bit as it reflected the stars in the clear night sky. “Well, you did say they were a secret, I suppose.” sighed Yuko. Truthfully, she’d only brought it up to try and forget about the awkwardness of their prior encounter in her room. But now that she thought about it, Yuko realized that she hadn’t fully processed the result of the whole thing with the crystals. “So, uh, hey…” Yuko began. “Earlier you said I had an affinity with fire?” “Correct.” Kanna answered, stopping beneath a streetlamp. “I was surprised as well. Normally, it would be impossible for a human of this world to have a natural affinity for any kind of magic.” “So by that you mean… I do have magic, and because I’m from this world, it’s unnatural?” Yuko wore a worried look on her face. This strange revelation about herself only raised more questions, but she took some small comfort in knowing Kanna was here to provide answers. However… “I do not know.” Kanna shook her head. “I may be a knight, with expertise in the basic principles and applications of magic power, but the broader concepts on why or how magic can or cannot work in any given circumstance is not something I can confidently answer.” “No way…” Yuko soured in disappointment. “I am not a scholar of magic…” Kanna dropped her head. “I can make theories based on what I know, but I cannot answer anything about the implications of the magic within you with confidence.” “I see…” Yuko responded. “But, earlier you said you only tested me in the first place because you had a feeling magic awoke within me, right? It was something to do with the magic beasts…” “Right.” Kanna answered. “Those specific types of magic beasts you saw channel magic within their fangs and claws. That is why I was able to detect traces of magic from the other victims as well.” “Then do you think maybe they developed magic too, like I did?” “I cannot imagine that is the case.” Kanna shook her head. “Just because a human of this world has magic introduced into their body does not mean it will integrate with them. I can trace it, yes, but it is not a part of who they are. Their wounds are still healing, after all. If the magic were a part of them, they would have healed quickly, like you did.” “Yeah, I guess that’s true.” Yuko nodded, thinking hard about it. “Again, this is an area where my knowledge is fuzzy.” Kanna continued. “But I can confidently assume your case is different. There is an actual affinity, meaning it must be a part of you. As for why, I have no answer.” “I see…” Yuko simply looked at her hand. The two girls continued to walk. Making their way out of the business area, they were now up on some higher trails near the foot of the mountain. Both continued to keep watch, looking into the nearby woods and shrubbery for any sign of a magic beast. “So, if I have affinity for fire… Does that mean I can actually use magic like you do?” questioned Yuko, breaking the silence. “I suppose it is not impossible. But I do not know what danger you would be putting your body through to try utilizing magic. After all, humans in this world are supposed to be wholly incompatible with it. I cannot imagine how your fire affinity came to be.” “Ah, right…” Yuko sighed. With that, Kanna turned and gave her a small glance. I say that, but I have already witnessed the magical prowess of your other self firsthand, Yuko Maeda… That is something I still do not understand… It cannot be a mere split personality. There must be something else going on… But alas, I am at a loss. Kanna kept her inner contemplations to herself, still uncertain of how all of Yuko’s oddities could be explained. Meanwhile, Yuko was left to only ponder about these loose implications on her own. There’s no way I really have magic inside me, right? But, that might explain some things, like my recent lapses in memory, or that stuff from when I was younger… Oh man, I have no idea. This is all so weird… The two girls, both wrapped up in their own thoughts, continued to patrol the night together. In the end, however, they never came across anything unusual. Without a single magic beast in sight, the two eventually called it a night and returned to the dorms. However, unknown to either of them, the next phase of the culprit’s plot had already been set in motion… --- The next morning, Yuko followed her usual routine and went to class as usual. She was a bit tired due to staying up later than normal, but nothing she couldn’t handle. That morning she met up with Chisa for breakfast, and exchanged a brief greeting with Kanna at the gate. It was now the start of class, and class 1-B’s homeroom teacher Mariko Yamagata was giving the class her usual morning overview. “As I’m sure many of you are aware, Golden Week begins tomorrow.” she began. “That means tomorrow is a day off. The usual Saturday morning classes will not be held.” Several students cheered in response. Although classes were only held in the morning on Saturdays, even having those extra hours free was a cause for excitement to many of the students. Plus, with the other days off the following week due to Golden Week as well, they were excited to finally get some time to relax. “Of course, even during the holidays some clubs and jobs will still be operating, so please check with your club leaders or bosses to arrange your schedule.” the teacher continued. Hearing Ms. Yamagata’s words, Yuko remembered that she’d agree to take a shift at the café on Saturday, despite Golden Week starting. After all, with so many students free, it only made sense to have locales for them to hang out in open and running. Yuko figured it was the least she could do to work a shift on at least one of the days. “It’s probably gonna get super busy tomorrow…” Yuko sighed to herself quietly. After sharing a few more tidbits, Ms. Yamagata wrapped up the morning news and started getting ready for her lecture of the day. Students slowly began to get out their textbooks, notebooks, and utensils for class. Naturally, Yuko did much the same. However, as she reached into her bag, her finger brushed against something peculiar. “Huh…? Oh, wait!” Yuko suddenly remembered something. She quickly dug around in her bag, grabbing the strange object she’d just felt. “That’s right! I totally forgot about this… I should’ve shown it to Kanna…” Yuko muttered, holding a round purple gem in her hand. This thing… It was on the forehead of that magic beast, right? What the heck is it for…? I’ll have to bring it to Kanna later. Making a mental note so she doesn’t forget it again, Yuko put it into her bag once more as she took out her school supplies. Moments later, class began as Ms. Yamagata started her lecture. --- The day progressed swiftly, with many students just anticipating the final bell so they could be free of classes and their lectures. From where Yuko stood, it seemed to be just an ordinary Friday. But now that classes had ended, it was time to go see Kanna and return to dealing with her bizarre predicament. “I’ll see ya later, Yuko!” Chisa waved from the entryway. “Break a leg, Chisa!” Yuko cheered, as her friend went off to her usual afterschool theater club. “Now then...” Yuko muttered, as she turned and started walking back into the school building. Naturally, her destination was the student council office. After making her way there, Yuko gently knocked on the door. It was her first time coming here without specifically being taken or invited by Kanna, so she was a bit nervous. A few moments passed, but there didn’t seem to be any response from the other side of the door. “Was I too quiet…?” pondered Yuko, as she went to make a louder knock on the door. Once more, she was only greeted with silence. Feeling a bit perturbed by the situation, Yuko decided it’d be best to just try opening the door herself. “Excuse me…” she said, as she slowly opened the door and peeked inside. “What…?” Yuko spoke, getting a good view inside. “No one’s here…” Sure enough, the student council room was completely deserted. Are they all out working right now? I guess they do probably have to make sure everything’s ready for the break coming up, but… It’s weird that no one’s here. Yuko’s never had any reason to visit the student council before, so it’s not like she knew how often they were even in their office or not. But she’d had the impression that the council made a point of always being available for students, so even if they were busy it’s strange to not have at least one member on standby to deal with anything that might come up. “Oh well, I don’t have time to wait around.” Yuko shrugged, leaving the student council room. She had a shift to run at the café today, so she decided to worry about Kanna later and just head over to her job for now. --- “Any plans for golden week?” Tanabe asked. He was handling the register while Yuko was cleaning various dishes at the sink behind him. The early rush had just started to die down, giving the two some free time to chat while they worked. Though, it was still a little busier than normal due to the students already getting into the mindset of the upcoming break. “Nothing in particular.” Yuko smiled. “I decided to help out Boss and take a shift tomorrow, but I have no idea what I’ll do for the days off next week.” “The kendo club’s tournament against the middle school has been set for Wednesday. Some holiday for us, huh?” Tanabe sighed. “But I guess to the rest of the school, our competitions are the perfect piece of entertainment for a day off.” “Yeah, I guess so, haha.” Yuko chuckled. “I’ll make sure to go cheer for you though, so don’t lose heart!” “Thanks, I appreciate it.” Tanabe smiled. “But man, I’m definitely gonna spend Thursday and Friday just lazing around. I’ll need that recharge.” “You’ll have earned it, haha.” Yuko was happy getting to have this kind of small talk with Tanabe. It’s been less than a month since they got acquainted here at the café, but after sharing so many shifts together, they’ve really started to get along well. Even though it was a lot of hard work in dealing with so many responsibilities and customers, Yuko really enjoyed her time at the café. This week especially, it always served as a nice escape from the rather unbelievable turn of events she’d been going through since Monday. It was a piece of her everyday life that, despite everything else, had remained unchanged. And then… “Yuko!” a loud shout suddenly resounded throughout the café after the front doors burst open. Various customers all paused their own conversations and turned their attention to the front doorway. Yuko, too, upon hearing her own name turned around and looked to see what was going on. Standing in the doorway, was Chisa Ando. “Yuko, it’s bad!” Chisa began walking up towards Yuko, having spotted her. Baffled, Yuko could only blink in confusion. “Hey now, hey now!” Boss shouted sternly, as he emerged from the back rooms. “What’s going on here? Listen ma’am, Yuko here’s on the clock. You’ll have to save your chat for later.” he said, approaching Chisa. “Sorry sir, it’s an emergency!” Chisa bowed apologetically. “Yuko! The patients!” she once more turned in Yuko’s direction. “Huh? What do you mean? And Chisa, shouldn’t you be in club?” Yuko was supremely confused. She had no idea what Chisa could’ve come in here to talk about. “Honda and the other patients have disappeared from the clinic!” Chisa shouted. “Everyone involved in those animal attacks!” Yuko froze in place. At this point, she had the inside information that those were no normal wild animal attacks, but rather planned attacks by some kind of mastermind utilizing magic beasts from another world. Alas, even here in her haven, Yuko realized that she couldn’t escape the reality going on around her. “So that’s what was going on today.” the Boss spoke, after realizing something. “Kan-chan, er, I’m sorry, the student council president was out of class for most of the day because of some kind of emergency. That explains it.” “Kanna was?” Yuko muttered without thinking. A moment later, she realized this must be why the student council wasn’t in their office earlier. They were probably helping out the clinic and health club in resolving this crisis and finding the missing patients. If this involved the so-called mastermind that’s supposedly targeting her, Yuko began to wonder if she should go meet up with Kanna about this. “Still,” Boss continued. “I don’t see what this has to do with Yuko.” “Y-you’re right, but…” Chisa looked down. “She’s my best friend, I just needed someone to turn to… And also, uh, I just wanted to make sure she was okay.” The Boss tilted his head in response to this, before Yuko spoke up. “Boss, could I take the rest of the evening off?” she requested. “I think I should go with Chisa. Plus, I should probably talk with Kanna too.” “Well, if you say so…” Boss began to scratch his bald head. “If it’s that important to you, I’ll let it slide. Be careful out there, and I hope everything turns out well.” “Thanks Boss!” Yuko bowed. “Be careful out there.” Tanabe spoke up. “Right, thank you!” Yuko smiled in response, before heading into the back rooms. There she quickly changed back into her school uniform, grabbed her stuff, and headed outside to meet up with Chisa. Outside, the two friends began walking quickly. Chisa seemed to know where to go for now, so Yuko followed closely behind, asking questions as they walked. “So, what exactly’s going on, Chisa?” she asked. “I didn’t find out until I heard about it at my club.” Chisa began. “But early this morning when the health club came to do their morning checkups, they found the special patient’s room totally deserted.” “They were gone? But how? They were all pretty badly injured, right?” “Some of them, yeah. I know Honda in particular could barely stand, so I don’t know how she could’ve just disappeared like that!” the panic in Chisa’s voice was becoming more noticeable to Yuko. “The student council has been trying to find them all day. I’m going to go meet up with them now.” she continued. “The theater club advisor told me where they were basing the search. I was scared to go alone, so I came and got you. Sorry to drag you out of your job like that…” “Oh, it’s no problem at all, Chisa!” Yuko tried to reassure her friend. Soon, the two girls arrived at a small building. Taking note of the sign outside, Yuko realized it was the security building. As the two entered, they noticed a large table at the end of the lobby where several student council members were going over a map. The council members then looked up, taking note of the unexpected guests. “Who are you two?” a particularly stern-looking boy wearing glasses asked. “Oh, um…” Chisa stuttered. “W-we came to help with the search! You know, for those missing patients! O-one of them is from my club, so…” “How did you find out about this?” he seemed angry. “Th-the teacher, the advisor of the theater club…” Chisa shrunk back at his angry glare. “Damn it.” the boy ruffled his hair. “I thought we told those teachers to keep this a secret from students for now. We need to resolve this!” “Now, now.” a rather gentle-looking girl on the council replied. “One of the patients is their clubmate. Besides, we could use the extra eyes, considering how the search is going...” “Kh…” the boy snorted. At that moment, another group of people entered the lobby from outside. “Any progress? Have the security cameras regained functionality yet?” spoke a familiar voice. Turning around, Yuko realized who it was immediately. “Kanna!” she exclaimed, glad to see her. “Yuko Maeda!” Kanna was surprised. “What are you doing here?” After looking back and forth between her and the council members at the table, she was quickly filled in on the situation. “Please, let us help look too!” Chisa pleaded. Perhaps she still felt guilty about her exchange with Honda the day before. Regardless, she knew she wanted to help out any way she could. “Of course. That is acceptable.” Kanna nodded. “President!” shouted the disgruntled glasses-wearing boy, before being stopped as Kanna lifted her hand to him. She then continued giving Chisa her answer. “I know you are eager to help, but much of the district has already been searched. However, if you still feel inclined, please try searching anywhere you believe they could be.” Kanna stated, glancing back at the two council members behind her, who nodded in turn. “May I ask your name?” Kanna asked, looking at Chisa. “Ah, right! I’m Chisa Ando. Nice to meet you, Ms. President.” Chisa bowed. “A pleasure.” Kanna bowed politely. “Here, you may go with these two and search where you think would be best.” The two other student council members went up to Chisa and introduced themselves. “Thank you so much!” Chisa beamed. “I’ll do my best to find them! Let’s go Yuko!” “A-actually, Chisa, I’ll search somewhere else with Kanna!” Yuko apologized. “I want to talk with her about something. Besides, it’s better to spread our eyes across more ground anyway. We’ll have a better chance of finding them!” “Oh, alright then...” Chisa felt a bit disappointed, but knew Yuko meant well. “Well, you two be careful.” “Take this.” Kanna stopped Chisa before she left, handing her a sheet of paper with some photos on it. “These are all four of the missing patients. I’m sure you recognize your clubmate, but please keep an eye out for the others as well.” “Right, I’ll do my best!” Chisa declared, taking the paper before swiftly leaving the building. After that, Yuko stood by briefly as Kanna spoke with the remaining student council members at the desk, exchanging some updates. Kanna then went into the adjacent room to check up on a small group inside, before finally returning to Yuko. “Shall we go?” she asked. “Yeah, let’s go.” Yuko nodded. The two left the security building and began heading towards the outskirts of the district. As they wandered around, the tall walls that separated this district from the others slowly came into view. After a bit of time passed with no leads, Yuko spoke up. “So what’s going on right now anyway?” she asked. “Do you think that mastermind of yours is behind this?” “That appears highly likely.” Kanna nodded. “In fact, that is why I doubt we will find the patients out here just by looking.” “You’ve been at this all day, right? And there’ve been no clues at all?” Yuko asked, baffled. Although the district was relatively large, it couldn’t be that difficult to search. “Correct. I was informed this morning during first period. The other members of the council and I all assembled to collaborate with the health club on this search.” Kanna began. “We first thought it would be easy to resolve. We began by going to the security room to check the security camera feeds from the clinic area, but unfortunately, the entire camera network is down.” “Wait, the security cameras are all down?!” Yuko was shocked. “Yes, and it was most certainly a planned event.” Kanna grimaced. “Though presently, I have everyone else convinced that it is just an unfortunate outage, merely hindering our search by coincidence. I have computer club members from my class working to restore the system as we speak.” “I see…” Yuko was amazed at Kanna’s diligence in handling the situation. “Until the cameras are restored, I doubt we shall find any lead pointing toward the culprit or the patients. Honestly, the searching is just to keep everyone busy and feign progress while we remain at this standstill.” Kanna sighed, exhausted. “Though if we are lucky, we can hope a clue may surface, regardless.” “Yeah, hopefully. Though… it doesn’t look like we’ll find anything around here.” Yuko looked at the barren woodlands around her. “Should we head back?” “Sure.” Kanna nodded. “By the way…” “Hm?” Yuko glanced at Kanna. “There is one secret location that has yet to be searched… I plan to check it on the patrol tonight. But…” Kanna hesitated. “If something surfaces there, the implications would be extremely troubling…” Yuko could only wonder what Kanna meant as the two girls slowly made their way back to the security building. --- “Thank you for your efforts, everyone, but we must end things here for the night.” Everyone was once more gathered in the lobby of the security building. Kanna had chosen to disband the search parties since the 8PM curfew was minutes away. “I will stay late with the group restoring the security camera system.” Kanna continued. “The rest of you should return to the dorms.” “No!” the one who immediately rejected the idea was Chisa. “We should come up with more ideas on where to search! The curfew shouldn’t matter during an emergency like this!” “Denied.” Kanna shook her head. “The danger regarding the wild animals lurking the school grounds at night has yet to be resolved. It is dark out now, and I cannot risk anyone being outside searching in this situation.” Chisa merely grit her teeth and clenched her fist as she looked down, frustrated. “Do not worry. I swear to find everyone and resolve this situation.” Kanna bowed to her. In this situation, Chisa had no choice but to go along with it. “Fine…” Chisa said quietly. Yuko approached and patted Chisa on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. I know Kanna can find them. She’s on top of things, trust me.” she encouraged. Soon after, Yuko, Chisa, and the remaining members of the student council all gathered their things and left the security building together. With all of them returning back to the dorms in one big group, just minutes after curfew, many curious glances came their way from the other students who were out and about inside the dorm lobby. Other than that however, everyone went their separate ways and returned to their evening routines without incident. That said, the events of the day continued to weigh heavily on their minds. Especially Chisa’s. After some time passed, Yuko had a quick dinner in the dorm’s cafeteria before heading back to her room. She’d wanted to take a bath, but remembered that Kanna would be calling on her for another patrol tonight. As she waited patiently, she passed the time in her room by browsing the school network on her computer. Every dorm room in the district came with a small basic PC. Students typically used it to complete online homework assignments and keep track of things for classes, but its more attractive feature was its open-ended online network. There was no connection to the larger world-wide web of the outside world, but rather a much smaller district-wide network that every PC was connected to. In a sense, it’s like the academy had its own kind of mini-internet, and any students skilled with computers were able to make use of it in various ways. Although there was a central social network managed by the school, colloquially referred to as ‘the Lounge’, many independent webpages created by students both past and present also existed. If you could find the various web addresses, the vastness of this small network ran surprisingly deep. That aside, Yuko wasn’t particularly tech-savvy or anything, so she mostly enjoyed browsing the simple stuff, particularly the Lounge. It was a convenient hub for students to add one another as contacts and share whatever they wanted, whether they were good with computers or not. It was here where Yuko noticed a recent post from Chisa. “If you’ve seen any of these people today, please contact me!” read her message, followed by the names of the four missing students. “Oh Chisa…” Yuko whispered to herself. The incident was supposed to be a secret right now. Though considering the theater club advisor had already spilled the beans, maybe rumors were beginning to circulate regardless. Still, Yuko could only hope Chisa doesn’t get into trouble with the council for posting this. Though, it’s not like she stated why she’s looking for the four students. Yuko continued to pass the time browsing through various posts on the webpage, when suddenly, a knock could be heard at her door. “Ah, that must be Kanna.” Yuko muttered to herself, glancing over to the doorway. “Guess it’s time to head out.” After closing the browser and shutting off the computer, Yuko got up and walked to the doorway. --- Turning back the clock, it was right around the time Yuko had decided to head downstairs to eat dinner. Alone in her room, Chisa was pacing back and forth, having just posed posting her message online. This is too weird… There’s definitely something wrong going on here. Chisa couldn’t help but be frustrated by the current situation. Not only because of her guilt and wanting to make amends with Honda, but also the unshakable feeling she had that this entire situation shouldn’t have been occurring. They were all injured, right? It’s not like many of them could’ve just got up and walked away… And even if they did, they couldn’t get far. During the search earlier, Chisa had heard from the other student council members that even before classes let out, most other buildings in the district had already been searched. This is why by the time Chisa and Yuko came and joined the search parties, most locations left to look were all the parks and empty woodlands. There are paths up the mountain too, but there shouldn’t be anything up there, so searches in that area were rather minimal. It doesn’t make sense… They couldn’t have left the district either… Naturally, the academy’s districts are all enclosed, surrounded by large stone walls that are far too tall for anyone to climb. Those walls even extend up the mountain to some extent, so even if one tried to climb the mountain, they wouldn’t be able to get very far. The only exit out of the eastern district is the large entryway into Central. But of course, that path is always closed and watched by adult security guards. Considering they were all mostly unable to move far on their own, and also had nowhere to flee, the next most logical assumption would be that the four students were taken somewhere. But that raises even more questions. Who could’ve taken them? And where could they be? Chisa wasn’t satisfied at all. Even putting aside her own personal involvement in the situation, her curious nature drove her to want to understand the meaning behind this situation. In the end, Chisa came up with the simplest solution. “I’ll go find out for myself.” Thus, Chisa left her room, opting to sneak out of the dormitory. It was a pretty simple escape. Many students were passing through the lobby going to and from the cafeteria for dinner, with others headed towards the baths. Chisa just relaxed on a couch in the lobby, trying to blend in. But really she just kept watch on the student at the front desk. Before long, whether to go use the restroom, grab some food, or whatever, Chisa eventually saw the student just leave their post. Making the most of this chance, once the amount of traffic in the lobby was minimal, Chisa quietly hopped up and dashed out of the lobby before anyone could take notice. Of course, a record of her leaving would be left on the computer due to the scanners, but… That’s a problem for future Chisa! With that thought, Chisa had reached the dark outdoors, and left the dorm area in a hurry. When it came to places she wanted to investigate more thoroughly, there was one area that Chisa had in mind. I was already there earlier today, but at a time like this, just maybe… Focused, Chisa made her way to her destination with a strong sense of purpose. It didn’t take long before she was standing in front of a building she was quite familiar with: the theater. “This place… feels pretty different at night…” Chisa muttered. It’s not that she was unfamiliar with being here so late. Before the curfew was introduced, club practice would sometimes run up until 9 or 10. However, in those situations she was always surrounded by her clubmates, and the lights of the building would always be on. Chisa recalled fond memories of sharing dinner with her clubmates between practicing skits on those days when the club ran late. But now, the building felt so dark, lifeless, and empty. “So freaky…” a shiver ran up Chisa’s spine, but after slapping her cheeks, she steeled herself to go inside. Naturally, Chisa assumed the front door was locked. But as a member of the theater club, Chisa knew this building well. Pacing around the building’s perimeter, Chisa found a specific window. It was the window to a small office room that no one really used. When wandering around a few weeks back, she’d found the room and discovered that the lock on its window was broken, making it easy to open, even from outside. With a little bit of effort, she lifted the window and climbed through into the room. “Easy.” Chisa chuckled softly to herself. Despite coming here, Chisa wasn’t expecting to find any success in locating anyone. After all, it was a club building used regularly, and she was just in here earlier today. Leaving the small office, she paced around the main room, the stage, backstage, and eventually made her way to the front lobby. A few odd creaks and other sounds aside, Chisa didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. “No luck, huh?” sighed Chisa. Thinking she’d leave and go search somewhere else, she made her way to the front doorway. As she approached, she stopped. “Oh wait. I gotta head back out through the window.” Just as she was about to turn and head the other way, she paused. She realized something was off, and looked at the front door again. “Wait a minute…” Dashing up to the door, Chisa swiftly grabbed and turned the handle with ease. “It wasn’t locked…” Chisa was a bit perplexed. It was routine for the theater club to lock the door every day when they left. Did they forget today? Now that she thought about it, Honda would usually be the one to lock up. Does that mean she still had the key, so no one else could lock it today? “Or maybe…” Chisa turned around and dashed back to the main room. Could she really be here…?! It really was just a guess. A hunch. Chisa had no proof, but she felt like if she didn’t search the theater one last time she’d regret it later. Just then, after reentering the main room and moving towards the middle of the rows of audience seating, Chisa saw it. “?!” she gasped. She could only wonder why she didn’t see it before. Was it even there earlier? She couldn’t recall. Regardless, before her eyes, Chisa saw the figure of a person sitting in one of the seats of the front row. Specifically, she saw the back of their head. It was dark in the theater, but Chisa could tell, even with the distance between them, that it was someone familiar. “Honda, is that you?” Chisa asked, in a shaky voice. Just then, the person seated before her rose. The person stood up slowly, with odd, slightly jerky motions. It was as if the person were being pulled upward, rather than standing up with their own body strength. Slowly this person turned around, and the face that greeted Chisa was indeed that of her clubmate Honda. However… “H-Honda?!” Chisa was frightened. The only windows the theater’s main room had were small and high up on the left and right walls. The moonlight beaming in was the only thing keeping the theater illuminated at all, but it was very dark. And at the moment Honda rose from her seat, the light just so happened to shift and land on her. Finally getting a good look at her, Chisa faltered. Honda’s eyes were blank as they peered toward Chisa. Her head hung to the side, limp, and her skin was extremely pale. But more than anything, her body was wrapped in small vines, and she was covered in what appeared to be moss. Chisa had no idea what she was looking at. Yes, it was Honda, but also, something here definitely wasn’t right. Just then, a voice rung through the theater. “Hello? Is someone in here?” It was an adult male voice. Chisa almost couldn’t register the voice at first, but she quickly got a hold of herself and recognized that someone else had just entered the theater. Turning around to the main room’s entryway, she saw who it was. “M-Mr. Taniguchi!” Chisa shouted with relief in her voice. “Oh, good, there you are… Wait, what are you doing in a place like this, Ms. Ando?” Taniguchi, seemingly confused by the situation, walked forward. “Sir! Um, o-over there. It’s Honda, one of the missing students!” Chisa was frantically trying to figure out how to explain the situation, as she pointed to Honda, who continued to stand still in her bizarre state. “Oh, right. We teachers were notified about what had happened at the clinic.” Taniguchi walked toward Honda with a serious expression. Chisa sighed with relief. She didn’t know why her math teacher of all people had suddenly shown up, but Chisa was glad to have someone else here to help her deal with the situation. Honda’s appearance had really frightened her, but now she was glad she decided to come here. Maybe, just maybe, whatever’s wrong with her right now can be worked out… Chisa began to think more positively. She didn’t know what those vines were, or why Honda had shown up here looking like this, but just finding her was a step in the right direction. Surely, they’ll be able to find the rest of the students too. While thinking such things, Chisa looked over at Taniguchi, who’d placed his hand on Honda’s shoulder. It was still dark, so it took her a moment to notice, but Chisa realized something odd… The vines on Honda’s body were slowly wiggling around. “Uh, sir, be careful… Those vines on her are moving…” Chisa cautioned, taking a step back, when suddenly… “Ahh!” Chisa tripped backwards and fell on her butt. “Oww! What tripped me…?” At that moment, Chisa gasped. The vines were all along the floor, and they’d started circling up her legs. “Eeek!” Chisa screamed, trying to kick the vines away, but they stuck to her, tightly wrapping around her skin. Chisa tried her best to flail her legs around, but there was no escape from the creeping greenery. “Mr. Taniguchi! Help! It’s getting all on me, too!” Chisa screamed, tears in her eyes. “Don’t worry.” the teacher spoke in a cold voice. “Huh…?” Chisa’s eyes opened wide in disbelief. “I could use one more person. You’ll do.” Taniguchi stared down at Chisa with a cold expression. Chisa just now noticed it, but a faint green glow was coming from his palm. It appeared as though… Taniguchi was manipulating the vines. The truth immediately dawned on Chisa: The one behind everything stood before her at this very moment. The culprit responsible for the disappearance of the patients… was Karuto Taniguchi. [Chapter 5 END]

-Chapter 1- “It’s bright…” Those were the first words to escape the lips of Yuko Maeda as she opened the curtains on the window of her dorm room. The shining rays of the morning sun beamed into her small, but tidy living space. Yes, it was an ordinary, beautiful sunny day. The date was Monday, April 24th. Following her usual morning routine, Yuko got dressed, prepared all of her materials for school, and left the room. Downstairs in the lobby, students gathered, chatting amongst themselves and preparing for the day ahead. Yuko passed through towards the dining area in the back. There, members of the cooking club, along with the usual dorm staff were all preparing and serving simple breakfast foods for the other students. “Yuko, over here!” A familiar voice rang out among the students, and Yuko caught sight of her good friend Chisa Ando. “Chisa! Good morning.” Yuko cheerfully replied, waving her hand. The two friends quickly got together and lined up for breakfast. Both Japanese and Western sets were being served, although both were relatively light and simple meals. “I’m starving, Yuko! I accidentally skipped dinner last night because I was too caught up in cramming for the test today!” Chisa cried, clinging to Yuko. “There, there. I’m sure everything will be fine! Both your stomach and the test, haha.” “Easy for you to say! Mr. Taniguchi is so intimidating, I’m scared to see what his tests are like!” Yuko smiled wryly in response to Chisa’s overdramatic flailing. Before long, the two grabbed breakfast, and headed to a table. Time was ticking down, so they ate quickly. “I’m alive again! Ahh, breakfast has been so good since we started high school…” Chisa said, wearing a satisfied expression. “The cooking club does great work. I can’t imagine having to get up so early to make breakfast every day, on top of all the practice they have to do after school.” Yuko replied. “Well I’ve heard from some friends that the breakfast and dinner runs are usually done in shifts. The cooking club is pretty large, so there’s a lot of wiggle room, and generally each member only has to work breakfast, lunch, or dinner once or twice a week.” “That’s impressive. They sound pretty well-organized.” The two girls chatted for just a bit more, before hurrying out the door to get to school. Outside, the spring breeze caused petals to dance in the air, fresh from the nearby cherry blossom trees. It was the end of April, so the blossoming pink trees would soon give way to a lush green as the season heated up. Perhaps symbolic of the way the new first-years would be settling in to their new routines at the high school section of Starlight Academy’s eastern branch. The high school’s main building was located just down the street from said high school’s student dormitory, so the commute was relatively short, but Yuko and Chisa were still cutting it close. The two dashed into the school, swapped their outdoor shoes for their indoor shoes, and hurried on towards classroom 1-B. “Hey, no running in the halls, you two!” a nearby teacher scolded. “Oops, busted.” grinned Chisa. “Jeez, I was just trying to keep up with you…” Yuko pouted at her friend. Moments later, they both made it into the classroom just before the clock hit 8 and the bell tolls. “Safe!” an excited Chisa exclaimed, her arms spread wide. “Best to get to your seat then, Ms. Ando.” A gentle voice murmured from behind the two girls. “Ah, Ms. Yamagata…!” a frozen Chisa responded, before awkwardly walking to her desk. Yuko could only smile wryly and scratch the back of her head. “Sorry Ms. Yamagata. We’ll try to be more timely.” Yuko apologized. “It’s no trouble at all, dear. All I ask is you don’t make a habit of coming late.” the teacher replied with a motherly smile. After Yuko and the rest of the class took their seats, another ordinary day of class began. As the homeroom teacher went over the morning news and outline of the day’s events, Yuko only half-listened, gazing out of the window beside her seat at the blue sky outside. As she watched the clouds pass by, she pondered about her current living situation. Starlight Academy is a large-scale institution with the goal of taking in youths with nowhere to go, and raising them into successful adults. To achieve this goal, the academy has cut off almost all contact with the outside world, instead opting to maintain its own internal communities. Only once a student graduates are they able to enter the society of the outside world. This is the world Yuko has grown up in, and now that she’s entered high school, she only has 3 years left as a student at this academy. “Ms. Maeda, were you listening?” “Huh? Oh, uh… Sorry, I didn’t hear that.” Yuko bowed apologetically. “Goodness. Please be sure to pay attention. Some of this is important.” A frowning Yamagata responded. “Sorry ma’am…” “As I was saying,” the teacher continued, “Remember that dorm curfews of 8PM are now being strictly enforced for the whole district. Reports of injuries caused by wild animals coming down from the mountain have been reported lately, so please be careful when you’re outside, everyone!” The eastern district of Starlight Academy is located at the foot of a large mountain. The district has the appearance of a small town surrounded by nature. There are several parks, and even a large pond. Yuko smiles thinking about all the tranquil locales, feeling thankful that she ended up attending middle & high school here in this district. “Teacher!” a boy on the other side of the classroom raised his hand. “My job at the convenience store goes ‘til closing, so I don’t know if I’d be able to abide the 8PM curfew.” “Don’t worry, the student council is already meeting with all the clubs and businesses to arrange schedules that work for the current situation. I have heard that most shops will start closing early to accommodate, but please talk to your store’s manager, and the student council, to know the full details of your situation.” Yamagata replied. “Okay, thanks ma’am.” the boy bowed. While each unique district of Starlight Academy has its own theme, the eastern district is focused around the self-productivity of its students. The school itself is the central hub of authority, and other clubs and businesses all work in tandem to maintain this small student-run society on-campus. Because each district of the school maintains their own approach, contact between the different districts is also limited, similarly to how contact with the outside is cut off. After wrapping up all the morning news and answering any questions, the young teacher Mariko Yamagata began her lecture on literature, the primary subject she teaches. Due to the district’s philosophy on student self-sufficiency, there are relatively few adults living within the district. The adults in the area primarily consist of the teaching faculty, as well as various specialty workers who help various aspects of the district run smoothly. For Yuko Maeda, this unorthodox academy is the place she calls home. --- “It’s over… I’m doomed!” While grabbing her shoes from her locker, Yuko glanced over at the gloomy doom-saying Chisa. “I even did some extra cramming at lunch, but of course, that damn Mr. Taniguchi and his ridiculous math test… I can’t wrap my head around such huge numbers being thrown into those ridiculous equations!” “I take it the test didn’t go so well for you…” Yuko smiled pensively. It was now after school, and the multitude of students were either leaving the campus or heading to club rooms. Yuko and Chisa stood at their shoe lockers, reflecting on the day they had. “There’s no way I scored well… Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll just barely pass, but…” Chisa cried, clinging to Yuko’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, the year’s just started! It was only the first test, so I’m sure if you work hard, the next ones should be no problem!” Yuko encouraged. “You’re right… I just gotta keep at it!” Chisa pumped her fist in the air. “Today, I’m going all out with my acting to shake off this cloud of gloom!” “That’s the spirit!” Yuko smiled. Chisa was a member of the theater club. Every day after school she’d be working with other students to learn and perfect the craft of acting. Not only that, the theater club was the prime place for students to be scouted by members of other clubs, such as the film club, or the school magazine. The two friends made their way outside and parted ways at the school gates. “I’m off to the theater. See you tomorrow!” Chisa waved. “Yeah, see you tomorrow!” Yuko waved back, with a smile. With that, Yuko departed for her job at a nearby café. Located a little ways away from the dorm and main school building, the café was deep in the midst of what can be called a sort of business area. A number of small shops gathered in this part of the district, all connected by the grand square in the center, noted for its elegant fountain. Maintaining such an appealing shopping square was one of the prides of the eastern district. A small bell chimed as Yuko walked through the café’s entryway. “Welcome! …Ah, Yuko!” a bald student with sunglasses stood behind the counter, welcoming Yuko. “Hey Boss!” “You made great time today. The first wave of customers should be here any minute, so go ahead and clock in and start prepping the tables.” The bald café manager ordered. “Roger that!” With that, Yuko briskly headed to the changing room in the back of the cafe. After opening her locker, Yuko began to undress, removing her school uniform and switching into the café’s uniform. Rather than the formal business-like school uniform she’d been wearing before, now she sported a trendy polo shirt, with a pleated skirt and stylish apron. After putting a small visor on her head, she looked in the nearby mirror and smiled. “Alright!” After putting her stuff away, Yuko left the changing room and quickly began taking care of her duties in a timely manner. Since the café opens only 15 minutes after school ends, the first rush of customers comes pretty early in the day. Usually students who have clubs or jobs that start a bit later come by to relax after class. Others come to order refreshments to take back to their clubmates. Basically, for Yuko, the café is always busiest right when she gets on the clock. “Boss! Sorry I’m late!” “Hey Boss, I’m ready to go.” Although Yuko arrived first, the other handful of employees quickly followed, and before long everyone got the shop cleaned up and ready for the crowd. In the midst of this, Yuko has already gone to the back to get started on food & drink prep, but… “Hrrng…! It’s so… high up…!” Given her short stature, Yuko struggled to reach the items on the higher shelves. Regardless, she still tried her best to help where she could. “Almost… there…!” As she reached up, almost grabbing the container of coffee beans, her finger slips and pushes it from the high shelf. “Oh no!” Flailing around, Yuko tries to grab the falling object, but trips over herself and falls backwards “Ahh! …Oh?” Expecting to fall on her butt, Yuko was surprised when she found herself caught by someone. “You okay there, Maeda?” Realizing who it was upon hearing his voice, and recognizing that she lay comfortably on his chest, Yuko found her face turning beat red in embarrassment. She had found herself embraced by Tanabe Murakami, a handsome 2nd-Year upperclassman, and also the boy Yuko had found herself having a bit of a crush on lately. “T-T-Tanabe, I mean, Murakami!! I’m so sorry for my clumsiness!” exclaimed the flustered Yuko, as she quickly jumped away from their brief embrace. “It’s no trouble at all. Here, you were trying to grab this, right?” Tanabe smiled, offering the coffee beans, which he’d also managed to catch. “Y-yes of course, thank you so much!” squeaked a timid Yuko, as she hesitantly took the container from him. After an awkward moment’s silence between the two, suddenly they heard Boss’ voice come from the front of the shop. “Okay everyone, people are already lined up outside, so we’re gonna open! Start getting the coffee going, and someone come get people seated, I’ll man the register today!” “Y-yes sir!” The two snapped out of their own little world and replied eagerly, alongside the other employees. “Well, I’ll head out front. Good luck today, Maeda.” said Tanabe, with a thumbs-up. “Yes, you too!” Yuko responded. With that, everyone got to work, and the café became as busy as ever. Yuko ran back and forth trying to keep up with everything she had to do. It was perhaps just a bit more hectic than usual. Before long, as afternoon passed into evening, the crowds at the café slowly died down, and Yuko and the rest of the staff were able to take a bit of a breather. Outside the window, a bright orange hue spread across the sky as the sun set on the horizon. The day was winding down. “Hey everyone, you’ve probably heard by now, but we’re going to have to close up early tonight. The new curfew means we all gotta get back to the dorms by 8.” the Boss announced to the employees. “Another busy day comes to a close.” said Tanabe, yawning beside Yuko. “Yeah, jumping right into work over here as soon as school lets out sure can get tiring, haha.” Yuko replied. Soon, as the customers dwindled further, the employees started putting things away. In the midst of the cleanup, Yuko noticed Boss on the phone. “Seriously? Asking for a delivery this late in the day, with the new curfew and all…” he muttered, glancing at the clock. “Right, right… Okay, I’ll see what I can do.” The Boss hung up the phone and sighed. “What’s going on, Boss?” Yuko inquired. “Eh, the library club ordered some stuff to be sent their way. It seems some classes are going to be doing a project over there tomorrow morning and they wanted some stuff sent over so they can prepare refreshments in the morning.” Yuko glanced at the clock, realizing it’s only 30 minutes until curfew. “It’ll be cutting it close if we have to make the delivery tonight…” “Yeah, exactly…” agreed the Boss, “You’ve always been pretty fast getting stuff delivered Yuko, do you think you can make it in time? I should go myself, but I gotta wrap things up here…” Yuko thought about it for a moment. “Sure thing, I’ll handle it, Boss! I have a friend in the library club anyway.” Yuko replied, earnestly. “Great! I’ll get the items ready, so you go ahead and clock out. Once you make the delivery, try to get back to the dorm by curfew. If you get into any trouble, I’ll take responsibility!” “Right!” Thus, the two quickly got to work, the Boss prepared the order as quickly as he could while Yuko headed back to the dressing room to change back into her school uniform and grab her stuff. On her way out, Yuko took the box from the Boss and headed to the front. As Yuko approached the door to leave, Tanabe took notice. “You’re making a delivery this late, Maeda?” “Yeah! It’s a last-minute thing, so I’m gonna head straight home afterwards. Have a good night, Murakami!” Yuko smiled. “Alright, be careful!” Tanabe waved. With that, Yuko departed. --- By the time she reached the large library building, the sun had almost completely set on the horizon, and the 8PM curfew was minutes away. As she approached, several library club members were sprinting towards the dormitory in a rush. “As expected of such a sudden curfew... Nobody’s used to this schedule yet.” Yuko muttered as she reached the entryway. “A-ah… Yuko…!” a timid voice echoed from within. “So you are here after all, Yukina!” a cheerful Yuko exclaimed. A small girl with flowing violet hair stood within the library. This was Yukina Watanabe, a close friend of Yuko’s. “Y-yeah…” Yukina blushed. “Ever since we started high school, I feel like I haven’t seen you around at all. It’s a shame you didn't end up in the same class as Chisa and I. But I knew you’d join the library club!” Yuko smiled, holding Yukina’s hand. “Y-yeah, I-I’m… assistant manager… I organize… all the books.” Yukina whispered in response, smiling. A very pretty yet introverted girl, perhaps relieved that she wasn’t forgotten by her friend. This was the image Yuko had of Yukina upon this reunion. It’d been a hectic month of getting used to their new high school routines, so being in different classes kept them both separated for a while by happenstance. “So you… work at that… café.” Yukina took note of the box Yuko carried. “Yeah, that’s right. I started there just the other week, but it’s been going well!” Yuko relayed while handing over the box. “I’ll take… to the head manager.” “Right! Since we’re apparently short on time, I’ll head off now. You all should be quick too!” “Yes… Take care.” Yukina bowed. Yuko waved back to her friend, before heading back the way she came. “Phew… I’m glad she was there… I’d been meaning to get back in touch with her.” Yuko smiled while staring up at the starry sky. As she walked along the path, a simple chime resounded throughout the area. Glancing at a nearby clock by some benches, Yuko realized that it was now 8PM. She’d officially broken curfew. “Well, darn…” she sighed. Honestly, Yuko always tried to follow the rules set by the school, but she felt this sudden curfew was a little ridiculous. Granted, she didn’t pay much attention to the recent reports of wild animals roaming the district, but she couldn’t imagine anything that bad could be lurking around these streets. Apparently a handful of students had been injured, but it wasn’t so big a talking point that she’d heard much gossip about it before today, when the sudden curfew caused a bit of a commotion throughout the school day. “Hmm… I’m late anyway, so I might as well enjoy a nice walk.” Yuko said to herself, enjoying the cool night’s breeze, a perfect complement to the somewhat warm spring weather. She’d found herself by the stairway leading down to the park surrounding the Rigel pond. Deciding it’d be more fun than walking the usual paths, she decided to take a detour through the park. While the main roads closer to the buildings still saw several students desperately trying to race back to the dorms, strangely, the park was totally deserted. “I guess no one else wanted to cut through here, huh. Ah well, I get the park all to myself tonight, heehee.” Yuko smirked as she strolled through the dim walkways in the park, lit only by a handful of streetlamps. After making her way through the slightly eerie paths, hearing nothing but gusts of wind and the rustling of leaves and bushes, she eventually reached the pond. There, a breathtaking sight awaited her. “Whoa…” Spread out before Yuko, was the gorgeous sight of the Rigel pond reflecting the bright, starry sky and the large, round moon. Stunned by this image, Yuko couldn’t help but feel that the lake looked as if it were glowing. “Amazing… I’ve never been to the park this late at night before. I had no idea the pond could be this beautiful.” Yuko thought aloud as she paced along the edge of the pond. Soon, Yuko took a seat at a nearby bench and just watched the lake. “I’ve already lived here in this district for three whole years… To think that something this beautiful was right under my nose all along.” Of course, Yuko knew that this likely wasn’t a regular occurrence. It was merely chance that the full moon was so bright on a clear night like this, at the perfect time of night to reflect off the pond. But still, the experience moved her. She leaned back on the bench, closed her eyes and smiled. “Living here… It really is nice.” Yuko smiled, settling in to her relaxed posture. Before long… she dozed off just a bit. Meanwhile, just a short distance away… some bushes in the park rustled violently. --- “… Wha-, huh?!” Yuko suddenly shot awake. “Oh gosh… Did I fall asleep? How long was I out…?” Panicked, she glanced around the park for a clock, before spotting one a ways away. She squinted to read the time. “It’s almost nine already… I really messed up.” She figured being 10 to 20 minutes late wouldn’t be an issue, but arriving over an hour later than curfew will probably cause some issues. “Sorry, Boss…” Yuko whispered, frustrated with herself. As soon as she stood up and turned to leave, Yuko was hit by a sudden dizziness. “H-huh…? Agh, my head…” As she held her head, Yuko began to hear some rustling in some nearby bushes. It was loud, and very close by. Rather than simple rustling, it was more like heavy footsteps trampling through the shrubbery, tearing it apart. “What’s… that…?” Still struggling to get a grip on her headache, Yuko looked in the direction of the sound, and there she saw a large wolf-like animal stepping out from the bushes. “Grrr…” the beast growled, thick saliva dripping from its mouth. “No way… what kind of animal, even is this…?” Yuko trembled, backing away. “Is this what the curfew was about…?” The blatantly aggressive beast in front of her caused Yuko to tense up in fear. If it were a normal animal, she’d probably still be cautious and move carefully, but this is something she’d never even heard of. It looked wolf-like, but its fur was very sharp, reflecting the light from the sky and pond. Its eyes were a beaming red, and looked to almost be glowing. Its claws dug into the earth beneath it, and most bizarrely of all, a purple gem was lodged deep into the animal’s forehead. Yuko struggled to process what she was seeing, due both in part to her sudden headache, as well as the surreal nature of seeing some animal with an appearance straight out of a fantasy novel. Run… run away… I’ve got to run. Those were the thoughts racing thought Yuko’s mind as the truth of her situation set in. The ferocious appearance of the beast wasn’t the only thing causing this deep sense of dread to boil up within Yuko, as she also subconsciously understood that the heavy pressure surrounding her whole body was likely a cause of her headache. My head… somehow, it’s hurting because of that thing…! As the realization dawned on Yuko, she put all her strength into her legs, and quickly tried turning around to sprint away, but… “Graah!!” the beast bolted forward in an instant, sinking its fangs into Yuko’s right arm. “GYAAAAAH!!” Yuko screamed as she tumbled to the ground, overcome with unbelievable anguish from the fangs piercing her flesh. In a frenzy, Yuko started kicking over and over with her legs, eventually managing to push the beast aside, before rolling and stumbling her way to her feet and dashing away, grasping the wound on her arm as tight as she could. Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, IT HUUURTS!! Yuko’s mind was in chaos as she struggled to run away with all her might. The beast was undeterred, and leapt forward again, baring its sharp claws. “Eeek!” Noticing its movement, Yuko suddenly yanked her body to the right to avoid the claws, just barely escaping being pierced by them, as they instead shredded the back of her uniform’s jacket and her skirt. Despite the successful dodge, Yuko’s body tumbled on the ground. Unable to regain her footing, the beast quickly turned around and jumped to its prey. Yuko now remained pinned to the ground by the ravenous beast. “No… no…!” Yuko’s face was a mess with tears and snot, her whole body trembled in fear, and her headache was splitting. “Don’t hurt me… I don’t want to die… Please… leave me alone…!” she cried in a hoarse voice. But… her words didn’t reach the beast. Just as the creature opened its gaping maw to take a bite… something in Yuko’s head clicked. Her headache faded, her head went numb… And she lost consciousness. --- “… ?!” Yuko quickly sat up, drenched in sweat. As soon as she’d gained awareness again, her head began to hurt once more. “Arrrgh…! My head…” Yuko looked around. She was in her own bed, in her dorm room. “Huh…? Was it… a dream?” Confusion clouded Yuko’s mind as her head continued to pulse. After a moment, she glanced at her bedside clock. “Oh no… I’m late… School’s starting… soon…” Sluggish, Yuko crawled out of bed. Her mind was a mess, so she just focused on what she had to do. It was morning, and it was almost time for school. It took everything she had to just register this information in her mind. She looked down and realized she was already wearing her uniform, so she just grabbed her school bag and limped out of the dorm room. “That damn nightmare… and this headache… I don’t even have time for breakfast…” Yuko mumbled as she limped through the dorm’s main lobby, mostly empty besides a handful of other students who were running late. As she left the building, Yuko noticed that her head started to feel better. The cool spring breeze was refreshing, despite how muggy her clothes were after having slept in them. By the time she reached the front gates of the school, Yuko had finally regained her mental clarity. “Huh…?” And as she did, she finally realized just how strange her situation was. Not only that, but after looking around she noticed several other nearby students all staring her way. Some wore looks of confusion, others seemed vaguely concerned, and a handful of others were blushing, trying to look away. “What is it…?” Once Yuko looked down at herself more closely, she realized it. “Ah… Eeeeek!” Yuko quickly tried to cover her behind with her bag and crouched down. There were huge tears in the fabric of the back of her uniform, and the entire backside of the skirt was shredded apart. Meaning… everyone walking around her could see her panties. “No way, no way… How did this happen?!” Yuko cried, tears of embarrassment bubbling up in her eyes. “What is going on out here?! Class is about to start!” a cute yet bizarrely stern voice proclaimed, in a commanding tone. “Oh, student council president!” “Well, you see, over there, um…” Some of the nearby students responded. The flustered Yuko looked over and saw Kanna Kawagoe, the student council president herself, standing before them all. Quickly grasping the situation, Kanna approached Yuko, still kneeling on the ground, and looked down at her. “You, what happened?” Kanna asked, glaring daggers at Yuko. “I-I don’t know how to explain it, Ms. President… B-but my uniform, well…” Yuko stammered out. Silently, Kanna looked over Yuko. A moment later, she seemed to come to some understanding. “What is your name?” “Yuko… Yuko Maeda.” “I see. Come with me then.” Kanna offered her a hand. “Wh-where are we going?” Yuko replied, taking her hand and standing back up. “To the student council room.” --- “Do I have to do it right here…?” “Do not mind me. Please just get changed.” In the student council room, Kanna had given Yuko a fresh new uniform in her size, and had asked her to get changed. Needless to say, it’s not like it was a changing room, so Kanna had asked Yuko to get changed right there in front of her. So embarrassing… Well, at least it’s just the two of us. Yuko thought, having just removed her top. And thus, in no time Yuko was in a fresh uniform, as good as new. “Excellent. Please have a seat over here now.” Kanna ordered. “Huh? Um, okay…” Yuko complied. While all this was going on, Yuko was trying to piece things together in her mind. After all, this morning she’d awoken in a complete daze, with a headache after some bizarre nightmare. But more than that, she was wondering what even happened last night. The last thing she remembered was taking a walk by the Rigel pond and sitting on a bench. It was hard to believe she’d sleepwalked all the way back to the dorm after that, but even so that doesn’t explain how her uniform got all torn up. As the two girls sat across from one another, Kanna offered a cup of tea, sliding it to Yuko on the small table between them. “I would like to ask how your uniform ended up in that state, if you please.” asked Kanna, taking a sip from her own cup. “I-I’m afraid I really don’t remember.” Replied Yuko, her head down. “You do not remember…?” Kanna inquired, clearly not believing her. “It’s true! You have to believe me.” Yuko pleaded. Pausing, Kanna grabbed a sheet from the nearby desk and began flipping through it. “Ah yes, I thought your name looked familiar. I have you listed here as arriving back to the dormitory just after 9:30. That is well after the time of the new curfew.” Yuko shrunk in on herself. She wasn’t expecting the curfew to be brought up. But even so, she personally has no memory of ever arriving back to the dormitory. “Y-you see, I uh…” she stammered, trying to think of a response. “Where were you last night?” Kanna asked directly, in an accusatory manner. “No, see… I-I work at the café in the shopping area, right? And we had an order to make a delivery to the library, so I had to, um…” Yuko trailed off. With an annoyed expression, Kanna stood up and walked to the desk. After flipping through a few papers, she quickly moved to the computer on the desk and began typing. “… Yes, there was such a transaction. But it was fulfilled just before curfew. Even if you made that delivery, it should not have taken an hour and a half to return to the dormitory.” Kanna deduced. “R-right… Um… to tell the truth, after making the delivery, I went to the Rigel pond and kind of, um… dozed off on one of the benches. That’s why I was late.” Yuko confessed, hanging her head once again. But just then… “Th-the pond?!” Kanna gasped under her breath. “Y-yes…?” Yuko replied, looking up in confusion. Kanna stood by the desk, her hand on her chin, deep in thought. After several moments of awkward silence had passed, Kanna spoke up once more. “Did you see anything strange while you were at the pond last night?” “N-no, I don’t think so…” Yuko frowned. Truthfully, she couldn’t remember whether she did or not. Since all she remembers was going to the bench and falling asleep. The nightmare she had this morning gnawed at the back of her mind, but as with most dreams, she could no longer remember its contents clearly at all. And honestly, she wanted to get this uncomfortable interrogation over with. “… This will do for now. I will contact you again later, Yuko Maeda.” spoke Kanna flatly, after taking another moment to think. “Y-yes, Ms. President…” Kanna sat down and quickly began writing on a small sheet. “Here, please give this to your homeroom teacher, and your tardiness shall be excused.” Kanna stated as she handed the slip to Yuko. “Right. Thank you very much.” Yuko bowed, before awkwardly leaving the room. Left alone in the student council room, Kanna’s eyes narrowed. “Surely, that girl must have been a witness of some kind, unless…” --- The door to class 1-B opened suddenly in the middle of Mariko Yamagata’s lecture. In an instant, the attention of both her and all the students hovered toward the doorway. Taken aback, Yuko blushed. “S-sorry I’m late… A lot happened this morning…” Yuko bowed, as she walked to the teacher and handed her the slip. “Jeez, I’d just warned you yesterday about being tardy too, didn’t I?” the worried teacher scolded, before glancing at the sheet. “Though, oh my… I suppose this tardy won’t be counted then. Well, please take your seat and open your text book to the page written on the board, Ms. Maeda.” “Yes, ma’am.” replied Yuko, bowing once more before heading to her seat. As she walked to her seat, she noticed Chisa giving her a worried expression. After sitting down, Yuko soon found herself the recipient of a note passed over to her. Obviously, it was from Chisa, asking what happened. As Yuko wondered how she should explain everything to her concerned friend, she opened her bag and started to pull out her textbook, notebook, and utensils, before noticing something unfamiliar inside. Huh? What’s this? Yuko grabbed ahold of the foreign object in her school bag and took a look at it. “What the…?” she gasped, under her breath. In her palm was a glistening purple gem. --- It was now midday. Not long after the bell at the high school tolled and signaled the beginning of the student’s lunch break, the student council president was away from the main building on urgent business. Instead, she was at a small building nearby that most wouldn’t pay attention to. If one were to look at the plaque outside, they’d see that this building was used for school security. An adult man, the guard who manned this building during school hours, sat in the lobby eating a hamburger, while a certain pair had used their authority to use the main office during the break. Inside the dark room, multiple bright monitors illuminated the space. On one particular screen was a scene from a certain park. “Found it.” a voice murmured in a somewhat flat tone. “So, this is the girl you mentioned…” commented a lower-pitched accompanying voice. On the screen was a security camera feed of an area on the perimeter of the Rigel pond. A lone high school girl sat sleeping on one of the benches. “Yes, I was correct. This place where she slept is very close to the scene we inspected last night.” the higher voice noted. “Ah, I recognize her. So you’re saying she’ll be an important witness, right? Well, since we managed to get camera footage this time, we may not even have to bother her about it.” “True, but it is difficult to estimate how much the camera may have caught from this angle.” The two watched the screen attentively, when suddenly… “She has awoken!” On the monitor, the high school girl awoke from the bench and stood up, before suddenly clenching her head. “What is she doing…?” “Look, in the corner of the camera!” the lower voice alerted. Pointing at the screen, they both took notice of the creature that made its way on camera. “The magic beast…” As soon as it appeared, it attacked the girl. The sight that unfolded was tragic, and hard to watch. They both wore looks of pity, but then something occurred to one of them. “Wait… this cannot be right. That girl was completely uninjured this morning!” Kanna Kawagoe, the one with the higher of the two voices, stood up and slammed the desk, her eyes glued to the screen. Her partner glanced at her, before looking back at the screen uncomfortably. The two watched. The events of that night played out before them, on the small, grainy, security camera feed. They saw exactly how everything happened that night. “No way…” Kanna muttered in disbelief. On that screen, a lone high school girl stood, ankles sinking into the pond. It was Yuko Maeda, wearing a cold, almost murderous expression on her face. Lying in the shallow water at her feet was the muddy, bloody, beheaded corpse of the so-called magic beast. The Yuko in the video, who held the beast’s head with her clenched fist, raised it up into the air, staring at it. The camera’s video quality is poor, so it’s difficult to say for sure, but… The two watching the video felt as though they had seen a smirk come to her face. [Chapter 1 END]

-Chapter 1- “Ahahaha, flowers! There are so many flowers!” a young girl’s voice resounded. The sky was a bright, pale blue, with shades of pink tinting the horizon. Fluffy cotton-like clouds dotted this pastel sky. On the ground there were indeed flowers. A large field of flowers stretched out as far as the eye could see. In that field, three girls pranced around happily. They all wore white sundresses, and as they ran, the fabric of the dresses fluttered in the wind. After all, a pleasant breeze was blowing through the field of flowers. It was an idyllic peaceful scene, wherein one could relax and be at peace. “No way!” one of the girls shouted. “Check it out! It’s a four-leaf clover! I’m gonna be super lucky now!” The other two girls ran over and kneeled by her side. Sure enough, the girl with the short, pale orange hair and clear blue eyes held a clover that had four leaves. “Wow! That’s so lucky!” “Indeed. Quite an impressive find.” The three girls giggled amongst themselves. Just then, one of the other two girls, a girl with dark hair tied up in twintails, spoke up. “Are four-leaf clovers something you can make a wish on?” she asked. The three girls all grew silent for a moment, pondering the question that had arisen. “I have heard they’re a sign of good luck, but I’m not sure whether they’ve ever been a common object to wish upon.” the third girl, a girl wearing glasses, responded. “Well, I don’t care! I’ll wish on it anyway!” the girl holding the clover confidently declared, lifting the clover up into the air. “Wow! So what’ll you wish for?” the twintailed girl asked excitedly. However, just then, the other two girls grew quiet, staring at the girl as if she’d asked a strange question. The twintailed girl could only blink in confusion. “I mean… it’s obvious, isn’t it?” said the girl with the clover. “I must say, you can be rather dense sometimes.” the glasses girl chuckled to herself. “Huh?” the twintailed girl didn’t understand. “What do you mean?” Another pleasant breeze swept through the flower field. The girls all rose to their feet once more as the girl with the clover held the lucky charm close to her heart. “Obviously, I’d use my wish for you.” she said, looking at the twintailed girl. “I wish for you to get better as soon as possible! So you can come back!” The other two girls both smiled endearingly at the twintailed girl, but the twintailed girl didn’t understand what they meant. “Get better? Come back?” she asked. “What do you mean? I’m fine! We’re all here together after all…” She stretched her arms out, showing the other two girls the beautiful field of flowers they’d traveled through together. Nothing was wrong. This was a paradise. And yet, the other girls remained silent. Rather, they were completely still. Frozen in place with those same endearing smiles. But such pitying looks only confused the twintailed girl, who was seemingly the only one who could still move. “There’s nothing wrong with me…” she muttered. “You’re mistaken!” her mutters began to turn into shouts. “I’m perfectly fine! I’m normal, just like all of you!” The pale blue sky above slowly darkened into a dreary violet, as if in response to her voice. The once gentle breeze began to evolve into ear-piercing violent winds. And the flowers… “Huh? No… no…!” realizing the upsetting changes occurring around her, the twintailed girl grasped her head and kneeled to the ground. Smoke began to rise into the dreary sky, creating dark clouds that blocked out the color. For you see, the colorful field of flowers was all… burning. Why? How? For what reason could such a beautiful paradise succumb to such a fate? “Who… would do this…?” Distraught, the twintailed girl’s eyes darted back and forth. Her friends and their gentle smiles were nowhere to be seen. Instead, the only one there… was herself. “Hehehehehe….” A self that wasn’t herself. Another person that isn’t you, but is still physically the same person. “Is this why… I’m not well?” tears fell from the eyes of the girl, as she pressed herself against a mirror. Where did the mirrior come from? Who knows. After all, the world was crumbling around her. Soon, she’d fall… deep into the dark abyss. The girl lamented her fate, and then… Bang! “OW!!” Yuko Maeda’s sudden scream echoed throughout the entire classroom. Her forehead was throbbing from the impact. “Th-that hurt…” Yuko muttered, gently rubbing her forehead. A moment later, Yuko realized she must’ve dozed off in the middle of class with her head on her hand. Her head must’ve slipped out of her grasp and she banged her forehead against the desk just now. Of course, after such a loud outburst, almost everyone in the classroom was staring her way. Realizing this, Yuko’s face turned bright red as she blushed. “S-sorry about that, everyone…” Yuko looked down at her desk, averting her eyes awake from their gazes. “Oh dear, Ms. Maeda…” spoke the homeroom teacher, Mariko Yamagata, finally breaking the silence. “I’d like to imagine my lectures aren’t that boring. I’m doing my best you know?” The other students gave off a few chuckles as the laidback teacher could only give Yuko a somewhat saddened, pleading expression. “O-oh, no! It’s all my fault, Ms. Yamagata!” Yuko frantically stood up and bowed. “I just, see… I was up later than normal last night is all. I’m sorry!” Once more, chuckles echoed throughout the classroom from the other amused students. “Oh my…” Yamagata gave a somewhat worried expression. “Well, I hope you make sure to get some proper rest from now on. Every young lady like yourself needs their beauty sleep.” “Right, haha…” Yuko chuckled awkwardly, giving one final bow before returning to her seat. With Yuko’s brief unintended interruption over, Yamagata returned to her lecture. At the moment, she was going over themes from the latest chapter of the class’s assigned reading. It was a book that Yuko didn’t particularly care for, and thinking about it often made her drowsy. Thus, combined with her lack of sleep the night before, it was a given that she’d doze off the way she did. The date was Thursday, May 18th. It was the middle of spring and classes at Starlight Academy’s eastern district were in full force. It’d been about a month and a half since school started and everyone was generally settled in to their new routines by now. The same applied to Yuko, who was also fully used to balancing her time at school along with the work she did at the coffee shop down in the plaza. But as other students around this time of the season pined to return to the days of their golden week vacation, all while dreading the approaching midterms, Yuko could only find herself thinking back to a truly bizarre week she experienced at the end of April. A lot of weird stuff happened, and despite learning that there’s apparently an entire parallel world full of people who use crazy magical powers, the strangest takeaway Yuko got from the whole experience was that she could use magic too. Or rather, some strange alternate personality within her could. Dubbed ‘the Guardian’ by her recent friend, student council president Kanna Kawagoe (who’s also a magic knight from that other world, by the way), Yuko could only ponder what on earth the implications of this whole situation were. After talking with Kanna about it a few times since, the two soon realized they couldn’t really figure anything out on their own, so the subject has kind of been left hanging for a few weeks. After all, ever since the culprit was dealt with, there haven’t been any other weird occurrences in the eastern district. After golden week, the curfew that was enacted at the end of April was lifted, and once again the district’s usual ‘night life’ emerged again as if it’d never left. Clubs would run late, jobs would have shifts going ‘til 9 or 10 PM… everything was basically returning to normal. Well, as normal as life in this place could be, anyway. Yuko sighed as she gazed out of the window at the clear blue sky. It was another beautiful spring day. The odd dream she’d just had already started to slip away into the recesses of her mind. But if there were one word to describe the feeling left lingering within her after experiencing it, that word would be… “Nostalgic…” Yuko muttered to herself, in a voice so quiet no one could hear. --- “Ms. Maeda, may I have a moment?” “… Huh?!” Yuko was taken aback for a moment. It was now mid-afternoon, and classes had just finished for the day. Everyone was putting their stuff away and getting ready to leave, Yuko included. But suddenly, Yuko was approached by her homeroom teacher Mariko Yamagata. “M-Ms. Yamagata? What is it?” she asked, a look of panic on her face at being called out by the teacher. “It appears an urgent matter has come up…” the teacher lowered her head apologetically. “I’m afraid you must come with me to one of the meeting rooms.” “Wh-what? But I have to get to work…” Yuko replied in confusion. “I believe they’ve already been notified, so…” Yamagata gave her student a pleading expression. It was fairly clear that whatever was going on had bewildered Yamagata as well, and she felt bad having to bring Yuko into it. “Well, okay I guess…” Yuko had no choice but to go along with it. “Yuko? Teach? What’s going on?” Chisa Ando, Yuko’s close friend, approached the two out of concern. “Oh, Ms. Ando. It’s nothing to be concerned about. I just have something to discuss with Ms. Maeda over here.” Yamagata answered. “Oh, alright…” Chisa replied, tilting her head. She glanced over at Yuko, who then responded with a shrug. “Well, guess I’ll see ya later, Yuko.” “Right, see you!” Yuko waved goodbye as Chisa left the classroom. “Well then, shall we go?” Yamagata asked, wearing a gentle smile. “Sure thing.” Yuko rose from her seat, bag in hand, and followed after Yamagata. The two headed upstairs, with Yamagata leading the way. They passed by the student council room and turned a corner, leading to a hall containing doorways to several different meeting rooms. Yuko wasn’t really familiar with them, but had the sense that teachers probably held meetings here to plan various things throughout the year. Yamagata soon stopped in front of a door toward the back of the hall, and let out a deep sigh. “Hey, um, Ms. Yamagata…?” Yuko spoke in a quiet voice. “Before we go in, could you tell me what’s going on?” It was highly unusual for Yuko to be called out somewhere individually like this. During the walk over here, Yuko could only wonder what this could be about. Her grades were doing okay, so it most likely wasn’t that. Could it be related to what happened last month? Or was she seriously in trouble for falling asleep in class this morning? Yuko’s mind raced trying to think of the various possibilities on what this could be about. “To be honest, I’m not entirely sure myself…” Yamagata lamented. “All I know is that someone very important has requested to speak with us, so…” “Wait, both of us?” Yuko was now even more confused. Despite Yamagata’s kindhearted demeanor making her one of Yuko’s favorite teachers, it’s not like the two had interacted that much outside of class. Though, she is her homeroom teacher. If it’s a matter related to school, then that might explain it. But in the first place, who could be in here…? Yuko couldn’t help but wonder. “It appears so.” Yamagata nodded. “Well then, shall we?” she continued, motioning toward the doorknob. “Yeah, let’s go.” Yuko steeled herself for whatever awaited inside. Yamagata grabbed the doorknob, turned it, and slowly opened the door. With a light creak, the heavy door opened and inside was what appeared to be a standard meeting room. A long rectangular table was at the center of the room, with numerous chairs on each side. There were several other items common of a meeting room along the edges of the room, from a movable whiteboard to a computer, and even a screen for a projector. It only took a moment for Yuko to take in the room, but what drew her attention the most was the adult man seated at the long table and the girl who stood nearby. “Wait, Kanna?!” Yuko blurted out on instinct. Sure enough, the girl standing in the room was student council president Kanna Kawagoe. “Yes, hello Yuko Maeda.” Kanna bowed, before motioning to the seated man. “Allow me to introduce you. This man is…” “Come now, we don’t have to make this so formal do we, little Kanna?” the man waved off Kanna’s formal demeanor. “… Fine. Do as you please.” Kanna sighed. “Ms. Yuko, welcome!” the man motioned towards the other seats. “My name is Mitsuo Tokushige, and I’m the district manager for this eastern district of Starlight Academy.” “Th-the district manager?!” Yuko was shocked. She knew she’d seen this man before, and realized he was the guy who would always give the big speech at the start of each new school year. The district manager is basically the single most important person within any given district of the academy. Yuko could only wonder why someone of that status would wish to speak with her. “So it really was you who called for us…” Yamagata sighed, before putting on her usual smile. “Good to see you again as well, Ms. Mariko.” Tokushige smirked. “I trust your classes have been doing well?” “Of course.” Yamagata replied, taking a seat. “Though I’m sure you’re well aware, sir. All of the statistics of our school’s performance go through you, after all.” As Yuko took her seat beside Yamagata, she got the distinct sense that, despite Yamagata wearing her usual smiling expression, she was notably annoyed by this person. Thinking about it further, Yuko realized that Tokushige would likely be her ‘boss’, so to speak. Maybe they’re on bad terms? Yuko couldn’t help but wonder about such things, having found herself in the middle of this bizarre group of people. “Fair enough, fair enough.” Tokushige chuckled, before turning back to Kanna. “So, do you plan to stick around? I only asked you to arrange the meeting for me, little Kanna, not partake in it.” “I believe I have the right to monitor this meeting.” Kanna replied flatly. “It is quite unusual for the district manager to request an audience with a specific student, after all. I feel I should at least be aware of what may be discussed here.” “Well, if that’s how you feel, then who am I to stop you?” Tokushige shrugged. “S-so, um…” Yuko stuttered, feeling at a bit of a loss over this situation. Being surrounded by an adult teacher, another adult who basically runs the place she calls home, and the student council president, was more than a little nerve-wracking. At least she knew Kanna personally, and had grown fond of Yamagata during her classes, but it was still an awkward situation for her. “Oh, yes? What is it, Ms. Yuko?” Tokushige turned to Yuko, smiling. “Uhh… just, you know. What’s this meeting all about, anyway?” Yuko asked nervously. “Ahaha, getting right down to business, I see.” Tokushige nodded. “Well, I’m sure you may feel a bit intimidated right now.” Yuko merely lowered her head, feeling a bit embarrassed. Yamagata placed a hand on her shoulder in comfort. “I’m quite curious as well, sir.” Yamagata spoke. “What could you possibly have to say to the two of us?” “Well, I guess I’ll get straight to the point.” Tokushige stretched a bit in his seat before continuing. “I have a request for you two. I’d like you to take a trip to Central this weekend.” “What?!” the other three people in the room all blurted out the same thing in unison. Needless to say, they were totally shocked. After a brief pause, the first to speak up was Kanna. “Just a moment,” Kanna began, taking an extra moment to process what had just been said. “You must be joking! You know that academy rules prevent ordinary students from ever returning to Central until their graduation! Even as the district manager, you cannot arbitrarily break this tradition!” “C’mon now, don’t think so little of me.” Tokushige waved off Kanna’s reaction. “It’s not like I’m making this request on a whim.” “… Explain.” Kanna eyed Tokushige suspiciously. “See, I was contacted recently by Central Hospital.” answered Tokushige. “I’ve been going back-and-forth to Central for meetings for a while now. Even had to get old man Hoshikage involved. In the end, this was the plan everyone decided on.” “Why would Central Hospital contact you about Yuko Maeda…?” puzzled, Kanna glanced back over at Yuko. “Um…” Yuko lowered her head. “I’m sure Ms. Yuko here may have some idea.” Tokushige grinned. “Ms. Maeda, what is this about?” Yamagata asked, confused. “No, I mean…! I don’t really know!” Yuko waved her hands. “I-I was a patient there during a lot of my time in Central, but I’m better now, so…” “Oh dear, is that all?” Yamagata tilted her head. “It is not unusual for students of Central to end up in the hospital if they fall sick or injure themselves.” Kanna reasoned. “Even if you were particularly sickly, there should be no reason to be called back now, after all these years.” Left unconvinced, Kanna and Yamagata glanced back at Tokushige, hoping for more answers. “… Well, I was curious what Yuko might assume just from the clues I gave, but I guess I should explain myself more thoroughly.” Tokushige shrugged. “What does that mean?” Kanna whispered under her breath. Yamagata continued to feel lost in this conversation. At the moment, Kanna was thinking back to one of her more recent interactions with Tokushige. Unknown to Yuko, Tokushige is fully aware of Yuko’s powerful alternate persona, dubbed ‘the Guardian.’ While Tokushige himself was uninvolved with the incident at the end of April, he was aware of how everything transpired, and Kanna had the feeling he’d soon try to make contact with Yuko because of it. She’d inserted herself into the meeting for this reason, but the topic of Central popping up was totally unexpected. Starlight Academy’s central district, often nicknamed ‘Central’ for short, is the academy’s core hub. It’s where most of the academy’s main staff reside, and is also home to various Elementary schools and care centers for all of the younger students. It’s where the students spend all of their time before they’re eventually divided among the 4 districts for Middle school and onwards. As student council president, Kanna had a lot of influence in the eastern district, including the ability to find information on any student in the district since they’d entered it. But information from Central or the other three districts was completely unavailable to her. It was just the way the academy was set up: everyone grows up in Central, but then they enter totally new environments once they transfer into one of the districts. Kanna, of course, was a transfer student (from another world, no less), so unlike most of her peers, she doesn’t have any particular familiarity with Central. Though she knew she would eventually visit for certain student council duties, she hasn’t actually done so yet. Regardless, Kanna put such thoughts on hold and proceeded to listen to Tokushige’s explanation. “So, for starters…” he began. “Ms. Yuko, you said you were a regular patient of the hospital during your time in Central, but do you remember why?” “Of course…” Yuko answered, uncomfortably. “I was sick a lot when I was a kid…” “Now, do you remember the symptoms you had?” Tokushige asked. “… Fevers, headaches, hallucinations… things like that.” Yuko could only stare downward, depressed over having to recall such things. “Yes, your records say as much as well.” Tokushige nodded, smiling. “Now then, do you remember how you got better?” “… I don’t.” Yuko muttered. “Excuse me.” Yamagata spoke up. “In case you’re unaware, sir, you’re making Ms. Maeda here very uncomfortable. Is there a reason you’re making her spell out these private details in front of us?” “Sorry, sorry, it’s a bad habit of mine.” Tokushige waved his hand. “The only reason I asked her to spell it all out is because I’d feel rude having to explain it all myself. It’s best to hear these things from the one in question, right?” “But why does she need to do so at all?” Yamagata gave him a stern glare. “Okay, I think I can explain from here.” Tokushige adjusted his posture and began to speak more seriously. “There’s a 6th grade girl in Central right now suffering from the exact same symptoms that Yuko once did.” The room grew silent for just a moment. “Okay…” Yamagata responded. “But what does that have to do with Ms. Maeda here? Should they not just treat this girl the same way they did her?” “When did anyone ever say that Ms. Yuko was treated?” Tokushige asked, with a serious expression. Yamagata and Kanna glanced at one another before both turning to look at Yuko, who was still hanging her head down. “Y-yeah, um…” Yuko stuttered. “They didn’t know what was wrong with me… The whole time I was in the hospital, they mainly just gave me medicine to ease the symptoms. I did eventually get better… but no one knew why.” “My… I see…” Yamagata spoke softly, pulling in the depressed Yuko by the shoulder and trying to comfort her. “I think I understand.” Kanna finally spoke up. “Central is at a loss on what to do for this girl, so they would like to see Yuko Maeda again, as she is the only other person on record to share the same symptoms and also recover from them. Is that correct?” “Bingo.” Tokushige pointed his finger at Kanna, giving a wink. “The girl’s name is Tsukiko Matsuura, and her health has been declining over the past month. If it keeps up, they fear her life may be in danger.” “I see…” Kanna nodded. “I suppose that would be reason enough to warrant an exception and allow a student like Yuko Maeda to return to Central briefly.” “Correctamundo!” Tokushige grinned. “I also understand the reasoning here.” Yamagata spoke up. “But, why must I go to Central as well?” “Ah, I thought that would be obvious.” Tokushige answered. “You’re her homeroom teacher. Obviously a responsible adult like yourself should accompany your student on such an unorthodox trip.” “Yes, I suppose so…” Yamagata gave a wry smile, before turning her attention back to Yuko, who she was still holding close. “Are you okay now, Ms. Maeda?” “Yeah, I’m fine…” Yuko sighed, separating from Yamagata. “Talk of the hospital always makes me uncomfortable, but I have a lot of good memories from Central too, so it’ll be nice to see it again.” “That’s the spirit!” Tokushige smiled. “I’m glad we all seem to understand the situation.” “This could have been completed much sooner had you just explained the details from the start.” sighed Kanna. “Now, now, gimme a break, little Kanna.” Tokushige smirked at Kanna, who only glared back in response. “So, um, have we gone over everything?” Yuko asked. “Yes, of course, I think we’re good for now.” Tokushige said, clapping his hands together. “I can discuss the specifics with Ms. Mariko here, but the rest of you are free to go. Just know that you’ll probably be heading over sometime after school tomorrow.” “Okay, I understand.” Yuko bowed as she rose from her seat, preparing to leave. “This is pretty short notice, are you okay with that, Yuko Maeda?” Kanna spoke up, making her way to Yuko’s side. “Yeah, it’s fine. I didn’t have any particular plans for this weekend anyway.” Yuko replied with a wry smile, scratching her head. “Okay, if you say so.” Kanna remained quiet as she followed Yuko out of the room. The two girls walked down the hallway in silence, before ending up in front of the student council office. Kanna motioned for Yuko to come on in, but Yuko shook her head. “Sorry, I have work to get to. I’m already late as it is…” Yuko looked down. “Ah, yes, my apologies…” it slipped her mind for a moment, but Kanna had already contacted the café to inform them that Yuko would be late, but the meeting ran longer than expected, and it would probably be better for Yuko to get there sooner than later. “Well, I’ll see you later Kanna…” as Yuko turned to walk away, Kanna quickly took hold of Yuko’s wrist. “J-just a moment… um…” Kanna faced downward, as if troubled. “Yuko, I… I apologize… for standing in on a meeting regarding such a personal matter.” Yuko blinked for just a moment, before bringing a smile to her face. “Don’t worry about it, Kanna. It’s not like I try to keep it a secret or anything. It’s just something I don’t like to talk about very much.” “But still, I…” Kanna let go of Yuko. She clearly felt guilt about something. Thinking the situation over, Yuko took the opportunity to bring up something on her mind as well. “Hey Kanna, when I first saw you in the meeting room earlier, I’d kind of wondered if the meeting would have something to do with all that stuff that happened last month, but it didn’t seem like it did…” “Ah…” Kanna let out a small gasp. “Based on your reactions, I guess you thought the same thing too, huh?” Yuko smiled. “… You are correct.” Kanna admitted. “The truth is, that man, Tokushige, he knows about the whole thing. He is fully aware of Alviquan as well. Though, I suppose you may have expected as much.” “I had a feeling.” Yuko chuckled. “You seemed antsy over whatever he might say to me.” “It appears I fail to hide my emotions as well as I had thought.” Kanna smiled wryly. “It’s okay. I’m glad you’re always there for me.” Yuko smiled, before taking on a more worried expression. “Though, be honest, Kanna… That sickness I had back then… Does it have something to do with your world? Or, maybe this Guardian inside me?” “H-hmm…” Kanna was taken aback for a moment, but she lifted her hand to her chin and began thinking. “To be honest, I have heard something about some strange new disease going around in Alviquan as of late.” “Then…!” “No.” Kanna shook her head. “We cannot jump to such a conclusion. After all, the illness I refer to is too recent. It was years ago when you were sick, correct? The timing does not align. Plus, I do not know any details about it. My family has simply mentioned it in passing in some letters I received from them.” “I-I see…” Yuko lowered her head. “So I guess it can’t be the same sickness.” “Indeed.” Kanna nodded. “Considering there had only been very little interaction between this world and Alviquan until a few years ago, there is little chance they could be related. I can only assume whatever ailed you must originate from this world.” “I see… I’ll keep that in mind then.” Yuko nodded. “Well then, sorry to keep you here so long.” Kanna apologized. “Please, have a good evening at your job.” “I-it’s no problem at all!” Yuko waved her hands, before turning to head off to the café. “See you later, Kanna!” Kanna simply waved as Yuko departed. After letting out a sigh, Kanna entered the student council room. Inside, a handful of other student council members were scattered around the room, handling various tasks. “President! Where have you been?!” a tall disgruntled-looking boy with glasses spoke up first. “I had important business to attend to.” Kanna answered calmly. “It sounded like you were just chatting with someone outside.” the boy replied, sounding annoyed at Kanna for having lightly dodged his question. “It does not concern you.” Kanna spoke sharply. “Now then, everyone, please prepare your usual daily reports. Due to the lack of time, we shall keep things brief today.” The other members in the room all gave a casual response and started getting things together for their reports. “Kh…” the boy, however, was annoyed at being shrugged off. Still, he let the subject drop and started getting his things ready as well. --- “Sorry I’m late! I’ll get to work right away!” said Yuko, now dressed in her work attire, as she bowed to the Boss. “Don’t worry about it! I already heard that Kan-chan might be holding you up anyway, haha.” The Boss was a third-year student, just like Kanna, and also happened to be in the same class as her. Since Kanna knew he was in charge of the café Yuko worked at, it only made sense to inform him if she knew that Yuko might end up running late. “For now you can just help out at the register.” Boss continued, pointing in that direction with his thumb. “Yes, sir!” Yuko swiftly followed her instructions and headed to the register. Once she arrived, she nodded to the one already standing there: Tanabe Murakami. “Seems you finally made it.” he said with a smile during a brief moment while a customer was thinking. “Yeah, haha.” Yuko laughed awkwardly in response, before turning her attention to the crowd in front of her. “Excuse me! I can take some of you over here!” It was the middle of that busy time in the afternoon, so the café was more crowded than usual. During times like this, employees at the café would sometimes split the line in two, despite there only being one register. It can be a little tricky, but people who work well together like Yuko and Tanabe manage to form a good flow of going back-and-forth with the register while taking people’s orders and assigning tables for anyone eating in. It was a skill they’d honed well over their short time working this job together. A bit of time passed, and slowly but surely the crowds began to die down, allowing Yuko and Tanabe a chance to relax for a bit at the register. “Ahhhh, it’s always a good feeling when we finally get to catch our breath for a moment, huh?” Tanabe said, stretching out his arms. “You said it.” Yuko sighed as she massaged her shoulders. “So what’s new with you?” Tanabe asked. “Any reason you were late today?” “Well, uh… It’s a long story.” Yuko smiled wryly. “But the short of it is, it seems I have to go to the hospital in Central. Basically, it’s to kind of follow up on something that happened there when I was young.” “Oh wow…” Tanabe blinked. “I didn’t think there were situations that could get you a trip to Central. Well, outside of being student council president or something…” “Trust me, I’m just as surprised…” Yuko replied. “I didn’t expect to ever set foot in Central again…” “Right? Haha.” Tanabe chuckled. “Do you remember the closing ceremony at the end of 6th grade? They went on and on about how the districts would be our new homes and how we’d never return to the ‘nest’ of Central or whatever. Did they still do that when you were there?” “Yeah, they did!” Yuko perked up, distinct memories of a similar event popping back into her mind. “I was sick a lot in those days, but that was right around the time I started feeling better and attended classes again, so I remember that speech made me kind of sad. Even though I finally got better, I had to say goodbye to the place I called home. Then of course, the new school year started and I became a middle schooler here in the east district.” “Oh man, you were that sickly back then?” Tanabe gave a look of concern. “Yeah, but please don’t worry!” Yuko waved her hands around. “By the time I was in middle school I was basically all better!” “Okay, if you say so.” Tanabe gave an affirmative nod. “So they want you to head back to Central to follow-up on the sickness? I guess the hospital out there is pretty professional. I could see them wanting to make sure you’re okay now. A bit odd to wait this many years, though.” “Well… yeah, something like that.” Yuko decided it’d be best to keep the details to a minimum, so she decided not to mention the mysterious circumstances regarding the illness, or the fact that she’s being called in for testing to help another girl seemingly suffering from the same thing. “So, uh… What were you like back in Central, Tanabe?” Yuko asked, trying to steer the subject away from herself. “Me? Hmm…” Tanabe fell deep into thought. “Did you practice kendo like you do now?” Yuko asked, remembering the times she’d watched Tanabe’s gallant skills during his kendo matches. “Kendo? Oh, no, haha.” Tanabe chuckled. “I didn’t pick up kendo until my last year of middle school.” “Oh wow!” Yuko was surprised. “Even though you’re so good, you’ve only been at it for a few years…” “Yeah, a lot of people are surprised to learn that, haha.” Tanabe chuckled. “Now, let’s see… Back when I was at Central, I mostly just played around. My grades weren’t great, and I was pretty carefree. I just hung out with my friends, and we all pretended to be super heroes.” “Aw, that’s cute.” Yuko smiled, imagining a small Tanabe running around playing hero. “Hahaha, I wouldn’t say so.” Tanabe smiled with a nostalgic expression. “We were actually pretty big troublemakers. We drove the teachers and dorm staff nuts. Sure we were pretending to be heroes, but most of what we did was rebel against the adults.” “Still, I think it’s good to have such a fun-filled childhood!” “Well, maybe you’re right.” Tanabe pat Yuko on the head in gratitude. “How about you? I know you said you were sick a lot, but when you were feeling good, what did you get up to back then?” “Well, I wasn’t nearly as active as you, haha.” Yuko giggled. “Back then, I had two best friends… We were always together. We did all kinds of things, really. Watched a lot of movies, drew pictures together, and sang… Of course, it was all pretty childish stuff, but it was fun.” “Sounds nice.” Tanabe smiled gently. “Yeah! Those are some of my most precious memories…” Yuko stared up at the ceiling with a look of nostalgia. “I can’t believe I actually get to go back there again…” “When are you going?” Tanabe asked. “It seems like we’re heading over right after school tomorrow.” replied Yuko. “Wow, sounds like pretty short notice.” “Yeah, but I don’t really have a choice.” Yuko shrugged. “It’s fine, though. I didn’t really have plans anyway.” “Well, I hope you make the most of the trip and have a good time.” Tanabe smiled. “Yeah, I’ll try to!” Yuko pumped her fist. “Though, for all I know I may be stuck in the hospital the whole time…” “That’d be unfortunate…” Yuko and Tanabe both laughed. Before long, some new customers entered the shop and their brief discussion came to a close. Throughout the rest of the evening, those two and all the other employees kept busy. Later on, everyone took turns taking a break to have dinner, and before long their shifts ended and the café closed for the night. --- “What?! You’re going to Central?! Tomorrow?!” The one shouting in surprise at hearing the news from Yuko was Chisa Ando. It was late at night and the two girls had decided to head in to the baths together. They were currently soaking in the tub chatting, when Yuko dropped the news. “Not so loud, Chisa!” Yuko panicked. “It’s a unique circumstance because the hospital wants to follow-up on the time I was sick there!” “After all these years? That sounds strange to me…” Chisa crossed her arms. “Yeah, it surprised me too… But I decided I should try to help out the best I can.” Yuko gave a determined smile. “But wow. Central, huh… That really takes me back…” Chisa glanced up at the ceiling. “Do you suppose Aoi has been holding up well?” “Ah… I hope she’s doing well.” Yuko’s expression turned somewhat sad after being reminded of her old friend. Yuko thought back to the days of her youth. When she was a child living in Central, she had two best friends. One of them was Chisa Ando, who is still by her side today. The other was a girl named Aoi Kosugi: a kind, yet serious-minded girl with glasses. The three friends were always together, and whenever Yuko was sick in the hospital, the other two would always try to support her and be there for her. Sadly, once they’d all graduated and had to move on from Central, the trio got split up. Yuko and Chisa both managed to end up in the eastern district, but Aoi must’ve ended up elsewhere. Due to this separation, Yuko and Chisa have had no contact with Aoi for years. “Do you know if you’ll be able to walk around Central on your own while you’re there?” Chisa asked. “I don’t think so. Ms. Yamagata’s coming with me, and I’ll probably have to stay with her.” Yuko guessed. “After all, I don’t really recall seeing any older students while we were at Central, right?” “Right.” Chisa nodded. “It was just us kids and all the adults.” “Though, it would be nice if I could go around and explore for old times’ sake.” Yuko smiled. “I feel like if I ever visit any of the old classrooms, everything would seem so small now! Haha.” “Hahaha! That’s true! We’ve all grown quite a bit from those days… in more ways than one.” Chisa gave an inquisitive glance at Yuko’s chest. “Hey!” Yuko covered up her large bosom in embarrassment. “Don’t stare, Chisa!” “Haha! Sorry, sorry!” Chisa chuckled. “Though honestly, seeing you like this, sometimes I really wonder if we’re even the same age! Your size is comparable to Ms. Yamagata’s, and she’s an adult!” “Jeez…” Yuko sighed, her face still a bit flushed. “Chisa, you perv.” “I’m just calling it like I see it!” Chisa scratched the back of her head. “Anyway, I hope your trip to Central goes well! I want to hear all about it when you get back!” “Right!” Yuko smiled back at her dear friend. A little while later, the two exited the bath. After drying off and getting dressed, the girls each headed back to their own rooms. It was now fairly late at night, and many students were already starting to head to bed. Yuko sat at her desk, wrapping up a short assignment for class while the TV nearby played the usual repeats of old student-produced programming from years past. It was a film Yuko had seen numerous times, so she basically just let it remain as background noise while she worked. Flipping her pencil around in-hand, Yuko would find her thoughts drifting to the coming day’s trip to Central. She felt as though she still couldn’t fully process it. “My first time outside of this district in over 3 years…” Yuko whispered at her desk. When one grows accustomed to one place, it can feel strange to venture away from it after such a long time. Due to this, Yuko felt as though the fact that she would be somewhere else by this time tomorrow was a bit surreal. Still, rare experiences like this were valuable in their own right. Trying to focus again on her assignment, it was a simple question-and-answer form for the assigned reading Ms. Yamagata had discussed during class. The question ‘What did the protagonist feel upon returning to his hometown?’ was the next one printed on the sheet. Yuko moved to fill in the answer. “Nostalgia…” Yuko mumbled to herself as she filled in the same answer on the assignment. [Chapter 1 END]

-Chapter 3- It was currently April. The school term had just started, making this the first month of Kanna Kawagoe’s run as student council president. This also meant it would be the last year where she would be able to attend this unorthodox academy as a student. Kanna’s reasons for joining the student council were varied. She had only just transferred into the academy at the beginning of her first year of high school, two years prior. As a result, her presence was initially seen as strange, and she was ostracized. She suddenly had to fit into a group of people that had become at least passingly familiar with their fellow schoolmates throughout three whole years of middle school. That said, it’s not like the amount of students was small enough to the point where everyone knew everyone, but it made the concept of a “transfer student” feel particularly bizarre, even if it came at the relatively ideal time period of the transition between middle to high school. Kanna didn’t really pay the situation any mind at all. After all, she was a pretty reserved person and didn’t go out of her way to interact with others. There was a reason for that, just as there was a reason for her to be here at the school in the first place. And at first, that reason was her only priority. But there’s something to be said about finding a community where you could feel at home. Although Kanna had initially been ostracized, it didn’t take long for her image to change, and for her to be viewed as a valued member of the group, particularly in her own class. The result of this shift came about due to the influence of one particular student. “I think I’ll run for president in the student council elections.” declared Yamazaki, an upperclassman who Kanna had gotten to know through her after-school job. “You? I do not believe you have the type of leadership skills necessary at all.” Kanna smirked, as the two were walking back to the dorms one summer night. Although Kanna tended to give everyone the cold shoulder, she had slowly opened up to her upperclassman, intrigued by his kind demeanor and laidback personality. This very impression of him is why she couldn’t see him being very fitting of the role. “I mean, you never know right? If I win, I could do a ton to make this place even more fun.” Yamazaki grinned as he stared up at the stars in the sky. “Being president is not so simple a job, you know.” “Yeah, I don’t really like hard work.” he pondered, crossing his arms. Yamazaki’s laidback worth ethic had done nothing but annoy Kanna when they’d first met, but now she’d come to have some level of respect for his outlook on things. His sudden declaration had taken her aback at first, but now Kanna couldn’t help but wonder what kind of president he’d be if he did somehow manage to get the position. “Why aim for such a position in the first place? It is quite unlike you.” Kanna inquired. “Well, if I had to give a reason, it’s because… Well, I love this place.” Yamazaki answered, pausing to answer Kanna. The two now stood under a single streetlamp not far from the dorms. “This place is basically my home.” he continued, his face uncharacteristically serious. “It’s a place I want to protect. I think even a guy like me can accomplish something with feelings like that, right? Or maybe I’m just being too cheesy, haha.” This was the moment Kanna really began to understand the heart of this upperclassman she’d been interacting with so often. It was also the moment she realized that perhaps she’d taken her presence at Starlight Academy for granted. Kanna was here for a reason. Said reason is what drove her, and it’s something she took very seriously. But because that was all she had focused on at first, she didn’t pay much attention to the world around her. The space she occupied in the tiny community known as Starlight Academy’s eastern branch was something she had never considered. Befriending Yamazaki was not something she intended at all, but just a natural relationship that emerged through the coincidence of the two working the same job. A cold, detached girl, and a relaxed, easy-going guy who could get along with anyone. By putting this pair together, the future of this school was decided. That autumn, the student council elections occurred, and Yamazaki had dragged Kanna into helping his campaign. The two had formed a kind of duo, and they’d gained a fair amount of popularity around the school. It was around that same time when Kanna’s classmates began to open up to her, and soon, the whole class had become comfortable with her. She became a regular go-to for school-related advice thanks to her strict and studious personality, as well as her ties to the student council through her work with Yamazaki. Someone in the class randomly came up with the nickname Kan-chan, and it stuck. Kanna was no longer an outsider in her class, and she reached a point of getting along with everyone. Eventually, Yamazaki would be declared the winner of the student council election. The following April when Kanna became a second-year student, she formally joined the student council and worked as Yamazaki’s secretary. Yamazaki’s positive energy was infectious, and the student body loved him. His wit and relatable demeanor made his speeches more engaging, and the ways in which he handled school events were always well-received. He became an icon. Someone everyone looked up to. Kanna couldn’t even imagine that the lazy guy she got stuck at a job with could end up becoming so beloved. “I have decided. I shall run… for president.” Kanna declared. “Whoa, really?” Yamazaki replied, excited to hear it. It was now summer once again, and the two were alone in the student council room, finalizing plans for the school’s summer break. “I remember well the words we exchanged last year. When you had shared that this place is a home for you. I think such a sentiment is beautiful… Having a place to call home.” Kanna looked up at the ceiling, as if recalling a distant memory. Yamazaki could only smile at her. “You’re so mysterious, you know that?” he said, giggling to himself. “How so?” Kanna tilted her head. “Ever since I met you, you’ve always seemed, like… a little detached. And I think I get why.” “What do you mean?” a puzzled Kanna inquired. “This place is your home too, right?” smiled Yamazaki. “My home…” Kanna repeated. “… You are correct. Perhaps this place really is a home for me as well.” “That’s the spirit! I know you’ll do great… Future prez.” Yamazaki grinned. Realizing he was affirming her intention to run for president, Kanna simply smiled and nodded her head. “This home we love so much… I shall protect it as well!” she declared, proudly. In March of the following year, Yamazaki graduated from Starlight Academy. He would be leaving the east branch, never to return. But regardless, for six years of his life, the place was his home. Kanna, now taking on his position as student council president, would always remember what his presence did for her time here as well. His influence helped her take what could’ve been a dull, monotonous period of isolation in her life, and turn it into a period where she could enjoy herself and find a place to belong. A home. Third-year student and president of the student council, Kanna Kawagoe, will protect this place she calls home. --- “The culprit behind the recent magic beast attacks on campus… is you!” Kanna declared, pointing at Yuko with the tip of her spear. The body of a magic beast impaled by a large chunk of ice limped lifelessly off to the side as a baffled Yuko could only gaze at the girl floating above the water’s surface. It took her several moments to realize what was even said to her. “W-wait. Wait, wait wait. President, is that you? What’s going on? What do you mean by culprit? That thing almost attacked me!” Yuko frantically tried to understand the situation and explain herself, but her words fell on deaf ears. “Do not play dumb.” Kanna shook her head, descending lower until her feet reached the surface of the moonlit pond, causing a slight ripple. “You are the one who killed the magic beast that had appeared on Monday night.” “I… what?!” Yuko backed away, disturbed. “No! It… it attacked me! I didn’t do anything!” “So you do remember…” Kanna glared. “Huh? No! I only just now remembered! You have to believe me! I don’t know anything about what’s going on right now!” Yuko’s body shook as she screamed. “Do not lie to me… Do you take me for a fool?!” Kanna screamed angrily. From her perspective, Yuko’s frantic words only came off as rambling excuses that contradicted the current reality. “No… I…” Yuko was speechless. “Who exactly are you?” Kanna sternly questioned, approaching step by step atop the water’s surface. “How long have you infiltrated this school? Are you working for someone?” “What? Infiltrate…? I don’t… What are you saying?” Yuko backed away. She had no context to understand anything she was being asked. “I already told you.” Kanna sighed, stepping foot on actual ground for the first time and point her icicle spear directly at Yuko’s face. “Do not play dumb with me!” Yuko was paralyzed in fear. Her eyes crossed as she glanced at the reflection of her face on the surface of the sharp blade of ice before her. “Who am… I…?” Yuko had always hated that question. She couldn’t understand why Kanna would ask something like that now. “I-I… I’m…” Yuko stammered, trying to get the words out. “I’m… I’m Yuko Maeda!” she screamed, tears falling from her cheek, as she immediately turned around, bolting into the woods of Regal Park. “You will not escape!” Kanna shouted as she jumped up into the trees, giving chase. Yuko gasped for air and panted as she ran through the woods with all of her leg strength. She was probably running faster than she ever had in whole life. She wanted to escape; to get away from everything. She wanted to get away from Kanna, whose incomprehensible accusations scared her. She wanted to get away from the pond, where the traumatic memory of being mauled by an otherworldly beast resurfaced. And she wanted to get away from this entire situation that has been weighing on her mind and stressing her out. “Leave me alone!” cried Yuko after realizing she was being chased. Unfortunately, despite her best efforts, her speed didn’t help her get far. Kanna, who had been following closely behind, hopping from branch to branch in the trees above, swiftly dropped down in front of Yuko, halting her in her tracks. Yuko couldn’t stop herself fast enough and slipped on the dirt, falling face down into a thicket of leaves and branches. “Aaaugh!” Yuko squirmed in pain from her fall. “Pathetic.” mocked Kanna, approaching the disheveled Yuko. “You will not escape again.” Suddenly, Kanna released the spear she held, and it floated in front of her. Yuko lifted her head just in time to see the blade of ice shatter. Tiny ice crystals fell to the ground as what Yuko had initially thought was a spear began to glow, and a new shape of ice formed at the top, turning into a unique round pattern. Now resembling something more akin to a magic rod, Kanna grabbed the staff and spun it while chanting in some language Yuko didn’t recognize, before slamming it down into the grounded, where a huge flash of light erupted from it. Blinded by the light, Yuko covered her face with her arms. After a moment, the brightness had faded and she lowered her arms to view her surroundings. “H-huh…? What the…?!” Yuko was speechless as she gazed at the environment surrounding her. Instead of the green shrubbery and the dark wood of Rigel Park’s trees, Yuko had now found herself somewhere completely different. The ground beneath her, which was nothing but dirt and leaves a moment ago, was now soft white sand. The night sky above still featured what looked like shining stars, but there were far more than before, and they seemed much closer, with sizes that were all over the place. It was as if the sky were an artificial dome displaying a model of a complex star system, rather than being any kind of real sky. But most bizarre of all were the pillars of sharp ice rising from the sandy ground all over. Yuko looked left and right, but all she saw was a maze of ice pillars, all reflecting her bewildered face right back at her. Meanwhile, in front of her… stood Kanna. “This is my Magic Zone. I call it the Ice Planet.” Kanna stated. “There is no escape from this place without going through me. So give up and confess.” She demanded, pointing her staff at Yuko once more. “Th-this isn’t real… it can’t be.” Yuko held her head in her hands, unable to process anything happening right now. Kanna’s glare began to falter. After seeing Yuko with another magic beast earlier, she had thought it was all the proof she needed to pin Yuko as the culprit. She initially believed Yuko was trying to feign innocence, pretending she didn’t know about any of this. But the more she watched her reactions to the magic she was using, the more she started to realize that it was all honestly foreign and baffling to her. However… “You cannot be in the dark on this! That would make no sense!” Kanna shouted, the first hints of doubt coming through in her voice. “I don’t know what’s going on at all!” cried Yuko, tears streaming from her face as she curled up on the ground. “Huh?!” Kanna was baffled. She kept telling herself that it was an act and not to fall for it. But Yuko was falling apart in front of her, and she honestly had to begin considering a new approach. “Did I make a mistake…?” Kanna whispered to herself. “It seems… I must work out a solution later.” Realizing something was wrong, Kanna shifted priorities: Instead of confronting her with magic and forcing a confession, she’ll knock her out and take her somewhere else for questioning. Yuko doesn’t seem to be as much of a danger as she originally thought, but she still had to make sure to act with caution. In a flash, Kanna dashed behind Yuko and jabbed the back of her neck with the edge of her hand. “Kh…!” Yuko let out a small gasp as she toppled onto the ground, losing consciousness. “Unbelievable…” sighed Kanna. “Was she really just an ordinary student? But that makes so little sense… I shall figure this out later.” Kanna released her staff, wherein it disappeared after floating for a moment in midair. Kneeling down, Kanna began to lift up Yuko’s unconscious body. “For what reason was she out there again anyway…?” Kanna wondered. Although she had indeed intended to confront Yuko soon, it came as a shock to spot her at the pond again while on patrol, especially so late at night, and with another magic beast to boot. “Truly bizarre…” Kanna muttered, now having Yuko hoisted onto her back. “Well then. I suppose I shall dispel the Magic Zo-…. Hm?” Kanna realized it in a moment, but was too slow to react. “Gya-….! Aaaugh…!” Kanna couldn’t breathe. Why? Because Yuko’s hands had wrapped themselves around Kanna’s throat. “Hehehe… hehehehe…!” a low, husky laugh escaped Yuko’s lips as she squeezed the neck of her prey. Kanna immediately jabbed her elbow into Yuko’s stomach, and just barely managed to break herself out of her grasp before kicking Yuko away at full force. Her powerful kick knocked Yuko some distance away, sending her crashing into one of the pillars of ice, causing it to break apart from the impact. “Gwaaaugh! *cough* *cough* *gasp* Guh… Y-you…! You!!” Kanna was furious. After desperately catching her breath, she shouted with as much animosity as she could muster toward her foe. She knew something was wrong and immediately regretting showing Yuko any amount of sympathy. Surprisingly, Yuko didn’t seem particularly hurt after crashing into the ice. Broken shards lay at her feet all around the ground, and some scrapes and cuts were visible on her skin, but regardless, Yuko stood up as if it were a mild inconvenience. At that moment, she lifted her face and looked directly at Kanna. “What…?!” Kanna was confused. Kanna has had several interactions with Yuko Maeda before now. She had become familiar enough to know her face well. Of course, people had plenty of other defining traits as well, but Kanna was confident in being able to remember a face. So why was the face staring at her right now so unfamiliar? “Wh-who are you?!” was the only thing Kanna could think to ask, when confronted by the tired, deadly glare of the person in front of her who she’d thought was Yuko Maeda. After asking the question, Kanna squinted her eyes to get a more focused look. It’s not like Yuko’s facial structure had totally changed, it’s just the expression was something so different from what she had been used to seeing on Yuko that the person in front of her “felt” like a different person. Upon realizing this, Kanna felt a bit silly over the question she asked, but just as she started to think that, her foe has opened her mouth. “Who am I…?” the deep-voiced Yuko repeated. “Yuko Maeda… is probably not the correct answer.” She continued, staring at her own hand, which she opened and closed as if fascinated by the marvel of being able to move her own body. Kanna was speechless. She didn’t understand what was happening. But the one thing she realized above all else was that the person standing in front of her was “different” than who had been there just moments prior. “I see. The one on that camera feed was you.” Kanna spoke, as she once again materialized her staff, reforming its blade of ice, and holding a defensive position with the spear. The “Yuko” in front of her paid little mind to the weapon, and instead casually walked over to one of the pillars of ice. “So this is me…” she muttered quietly, looking at her reflection curiously. “Tell me…” Kanna was growing impatient. “What are you intentions?” she asked sternly, still in a defensive position. “My intentions… The reason I’m here now...” the other Yuko began, turning to face Kanna once again. “I suppose… it’s to kill you.” It took Kanna a moment to register what’d just been said to her, and in that moment, the other Yuko was already lunging straight at her. But Kanna was ready, and blocked the attack with the base of her staff before launching another kick at her assailant. Anticipating this, however, the other Yuko swiftly jumped out of the range of the kick, and began a roundhouse kick of her own as gravity pulled her down. He leg connected directly with Kanna’s side and launched her directly into a pillar of ice nearby, causing it to shatter. “Gah!” Kanna spat, having just barely softened the impact by coating her other side with ice before the kick made impact. Dispelling the ice from her own body just a moment later, Kanna’s staff glowed and she pointed the blade at the other Yuko. In that instant, the shattered fragments of the ice pillar that were scattered across the ground floated upward, before being flung toward the other Yuko like a reign of bullets. An attack like this cannot be dodged so easily! Kanna thought to herself, as the fragments of ice flew toward their target. However, something she couldn’t have expected suddenly occurred. “Hah!” the other Yuko shouted, holding her palm out toward the flying shards of ice. A dark, purpleish glow emanated from her hand when suddenly, shockwaves resonated in the air in front of her, causing every single fragment of ice flying toward her to plummet to the ground in an instant. “Gravity magic?!” Kanna shouted, in shock. “Impossible! Are you a dark magician?!” “Heh.” the other Yuko chuckled as she pointed her palm toward Kanna. With that, Kanna’s staff suddenly felt like it had weighed a ton, and Kanna was forced to drop it. “Damn it!” realizing that she was fighting another magic user, Kanna knew things were about to get a whole lot tougher. As soon as her staff slammed into the ground, she dashed to the side, and made sure to maintain a distance from the other Yuko. Gravity and weight manipulation are traits of dark magic: one of the two rare elements totally outside of the standard ranges of magic affinity. Running into such a magic user in a place like this is ridiculous! Kanna’s mind was racing a mile a minute trying to formulate a plan to deal with this situation. In all of her years using magic, any opportunities to even see dark magic used in person, let alone practice with a user of the craft, have been very few and far between. “Hmm…” the other Yuko lowered her hand, the faint purple glow dissipating from it as well. She then crouched, and began to dash toward Kanna. “Gh!” Kanna grimaced, before jumping backwards far into the air, dropping down into the maze of ice pillars to keep from her opponent’s line of sight. However, the other Yuko didn’t stop, continuing to dash toward the direction she’d seen Kanna fall, smashing to bits any ice pillars blocking her way. “How ruthless…” Kanna whispered, running around between various pillars, using her hearing to get a grasp on what direction the other Yuko was coming from. After gaining a sizable distance from the rampage, Kanna kept a firm grasp on which ice pillars were shattering where, and then kneeled down to the ground. A light blue aura emanated from her hand and into the ground around her. Staying focused, Kanna continued to carefully track the other Yuko’s location and always face in her direction. After a few moments, she could tell that the rampage had turned toward her direction. “Right this way…” Kanna muttered under her breath, sweat dripping from her brow. The sound of shattering ice grew closer and closer, until… “Got you!” Kanna shouted, placing more force onto the ground as the light of her aura flashed brightly. “Nnh?!” the other Yuko gasped, as new, sharp spears of ice shot up from the sand below. In that instant, the other Yuko’s skin and clothing were pierced. Deep red blood splattered across the clear surface of the ice. With that trap sprung, Kanna dashed forward to make her followup move. “Deep freeze!” Kanna shouted, her voice echoing across the vast wasteland of ice. She now stood in front of her injured foe and pointed her glowing palms directly at her. With that motion, the ice that had pierced the other Yuko began to expand, clinging to her body, and slowly encasing her limbs in ice. By the end of the whole process, the other Yuko was trapped in a huge block of ice that restricted both arms and both legs. Kanna stood by, staying on guard as she watched her frozen enemy. The other Yuko struggled a bit, but was naturally unable to move her arms or legs. After struggling a bit, she seemed to realize the situation and gave up on trying to move or break though the ice. Upon realizing this, Kanna let out a sigh of relief. “Finally… I have finally caught you.” Kanna muttered, wiping the sweat from her forehead. She had to perform some of her most precise magecraft without the use of her staff, so her stamina had been heavily drained. But to her, it was worth it in order to finally catch the culprit behind the magic beast attacks. The other Yuko merely watched her in silence. “Now that I have you restrained, let us converse, shall we?” Kanna said, carefully approaching her half-frozen captive. “What are your intentions? Why have you been releasing magic beasts in this place? You know the people here have no means to deal with such monsters!” The other Yuko merely stared at Kanna with her usual tired, blank expression. “Answer me! What are you planning by using those beasts?!” Kanna shouted, frustration starting to set in. After a moment, the other Yuko finally opened her mouth once more. “I told you. My only intention right now… is to kill you.” she muttered in a quiet, detached voice. “That is not what I am referring to! I mean the incidents before… Huh?” Kanna paused, stunned. Something was wrong. Kanna began to take several steps back, because… The ice was melting. “I’ve already told you...” The other Yuko began, reaching a wet leg out through the soft, melting ice. Surrounding her body, a dark aura pulsated, dancing like the flicker of a small flame. “Impossible… Fire magic?” Kanna muttered in disbelief. “My intention is to kill you. Anything else you’re asking me about…” the dark Yuko continued, stepping forward, totally free from her ice prison. “I don’t know, and don’t care.” “H-Huh? But…” Kanna couldn’t find any words. She struggled to process anything happening in this moment. How the hell is she using fire magic?! I thought she was a dark magician! No magician should be able to utilize an attribute outside of their range of affinity! This makes no sense at all! And what is this about not knowing?! Is she not behind the magic beast incidents after all? That cannot be! There can be no other culprit! Ugh, forget that for now. This situation just went from bad to worse! Kanna was an ice magician. Naturally, a magic user specializing in any type of fire or heat-based magic would be the worst matchup imaginable for her. Kanna was baffled. She made no mistake in her decision-making, even as the situation took this unexpected turn. She carefully made use of her “Ice Planet” Magic Zone, analyzed her opponent’s moves thoroughly, and came up with the best strategy she could to overcome her foe. So how did things turn out like this? Based on the skill displayed so far, if she has experience with fire magic as well, then I stand no chance. Even if I have more experience, it cannot compensate for the overwhelming disadvantage I have against her magic. Unfortunately, I have to abandon the situation and come up with a new plan. As the murderous Yuko slowly approached, Kanna had thought quickly and made her decision to flee. “Magic Zone dispel!” Kanna shouted, raising her hand to the sky. In an instant, the dome-like sky and its many lights shattered. The surrounding environment that had once been sand and ice as far as the eye could see was soon replaced with nothing but the quiet park at night; dirt, trees, and shrubbery all around. The sudden scene change caused the other Yuko to pause for just a moment, and in that instant Kanna jumped backwards a huge distance. “I’ll catch you!” whispered the murderous Yuko as she crouched down, prepared to give chase, when… “Gh?!” a hand had sharply jabbed the back of her neck, causing her to lose consciousness and fall, much like what happened to the regular Yuko prior. As she fell to the ground, the menacing aura surrounding her began to dissipate. Moments later, Kanna had returned to the scene. “Thank goodness.” she said, sighing. “I was unsure if she could still be rendered unconscious while in that state. Thankfully, you understood the situation after I dispelled my Magic Zone.” “I figured something must’ve gone wrong inside.” Kanna’s partner replied. “You were in the zone for quite a while. I know you prefer not to keep it up too long because it’s such a drain on your magic.” “Things quickly became complicated.” Kanna grumbled. “I had to perform some intense magecraft without my staff, on top of maintaining the zone. It has been ages since I was forced to push myself so hard.” “Seriously…?” the partner was taken aback, glancing at the unconscious Yuko on the ground. “I shall take her for now.” Kanna said, moving to lift Yuko’s limp body. “You can continue the patrol, or stand by. I leave it to your discretion.” “Understood.” her partner replied, vanishing back into the darkness of the woods. “Okay, Yuko… Let us go, shall we?” Kanna looked at the unconscious girl with a complicated expression, and began to carry her off somewhere. --- A lantern with a faint, orange glow hung from a wooden ceiling. Moths danced around the light as it flickered at irregular intervals. This was what entered Yuko Maeda’s line of sight as she opened her eyes. “Good, you have awoken.” a nearby voice spoke. Turning her head to see who was there, Yuko caught sight of the student council president, Kanna Kawagoe. “Ms. President…? Where am I?” asked a somewhat disoriented Yuko, rubbing her eyes with her sleeve and rising from what appeared to be a couch. “This is a storage shed located in Rigel Park.” answered Kanna. “I brought you here after what happened.” “After… what happened…?” repeated Yuko, trying to organize her thoughts and pin down what she could remember. Suddenly, images of a strange beast being skewered by ice entered her mind, as well as the distinct memory of a girl floating above the water in the pond. “Wh-what…? What was… all that?” Yuko brought her hands to her head, frightened. The outlandish memories didn’t seem real at all. Even after remembering them, Yuko couldn’t believe those fantastical mental images so easily. Just as she was beginning to panic, she felt another hand on hers. “Calm down.” Kanna said, with a hint of gentleness behind her usual cool demeanor. “We can work things out together. You need not fear me.” “B-but, you…” clearly nervous, Yuko looked Kanna up and down. Right now, Kanna was wearing her usual school uniform. The strange frilly armor from her memory was nowhere to be seen. Seeing her expression, Kanna realized what must’ve come to Yuko’s mind. “My magic armor, do you remember it? How much do you recall?” Kanna asked, still gripping Yuko’s hand. “Y-yeah, I remember that… You killed some kind of animal… And then pointed that spear at me… And I was so scared.” still trying to process everything, Yuko began to tremble. “You have my apologies, Yuko Maeda. I am truly sorry.” Kanna bowed her head to Yuko. “Ms. Presi… dent…?” whispered Yuko, on the verge of tears. Kanna lifted her head, and watched Yuko closely. Yuko was lost. Scared not only by the strange event she now recalled, but also by the continued lapses in her memory. Something was clearly wrong, and Yuko didn’t understand what was happening to her, or around her. Kanna, on the other hand, had started to form several basic theories for the current situation. Seeing the scared girl in front of her helped to confirm that something very wrong is going on, and that Yuko Maeda was, more than likely, just another victim of some sort. Several moments later, Yuko had begun to calm down enough to speak with Kanna in more detail. “The last thing I remember is running away from you. You asked who I was, so I yelled my name and ran…“ Yuko answered, after much thought. “Interesting.” Kanna noted. “That was still a little while before you actually lost consciousness.” “So once again, I’ve lost some memories…” Yuko gripped the hem of her skirt, staring down at the ground in frustration. Kanna merely watched, quietly, deep in thought. What should I say here? I cannot tell whether it is a good idea to inform her of the details of her counterattack. I am certain that even though the one who fought back at me was Yuko Maeda physically, that person was not Yuko Maeda mentally… “Ms. President, um… Can I ask you something?” Yuko faced Kanna with a pleading expression. “Of course, what is it?” “That… what did you call it? Magic armor? And the way you floated above the pond… That weird animal… What was all that? It was all so unbelievable.” even with what little she remembered, these key moments stood out to Yuko as incredibly bizarre, to the point where she at first doubted her own sanity. “Of course.” Kanna sighed, knowing she would have to explain herself eventually. “Normally, this information would never be shared with an outsider. However, I made a grave error, and appeared before you in that state due to my own mistaken assumptions.” Yuko merely tilted her head in response. She realized that Kanna was saying she had some kind of misunderstanding about her, but at this point she wasn’t sure what. The orange glow of the light continued to flicker in the dark storage room. “You see, the situation is somewhat complicated…” Kanna began. “I suppose I should start with myself.” With that, Kanna rose from the chair she had been sitting in. Gracefully, she bowed to Yuko, and then gave a salute. “My name is Canah Crygahl, member of the Second Special Task Force of the Alviquan Royal Knights. I am pleased to make your acquaintance.” “…” Yuko was speechless. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t understand. Was it a joke of some kind? Was she serious? Yuko could only stare in confusion. “Right. That alone does not explain much for someone like you, does it?” Kanna sat back down, softly chuckling at herself. “That was, however, the genuine introduction I would give another in this situation.” “I’m sorry. I don’t understand…” Yuko said, apologetically. “It is no issue. I do not expect this information to be easy to grasp.” Kanna waved her hand. “Also, despite giving you my true name, please continue to refer to me as Kanna, or Kawagoe, or Ms. President. Whatever you would prefer.” “R-right, um… Can I call you Kanna?” Yuko pleaded. “Of course.” Kanna nodded. “Now then, where to begin…” Bringing her hand to her chin, Kanna began thinking about the best way to express her situation to Yuko. “So, um… You said you’re a knight of some kind?” asked Yuko. “And what is Alviquan? It all sounds kinda strange, like something from a fairytale.” “I suppose it may come across as something like that.” Kanna smiled, amused at the comparison. “But it’s more like… Hmm… How about this? Yuko, have you heard of the parallel world theory?” “Um… maybe?” Yuko pondered thinking back on where she may have heard the phrase before. “Actually, I may have seen some discussion posts talking about that on the school internet. Some people were talking about a popular science fiction book that dealt with it!” “Right, I think I know the book.” Kanna nodded, remembering the book that had become popular around the east district about a year prior. “That book was a work of fiction, but it did address a hypothetical concept that has been discussed among people for years, I believe. You see, one variation of the parallel world theory is the many worlds interpretation. This is the version that book made use of.” “Many worlds interpretation…? Sorry, I didn’t read the book myself, can you explain it to me?” Yuko asked. “Hmm… Let us use a real world example. Yuko, what did you have for breakfast this morning?” “This morning? I ate with my friend Chisa. I just had bread with jam.” answered Yuko after thinking it over. “Is there any other breakfast food you would often choose to eat?” Kanna asked. “Um… Well, I do have rice sometimes.” answered Yuko, not sure what this line of questioning was getting at. “Okay.” Kanna clapped her hands. “On Wednesday, April 26th, you had bread for breakfast.” “Right.” Yuko nodded. “Now, hypothetically, what if there exists another world where you chose to have rice for breakfast instead on Wednesday, April 26th?” “Huh?” Yuko tilted her head in confusion. “That kind of thinking is one of the basic ideas behind the many worlds interpretation. Every decision made by someone could result in a new world in which that decision was made. In a sense, all possibilities are real, and have occurred in one world or another.” “Right…” Yuko folded her arms. “I kind of get it… I think?” “Okay.” Kanna nods. “To be clear, I personally do not know how realistic that theory is either. No one truly understands the full extent of the secrets of the universe.” “Then why even bring it up?” asked the confused Yuko. “I did so because it is one of many possible explanations for the existence of this place where I am right now.” Kanna stated, looking Yuko right in the eyes. “Huh…?” Yuko blinked. “At one point, thousands of years ago, something must have diverged.” Kanna continued. “As a result, this parallel world, with a totally different history from the world I know, came to exist.” “Wait, so, you mean…” Yuko began to understand what Kanna was saying. “From your perspective, I suppose it may be the other way around.” Kanna continued, placing a hand to her chest. “Indeed. I am not of this world. I come from a parallel world, home to the Kingdom of Alviquan.” “No way…” Yuko was taken aback. At first, Kanna’s claim seemed unbelievably outlandish, but slowly, things began to click into place in her mind. The bizarre creatures unlike anything she’d seen before, Kanna’s strange abilities that Yuko had seen when Kanna exterminated one of said creatures. Those otherworldly memories that caused her to doubt her sanity upon waking, it turns out, do indeed have to do with otherworldly forces after all. And Starlight Academy east branch’s student council president, Kanna Kawagoe, was a resident of that other world. [Chapter 3 END]

-Chapter 4- “So, uh… Did you get, like, any sleep last night?” Chisa asked Yuko, peering into her face from the side. It was the morning of Thursday April 27th, and Yuko had just let out a huge yawn as she and Chisa were in line to grab breakfast. “Yeah… I didn’t sleep much, sorry to say.” Yuko replied with a wry grin. “C’mon, you really should take better care of yourself, Yuko!” lectured Chisa, patting her friend on the head affectionately. She knew Yuko’s had a rough week, but also figured the most she can do is try to be there for her. As the two made it to the counter, they had to ask the cooking club member behind the desk what breakfast food they’d like. “Bread or rice, huh… A single choice and the world changes.” Yuko mumbled to herself. “What was that?” Chisa inquired. “Oh, no, it’s nothing!” Yuko replied, waving off her friend. Yuko remembered the conversation she’d had with Kanna Kawagoe the night before… It was the middle of the night, and the two girls had exited the cramped storage room, getting some fresh air under the starry night sky. “I am aware this all may be a lot to take in.” Kanna stated, realizing how she may be coming across to Yuko. “There is simply too much to tell at once, it would likely be overwhelming. Plus it is already this late. We both have duties to attend to tomorrow.” “Yeah…” Yuko responded. “It’s not that I don’t believe you. It’s just a lot to think about right now.” “I understand.” Kanna faced Yuko. “Listen, Yuko. I am sorry you have become involved in this situation. But even I do not understand to what extent your role is. All I ask is that you trust me, and we can determine the truth together.” Kanna reached her hand out toward Yuko. “…” Yuko hesitated. “So, you’re saying all this other world stuff really does involve me?” “Yes.” Kanna answered flatly. “Once I understand more, I will help uncover the reason behind your loss of memory.” Although Yuko was leaning more toward the probability of there being more merits to Kanna’s claims than otherwise, she still held a degree of skepticism about the whole thing, and still didn’t understand how such a situation ended up involving her. Regardless, she could tell Kanna was being genuine, and having an ally in this situation was better than being left alone, lost and confused. And so… “Okay.” Yuko said, finally taking Kanna’s hand. “I’ll trust you.” As the two shook hands, a small smile formed on Kanna’s face. Looking back, the situation was totally bizarre, but Yuko was glad she made the choice she did. “Hey, did you hear me?” Chisa asked from the other side of the table. “Oh, sorry. I was spacing out.” Yuko apologized. “I was saying I don’t have club today, so we should hang out! You’re off from the café today too, right?” “Yeah, sounds fun! Though, I may actually want to take a nap this afternoon if I’m still this tired later.” Yuko said meekly. “Well, whatever you think is best.” Chisa said, chowing down on her breakfast. The two friends finished eating, and then headed off to school as per usual. At the front gate, members of the student council were once again standing by and welcoming the students. Of course, Kanna was there as well. As Yuko and Chisa passed through the gates, Yuko and Kanna gave each other a nod as they passed by one another. Taking note of this, Chisa couldn’t help by comment. “What was that? Not scared of the prez this morning?” she teased. “We, uh, worked things out, sort of.” Yuko smiled back, nervously. “Ohhh?” Chisa smirked in suspicion, before letting it go. She knew if it was something Yuko wanted to tell her, she would. The two entered the school building and another ordinary day of classes began to unfold. In the midst of this common everyday routine, in the back of her mind, Yuko could only worry about her strange circumstances. --- The day flew by in a flash. School was over, and crowds of students were all making their way to places like clubs or jobs. In the school entryway, Yuko Maeda was apologizing to her friend Chisa. “Sorry, I can’t hang out today after all. I have to go meet with someone.” Yuko apologized. “Don’t worry about it. But what, is it the student council again?” Chisa asked. “Yeah…” “Jeez, they really should just leave you alone. You only broke curfew the one time.” grumbled Chisa. “Oh, no, it’s really not a bother at all! They aren’t being overly confrontational or anything!” Yuko waved her hands, before recalling being attacked by Kanna the night prior. Okay, maybe there are a few unnecessary confrontations going on, but that’s different! Shaking her head, Yuko faced Chisa confidently. “Anyway, don’t worry! I’m actually helping them out with a bit of a problem right now. It’s not like I’m in trouble.” Yuko reassured. “If you say so.” Chisa gave in, wearing a bit of a worried smile. “Just stay safe, and don’t let anyone push you around, got it?” “Of course.” Yuko nodded with a smile. The two friends said their goodbyes and Yuko turned back into the school, climbing the stairs to head towards the student council office. After knocking on the door she could hear a brief “come in” from the other side. Obeying the familiar voice, she slowly set foot into the room. Inside, it was the same as it was during her last visit. Once again, Kanna sat alone at the desk on the opposite side of the room. “It’s just you again.” Yuko commented. “What about the other council members?” she asked, taking a seat in one of the chairs at the room’s center. “They are not involved. They are wonderful companions for matters related to running the school, but for a subject like this, I opt for privacy.” Kanna flatly explains. “I see.” Yuko responds. “So, uh… You wanted to see me?” “Correct.” nods Kanna. It happened earlier during lunch. While Yuko was alone at a table with her food, waiting for Chisa to arrive just behind her, Kanna approached suddenly, asking to meet here after school. Knowing it’d probably be a continuation of their discussion the night before, Yuko obliged. Thus, the two girls met alone in the student council room. Kanna soon began the discussion. “I shall begin with the core predicament we are trying to deal with.” she began. “You are aware of the new curfew system implemented at the start of the week, correct?” “Yeah.” Yuko answered. “It was implemented Monday, which kind of threw my whole routine out of sorts. I ended up missing the curfew and decided to rest at the park before heading back. That’s when…” Yuko paused. Kanna picked up on where she left off. “That was when the magic beast attacked, correct?” “Right.” nodded Yuko. “But until last night, I totally forgot all about it for some reason. Even now, I still don’t remember how the whole thing resolved…” “…” Kanna contemplated quietly. Having viewed the security cameras, she knew that it was Yuko herself who had killed the magic beast, thus dealing with the situation on her own. But after her encounter the previous night, she was made intimately aware that the person responsible for that was not in fact ‘this Yuko’, but rather some other personality of sorts that also resides inside Yuko. And for some reason, this ‘other Yuko’ was skilled in magic usage much like that used in Kanna’s home world, Alviquan. “Putting that aside for now…” Kanna decided to dodge the subject for the moment. “The reason I implemented the curfew system, despite the inconvenience to the various clubs and workplaces, was due to an increasing number of incidents that had been occurring.” “Oh, right…!” Yuko said, realizing. “The wild animals the teachers have mentioned! Were those attacks all magic beasts?” “Correct.” answered Kanna. “Three weeks ago, I visited the first victim in the clinic personally. I am still new to this position as student council president, and the safety of the students is a priority of mine. So, needless to say, I was shocked when I detected traces of magic from the wound of the injured student.” “What do you mean by detecting magic?” Yuko asked. “This, right here.” Kanna pulled a small blue gem from her pocket. “This is a magic crystal. The primary purpose of the stone is to stabilize my magic usage, but it can also be used to detect or track magic power. I tend to carry one with me. When I visited the bedridden student, it reacted. That was when I realized something was amiss.” “I see…” Yuko responded, gazing at the shining gem. “I came to this school two years ago. I am a member of a special division formed to gather information on this other world. Your world. So, I quietly lived here as a student for two years. Discovering that magic beasts, creatures native to my world, were somehow appearing here and attacking students was a huge shock.” “This whole other world stuff is still so unbelievable to me…” Yuko said, dropping her head. “I do not blame you for being doubtful.” Kanna lowered her gaze. “Students at this school dream of the world beyond the campus, but even in such a small community, the idea that a parallel world exists is mere fantasy.” The two sat in silence for a moment. The orange rays of the slowly setting sun beamed in through the window. --- While Yuko and Kanna were engaged in their discussion in the student council office, Chisa Ando had decided to make use of her free afternoon to go visit a certain someone at the clinic. It didn’t take her long to arrive, and after checking in at the clinic’s front desk, Chisa had found herself in front of a room labeled the ‘special patients’ room. “Excuse me.” Chisa whispered in a quiet voice while opening the door slowly and peeking in. One student inside who worked as an assistant nurse nodded to Chisa, and after letting out a small breath of relief, she entered the room. She passed by the beds of a few others until she reached the bed in the back by the window. “Hey Honda, how are you doing?” Chisa said gently to the girl in the bed. The girl’s leg was in a cast, and she had numerous bandages all over her body for various recovering cuts and gashes. The girl, who’d been staring vacantly out the window, slowly turned her head to Chisa. “Ah… it’s Ando today.” the girl Honda spoke in a distant voice. “Yeah, it’s me.” Chisa spoke, trying to smile as she sat in the seat beside the bed. “Hey, club’s been going really well. Someone else may have told you, but we’ve chosen to work on the play you suggested at the start of the year!” “I heard…” Honda furrowed her brow. Honda was a 2nd-Year student, making her Chisa’s upperclassman. With her bright demeanor and sociable personality, Honda was one of the first members of the theater club to make all of the new 1st-Years like Chisa feel welcome, on top of already being a familiar face for the 3rd-Years. She was the perfect mediator, and friends with everyone. Of course now, that bright and cheerful Honda feels like a thing of the past. “We’ve all been working really hard!” Chisa continued, trying to convey how the club’s been managing without her. “Next month we’re going to start picking out parts, and begin preparing to perform!” “Shut up…” whispered Honda, in an almost inaudible voice. “Hm? What was that?” Chisa asked, having not heard her. “I don’t want to hear it!” screamed Honda. “I don’t want to hear about you all having fun with that play I love while I’m stuck like… like this!” she lifted the bed sheet, fully exposing her cast-covered leg. “I-I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” Chisa bowed, realizing how what she’d been saying could be taken as rather cruel to mention at a time like this. “I hate this… I hate this! How am I supposed to be able to act or dance on stage again… With my leg like this?!” Honda teared up. “…” Chisa stayed silent. She knew Honda’s worst injury was on her leg. All she’d heard was that some kind of animal attacked Honda when she was alone one night after finishing up club. Was the injury really so severe that her leg couldn’t recover? Chisa could only wonder. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize your injury was that bad…” Chisa tried to apologize. “I didn’t think some wild animal could hurt you so…” “That was no animal!!!” Honda interrupted, screaming madly. Baffled, Chisa could only stare at her clubmate who began to curl up, placing her hands on her head, her eyes wide and unfocused. “Th-that thing… It was no animal… A monster… It was a monster!! Aaaauuugh!!” screamed Honda, recalling the trauma of being attacked by the unknown creature. Chisa was at a loss at how to react in this kind of situation. All she felt was the deep sorrow of seeing someone who was once so bright and cheerful reduced to such a state. Suddenly, two of the student nurses rushed to her side. One quietly informed Chisa that it’d be better for her to leave for today. “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry.” Chisa apologized profusely, both to Honda and the nurses, as she left the room. As she closed the door, Honda’s wails and screams about a monster could be heard from the other side. Soon, Chisa ran from the area, unable to handle it anymore. Several minutes having passed, Chisa now found herself standing in a hall on the other side of the clinic, spacing out. She could only think back to the strange reaction from her traumatized clubmate. “A monster…” she whispered. “What could possibly have done this to her…?” --- “So, uh… What exactly are magic beasts anyway?” Yuko asked, breaking the brief silent tension back in the student council office. “To explain that, first I must clarify one thing.” began Kanna. “Here in this world, on planet Earth, magic as I know it does not exist.” “Huh? But how? I saw you use it, didn’t I?” Yuko asked, confused. “Of course.” Kanna nodded. “That is only natural. I am not of this world. Just because I came to this place does not mean I lose the ability to use magic. When I say that magic does not exist on planet Earth, what I mean is that human beings and other living creatures here, as far as I can tell, have no capacity to utilize it.” “So when you said you detected magic on the first victim, that’s how you knew the attack had something to do with things from your world?” “Correct.” answered Kanna. “I do not know why, but ages ago in the history of my home world of Alviquan human beings, and even some animals, developed the means to utilize magic power. Whatever caused this appears to have never occurred in the history of your planet Earth.” “I see.” Yuko answered, starting to understand. “As for magic beasts, while animals in Alviquan that can utilize magic do exist, magic beasts are another thing entirely. They are basically monsters. They do originate from various animals of some kind, but overexposure to magic deforms their body, crystalizes their flesh, and turns them into ravenous, violent creatures like the one you encountered. They are considered high-threat dangers by us Magic Knights.” “I think I get it now…” Yuko says. “But then, how are some of them ending up here?” “Right…” Kanna lets out a sigh. “Naturally, that is what I wish to discover as well.” “Oh, so you don’t know…” “Did you expect me to?” Kanna lightly chuckled. “If I knew the source of the magic beasts, I would have dealt with the problem by now.” Kanna shrugged, shaking her head. “So I take it this is what you want my help with…” Yuko said, beginning to understand the big picture. “That’s also why you…” “Yes. I did briefly believe you were the culprit.” Kanna admitted. “But why though?!” Yuko slammed the table. “That’s what I still don’t get! If I was just another victim, why suspect me?!” Yuko’s frustration from how Kanna had treated her previously came pouring out. “…” Kanna faltered in response to this. The topic came back around to the one thing she still held doubts about. Kanna still didn’t have a full grasp on the situation, or what the ‘other Yuko’ even is. But, Kanna also knew Yuko deserved to at least know some of the truth. Choosing to continue hiding the full truth, she responds. “Monday night at Rigel Park, I discovered the mutilated body of a magic beast. The next morning, when I heard you were there, I thought I had found my culprit. After all, in Alviquan it is not uncommon for foolish beast tamers to try controlling a magic beast and fail. Such a situation was something I had hoped for, in order to pin point the culprit behind this.” Kanna flatly answered. “Wha-?!” this revelation shocked Yuko. “I-I wouldn’t be able to do something like that! Besides, you said humans from Earth can’t even use magic, so why suspect me?” “If magic beasts are appearing in this world, would one not consider the possibility that sinister forces from my home are infiltrating this place for their own purposes? I am sorry to say, but my home is not entirely a united place.” explained Kanna. “For all I knew, you could have been a spy from Alviquan much like myself.” “I… I guess.” Yuko slumped, still not satisfied. “But you don’t suspect me anymore, right?” “Correct.” Kanna nodded. “I find it highly unlikely for you to be involved in this.” Just as Yuko was letting out a sigh of relief, Kanna spoke up once more. “However…” she began. “What were you doing at the park again last night?” “Huh?” Yuko asked, confused. “What do you mean? You’re the one who sent me that letter asking to meet there, right?” “What?!” Kanna rose from her seat. “Ah! Wh-what is it?” Yuko jerked back, startled from Kanna suddenly standing up. “I did not hear anything about this! Where is this letter?!” Kanna walked over to Yuko. “Oh, uh, I think I still have it here in my bag. I was actually going to ask you about it too…” Yuko said as she rummaged around in her bag, eventually finding the letter and pulling it out. Taking the letter, Kanna opened it up and began reading. “This is…” she whispered. “This must be from the true culprit!” “Th-the culprit?” Yuko stuttered. “But then, what does that mean…?” “It means…” Kanna turned to face Yuko with a grave expression. “It must mean that the culprit is targeting you, Yuko.” --- Back at the clinic, Chisa had found herself in the main lobby once more. She’d wandered down several halls in a daze, before one of the other nurses got her attention and had her return to the lobby. Still, Chisa was filled with worry. “This school year is off to such a strange start…” Chisa mumbled to herself after sitting down, staring up at the white ceiling. It’s not as though Chisa and Honda were particularly close. They’d only known each other a few weeks. But Chisa and all the other 1st-Years in the theater club looked up to her, and felt comfortable in the club thanks to her efforts. It’d been a bit over a week since Honda’s injury, and the members of the theater club were working extra hard just for her sake. They all expected Honda to eventually return, cheerful as ever, and praise them for everything they’ve done. But after actually seeing her, Chisa realized that such an ideal future may not come. “Honda… and Yuko too…” Chisa whispered. Of course, her theater clubmates weren’t the only ones on Chisa’s mind. Her close friend Yuko was dealing with some trouble as well. Bizarrely missing curfew, coming to school in a torn uniform, hostilities with the student council… And yet, Yuko hadn’t opened up about very much to her yet, leaving Chisa a bit in the dark. “Just what is going on here…?” Chisa wondered aloud, before noticing someone passing by in the lobby. “Huh?!” she reacted, before standing up. “Hey! Mr. Taniguchi!” Chisa called out to the adult male teacher, who stood out like a sore thumb. “Hm? Oh, Ms. Ando from class B…” the teacher responded after turning to see who’d called out to him. Upon seeing him face her, Chisa also realized that he was carrying a relatively large bouquet of flowers. “I’m surprised to see you in a place like this, teach.” Chisa said, walking over to his side. “What’re the flowers for?” “These? They’re for the injured students in the special patients’ room. Victims of the recent animal attacks.” he answered, looking down at the bouquet he held. Chisa was a bit surprised by his response. “Really? Do you know one of the victims or something?” Chisa asked. There were only a few other people in the room besides Honda, but she didn’t recognize any of them as a 1st-Year. Meaning Taniguchi most likely isn’t the teacher of any of them, at least not at present. “I taught some of them last year.” he answered, looking away. “I see.” Chisa nodded. “Hey, do you know Honda?” “Honda? Why, yes I believe I did teach her last year.” Taniguchi tilted his head, trying to remember. “You see, she and I… Um, well, we’re both in the same club. Anyway, she’s really not doing well… It seems the attack really messed her up. She keeps going on about monsters or something, haha.” Chisa laughed nervously. “Sorry, I don’t know why I’m talking to you about this.” She began to tear up. “It’s no problem.” he answered, patting Chisa on the shoulder. “Haha.” Chisa chuckled behinds her tears. “You know, I always thought you were kind of gloomy, but you’re actually pretty nice.” “Gloomy?” Taniguchi scratched the back of his head. “Well… the students tend to get frustrated easily in my classes. I think I just tire easily.” “Haha, right? I can’t think of a single one who really enjoys math!” Chisa said, finally smiling again. “Much to my dismay.” Taniguchi grinned with a wry expression. “Anyway, sorry to keep you!” Chisa bowed. “Thanks for stopping to talk, teach!” “Of course. Do take care, Ms. Ando.” The teacher bowed in turn, before turning to head toward the special patients’ room. Chisa let out a sigh. Mr. Taniguchi is far from her favorite teacher, but seeing a familiar face and getting to open up to him a bit was just what she needed to help clear a bit of the negative fog that’d started to cloud her mind. Besides, with so few adults around, Chisa had a strange fascination with the few there were. Of course, she and everyone else in class 1-B loved their homeroom teacher Ms. Yamagata. She was kind and open with everyone, to the point where she didn’t even feel like a teacher at times. But as much as Chisa despised math, seeing a mature, organized adult like Mr. Taniguchi, who didn’t really seem to connect with the younger students around him, had always made Chisa feel a bit curious. “I hope I can be a cool adult someday like those two.” Chisa sighed, thinking of her teachers. Now in a better mood, Chisa soon left the clinic. Of course, concerns over Honda and Yuko were still in the back of her mind. But Chisa’s number one method for dealing with tough situations like this is to just let them be. Chisa made a point to grab a crepe from the sweets shop before returning back to the dorms. --- “Wait, so the letter wasn’t from you?!” Yuko was shocked, as she and Kanna sat face-to-face, the aforementioned letter on the table between them. “Correct.” Kanna nodded. “I did intend to make contact with you soon to try and clarify the situation. But when I spotted you on my late-night patrol, and with another magic beast to boot, I believed I had caught my suspect red-handed.” Kanna then placed her hand on the letter on the table. “But this changes everything.” she continued. “The culprit intentionally drew you out. Meaning that you are someone they are targeting specifically.” “Why though?!” Yuko was distraught. The weird circumstances of late were difficult enough, but to know someone was out there trying to hurt her, or worse, made her feel truly scared. “I have no idea.” Kanna grimaced. “The other victims had never received anything like this. They were all attacked randomly. Furthermore, I can see no relation between any of them, let alone any connection to you.” “Wh-what should I do…? Kanna…” Yuko looked at Kanna in desperation. She was fully aware that Kanna was her only ally at the moment. “We must devise a plan.” Kanna crossed her arms in thought. “If the culprit really is targeting you for some reason, then… I hate to suggest it, but we must use you as bait to lure them out.” “So you’re willing to put me in danger?!” Yuko was starting to get upset. “Of course not!” shouted Kanna, placing her hand to her chest. “I will personally protect you! That, I promise!” “… Thank you.” after hesitating for just a moment, Yuko took a deep breath before thanking Kanna. She realized getting worked up in this situation would only make things more difficult. She didn’t know anything about magic beasts, Kanna’s supposed other world, or this mysterious culprit that may be after her. But right now, she knew she could depend on Kanna. “Okay…” after thinking for a few moments, Kanna spoke up once again. “There are several things I want to be certain of, but will require more time. Furthermore, I want you by my side. Could you join me on my patrol tonight?” “O-oh, um…” Yuko was briefly taken aback. “Your patrol? What do you normally do?” “Last week, after realizing all the magic beast attacks happened late at night, I began to patrol, along with my partner. All we partake in is taking a stroll around the whole district, keeping watch for any magic beasts.” “Wait, partner?” Yuko’s curiosity peaked. “Ah, right.” Kanna suddenly realized. “I have not yet mentioned my partner to you. You see, I was not sent here alone. There is one more magic knight in this district with me.” “Shouldn’t you introduce me to that person, then?” asked Yuko. “Sorry.” Kanna shook her head. “My partner knows of you, as well as our present situation, but has chosen to stay hidden. We both have decided I will be the only one to contact you directly, as a special exception. Remember, normally an outsider like you should never know of us.” “I suppose that makes sense…” Yuko sighed, giving up. Still, knowing she had at least one other ally hidden is the shadows was somewhat reassuring. “Anyway,” continued Kanna. “I will come to your dorm room tonight around 10PM. I would like to check something before we leave to patrol. Would that be okay?” “Sure, that’s fine.” replied Yuko, thinking she didn’t really have much of a choice regardless. “Excellent.” Kanna smiled, rising from her seat. Turning around, she saw the sun taking a final dip beyond the horizon. “It appears our talk has lasted quite a while. I suppose we shall end things here. I will see you tonight.” “Right. And, um… thank you for everything.” Yuko bowed. If the situation really was as dire as they’d deduced, then Kanna’s help was essential. Yuko could only think to express her gratitude. As she left the room, Yuko leaned against the wall and let out a deep sigh. She lifted the palm of her hand to meet her low gaze. “Just what the heck have I gotten myself involved in…?” Bizarre magic powers, conflicts and monsters from another world... Yuko couldn’t wrap her mind around any of it at all. And yet, this was the reality she found herself forced to confront. --- “Ah…” “Oh…” In front of the student dorms, about an hour before curfew, Yuko and Chisa happened to run into one another. “Wow, the council kept you this late, Yuko?” Chisa broke the silence, trying to smile. “It was a bit of a long talk, yeah.” Yuko scratched the back of her head. After the brief exchange of words, the two friends entered the dorms together. As they walked toward the elevator, Chisa once more broke the silence. “Hey, you’re really doing okay now, right?” she asked. “Yeah, of course, why do you ask?” Yuko looked at her friend, realizing she was probably making her worry. “Well, you know…” started Chisa. “You used to get sick all the time, even though it looked like you were starting to finally get better in middle school.” “Right…” Yuko hung her head, thinking about the old days. “But more than anything, this week has just been weird. You blacking out Monday night, the back and forth with the council… I feel like you haven’t really given me the full picture, so I’m worried.” “I know… I’m sorry.” Yuko apologized as the two stepped onto an elevator alone. “Well, um… And this is just something else I have going on. But remember that nice girl in the theater club I told you about the other week? The one named Honda?” “I think so. What about her?” Yuko asked. “You see…” Chisa hesitated. “She got really hurt last week. Apparently from one of those animal attacks.” Yuko’s eyes went wide, not expecting the subject of the ‘animal attacks’ to come up at a time like this. She’d only just talked about it with Kanna, the truth that these attacks were being done by otherworldly ‘magic beasts’ at the behest of some unknown mastermind. She never dreamed that someone Chisa knew could’ve been one of the victims of those attacks… “She was always one of the brightest stars in the club.” Chisa continued. “But when I saw her today, her spirit was totally gone. Apparently, her leg was hurt really badly… I don’t know the details, but it may not fully heal.” “Oh no…” Yuko was at a loss for words. “She liked acting of course, but she really prided herself in being able to dance on stage as well. It seems there was a big show last year where she performed an amazing dance sequence in a play.” The elevator stopped, and opened up to the floor that both girls’ rooms were on. They both stepped into the hallway. “Anyway…” Chisa shook her head. “Sorry to unload that on you. But seeing her today just made me feel so small, like nothing I do can change anything, but…” Chisa placed her hand on Yuko’s shoulder and smiled. “If you ever need me, Yuko, I’m always here.” Yuko was moved. It was true that she’d been keeping Chisa in the dark, but everything going on was so fantastical, Yuko wasn’t sure how to even address it. But despite that, her close friend could tell something was wrong, and Yuko had inadvertently just left her be to worry alone. “Thank you.” Yuko responded, taking Chisa’s hand. “I know I’ve made you worry, but soon I’ll tell you as much as I can! I promise!” “Yeah.” Chisa nodded. “Just be safe, okay?” she gave one more big smile. “I will!” Yuko nodded back with her own bright smile. --- It was late at night, the clock about to strike 10. After her discussion with Chisa, Yuko had already eaten dinner and bathed. Normally around this time, she would’ve changed into her usual pink rabbit pajamas to relax the rest of the evening away with either TV or the computer. Perhaps study if an important test were around the corner. But alas, said pajamas were still hung up on the wall by her closet. Yuko knew she’d be going out again, so she once more donned her school uniform. Just as the program on TV, a series of random comedy skits filmed by old students, was winding down, Yuko heard a quiet knock at her door. She turned off the TV and approached the door, opening it to find Kanna Kawagoe, as expected. “Good evening.” the student council president said, as she made her way into Yuko’s room. “Sorry it’s a bit messy. I tidied up as much as I could.” conveyed the slightly embarrassed Yuko. “It is no problem.” Kanna didn’t seem bothered at all. “So, uh…” Yuko began, still feeling a bit strange having someone like Kanna in her own room. “What did you want to do in here before we head out?” “I wish to confirm something.” Kanna answered, opening the small pouch she carried. “First, you must strip.” “… What?” Yuko froze, narrowing her eyes. I’m getting a major sense of déjà vu right about now… Yuko suddenly remembered the time she had to change out of her torn uniform in front of Kanna two days earlier. “I plan to use this.” Kanna presented a clear, flat, oval-shaped gemstone from her pouch. “This is an elemental crystal. It can be used to measure magic affinity. We are lucky I happened to have this on hand.” “Huh? But why? Are we using that on me? But I can’t use magic!” Yuko’s confusion grew. “Normally that would be the case, true.” Kanna continued. “But you still cannot remember what happened after the magic beast attacked you, yes? I have a theory that some kind of magic may have awoken within you at that moment.” Kanna was feigning a half-truthful explanation to convince Yuko. In truth, Kanna already knew that the ‘other Yuko’ was more than capable of utilizing magic. This was just a test to see how much of that power extended to the ordinary girl in front of her. Considering she was still unsure of the nature of Yuko’s dual-personality, checking something like this to better understand Yuko as a whole was important. “Seriously?” Yuko asked, bewildered. “I am serious.” Kanna answered. “When I met you Tuesday morning, your body was completely clean, with no sign of any injuries at all, despite being attacked by a magic beast. That could be explained if you had latent magic power, since that power accelerates the healing of wounds.” “W-well, I guess you’re right, but…” Yuko narrowed her eyes. “That means you’re going to get another eyeful of my body, huh?” “Huh?” Kanna blinked. It was a kind of response she didn’t expect. “Why is it that you’re always asking me to take off my clothes anyway?” Yuko pouted, starting to blush in embarrassment. “Ah…!” Kanna, who had remained rather oblivious to Yuko’s embarrassment in prior situations, suddenly realized how she may have been coming across. “P-please do not misunderstand, Yuko Maeda! I-I simply require it. Rather, in this case I need to use the elemental crystal in conjunction with other magic crystals, and they all must be touching your skin! That’s just how magic is!” Yuko simply gave Kanna a suspicious glare, trying to hide her embarrassment. “Listen, we are both women here.” Kanna continued, trying to sound more rational. “It is no big deal. Even when we spoke in the bath before, we were both in the nude! This situation should be no… different…” Kanna slowly realized she wasn’t really helping her case. As the memory of that prior confrontation in the bath returned to the forefront of Yuko’s mind, her face suddenly got even redder. She was distraught at the time so it didn’t really register in the moment, but Kanna did pin Yuko to the wall. Their naked bodies were very close, almost pressed together. Upon recalling those details, Yuko’s embarrassment grew to the point where it was easy to imagine a poof of smoke appearing over her head with how much she was blushing. “No different... from a situation like that? Where we’re both naked, right up against each other?” Yuko’s accusatory glare pierced Kanna. “Do not misunderstand me!!” Kanna frantically tried to explain. As she did, Yuko continued to flail around in embarrassment for just a bit longer, her imagination spiraling out of control. --- A little while later, despite her protests, Yuko had found herself lying down on her own bed, totally naked aside from her underwear. The clear elemental crystal was placed on her chest, while she held a standard magic crystal in each hand, with another two on each of her thighs, one on her abdomen, and another on her forehead. “Okay…” Kanna started speaking. “I showed you these magic crystals before. They are used for both stabilizing and tracking magic. From here, I will use my own magic to channel their ability to detect magic energy within you, and guide that energy to the elemental stone at your core.” “Sure, okay…” replied Yuko, feeling embarrassed to be exposed in front of Kanna in this manner once again. Noticing Yuko’s embarrassment, Kanna could only glance to the side to hide her own. “Right.” Kanna held her hand out before her, conjuring up her magic staff from before and taking it in hand. “I shall be quick.” The staff began to glow with energy as she pointed it at Yuko. Just a moment later, all of the magic crystals on Yuko’s body began to glow. “Ahn…!” a small sound briefly escaped Yuko’s lips as she felt a tingling on her skin from the magic power. Soon, her whole body began to feel as though it was heating up. It was as though a vague force was starting to swirl inside of her. “I-is this… magic? But… how?” Yuko whispered between her increasingly heavy breathing. She resisted the urge to move her body around so that the crystals don’t fall. Regardless, she couldn’t help but tremble just a bit. “It is my magic. It has entered the crystals, which are now scanning your body.” explained Kanna. “Please just bear with it. I’m directing the flow now. If there is indeed native magic within you, it shall become clear in a moment.” A faint light enveloped Yuko’s body, before shrinking down and circling into the gem on her chest. Soon, the magic crystals no longer glowed, and the light now only came from the lone elemental crystal. “Completed.” Kanna let out an exhausted sigh as she dematerialized her staff, putting it away. “Now, let’s see.” Kanna approached Yuko, leaned down on the bed to get a close look at the state of the gem on her chest. Yuko, who was still breathing heavily from the prior sensation, began to blush with Kanna so close to her again. The clear, glowing crystal on her heaving chest slowly changed color, until… “Your affinity… is fire.” Kanna declared, looking at the orangeish-red glow from the gem. She was a bit surprised. She did know that when fighting the ‘other Yuko’ before, that fire magic was suddenly used towards the end, but it had seemed like dark magic was more her specialty. Of course, utilizing both shouldn’t have been possible to begin with, but still… While Kanna pondered what this could mean, she heard a quiet voice beneath her. “O-okay, but Kanna…” squeaked Yuko in a small voice. “Ah…” Kanna was so focused on the crystal and its implications that she didn’t realize the way in which she was leaning over Yuko, whose large chest was directly in front of her face. “M-my apologies! I, I did not intend to…!” panicking, Kanna desperately tried to lift herself up, but… “Ah!” slipping on a corner of the bedsheet that laid on the floor, Kanna tripped and fell forward instead. Her fall was cushioned by Yuko’s sizeable bosom, wherein she landed… face first. Despite the soft sensation pressing against her face, Kanna couldn’t process the turn of events at all, and was frozen solid. “Eek! KANNA!” embarrassed, Yuko shoved the frozen ice knight off of her and covered her chest. “D-don’t be such a weirdo!” “… My apologies.” the ashamed Kanna muttered, now face-down on the floor. The awkward events that had just unfolded in Yuko’s dorm room were probably unimaginable to the many other students in the district… for a variety of reasons. Kanna had always tried to maintain a commendable upright image of herself among her schoolmates. The idea that this curious series of events probably made her come across to Yuko as rather perverse was something she couldn’t bear to let happen. Thus, after a few minutes the two quickly reconciled, deciding to forget the whole thing ever happened, and returned to their original plan: going out on patrol. Yuko finally got dressed again and they both headed outside. Though, it took a little while for the two to be able to look one another in the face again without blushing. [Chapter 4 END]

In the Andromeda Galaxy lie nine planets that are home to different species such as Chenghuian, Bêydawian's and Ããchkaawian and many more. For now, we arrive at the planet of Bêydia where many of the residents are forced to work for their survival. "Hey Blacksmith!! You owe me money." The blacksmith turned around and replied, "what money? There's only one person here that is owed money and you're looking at him you taḷ as (meaning fat woman)" the bêydawian laughed and replied, "says the man that is a ka kawlp (meaning blank square) but take my word when I say that I have a bullet that's got your name on it. When I'm looking north, you can turn south because that is where I place your dead carcass, so I suggest you pay my money by noon..." The blacksmith looked straight into his eyes and replied, "we'll see." The blacksmith left leaving the Bêydawian and his thugs to only watch him walk away. The blacksmith went back to work until one of his coworkers told him in Chenghuian, "ok (meaning error or mistake)" he understood what he was implying since it only ever spoke in one word, and the blacksmith went to his boss, Venom to see what was the problem. "Cal, good that you came, I have urgent matters to speak to you about... Byza was wondering where you went and he looked desperate for something that you have, I don't know what is it he wants but the next time I see that crooked Bêydawian again in my shop, I might have to release you." Cal looked confused about why this had to happen. "I'm sorry Cal but that brat's father owns this city, and people like you and me are at his mercy and it will take a miracle for something good to happen for all of us... you understand that right?" He understood it but he couldn't help but show a little anger to Venom, he stormed out and went back to work. His Chenghu co-worker named Ku asked what happened. Cal replied in Chenghuian, "Mèngthe ma'oth menggi (meaning Something Usually Native) Ku" Ku replied, "aw' (meaning Brick). "You're a good kid Cal but you've got to learn that this isn't then, this is now." Cal didn't want to be reminded of what happened, "but hey look on the bright side, if V didn't give me the job, I wouldn't be here right now... Bêydia, some gift." Cal looked at a rusty blade that he destroyed, "I still don't understand why you destroyed that blade, it would have been worth a fortune if you'd sold it." Cal didn't want to sell it neither did he want to use it. "I'll tell you this Box, I'm not interested in selling this, if I did then I'll get a beating." Venom exited his office and had a job for Cal and Zmith, "it seems that the guild has yet to fix that cruddy armoury, and they're requesting us to collect any remaining materials and make new weapons for them, I tell you these Bêydawian's are all the same, yellow as pissed but the pay looks to be good and you need the cash don't you kid?" Zmith seemed interested but Cal wasn't, "I don't mind taking it, sir." Cal gave Box and returned to work, "Be back in 30 minutes, no longer, understand?" Box and Zmith understood and departed from the blacksmith shop "aw (meaning Brick)" Cal looked at Ku and asked "Kèhia? (meaning Why) ... Jhonas, your girlfriend came to my house asking where you were." "Ah sorry about that Cal, I promise I'll make it to you somehow." Jhonas was scolded by V due to how he never showed up for work, "I promise you sir I will not do it again." Jhonas was the type of guy who would make promises but always failed to keep them. "Kèhia a mo funhîe Ku? (meaning why to look so depressed Ku) ... Ku? Ku? Hey Cal what's wrong with him?" Cal shrugged his shoulders and focused on his work. "Mature Cal, real mature... Mecđa" (meaning moron in Yookʊ̃ian) Cal threw a spanner at Jhonas but he dodged it. "Nice try Mecđa but I'm... hey... babe!" Cal and Ku rushed into the boss's office leaving Jhonas by himself to deal with his girlfriend. "Commander, we have found the man that you requested, what do you wish for us to do with him?" Byza had been captured by these unknown soldiers, "I wish to speak with him... So you're the so-called prince but in reality, you are fictitious, we had reports of an undercover spy going by your description and that they may have information on something that our leader requires ... You wouldn't happen to know anything of such." Byza replied, "I swear I-I don't know!" The commander laughed and used a knife to rip into Byza's eyes, "my my, for a toad you have ridiculously nice eyes if you want to keep your other one then... Tell us where is the verus." Byza gave in easily and said, "I don't know what it is or where it is exactly but I overheard someone knowing that knows it." "Good boy! Kill him" Byza screamed as he begged someone to free him but it was too late, as the boy's head was chopped off and used as a trophy. Cal felt something hitting him in his mind, he sensed something was wrong but his mind was fixed as Jhonas was being brutally punished by his 'girlfriend'. "It's best if you and Ku were to finish early, there's a big job for you two tomorrow. Both Cal and Ku left early while V dealt with Jhonas and his girlfriend, as they left the workshop, the streets were crowding around the Bythannth Cooperation. One of the informants came running and screaming in Yookʊ̃ian "Ye gee of Bêydia yotonoo to tose! (Meaning the father of Bêydia decided to escape!)" The crowd screamed with glee, now that the Bynan Cryankston was gone meant that they were free from his reign. "Freedom!" Venom appeared behind Cal and said, "I honestly would celebrate with them but the only thing I should worry about is them. Who are they actually and what is their purpose?" Venom noticed a group of men evacuating the building, "I guess we'll never know but I will say that I don't have to fire anyone now, they must have gotten the brat as well... Surely they would have right?" He looked at Cal, "I'm not sure but something tells me that they haven't... But at least that man is gone, that slimy toad caused trouble since day one." "Cal, I received a call from an old friend of mine and he requested your presence, she wishes for you to meet her as soon as possible at the Yyutenu Bar." Cal didn't seem interested in meeting her, "she has been pestering me for four days and I am easily persuaded when it comes to the old friend column... and I have told her that you wouldn't agree to this." Cal wasn't listening as he felt a sudden beating in his mind, "Byza's dead." "Good work Commander but you really should have at least received information on who we must find... I will say that this is disappointing and I see you as not liable no longer." As the soldiers pointed their guns at the Commander, he had everything he needed as he presented the names of those that owed him money, although it wouldn't make sense how it would help the emperor, the commander was being clever and said, "(light chuckle) and that is why you are the commander, find my verus and then, kill the rest of them, I can't afford any mistakes." The unknown leader disconnected the call and left the commander and his soldier to find who they were looking for. "Alright, ladies listen up, we have a bug in the system and we can't afford to lose this contract, we have worked too much for this and we will not let anyone ruin it now! UNDERSTAND!!!" All the soldiers except for one replied, "Sir yes sir!!" the commander went up to the soldier and asked, "what's your name son?!" The soldier replied, "Sir Marshall 9305 sir!" the commander then looked at him up and down and immediately went back on the mission. "What do you mean by that?" Cal looked at the evacuation ships and pointed at them, "They killed him, Cryankston witnessed this and he fled..." The only question in Cal's mind is why kill him? "He held information that was important to them." a man appeared behind them, "Reeve? how are you..." Reeve told Venom to be quiet, "not here... inside quick." Ku, Venom and Cal followed Reeve inside the workshop where Jhonas was still being punished by his girlfriend, "ignore them two... into the office quick... Quick!" Reeve closed the door behind them. Cal looked out the window and saw the people of Akzwa were still celebrating, "I feel like we should tell them that Byza is dead as well." "You can't." said Reeve, "If they know about the death of the boy then they will hunt me down and bring me to him." Venom wanted to know who was after him and where he has been for almost eight years, "I can't say and I told you years before that I'm on the hunt, and I'm also looking for them." Venom scoffed, "you mean those Arkomanan warriors? I keep telling you that it is pointless to find them! Most of them are already dead by then!" The commander along with the soldiers returned to Bêdyia where they saw the marketers celebrating. "Looks like they're having a blast! We'll change that." Cal looked and saw the ship return and when it landed, the soldiers came rushing out and pointing their guns at the citizens, "at ease soldiers, forgive my friends here, they are trained to smell fear and they eat it for lunch. We were sent here to find something of importance to our clients desires and we were hoping to know if they have it." "Chó Chónd whomyóptshir chhúch hello. (Meaning Kiss that dirty stand hello)" said one of the citizens in Yíkhi in a mocking tone, they all laughed at what he had said. "(laughs) that's a good joke... (stops laughing) but seriously I am looking for Cryankston, so if you're likely to negotiate then you'll tell us what we wish to know." Authorities came rushing in and pointed their guns at the commander and his soldiers, "You're all under arrested for violation of section 144, you are coming with us." The soldiers received orders from the leader. "The commander has jeopardized the mission, execute him." The message ended and all of the soldiers targeted the commander, "sorry commander, but the leader is more important than you." he smiled, "I don't think so." He used an electromagnetic compass and shut all of the soldiers down, all but one was Marshall. "What did you..." the commander then shot the authorities and ran into an alleyway, "Cal watched as Marshall was left by himself, he ran to the door and opened it, "hurry! get inside." Marshall ran inside the workshop, "thank you." said Marshall, "Kèhia?! (meaning why)" Ku ran to Cal, "There's not much time, whatever the commander is looking for, he's looking for a man named Bynan Cryankston but the leader is looking for a Verus..." Before he could finish his sentence, the "dead" soldiers rose "what's..." Marshall realized what was going on, "whenever a mission is unsuccessful and they are deactivated by the commander, they immediately go after the commander to ensure that he doesn't escape." Cal watched as the soldiers slowly walked to where the commander was running. The streets were already empty and with no one to witness what the soldiers were doing. Venom was on the phone with Box and Zmith, "Guys forget the job, go home, I repeat, forget the job, go home! Jhonas! GO HOME!! And as for you missy, dump that man and find a better person! As for you two, Ku, go home, Cal, soldier boy, you're going with Reeve..." Cal was confused, "where am I going exactly?" There was no time to explain, Cal, Reeve and Marshall all left the workshop. They were heading to Reeve's ship but Cal received a call from his boss telling him to come to the workshop. Cal: do I have to? Venom: Yes, there's someone here that wants to talk to you so I suggest you get your butt moving. "Go ahead, we'll be waiting but be quick." Cal had no choice but to go back to the workshop, but he came across a stranger who looked different from anyone else that he had come across. "Excuse me, do you speak English?" Cal shook his head to say yes, "I'm looking for a man named Venom Art, know him?" Cal froze and asked, "why?" The stranger replied, "He and I are old friends and he requested my help with something..." Cal felt his mind telling him to say no but his words had told him, "I'll take you there." "Most kind of you." Cal didn't know why he said what he said but he still took the stranger to the workshop. "Here we are, I'm sorry but I have..." Cal felt his mind feeling weak and dropped to the floor unconscious. When Cal woke up, he saw that the town was on fire, the blade that he continuously broke was sitting next to him but it was fully repaired, Cal took the blade and examined it, "why did I treat you like this? He tried to activate it but it still needed something that powered it. Cal followed the direction that the people were going and realized that it wasn't the town that was being destroyed, the whole planet was about to explode, many of the residents rented out ships to escape, "sorry folks but unless you have your ships, you will die as this planets about to explode. The remaining people couldn't believe what they had to hear. "Cal!" Reeve was looking for him, "come on we have to go..." Cal and Reeve returned to his ship where Marshall was waiting for him, "but what about them..." Cal was worried for those that weren't fortunate like him, "there's nothing we can do..." But Cal knew that there was something he could do, "Cal! There's nothing we can do for them now... it's already too late! Come on we have to go!" Cal reluctantly entered the ship and watched as Reeve drove them away from Bêydia. The planet began to erupt hot liquid, Cal could only imagine what could be happening as of now. "Come on, we have to get you..." Cal grabbed Reeve and wanted answers, "Tell me! Who are you?! Why were you in Bêydia?! And how could this happen?!" "Cal please calm down!" Reeve assured Marshall that everything was okay, "You know why I'm here Cal..." Cal didn't know, "I didn't introduce myself properly, I am the Arkomanan shadow called Reeve Unaek." Cal couldn't believe what he heard, "you can't be... the real Reeve Unaek died 11 years ago, you can't possibly be him..." Reeve showed Cal scars, "these are from the last mission I ever did and that was the day I supposedly died. I needed everyone to believe I was gone, including the Brotherhood." Cal didn't understand why he do this, "I want to tell you but it will kill me but right now I need your help... come, we go to Lenin first, do not... I repeat do not do anything stupid, those types of streets are filled with fear hounds." ON ROUTE TO LENIN... FROM BÊYDIA, THE ESTIMATED TIME WILL BE THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES "Thanks, computer, well... looks like we have time to relax, you should get some sleep Cal... and you, I want to know who sent you." PLEASE ENJOY THE TRAVEL MASTER CAL, IF I MAY SUGGEST, A FULL BODY SCAN TO SEE IF YOU'RE IN GOOD CONDITION "Uhm sure why not." Short Story: Its eyes were nothing but stars, its face represented something but it was not someone when I looked into the eyes of the thing I saw, I wonder, was it a beast? was it a monster? All these ideas sounded illogical, mainly because I've only seen its face, not its body. My sanity is the same, I don't know why I writing this down but... it's as if this thing is toying with my emotions, my essence and my existence, I can only what those around me are thinking, 'you need help' one said and he is right. I have tried to ease my mind in any way but if I do that then my mind tells me to surrender, I don't know what I can do, should I do what my mind tells me to do? should I spare my mind from all this pain? Or do I learn more about what I saw? My options may as well wear me thin... What was it that I saw? (starts tearing up) As I said before, what I saw wasn't someone... but is it something? Who knows? I don't know but I can't care, this thing has a lock on me and it is after something but what is it exactly? And why me? I wonder if others like me have been intoxicated by this cryptid and if there are... hear my message, and forget about this being... Live your final days with those that matter to you. Because in the end, it will come after you and when it does... you are nothing but a myth to the people of the Zypher, I am Jeremy Marke, I am 23 years old and I am the Hunted, so please heed my warning, and just run... (cries) RUN!!

-Epilogue- It was now Saturday, April 29th. It was the first day of Golden Week, so no classes were being held. Despite the holiday, Yuko had already decided to take a shift at the café, and was working there now. It was just a bit after noon, and the café was moderately busy. Several students with nothing to do were hanging around, but it’s not like it was crowded either. At the moment, Yuko was spacing out a bit, thinking about recent events while cleaning up a recently-vacated table. The chime on the café’s door rung, and a new customer entered the building. One of the other employees greeted the customer, but then Yuko heard someone call her name. “Hey, Yuko!” Yuko turned to the doorway, seeing that the new customer was Chisa. “Chisa! Come have a seat.” Yuko had finished her work at the table and called Chisa over to have a seat at the bar counter. After taking her seat, Chisa ordered a drink, which Yuko quickly prepared and handed over to her. “Thanks a bunch!” said Chisa, taking a sip. “So how are you doing?” Yuko asked, with a bit of worry in her expression. “Pretty good, actually.” Chisa gave a small smile. “I visited Honda this morning. She and all the others are going through some rough muscle aches, but overall they seem to be fine.” “I see. That’s good to hear.” The two stood still in a moment of silence, unsure of what to say next. Both Yuko and Chisa lacked the full picture of what occurred the night before. Each girl had questions for the other, but neither was sure of where to start. “What’s goin’ on, you two?” noticing the two girls’ awkward silence, the Boss approached. “Everything okay? It seems like that incident from yesterday was resolved.” “Oh, hey boss! Yeah, Kanna really helped take care of everything.” Yuko smiled awkwardly. “As expected of Kan-chan. Hehe. So what’s got you two all down in the dumps over here?” the Boss asked, adjusting his sunglasses. “Fine, I’ll just come out and say it!” Chisa slapped her cheeks and pumped her fists. “Yuko!” “Ah! Yeah, what is it, Chisa?” Yuko blinked in surprise. “What actually happened last night?” Chisa dramatically slapped the counter. “Honda and the rest of the patients don’t remember anything, and nobody at the clinic seems to know where they were actually found!” “Huh? Well, about that…” Yuko mumbled. “And also!” Chisa continued, not giving Yuko a chance to speak. “I know I went out last night to search more on my own, but the next thing I knew, I woke up really early this morning in my bed like nothing happened! What’s that about?!” “Sounds like this whole thing is way more complicated than I thought…” the Boss tilted his head at Chisa’s frustrations. “Right?” she responded, sitting back down. “I almost went out to search again this morning, but then I ran into the prez in the lobby, who told me the whole thing had already been resolved, and they were all back in the clinic!” “Oh, Kanna…” Yuko could easily imagine the kind of blunt, unhelpful explanation Kanna must’ve given to the confused Chisa. “But…” Chisa sighed. “I guess it’s fine, since things have worked out. I’m glad I got to talk to Honda again…” As Yuko watched Chisa take a sip of her drink again, Yuko thought back to her own experience that night. She remembered everything up through the encounter with Mr. Taniguchi in the secret cave, but then passed out as their battle began. When she came too, Kanna was carrying her back to the dorms. She told Yuko that everyone was safe and that she would explain things to her later. So even now, Yuko still isn’t entirely sure how the situation with Taniguchi wrapped up. “So… how about you? Are you okay, Yuko?” Chisa asked, looking at her friend with concern. After a small pause, Yuko smiled and responded. “Yeah! I’m feeling great today.” “Then… I guess everything’s good after all.” Chisa was happy to see such a genuine smile from her friend, especially after the bizarre week they’d just had. After that small exchange, Boss got back to his work while the two friends shared some small talk. They chatted about things going on during the holiday, some recent gossip, and stuff being shown on TV. The usual kind of things they’d chat about. “Well, I should probably let you get back to work.” Chisa said, rising from her seat. “Yeah.” Yuko nodded. “I’ll see you later, okay?” she waved goodbye with a smile. “Yep. Talk to you later!” Chisa waved back in turn before exiting the café. Outside, Chisa glanced up at the few clouds roaming the sunny sky. It was a perfectly clear spring day. Green leaves danced in the air as a spring breeze swept through the plaza. “You’ll tell me one day… Right, Yuko?” Chisa whispered to herself. Chisa recalled waking up last night for a brief moment. She was in a room she didn’t recognize, and saw student council president Kanna, as well as Yuko, standing nearby. It was a hazy memory, but she knew there was something different about the Yuko she saw at that time. That wasn’t all, either. Chisa had a distinct memory of encountering Mr. Taniguchi at the theater the night before. At first, what happened was so bizarre that she dismissed it as a dream, but she began to realize it was most likely real. She got the distinct feeling that something strange had happened behind the scenes; something that she had no idea about. Whatever it was, though, seems to have been resolved as of last night. Yuko… One day, I’ll learn the truth from you. Deciding to let the issue be for now, Chisa put it in the back of her mind before turning and walking down the plaza’s walkway. Many students, enjoying their day off, were going back and forth throughout the area. In the midst of that crowd, Chisa felt awfully alone as she walked away. --- “Alright, I’m heading out now!” Yuko called out. “Got it!” the Boss shouted back. “Thanks for helping out today! I appreciate it!” “No problem!” Yuko smiled and waved to the Boss and other coworkers before exiting the shop. It’d been several hours since Chisa’s visit and Yuko’s shift had come to an end. Heading back home, Yuko briskly walked through the plaza and followed the walkway that headed toward the dorms. On her way there, she noticed a certain group of students headed the same way. Within that group, she noticed a certain someone. “Murakami!” Yuko shouted, waving at the group. Sure enough, one of the people there was Tanabe Murakami. Noticing Yuko’s call, he waved back. After saying something to the others with him, he then left the group and walked over to Yuko’s side. “Quite a surprise to run into you out here, Maeda.” he smiled. “Yeah.” Yuko nodded. “So what’s going on?” “Ah, those guys are other members of the kendo club.” Tanabe clarified, glancing at the group he’d just been walking with. “We just wrapped up practice and were heading back to the dorms.” “Oh, I see! Practicing for the upcoming match, right?” “You bet. It’s been kind of a pain to be honest, haha.” Tanabe chuckled. “You had a shift at the café today, right?” “Yep.” Yuko nodded. “Being there so early in the day felt a little odd. But it was basically the same as usual.” “Good to hear.” Tanabe smiled. “Oh, that reminds me! Did everything turn out well with that emergency yesterday?” “Oh!” Yuko had forgotten that the last time she’d seen Tanabe, she had left work early to go help Chisa search for the missing patients. It can be assumed that Tanabe never heard any follow-up to that, especially since the school was trying to keep the incident quiet. “Yeah, don’t worry. We did eventually find everyone, and they’re back at the clinic recovering like before.” Yuko replied. “That’s good to hear.” Tanabe smiled, before looking up at the sky. “You know, things are usually pretty relaxed around here. I mean, there’s always some kind of drama between a few students here and there, but overall this place is pretty peaceful. Hearing about what was happening yesterday was kind of a shock, to be honest.” “Yeah, I know what you mean…” Yuko looked down, thinking of the hectic week she’d had. “But… I think it’s basically all over for now. So things should be getting back to normal.” “I see… Guess you were wrapped up in whatever’s been going on, huh?” Tanabe asked, teasingly. “What? What makes you say that?” Yuko looked up at Tanabe, a bit flustered. “I mean, if you know it’s over now, then you must’ve been at least somewhat involved, right?” Tanabe grinned while ruffling Yuko’s hair a bit. “Heh… You got me.” Yuko smiled wrly, embarrassed not only by Tanabe’s perceptiveness, but also the casual headpat he’d given her. “Well, I may not be of much help, but…” Tanabe pointed his thumb back at the kendo sword case he currently carried on his back. “If you’re ever in trouble, or anything like that, you can always call on me.” “Murakami…” Yuko looked up at him, wide-eyed. Then, blushing a bit, she looked away. “You really don’t have to worry about me. Like I said, things are fine now. But still… thanks.” “Any time.” Tanabe smiled. The two continued walking until they arrived at the entrance to the student dorms. There, Yuko noticed there was a person standing outside, as if waiting for someone. It was the student council president, and secret knight from another world, Kanna Kawagoe. “Kanna!” Yuko exclaimed, noticing her. “Ah, there you are, Yuko Maeda.” Kanna approached. “What’s going on?” Yuko asked, feeling just a bit worried. “Nothing urgent, rest assured.” Kanna answered. “I was simply waiting to speak with you. Are you free to accompany me right now?” “Oh, sure, I guess…” Yuko was taken off guard by the sudden invitation. “Murakami, I suppose I’ll see you later!” she bowed to the boy standing beside her. “Right, of course.” Tanabe replied. “See you later, and take care.” Tanabe then entered the dorms, leaving the two of them at the entrance. “Well then,” Kanna motioned to Yuko. “Please follow me.” “Okay!” Yuko nodded with resolve, moving to follow behind Kanna. --- It was a clear blue sky overhead. The sun was shining brilliantly in the sky, as a cool breeze swept between the trees. The water glistened with reflections of the sunlight, and the cheerful murmurs of some nearby students filled the air. The lively atmosphere of Rigel Park on a holiday afternoon was a stark contrast to the lonely vibes it carried on that fateful night. Yuko couldn’t help but make such a comparison as she and Kanna walked along the edge of the pond, moving away from the other nearby groups. “To think that this is where it all started… It really seems like a dream now, huh?” Yuko reminisced. It hadn’t even been a full week yet, but that frightening Monday night already felt so far away. “Perhaps so. But alas, it was no dream.” Kanna stared at the surface of the water. “Everything’s over now… right?” still left wondering what Kanna brought her out here for, Yuko couldn’t help but ask for confirmation. “Yes, the core incident has been resolved.” Kanna reassured. “One could say this is the end, but perhaps… this is just the beginning.” “What do you mean? Just the beginning of what?” Yuko tilted her head. “Yuko Maeda, how much of last night do you remember?” Kanna turned to face Yuko. “Last night? Well…” Yuko thought hard. “We went to that secret place up on the mountain… Mr. Taniguchi was there, and we found out he was the culprit. You two started to fight in that weird… what was it called? Magic zone?” “Yes. It was his magic zone; a small artificial world where he could maximize his magic.” Kanna explained. “Right… I think I passed out then. And later I woke up with you carrying me back to the dorms, and you said everything had been worked out.” Yuko smiled wryly. “Sorry to pass out at such an inconvenient time. But I’m glad you got everyone back.” “Of course…” Kanna looked down. Kanna realized from this explanation that Yuko didn’t consider what happened last night to be another lapse in memory. She simply believes she’d lost consciousness due to the pressure of the situation. As things stand, Yuko may not easily learn of the ‘other self’ that lurks within her. Up until now, the uncertainty of the situation had led Kanna to keeping such information quiet. She was unsure whether making the regular Yuko aware of the other one was a good idea or not. But now, with the primary incident resolved, Kanna felt it only right to give Yuko the whole story. Especially after that exchange the night before… Kanna thought back to that moment. “Good, she appears to have drifted back to sleep…” Kanna spoke, as Chisa closed her eyes and returned to sleep. It was Friday night, just after the battle with Taniguchi. Taniguchi’s magic zone was dispelled and everyone once more stood in the dim hidden room: the one where Kanna would normally use the gate to communicate with the other world. The patients and Chisa were all unconscious on the ground, while Kanna and the ‘other’ Yuko both stood. At their feet… was the burned remains of Karuto Taniguchi’s body. Kanna grimaced at the sight and smelled of the burnt corpse. Despite still feeling pretty drained from the battle, Kanna materialized her staff one last time and pointed it at the body. Soon, Taniguchi’s body was encased in ice. Kanna had used her ice magic to create a sort of makeshift coffin to house the body. “Haah…” Kanna exhaled, before letting her staff fade away once more. After catching her breath, Kanna regained her posture and began to watch the ‘other’ Yuko carefully. This whole time she’d just been standing there, looking at Taniguchi’s body in a daze. “Just who are you?” Kanna asked quietly. “…” wordlessly, she turned slowly to face Kanna. “I mean… Thank you, for saving me.” Kanna averted her eyes from the ‘other’ Yuko’s piercing glare. “I require no thanks.” responded the deep, emotionless voice of the ‘other’ Yuko. Kanna, unsure how to respond, just stood silently for a moment. But she still had many questions. So after a moment, she moved to speak again. “I must know. Are you Yuko? Or are you not? Could you please give me some understanding of who I am speaking to?” Kanna was a bit nervous. If the other Yuko turned on her now, there’s no way she’d be able to properly defend herself. Kanna simply reassured herself that if the ‘other’ Yuko still wanted to kill her, she would’ve already tried to do so. “…” the ‘other’ Yuko stood still, simply staring at her hand. “Um…” Kanna was starting to get impatient, when… “My only desire… is to protect this body. Whether I am or am not Yuko, I do not know. All I know is that I must eliminate any threat. Because the end of this body would be the end of my existence…” the ‘other’ Yuko finally spoke. “I see… I had a feeling.” Kanna nodded, relieved. The reason this ‘other’ Yuko had declared an intention to kill before was because Kanna herself was attacking Yuko at the time. Likewise, in this situation where Yuko likely feared for her life in the battle against Taniguchi, this ‘other self’ once again surfaced, and mercilessly eliminated the threat. Naturally, the same applies to Yuko’s first encounter with the Razor Wolf magic beast as well. “It appears I have no reason to linger.” the ‘other’ Yuko was preparing to leave. “Hold on!” Kanna stopped her. “Before you go, I must ask… Would it be permissible to inform Yuko Maeda about you?” “… Do as you like.” With those words, ‘Yuko’ lost consciousness and collapsed to the ground. Kanna quickly moved to catch her. “Good grief…” Kanna muttered. “Now I have one more person I must carry out of here…” Needless to say, Kanna had a long night. Moving back to the present, Kanna shook her head a bit after thinking back to that conversation. She and Yuko still stood together by the pond in Rigel Park on Saturday afternoon. “Yuko, there is one detail I have been keeping from you.” Kanna looked Yuko in the eyes. “Huh? What is it?” Yuko blinked. “My apologies. The truth is… I have known the reason for your prior memory loss for a little while now. I was simply uncertain on what to share with you until now.” Kanna bowed. “Huh? Oh, it’s no big deal!” Yuko waved her hands around. “It’s really not a big deal now. I mean, I think that was all just some weird side effect from the stress of running into those magic beasts, right? Maybe the magic did something weird to me, haha.” “No.” Kanna shook her head, before lifting her arm and pointing her finger directly at the center of Yuko’s chest. “I do not understand it all myself, but the answer lies within you.” “What do you mean…?” “Yuko Maeda, the truth is… There is another personality inside of you. I have encountered it twice already. You other self is the side of you that has the ability to utilize the magic within you.” Kanna quietly explained. A gust of wind blew by the two as they stood there, and a small fish leapt from the pond. Yuko was silent, not quite understanding what Kanna had just told her. “… Huh? Another personality?” Yuko was wide-eyed and confused. “Well, I call it that. But honestly, I do not know what it is.” Kanna shrugged. “I simply believe you should be aware of it, as well as the potential you hold within.” “Wait, wait… I still don’t get it!” Yuko was getting a bit frantic. “What do you mean? There’s another person inside me? What the hell?!” “Calm yourself.” Kanna took hold of Yuko’s hand. “I shall explain it all from the start.” From there, Kanna explained the entire series of events that had occurred that week from her point of view: The fact that Yuko’s alternate self had killed the magic beast on Monday night and returned to the dorms. The discovery of this on the security feeds that lead to Kanna becoming hostile towards Yuko. Kanna’s subsequent battle with the other Yuko on Wednesday night after Taniguchi’s letter had lured Yuko to a magic beast again. The quiet investigation of Yuko and testing her affinity to confirm what Kanna had seen in her battle. And lastly, Friday’s missing patients incident that had brought the truth of the magic beast attacks to light. “Thus, with the help of that other personality within you, Taniguchi… was stopped.” Despite explaining everything else, Kanna had chosen to stop short of telling Yuko that she’d technically murdered Taniguchi. Such a revelation would probably be too much to deal with right now. “I see… So that’s what was going on…” having finally heard the whole story, Yuko was slowly starting to accept it. She kneeled down by the pond and stared at her reflection in the water. “It was… another me.” “Correct…” Kanna answered, taking a seat beside her. “Even now, I still do not fully understand what your other self truly is.” “Then… what should I do, Kanna?” Yuko asked. “That… is something only you can decide, Yuko.” Kanna gazed out at the pond. The sun was slowly but surely beginning to dip toward the horizon, and light beamed through the trees onto the surface of the water. “I guess so.” Yuko responded. “Yuko Maeda…” Kanna glanced at her lost friend. “Before, when I had thought you were the culprit… I asked who you really were. Do you remember what you told me?” “Huh? I’m not sure…” Yuko was thrown off by the sudden question. “You told me… ‘I’m Yuko Maeda!’ with a lot of passion.” Kanna chuckled to herself just a bit. “It honestly shook me, just a bit. That was when I first began to doubt my theory. And of course, the truth of the matter soon became apparent.” “I’m… Yuko Maeda.” Yuko muttered. “That is correct.” Kanna smiled. “No matter what, I believe in your strong sense of self. That is why I have chosen to reveal the truth to you.” “I see…” Yuko finally began to regain her smile. “Thanks Kanna. You really have been too kind to me, haha.” “Think nothing of it.” Kanna stood up once more. “I shall continue to watch over you, Yuko Maeda. It appears my final year in this world will be most interesting.” “Oh yeah, you are a 3rd-Year after all…” Yuko also rose to her feet. “Indeed. Once I graduate, I shall return to Alviquan.” Kanna gave a sentimental smile as she gazed at the pond. “Never could I have expected to find such a unique case as you over here…” “Am I really so strange?” Yuko scratched the back of her head, somewhat embarrassed. “I have said as much before, but it should normally be impossible for humans of this world to use magic. And yet, your other self, that so-called guardian within you, can use both fire and dark magic.” “Guardian?” Yuko blinked at the unexpected descriptor. “Well, she said that her purpose in manifesting was to protect you. That sounds like some kind of guardian, does it not?” Kanna asked. “I suppose you’re right, haha.” Yuko laughed with a wry expression. “I guess we’ll just call her the Guardian then. That’s probably easier to remember.” “Good idea.” Kanna nodded, beginning to stretch her arms. “Ah, this divergent world… To think, in this place I have found one who diverges so heavily from the rules I thought had simply been facts of life.” “What’s that about?” Yuko laughed. “From my perspective, you’re the one ‘diverging’ from everything I thought I knew, haha.” “A fair point.” Kanna chuckled. “But alas, I truly am not special. There are plenty of magic knights just like me in Alviquan.” “But here in Starlight Academy, you really are unique. Besides, I’d be totally lost without you!” Yuko smiled. “Heh… You have my thanks.” Kanna smiled back. “Well, I look forward to working with you, Divergent Magical Yuko.” After a brief moment of silence, the two could only laugh to themselves over the sudden cheesy nickname. [Volume 1: The Awakening of Duality – END] --- -Another Epilogue- It was now Sunday April 30th. It was the last day of the month and Kanna Kawagoe, real name Canah Crygahl, had already arrived in the secret room at the back of the cave. At the end of the month, Kanna would always make contact with the high priest from her world, the kingdom of Alviquan. These meetings were relatively simple affairs, as Kanna would generally just share small information related to this world and the people in it. Of course, in months prior Kanna would be joined by Karuto Taniguchi, real name Kurt Torkalv, for these meetings as well. But due to the recent turn of events, this would perhaps be the most difficult meeting for Kanna to deal with. Kanna could only sigh as she prepared the mirror for the opening of the Gate. While making the preparations, the large stone door behind her opened… “So you came…” Kanna sighed, glancing back at the doorway. There at the entrance stood a tall middle-aged man with short, wavy silver hair. He wore a tidy business suit, along with the small circle-lens sunglasses on his face. Upon entering the room he gave a simple knowing smile, as if amused by Kanna’s annoyance. “Now, now.” The man chuckled “I told you before, it’s my responsibility to participate in your little meeting this time due to a certain dangerous conflict taking place on the grounds of my district, yes?” “And I told you I could convey any necessary information on my own…” Kanna grumbled. “But fine, you have already arrived. It would be a waste to send you away now…” “Heh heh. Thank you very much.” the man replied as he took a seat at the round table. Kanna finished up all the preparations and began to channel her magic energy into the mirror. The mirror began to glow with a faint light, illuminating the rather dim room with just a bit more light. “Oho, impressive!” the seated man clapped his hands. “I must say, no matter how many times I see it, the magic you all can do never ceases to amaze.” “This was nothing special.” Kanna responded, also taking a seat at the table. “Everything is ready. Now we just wait for the link from the other side, and the path should open.” Several minutes pass in a bit of an awkward silence, when suddenly the light on the mirror takes on a purple-ish color, before a dark void in the center opens wide. In an instant, the space where the mirror once was now showed what seemed to be another room on the opposite side. There stood an elderly man with a long white beard wearing refine white robes. The man stepped through the Gate, with two elite bodyguards standing directly behind him, still on the opposite side of the mirror. Kanna quickly stood up before kneeling down before the bearded man. “High Priest Mashylm, welcome. Magic Knight Canah Crygahl is at your service.” Kanna stated, with her head bowed. “You may rise, Crygahl.” the high priest replied with his low reverberating voice. “Yes, sir.” Kanna rose to her feet. “As you have probably surmised, an unforeseen situation has arisen.” “Yes, it appears so.” replied the high priest, with clear annoyance in his voice. “Not only is Magic Knight Torkalv absent, but it appears this man has dared to intrude on our private meeting.” The high priest glared at the man still sitting at the table. “Yes, yes. I know outsiders like me aren’t supposed to be present for these things.” the man replied in a laidback manner, before sitting up straight. “But we’ve had to deal with a rather serious incident, you see. Please have a seat.” The high priest glared at the man, before silently taking the seat closest to the mirror. The priest’s two bodyguards crossed the mirror and now both stood to the left and right of it. Following suit, Kanna also returned to her seat at the table. “Now then,” the man clad in the business suit began. “It’s been quite some time, hasn’t it Mr. High Priest? If you need a refresher, I’m Mitsuo Tokushige. I’m one of the four district managers working under Akihito Hoshikage, and I’m in charge of the East District of Starlight Academy.” “Yes, I remember you.” replied the high priest. “Hoshikage introduced you, recommending your district as the home for our knights during their investigation.” “That’s me!” Tokushige responded with a sheepish grin. “Now then, I say we get down to business. Regarding a certain dire incident that just recently occurred on this side, well, I suppose your knight here has probably already arranged a report for you.” “Hrmph.” the high priest seemed disgruntled at Tokushige for blatantly taking lead of the discussion, but ignored it for now. “Crygahl, you may share this month’s report.” “Yes, sir.” Kanna responded, pulling out a written report from her bag. From there, Kanna began to explain the entire incident: The fact that the magic knight Kurt Torkalv turned out to be secretly working for the rebel army, his plans to use beast taming magic to turn students into puppets to serve as soldiers, and lastly, about the anomaly that is Yuko Maeda. “Unbelievable…” the high priest was taken aback by everything explained to him. “Yes, and um…” Kanna rose from her seat, going to the corner of the room. A tall object there had been covered in a large tarp this whole time, but Kanna removed the tarp. “My god…” the high priest was flabbergasted. “I apologize for having to show you something so grotesque, sir.” Kanna bowed in apology. “But I have preserved the remains of Magic Knight Torkalv in this ice. Your soldiers may return his body to Alviquan to be dealt with at your discretion.” “Yes… Very good, Crygahl.” The high priest signaled to his two guards who moved to take the large ice coffin and carry it through the gate back to Alviquan. “As you can see…” Tokushige spoke up after being quiet for a while. “You’ve let your kingdom’s own political problems cause us quite a bit of trouble over here. We’re lucky things were able to resolve as smoothly as they did, Mr. High Priest.” “Grnhh…” the high priest simply glared at Tokushige. “Look, I’m a simple guy.” Tokushige responded. “I like to keep things simple and peaceful, and this academy has allowed me to cultivate this little district where, for the most part, I can keep things that way.” “What are you trying to say, Tokushige?” the high priest was suspicious. “Woah there! Chill with the hostility, please.” Tokushige raised his hands in an exaggerated manner. “I just think that it’s important to say that your side had a little mishap that inconvenienced us. Basically, you owe us.” “We have nothing to offer your side at this time. Especially not without headmaster Hoshikage present.” the high priest immediately denied Tokushige’s implications. “Aw, c’mon Mr. High Priest. Not everything has to go through old man Hoshikage now, does it? We’re all basically business partners here.” “If you truly find yourself so inconvenienced by our presence, then I shall simply relocate Crygahl to a new district at Hoshikage’s suggestion.” The head priest had had enough of Tokushige’s demeanor. “Now, now. Don’t do anything drastic.” Tokushige tried to calm down the high priest. “Sure you had one rotten apple, but I’ve taken quite a liking to little Kanna here! She’s pretty popular among the students as well, I’ll have you know.” “I-I too would like to remain here for now, sir.” Kanna quietly added. “Hrmph.” the high priest grumbled. “Fine then. Things shall remain as they are. But, there is still one thing you must answer for, Tokushige.” “And what would that be, Mr. High Priest?” Tokushige smiled. “Who the hell is Yuko Maeda?” the high priest glared daggers at Tokushige when asking this question. Kanna had expected this to come up, and stared down at the table nervously. “Heh heh heh heh.” Tokushige chuckled. “Why, she’s simply one of my students, is she not? She transferred in from Central just like everyone else. Well, like everyone besides little Kanna here, for obvious reasons.” “Do not mock me!” the high priest shouted. “You heard Crygahl’s report just as clearly as I did. That girl is no ordinary human from your world. Who is she?” “Would you believe me if I said that even I don’t really know for sure?” Tokushige shrugged in an exaggerated manner. “I mean this sincerely: hearing little Kanna’s story about what this so-called Guardian within Yuko was able to accomplish is just as baffling to me! I have no idea what that Guardian could be.” “You best not be trying to conceal information from us, Tokushige.” the high priest narrowed his eyes. “We have an agreement to uphold, and such information is of the upmost importance.” “Why, I would never! We’re trusted partners after all, Mr. High Priest.” Tokushige gave a wide grin as he tilted his head. “… Fine. I shall let the issue sit for now.” the high priest conceded. “Crygahl, from now on, you shall have an important addendum to your mission: You are to monitor Yuko Maeda closely, and include detailed information on this girl in all of your reports going forward. Do you understand?” “Yes, sir!” Kanna bowed. “I had already planned to do as much. I shall not let you down, High Priest.” “Excellent.” The high priest nodded. “I apologize, but it appears you must handle your mission alone for the foreseeable future. We cannot send a replacement for Torkalv without consulting Hoshikage.” “Yes, I understand.” Kanna replied. “Besides… it appears you would prefer things to remain this way anyway.” The high priest once again turned his gaze toward Tokushige. “Yes indeed. After all, everybody loves Kanna!” Tokushuge gave a goofy smile and thumbs up, leaving both Kanna and the high priest to sigh in exhaustion. After that part of the discussion ended, Tokushige sat quietly while Kanna filled the high priest in on some supplementary tidbits unrelated to the incident. The high priest also delivered Kanna a letter from her family, and Kanna in turned handed over her written report that she’d been reading from. The meeting was winding down and it was time for the head priest to return to Alviquan. “Well then…” the high priest rose slowly from his seat. “Today’s meeting was a shocking turn of events, but I believe we shall move forward. Our side shall continue to monitor the activities of the rebel army going forward, now that their scheme has been thwarted.” “Yes, sir.” Kanna bowed. “Do take care, sir.” “You as well, Crygahl.” the high priest nodded. “Until we meet again, next month.” “Bye, Mr. High Priest.” Tokushige waved gleefully, but the high priest ignored him as he passed through the gate. Shortly after he passed through, the pathway lit up, and soon, the surface of the mirror returned, reflecting the interior of the room as the light on its surface dimmed. Kanna moved toward the mirror to gather up the magic stones that had powered the gate’s connection. “Well, guess I’ll head back out now.” Tokushige said lazily as he rose from his seat and turned to exit the room. “District manager…” Kanna called out. “Hmm? What is it, little Kanna?” the man looked over his shoulder at Kanna. “Do you truly know nothing about Yuko and the Guardian?” Kanna asked, glaring at him. “Heh heh. It’s just as I said to Mr. High Priest.” he replied. “I know who Yuko is, but even I’m surprised by what’s occurred this past week.” “I see…” Kanna still wasn’t sure whether he was telling the truth. “Though I gotta say, I really should pay her a visit sometime, if the opportunity arises.” Tokushige said with his back to Kanna. “… Do as you like.” Kanna dismissed his words, and simply turned away. With things left at that, Tokushige opened the large stone door and made his exit. Kanna was now left alone in the dim room. “Sorry, Yuko…” she sighed. “It appears you may be facing even more troublesome situations in the future.” [Another Epilogue – END] --- -Afterword- Hello everyone! This is balanime, the author of Divergent Magical Yuko. Before I knew it, I finished writing Volume 1. Isn’t that wild? Even now, I’m still trying to process it. This is my very first time writing a web novel, and I hope it became an interesting story for you all. Some of you may or may not be aware of this, but the basic concepts of Divergent Magical Yuko were first conceived almost 10 years ago. Back then, I’d been creating some short original animation series’ on Youtube, and had plans to make Yuko the next one. But things eventually fell through and I never ended up completing it. I’d come back to the story idea a lot over the years, slowly modifying it each time. The idea to write it as a book actually came to me several years ago, but I never found the motivation to begin writing anything until recently. And now, here we are, all these years later, and I’ve finally managed to materialize this story as a web novel. In the end… it’s diverged wildly from the original concepts I had back in the day, LOL. But as a version of Yuko able to be written by my ‘current self’, I think it’s become a pretty cool story. I’m proud of it. Building up this world and solidifying the traits of these characters I’ve thought about for so long has been a surreal experience, to say the least. This volume’s story ended up becoming a pretty good drama surrounding Yuko, Kanna, and Chisa. I think I managed to strike a good balance by giving each of them a role to play in how things progressed. It really felt like their story. I feel kind of bad for Tanabe though, because despite introducing him here, and giving him a fair amount of scenes, he never really had much of a part to play, did he? ^^; Not to mention Yukina, who only had one scene early on before disappearing entirely… Well, there are a lot of characters, and I’ll make sure to give everyone their due time as we move forward. This was only Volume 1 after all. I’m sure you’re wondering about Volume 2. I’ve already thought up a solid foundation for the next story! I just need to organize the ideas and characters and begin writing. I plan to spend February preparing things for the next Volume, so the next entry may not be until sometime in March. I’m sorry for the wait, but I think it’s important to have these moments of downtime between volumes so I can prepare things properly. If you enjoyed reading this volume, please share Divergent Magical Yuko with your friends and help get the word out there to more people! I’m appreciative of anyone who takes time out of their day to read my story. Remember, the series has an official website I put together on Neocities. The link should be in my profile on whichever site you’re reading this! Thank you for reading! Until next time!

The computer scanned Cal to see if he was in any sort of negative condition. FROM YOUR READINGS MASTER CAL THAT YOU'RE CURRENTLY SUFFERING FROM A DEADLY DISEASE THAT WILL KILL YOU FOR APPROXIMATELY 32 HOURS. MIGHT I SUGGEST THAT YOU MAKE A DESTINATION TO THE PLANET CHENGHUIA? "When did I receive this disease?" LOOKING AT THE SCANS, IT'S HIGHLY SUGGESTED THAT YOU RECEIVED THE DISEASE YEARS BEFORE IT COULD TAKE ATONE ON YOUR BODY "The Brotherhood, there was a rumour about a disease, can you tell me what kind of disease it is?" NO DATA FOUND Cal stood up from his bed and went to Reeve where he was interrogating Marshall, "Uhm Reeve, your computer found something that's going to kill me..." Reeve interrupted Cal, "And you need to go to Chenghuia, I know, but we need to take you to Lenin first, It will take us only a day and I'll promise that we will go to Chenghuia, just trust me... please?" I MUST PROTEST MASTER REEVE, CAL'S PERFORMANCE WILL DECREASE MORE IF HE ISN'T TREATED IN TIME AND LENIN IS A DANGEROUS PLACE INDEED, WHO KNOWS WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF CAL ISN'T TREATED IN TIME? Reeve groaned angrily, "fine! Cal, you and Marshall will go to Lenin and deliver this message to a woman named Phen, go to a bar, buy milk and show them this card, understood? Phen is impatient so do it quickly while I get what is required for Cal!" THAT IS AN EXCELLENT IDEA MASTER REEVE, I WILL HELP YOU AS MUCH AS I CAN IN COLLECTING THE MATERIALS TO... SIR, THERE'S A MESSAGE SENT FOR YOU, IT IS BY ECHO. "Reeve, I have some good news and some bad news, the good news is that I found it, the bad news is that they too have found it and they're going after it, I'm unable to make it to the location... I'm under heavy attack... requesting backup." "Great, now I have another muck up (sighs), Cal, it's best if you went to..." before Reeve could finish, they were under attack, "ah God, not him!" Reeve tried to escape the bounty hunter but the ship slammed on Reeve's ship which threw Cal into one of the escape pods, "Destination Yìkshìnà." Before Reeve could cancel the request, Cal was gone, "oh no you don't..." the bounty hunter went after Cal, "Computer, set a course to Yìkshìnà!" BUT SIR, WHAT OF THE... "THAT IS AN ORDER!!!" RIGHT AWAY SIR... ERROR, ERROR, SYSTEMS FAILING, EMERGENCY LANDING TO NEAREST PLANET, REACHING THE PLANET YOOKʊ̃I "NOOOO!!!" The escape pod made its way into Yìkshìnà grounds and the smoke that surrounded the deserted-looking planet helped Cal escape the bounty hunter. He exited the pod and found himself in the middle of nowhere, he walked the sands of Yìkshìnà and was exhausted by the countless walking but it all paid off when he came across a town, the people looked at him with a cautious eye. Cal entered a pub, and as he entered inside, all the people gave him cold stares, "what it'll be?" Asked the bartender, "I'll have a whisky." Their cold stares from the pub were not helping Cal with the bounty hunter after him, "here's your whisky... Don't mind me asking but... Why are you here? Aren't you suppose to be with those crooked fleet." Cal had no clue what they were referring to, "that's a very nice looking badge you got there... you sure you're not with the fleet." Cal has no clue who they are, "From the cold gazes from these people... they're telling me that this fleet is a bag of crap." The people around Cal all ran into the back, "you are not from here." Cal turned around, "what if I'm not?" Cal poured the whisky back into its bottle, "you're not welcome here Arkomanan." Cal dropped the glass that shattered into pieces, he was shocked at what she had known, "If you're asking how I know then you might as well take a better look at us." Cal stood up and was about to leave until... "where's you think you're going?" Cal was stopped by the woman, he asked her, "who are you?" she replied, "that is unimportant, what's important is that you're illegally trespassing on Yìkshìnà grounds and it will be unfortunate if the authorities were to be aware of any... trespassers..." Cal began to Cal lightly, "I'm not stupid, this is Yìkshìnà, authorities haven't stepped foot on this planet since... I'm leaving." Cal walked out of the pub while the woman gave him a smug look. As Cal walked away from the pub, he came face to face with a familiar face, "short time no see eh buddy?" Cal smacked him, it was the man that Cal had taken to the workshop, Cal made a run for it knowing that he was after him. "Man this kid is the stubborn type!" Cal didn't have much to do since the ten knew that they were after him, "Cal listen to me, I know you want answers to what happened back in Bêydia but I promise that I will answer all of your questions soon." Cal didn't want to believe anything that was coming out of his mouth, "I'll kill you right here, right now if you don't step the hell away from me!!" Cal walked away from the stranger. A bounty hunter pointed a gun at Cal, "don't even think of attacking me, I am here to save you but in return, you have to help me look for something, do we have a deal?... I said do we have a deal?" Cal reluctantly agreed and she focused on the road. "Names Phen by the way, Phen the Stalker, heard of me right?" Cal recognized the name Phen but looked as if he never met nor heard about her ever."Have it your way but remember that you're assisting me now don't forget that." 'Approaching the Planet Bêydia of the Andromeda Galaxy in T minus one minute. In Cal's mind, he had a strange feeling that this woman was not who she said she was but went along with it. "Cool ship, it's way better than any other ship I've seen, you must have invested a lot in this... Okay, nice chatting with you... I've only got 5 Zonium left, I don't know what this is going to buy but I hope there's a good deal happening." They arrived in Bêydia and it surprisingly hasn't exploded yet, "get yourself ready, you're going to be ready to help me find a map that your boss Venom had before getting killed by those Imperial brats, surely he would have been smart and hid it." Cal left the ship to back to the workshop, "I'm not glad to be back here, I wish everything could go differently before the assault." Cal went inside while being careful about the cracks, he entered the workshop and see the damage around him as he was making his way to his boss's office, he looked around and didn't find much, and his body wasn't anywhere near the workshop and he rarely went home but was worth checking. "I'm going to check my boss's house, it's not far from here." Phen went with Cal to Venom's home, as they reached the location, they found it being scavenged by someone who seem desperate for survival, "did you hear that?" Cal heard slithering, "watch out!!" Cal pushed Phen outside the house quickly, "be careful, Edoons are surrounding the area (Edoons are Intelligent rattlesnakes who excrete a dangerous acid. Their claws are strong enough to tear through steel. The majority live near lava pools for warmth. They have never left their planet.)" There were three of them and they were all attacking Cal in a pattern, he took out his blade but realized that it was useless to him since it wasn't activated but knew he had to fend them off somehow, he managed to escape the house but with no explanation to why Edoons suddenly appeared in Venom's home but minutes later, one of the older Edoons threw something to Cal, it hissed before hiding inside Venom's home. Cal looked at what they threw to him, they were documents relating to a pointless rumour called "nothing." He didn't see any interest in these documents but Phen did, "this is what I came for!" Phen snatched the documents and ran back to her ship leaving Cal clueless. "(static) Cal... Can you... hear me? It's Reeve... We don't have... much time... we are... coming to you... where are you... as of now...?" but before Cal could answer his question, Phen returned and grabbed Cal, "come on Cal, we have to go to Aaakwla now!" Cal dropped the comms leaving Reeve even more upset. SIR, I WAS ABLE TO DECIPHER WHAT THE FEMALE HUNTER SAID, SHE RECALLS TAKING CAL TO THE PLANET AAAKWLA, WITH THE SHIP REPAIRED, WE CAN COLLECT THE MATERIALS. "You wanna know what I hate about this computer? Is that it doesn't have a mind of a... Mêršhê (meaning whatever in Aaakwla)" Reeve set the coordinates to Aaakwla, "Hey Marshall, ask me this, why do I keep you alive? Because you have value..." Marshall didn't understand what Reeve was implying, "forget what I said, you take the ship, no point doing auto, you should do something other than sitting around." Cal and Phen arrived at Aaakwla and they found themselves in the middle of a war, "it's best if we avoid combat..." Phen said that too soon as she found herself in a trap. "I think we need to talk." Moments later, Cal woke up to find several bounty hunters blocking his view, "what do you want?" Cal didn't think about what he was going to say thoroughly but he needed answers in search of them, he realise that he already has his answer, or so he thought, "ah finally, allow me to introduce myself, Markuz Chappelwhite, the notorious bounty hunter who wishes to collect his... (Clears throat) OUR bounty! and don't act scared, your friend Nix is safe, we just had to rough them up, now straight to business..." Cal wanted to know where Phen was, Markuz punched the boy leaving a huge dent in his cheek, "be more cooperative and it will save not just yours but your friend as well." Cal spat at Markuz's shoe and this angered him, Markuz punched him again but threw him to the ground and stomped on him, "these are 900,000 worth of Zonium that you spat on, who will be paying for this? I know I won't unless you give me what I want!" Cal still refused to give in to his demands and this led Markuz to stop and chuckle demonically. "I had to go through idiots who weren't a man like yourself, tell me... What makes you special corporal?" Cal looked him dead in the eyes and said, "because I'm your worst nightmare and you know those nightmares you have as a youngling? I create them and do you want to know what I can do? I can make your nightmares into your demons, demons that will follow you until you leave this world!" Markuz felt a slight shiver and punched Cal unconscious. "Oi Oxmall, you all right? ... Oxmall? Markuz (snaps his fingers) snap out of it, the kid was only trying to scare you, nothing special." Markuz was still intimidated by what he had heard, (whispers) I create them and do you want to know what I can do? I can make your nightmares into your demons, demons that will follow you until you leave this world! Those words haunted Markuz as to wherever he and the hunters were taking Cal, they arrived on the planet of Aaakwla, and the hunters grabbed Cal while Markuz went to deal with Phen, "Don't worry about me, I have someone that needs to see my presence." As they dragged him outside of the ship, they were in the middle of a war between Ããchkaawian and the fleet, it seems they were after the planet's resources, "we'll be alright as long as we don't go into battle." Cal realized that one of the hunters was holding onto his blade, he looked around to see if there was anything that could be of use to him, "I don't understand why we work with a mercenary like Markuz, you realize that men's ideas always end with his 'workers' sacrificing themselves for the greater good... I'm only doing this for my little girl." "I can respect that but it's not like we're stupid when the jobs are done, we feed that son of a wûem (Meaning female dog) to the Archmain and we run off with the goods... wait did you hear that... AGH!?" The hunters looked around to see what was out there but all three of them were attacked by an Archmain (A giant lizard-like fish able to inject rage in their foes). It stung all three of them and grabbed the already weak Cal, Cal with his bruised sight, watched all three of the bounty hunters as they ripped each other from limb to limb. The Archmain roared and went back to its lair and when putting Cal on the ground of its water, it began examing Cal and started to inject Cal with what it gave the hunters. Cal found himself regaining his energy, he looked at the Archmain and thanked it. The Archmain pointed outside and showed Cal a war, "Reschê alû plaês (meaning help them please)" Cal looked at both sides and saw the beings that resided were outnumbered, "I wish I could but... I don't know how to stop this... but it doesn't mean I can't try." Cal stood up "they shouldn't be doing this to you or anyone else, don't worry, I'm making sure that they get out of there alive." Cal left the Archmain and went to the fleet's base, he witnessed two guards as they were coming in his direction, he knocked down one of them while he shot the other one, he stripped the guard of his uniform and went inside the base when the commander came up to him and questioned him, "Three questions, answer them in the same sentence, Why are you here? What happened to your partner? And finally, shouldn't you be at the prison gate?" Cal answered, "I was with my partner when he was attacked by an Ããchkaawian and yes I am supposed to be at the prison gate so I must get a move on." The commander looked into Cal's eyes and said, "move along." But before Cal could walk away, "Hey... you forgot your badge, 0234." Cal took the badge and made his way to the prison gate, Cal looked around and saw innocent Ããchkaawian being held captive, "(whisper) Shh, don't worry, I'm going to get you out of here..." a bullet came rushing to Cal's direction, "my bad! should have turned this off... Are you okay? What are you doing?" Cal assured the soldier that he was fine, "I was just... Uhm... giving fear to this little tshî (meaning poo) you know what I'm saying?" The soldier looked confused but then began to laugh, "you're crazy man! I'll see you at lunch!" But that lunch wouldn't happen as Cal shot the soldier who turned out to be a lazy general. Out of nowhere, a security bot came up behind Cal and scanned him, "identity confirmed, you are Soldier 0234, how may I be of service?" "First off, release all of the prisoners." But the security bot refused, "that's not available unless the request has been given by the general." Cal dug into the dead general's pocket and brought out his number tag, the bot scanned it, "general 5555, how may I be of service?" Cal tried it again, "Release all of the prisoners." The bot did what it was told and all of the soldiers were immediately stung by the Archmain that still had to fight in them, "Thanks, pal." Cal made sure that they were safe from the soldiers, "Up there!! Isn't that Soldier 0234?"

Bright, flashing thunder lightened up the dark sky, roaring furiously. Underneath the gravitated, thick clouds were a mansion resting on the top of the hill in the nowhere. The naked tree branches screeched against the windows, leaving its scratches.  "Miss Nightingale, have you made the process on what I've requested?" The man in the throne has spoken. His back has faced the window, making it nearly impossible for one to see his face. Across from him was a tall, curvy woman in her bird-alike attire, responding politely with a tint of monotony. "I have secured that your plan are running smoothly. There shouldn't be any problems, sir." "Wonderful. How long until they arrive?" Miss Nightingale's mask shifted to steal a glance at the clock hanging from a wall. She then replied, "Should be there in a few minutes. It's almost 6 o'clock, sir." "Very well. You may go. You are unquestionably needed to accommodate them," He nodded in approval, "We wouldn't want to scare our valuable guests, wouldn't we?" "Absolutely, sir." Miss Nightingale bowed to him respectfully before walking out of the room, following with the door shut down. A cunning smirk spread across the man's face as he leaned right on his chair's arm. "I truly hope you enjoy your stay, my dear pawns..."

His life did a 180 when he met her. It was at the start of a new semester in a little town in Maine, little did he know that being early, was the start of his path in the crossroads of destiny. If only he didn't decide to take the shortcut by the lake none of the crazy things would've happened. Yet, he didn't knew, like normal people do, but he knew he was far from being 'normal'. If only he didn't took the advice from a bird brain that day. -A few hours ago- Marc was fixing himself in front of his mirror. His short, shaggy brown hair was messy despite his efforts to keep it down and side swept. Resigning it to its fate, he pulled down a brown sweater and fixed his black glasses. While tying his boots, a familiar knock made him look up. "Going early today kid?" His father, Joel Hawthorne asked. He had bright blond hair, with white streaks playing from his bangs. Though he and his son had different facial features and hair color, he had the same eye color as his son, turquoise, like an oasis spring in the desert. But his son has a deeper shade than him. "I have a lot to set-up by the theater dad. Plus... The exam results are coming out." Marc said in response, the boy was in obvious distress. His eyes were spiraling as if they were inside a power wash. "You did your best Marc, there's no need to be very worried." Joel ruffles his son's head for reassurance. "But..." He still wasn't convinced. "What if I didn't made the cut? What if something went wrong and... and..."  Until Joel chuckles. He notes how adorable his son was when he was this nervous of all the small details. "Son, have I ever told you about the story of my childhood?" Joel asked the young man and he sighs along. "Yeah... A lot actually. How Grandpa said that you were always carefree yet still manage to get top marks. Are we really sure you didn't bribe the teachers or anything?" Marc snarked but Joel grabs him and begins to ruffle his son's already unkempt hair even further. "Little rascal, you sure did inherit my snark and my wits that's for sure. But you're too nervous." Joel notes as Marc was trying to fix the damage his dad has done to his head. "Loosen up a bit. You might get more white streaks than I do." "I guess I really am just nervous." Marc said as he looks at his watch. 6:41 AM. He was running late for the first bus. "Oh shoot!" Marc said in alarm as he picks his bag from the floor and bolts for the kitchen to grab his food and zooms towards the door. "Bye dad! See you later!" "Hang on! You forgot to take these!" Joel brought up his medicine, it looked a lot like a Pill from Eastern medicine. It didn't have any taste, but Marc knows how effective they were. It was what prevents his unusual disease. He skipped it once because he was curious on what will happen, and during that day, his body froze up, and something was wrong, he could suddenly hear voices and that's not all, he could hear the voices of 'plants'. Weird but he knew he was just tired and was being too imaginative. But he pocketed the pill inside his shirt pocket and ran towards the door. "I'll take it once I get in the bus, see you later Dad!" Rushing out of the front porch in a speed of a fan set on three, Marc bolts towards the clearing, but... 'You're going to be late if you take that route.' Marc skids to a halt. He looked above and saw the hawk looking at him with her beady black eyes. One thing about Marc was... If he doesn't take the pill, he could hear them. The voices of Animals, especially those who belong to the Aves Family. He told his father that once and he just dismissed it as a fleet of fancy, but his expression says otherwise. But Marc still heard them. When he was in fourth grade, a flock of sparrows told him that it was going to be stormy on that day, so he stayed at home. Preventing him from being stranded by the bust stop for almost half a day. Then on his fifth grade, a crow, gave him his missing pen when the bullies hid it when it was an examination week. Now a hawk was calling out to him. And judging by the time, he is running late. "Can you help me out?" Marc asked and the Falcon led the way. He kept his pace steady, but he had a sinking feeling that he was heading towards something that would otherwise make his day, or break his sanity. Unfortunately for Marc, it was the latter. The falcon has led him to the lakeside, it wasn't as clear as it was during spring or summer, but the winter winds made it spooky to look at. The white, morning mist was giving the lake an eerie sight, and the black branches jutting out of the mist were equally so. "H-hang on... This isn't the way to the bus stop." He slowly realized. Marc was getting the shivers now, the falcon was now nesting on the mist, wait... Marc removed his glasses and wipes them clean. Did the Falcon just rest on the mist? He looked a bit closer and notices the creature. Elegant wings that is taller than his house, black nails and an ebony horn, and it's breath was warm, like spring came over quickly. The creature also smelled like the earth after a fresh rain, and once it opened its eyes, the golden hue told him what it was. "A d-d-d... Why is there a d-d-d?" Marc stuttered as he fell to his butt, the dragon rose to its full height and let out a quiet breath, and stared down at the boy. The dragon transformed with a dazzling blaze of warm light. The morning haze evaporated, clearing out the eerie vibe that the the lake initially gave off. When the light died, resting by the newly revived pasture and a bundle of azaleas, was a young girl. Marc knew that it was the same dragon since, her head adorned the black horns, and her body had sky blue scales. To Marc's point of view, she was breathtaking. And once she opened her eyes, she revealed that she retained her golden, dragon-like eyes. "A-are you ok?" The young boy asked as he approached her pensively. "-ngry..." She muttered weakly. "I-I'm sorry?" Marc asked again and she nearly dislocated his arm when she pulled him near her face. "Food... Hungry... NOW!" She said in three separate sentences that made the poor boy sweat bullets. So he rummaged his bag and fished out a cheese spread toast and and an apple. But once he gave it to the girl, it only took a second for her to inhale what he offered. Napkin, seeds, and container included. "You have my gratitude... But... Do you perhaps have something more... Strong?" She asked. "Strong? Like what exactly?" Marc asked in a concerned tone. 'She means she wants booze.' The falcon lands besides them,  and his eyes widened in surprise. "I'm sorry but I'm just a kid!" Marc said in surprise and the dragon girl's eyes widened. "I can't buy you wine or any kind of that drink." "You can understand her?" The dragon girl asked and Marc nods. "I-I do... Well sometimes, but this isn't the first time I've conversed with animals." He admitted. "You probably think I'm weird right?" But the dragon girl rose to her feet and gave him a dignified and royal look. "You'll do well as my temporary entourage. Now, aberrant, take me to your progenitor." She said. But the boy stared at her dimly, as if his brain was set on loading. "I'm sorry what?" Marc asked after a brief pause. 'She means she wants to meet your father. And please exercise caution around her, she isn't used to anyone who lacks etiquette.' The falcon said as she now rests on the young boy's shoulder. "W-why do you wish to see my dad, milady?" Marc asked, good thing he had training when it comes to appeasing old nobility during drama class. And the dragon girl laughs a bit. "Good, an aberrant that has basic etiquette, and if my eyes don't deceive me, then your progenitor must be him ." She said. "But where are my manners, my name is Silva. And you are?" "Marc Hawthorne, milady." Marc said as Silva helps him stand up. "Good, now, take me to your father, Marc Hawthorne." She said, but unbeknownst to him, the dragon girl was feeling apprehensive. If the man is him . Then she doesn't know if she should hold back... or kill him on the spot.

"Kyah!" Mallory let out a squeak as soon as another thunder struck. She then cowered in fear, her arms wrapping around her head. She felt a raindrop falling on her skin and looked up at the sky. Her eyes widened in realization. "Uh-oh..." Before she could run, a pool of rain splashed on her, soaking her entirely. She shivered at the sudden cold and felt a tickle coming from her nose. "A...ACHOO!" I need to hurry up and find a shelter before I get sick , Mallory thought, sniffling. She was completely lost in the middle of the woods, although she has been following the directions mentioned in her letter. She scurried through the bushes and arrived upon a path made of stones. She then looked up to see a huge mansion being surrounded by the gate.  "Finally, a shelter!!" Mallory exclaimed before dashing to take the cover. She squeezed the excessive water out of her blue-purple ombre hair while standing under the exterior ceiling. She then pulled her yellow sewn dog out of her small backpack to check if it's damp. Fortunately, it's not, much to her relief. "I am glad that you are alright, Caroline!" Mallory pulled the string from Caroline's back and let go. The robotic voice emerged from within its body. "Thank you, Mallory!!" Creeeaakk! The doors opened a bit. Mallory's head jerked to the right as she stared in alarm. She tightened her grip on Caroline and took a step closer cautiously. She whispered, "Hello...? Anyone there?" Nobody responded. Mallory gulped, feeling the dread crawling on her back. She took another step, this time, inside the mansion. She was welcomed with a foul scent of death and a gloomy scene of double-sided grand staircase with a statue of an elegant woman in the center. She nearly gagged and pinched her nose while walking even further in the foyer. "Hello? Can someone answer me?" In the corner of her eyes, Mallory saw a silhouette zooming past by. She gasped, now frightened, "W-What was that...?!" Unbeknownst to her, the very same silhouette now was behind her, hovering above her. Mallory recognized when its shadow stretched far across the floor. She quickly turned around and was met with a gun. Her face drained at the realization that her life is on the line at this very moment. "W-Wh..." Mallory was absolutely at a loss for words. Her eyes slowly moved from the gun to the shooter. It was a brunette woman about the same age as her. Maybe, a few years older. That same woman commanded with her deadly glare, "Who are you? What is your purpose in this manor?" Words were stuck in her throat no matters how much Mallory tried to speak. Her legs then gave out, and she collapsed on the floor. That woman didn't spare an ounce of mercy and still demanded, "Answer my question." "I-I..." Mallory stuttered, feeling an incredible pressure. She could feel her heart thumping wildly not in a good way. A bump inside her throat began to swell. She then choked on her sobs, "D-Don't kill me please... I did nothing wrong!" "Maya, put your gun down. Using the weapons in this manor is prohibited." Another voice sternly spoke, putting Maya in a halt. Mallory could hear Maya scoffing in distaste, "Tsk, whatever." "Dear, are you alright? You are safe right now." With teary eyes, Mallory glanced up to see a woman with a bird mask extending her hand out. She took the woman's hand and stood up before hiding behind her. Mallory stared at Maya warily, and in return, Maya only rolled her eyes and was about to shove her gun back in her pocket. The woman interrupted, "You absolutely can't. Give me your gun, Maya." "What?! You can't do that to me," Maya shouted, "I am using this for my defense because I don't trust a bunch of shady people like you." "That doesn't justify your actions," the woman calmly responded, "Carrying your gun with you will endanger other guests here. If you are not willing to follow the rules, I'd be more than glad to evict you out of the manor." Maya clenched her jaws at the threat. She then tossed her gun towards the woman and walked off to the door from the left of the foyer, muttering under her breath. Mallory swore she could hear Maya cursing about the woman.  "I apologize about Maya's rudeness. She is one of my newest guests, so please understand," the woman let out a polite smile. "You must be Mallory Paterson, am I correct?" Mallory blinked in surprise, "How did you know my name?" "Do you not know about this...?" the woman questioned confusedly, "I believed that you got an invitation letter from the Oletus Manor." "Oh... Oh!" Mallory began to take in all of the puzzles she has put together. The very place she stood at was the destination she has been looking for. What a coincidence, Mallory thought. She nodded quickly, "Yes, yes! I do! I didn't know that this was the place." "Is that so..." the woman nodded, "Let me introduce myself. My name is Miss Nightingale, and I am the co-owner of this manor. I shall give you the tour once I have gathered other new guests." "That sounds exciting," said Mallory cheerfully. She then looked at Caroline, "Don't you agree with me, Caroline?!" "It is indeed very exciting!!" "Oh my, who is this adorable doll of yours?" Miss Nightingale said. Mallory smiled, "This is Caroline, and it is my bestest of friend!" "Say hello to Miss Nightingale," Mallory turned Caroline to face Miss Nightingale. It spoke, "Nice to meet you, Miss Nightingale!!" "Caroline is quite an interesting fellow you have," Miss Nightingale replied before glancing at the window. The sun was already set down. She then gestured, "The day is about to end. Shall I take you to your room, Mallory?" "Yes, please do," Mallory began to yawn, "I am actually exhausted from searching all over place for this manor." "As you wish. Please follow me." Mallory trailed behind Miss Nightingale who headed in the same path Maya previously took. They went past the dining hall and to the hallway. After across several rooms, they have arrived at Mallory's assigned room, 1F34.  Miss Nightingale turned around to face Mallory and placed a golden key in Mallory's hand, "This is your room you will be using from now on. In order to call me, there is a bell on the desk for you to use when necessary. Enjoy your stay, Mallory." Mallory stared at the golden key with a smile, "Thank you, Miss Nightinga--" She looked up only to see nobody around her nor in the hallway. She blinked in confusion and saw a navy blue feather fluttering on the red carpet. Picking it up, she admired the sight while entering her room with Caroline. "How beautiful..." She then placed it on the desk and plopped into the bed. She then looked at Caroline, "I am so glad that we have a home now. We don't need to worry about food and everything." "We won't be starved anymore!!" Mallory let out another yawn and felt her eyes becoming heavy. She whispered, "Good night, Caroline..." "Goodnight, Mallory!! Sweet dreams!!" With that, her eyes shut down.

The car ride was supposed to be peaceful bonding time between father and son, if it weren't for the crazed arsonists. The pick-up truck drove in silence as Marc and Joel were minding the road. The scent of the pine trees was dampened by the winter winds. The road was wet from the freshly melted snow after its first fall. "So... What made you decide to play hooky?" Joel asked suddenly. "I just don't feel like going to school with a lot on my mind." Marc told his father with a small smile. But the boy's eyes were brimming with confusion. "Marc... Listen, I didn't mean to keep it from you. I was just scared." Joel began. "Afraid of what? That I might grow up being labeled as a freak?" Marc asked quietly as he looked at his father and he sighs. "And it's also for your protection." Joel said in a firm yet endearing tone. "I don't want to lose you because of what we are." "Dad... Please tell me. What are we? What is an Aberrant?" Marc asked. Joel takes a minute and opened with a sigh. "We are Aberrants. Or Mages in ancient times. But unlike what you've read in fairy tales or the comics, the power we use is simply a form of give and take." Joel explains as best he could, and Marc was hooked in the explanation, the boy's eyes sparkled with unfettered curiosity. "Our powers are not omnipotent, nor they are limited. We can create them with just the right thought." Joel continues as he demonstrates with his free hand. Purple sparks began to emanate. "Cool!!!" Marc exclaimed but Joel dissipates the lightning. Marc was back to his attentive state. "So... why did you keep it from me?" Marc asked. "Marc, do you know what a Druid is?" Joel asked and Marc ponders a bit and gave his answer: "A kind of person who uses plants and talks with animals?" He said. "Yes and no... We actually call them Hippies. But, they were strong not at all peace loving nomads. Imagine this: The birds in the sky, the ants underneath the earth, a school of fish in the sea. Even the trees and the plants are under your sphere of influence." Joel tells his son with a worried expression. "They were strong, peaceful, yet terrifyingly deadly once provoked." "But what has that got to do with me?" Marc pondered. "You have a latent connection with wildlife son. Which leads me to believe that you are also bearing the gift of a druid. As such, your attribution is more on Wildlife, but that does not discount your ability to manipulate the elements." Joel explains. "Is that why I am taking the pills?" Marc inquired. "Exactly, the pills can suppress your powers to a level that not even a dragon can detect. Druids are rare, and the Principia will indefinitely take you somewhere for close monitoring. Even if I use my authority, they will still take you away.  And I will not have any of that." Joel said flatly. He was so protective when it came to his son. "But is being a druid bad?" Marc pondered as his father sighed. Then, his expression stiffened and his eyes turned sharp. "Marc, get down now!" Joel barked in a commanding and terrified tone, Marc ducked from his seat as his father stomps his foot on the gas. "Dad, what was that?!" Marc panicked. "Just stay down and hang on!" Joel stammered, he was also sweating bullets as fiery orbs were still being hurtled towards their direction. Joel banked to the left this time and off the road, making the truck crash in a nearby tree. Fortunately, he and Marc got out when he unbuckled his son and grabbed off as fast as lightning. "D-dad?" Marc was looking at his father, Joel's teal eyes were tinged with a sharp violet hue. "You okay?" Joel asked. His voice was wracked with worry and anger. At the corner of his eye, a  Shadow flew by, but from his father's palm, a javelin-like weapon materialized. Impaling the figure that looked like a mixture of a hyena and a wolf. Teeth sharp as knives, and spit with the smell of brimstone. "Hellhounds..."  His father said in distaste as he grabs his son's hand. His right hand still brimming with energy, the boy made an effort to follow his father, but the confusion, the panic, and even the fear was welling up in his throat. His feet won't stop shaking. "Marc, I need you to be brave and strong. Can you do that for me?" Joel asked, his stern eyes and equally serious tone made it clear that their lives are in danger. The boy nods as his father takes him to a nearby cavern. The end wasn't long nor was it too cramped. Perfect for a shelter under the rain. "Stay here." He said, but he caught the scent of a blaze and immediately pushes Marc inside the cave, and at Marc's view, he saw that his father, materialized a staff of some sort and blocks the blazing ball. The next minute that Marc opened his eyes, Joel was gone. The air was filled with the smell of smoke and burning leaves. The smell hurt Marc. Not just by a physical of sorts, but he also felt like his own skin was set ablaze. His heart raced, his vision began to blur even though he was wearing his glasses. The pungent smell of the burning forest was now being mixed in with the smell of metal. The smell of an encroaching thunderstorm. Lightning flashed and then rain began to pour down. But the pain never subsided. The poor boy was now breathing heavily. And his hands shutting down his ears. He could hear  again. 'It hurts...' The voice said. 'Save me... The fire hurts!' 'Little lord. Please help us!' 'Please little lord!!' The voices got louder and restless. The sounds of the trees, the leaves, and the plants. They were calling out to him. Marc was in tears, why was he hearing this again? The pills can suppress your powers. The young man fumbled his pockets and fished out the pill with shaking hands. But his fingers were so shaky that the pill rolled out of his grip and it dropped to a puddle, instantly dissolving it as if it was cotton candy. The sound of battle clamor amidst the burning forests, the cries of the trees and plants made him nauseous, to the point that it made him hallucinate something that normally wasn't there.  Green wisps began to form around the young boy like fireflies around a tree. But as he was ready to fall deep into his madness, from the corner of his eye, he spots a peculiar pinion, one brimming with energy that he couldn't comprehend. The sounds of battle were getting louder and nearer. He didn't want to know what made that noise. 'Little lord. Grab the plume. Call the Dragon.' The trees were telling him the same thing, taking the gamble, Marc grabs the pinion and a surge of energy rushes towards him. 'What is your most fervent wish?'   "Help me save my dad!" Marc screamed and the pinion breaks into multiple specks of light. The specks then swirled around and begins to form a gate, a mighty flash and the sound of beating wings, The cloud dragon and her trusty hawk steps out of the pillar, which disappered in a blinding cascade of power. "What a mess... And here I thought I would be having a vacation." Silva sighs as Euclid perched herself on the boy's shoulders. She looked at him with her beady black eyes as Marc's own vision was getting blurry and stale. 'The boy couldn't control his power and he used it all up.' Euclid reported. "That explains the surplus of Arbor... No matter, Euclid keep him safe." Silva said and the last recollection Marc had before he blacked out... Was seeing Silva's full draconic form, and a roar that blasts the smell of fire away. Where am I? Why is it so dark? All he could see, feel, and even smell... was nothing. He was getting afraid. So afraid that he wanted to scream, but he noticed his voice won't respond. Then his mind was swimming around many questions: Where was he? Where was his dad? Was he still alive? 'A lost little druid?' Marc heard a woman's voice. But it wasn't Silva nor Euclid, nor was it anyone he knows from school. The sea of darkness began to brighten a little, and all he could see was a small green dot, that glimmered like a star. Who? 'In time, you will know. But remember little druid... There is danger everywhere. Now that your father has revealed what you truly are, others are now aware of your existence. ' Wait... where is my dad? What happened to him?! 'In due time, little druid. You will know. But for now... rest. Your body is in need of it.' The voice disappeared as Marc regains consciousness. His head felt light, but he noticed he was lying down, the soft pillow smelled like fresh roses, and the eucalyptus wafts from the open windowsill. Judging from the state of the light outside, Marc concluded that it was already dusk. "I see you've come to." A man's voice catches the young man's attention. He looked to his left and found a man that had the same features as Silva. Minus the golden eyes, for this man had eyes that was blue as the sky. But his expression was as merciless as thunder. "Um... Who?" Marc wondered but the man just places his enormous hand on his shoulder and it gave him the shivers. "No anomalies... Good. Stand up child, the high council will speak with you now." He said. "About what?" Marc inquired, but he wished he didn't. For the look on the man's eyes confirmed one thing. "Whether or not we should kill you on the spot. Or imprison you forever."

The walk back to his home was weird, awkward, and depressingly silent. Marc looked at Silva, who had the most terrifying expression with each step they take. "I-I'm sorry if we're going slow." Marc apologized to her but she looked at him with an incredulous look. "Your apologies are unfounded. And you are taking in consideration of my slightly weakened state. If anything, I would like to thank you." Silva reassured the young boy. To her eyes, Marc looked like a timid fawn. Barely able to stand on his own. What she was contemplating about was his apparent talent to converse with Euclid. The Falcon Queen was a legendary beast, not anyone can hold a conversation with her. Only a handful of Druids could only understand a fraction of what she could say. Yet this boy. "What do you do for a living?" Silva asked and Marc pondered incredibly well. It took him a solid minute before replying. "I... uh... Read a lot, I'm also part of the drama club as part of the props men, and also... I do crafting in my spare time." Marc said earnestly and Silva took a mental note. He does have the qualities of a druid... still, I have to confirm if he is the son of the judicator. They reached the house by 7, and by that time, Joel Hawthorne was busy fixing the pick up truck, his chiseled body was covered by a grimy shirt and his blond hair was greased up, he looked young for someone in his mid 30's. Then Marc suddenly remembers... He's already late! And he's flunking out of school! He knelt down in defeat as he laments his non-existent perfect record. 'Euclid, what is he doing?' Silva asked. 'He's overthinking. Give him a few minutes.' Euclid sighed. Then Joel looked up from his view and snickered, his son... finally he was breaking off from his usual uptight self and following his footsteps, then he noticed the falcon on his shoulder, then... at the silver haired girl. "Hi dad... I'm home." Marc said in cold sweat as his father was glaring at the girl. But he did invite them inside without a word. The dinner table was like a chess board. Joel is like a Knight, ready to flank his opponents with witty remarks and unexpecting strikes. Silva exudes that of a queen, ready to strike down in any unexpecting angles. And Marc felt like a pawn. A cute, defenseless, feeble sacrificial pawn. By the looks of things, they might engage in a colorful display  of cursing and petty disputes. But five minutes in, they sat down there, with the most constipated looks Marc has ever seen. "So... How did you two meet?" Joel asked, clearly vexed by this twist of events. Silva took a large gulp of her mug full of beer and she sighed as if she was given new life. "My mini entourage found me weak and pale by the lakeside, of course, he was courteous as to help a frail maiden in need." Silva said while Marc and Joel nearly choked from their drinks respectively. "You found her?" Joel gave Marc a disappointing and scared look. Marc nods apprehensively. More like she made me find her. Marc wanted to say but he held his tongue. "Do not blame him Joel, he followed his gift, so naturally it led him to the destination." Silva said, and her eyes suddenly gleamed. "While we are on the subject, answer my question... Joel Hawthorne. Why did you suddenly drop your post as 'General' 11 years ago?" Joel slams his mug by the table. Marc shuddered in surprise. But he didn't say a thing. His dad was a general? And a general of what? "It seems you never told your son. How many secrets have you hidden from him?" Silva continued the offensive. "None of your concern. And for the record, I retired. I didn't leave the order because of some petty reason." Joel said in an annoyed tone. "A single sheet of paper of your sudden request for retirement sent out the shock of the century." Silva complained and she threw out the paper. "All your school days you were always like this!" "And you were always uptight. Even for a dragon..." Joel pulled a mini raspberry on her and they began to argue so much that Marc's ears felt like it was bleeding. 'They are always like this young one, you will get used to it.' Euclid told Marc as if she too was getting annoyed by the banter.  "And stop changing the subject! Why did you suddenly broke off as General Judicator? Without even leaving out a successor?" Silva fires back. "I said in my letter that Suyin will be my successor." Joel recounted but both Euclid and Silva groaned. "For the last time Joel, Suyin is a member of the Conservators!" Silva groaned. "She only helped you because of a favor from the previous General  Judicator." "I see... Then make Malik the general."  Joel said nonchalantly. "Malik hasn't graduated yet!" Silva respond in an outburst. The banter continue on and off until Silva finally finished her huge glass of beer. And with a satisfied sigh she sits comfortably. "I'm sure you're wondering why I'm here." She asked. "Aside from asking my sudden resignation and barging into my doorstep, we've already covered that." Joel retorts but Silva gives a small smile. "Actually Joel... I'm here to discuss about the pills." She said and Joel's face morphed from a smile to a more... business like expression. "What about them?" He asked. "As you know, the Cloud Banner Clinic has been extreme towards the consumption and distribution of the valley pills. Their doctors claimed that too much consumption will lead to addiction. As the General—" "Former General." Joel intervenes and Silva bit her retort back. Marc was watching them like a tennis match and wasn't sure who is winning. "Whichever, what is your take? You know the Valley Pills more than anyone." Silva regains her composure. "The Valley Pills CAN induce addiction if consumed regularly and daily. Those pills are made from the lilies of the valley after all." Joel said. "But why? Every aberrant who uses it cannot even make a coherent sentence if they are too far gone." Silva asked. "In just three months this year, the spread of the valley pills has already penetrated among the wights." "Wights?" Marc asked. But his father gave him a look that says he'll explain later. "So I have to ask... Do you know something about this?" Silva was now giving Joel a look of desperation. He sighed, knowing whatever he say, Silva will find ways to make him come back. "Fine... Marc, have you ingested your pill?" Joel asked his son, who was startled and shakes his head. "Good, show her." Marc fished out the pill from his pocket, and Silva's eyes widened with fear and disbelief. "You're making your son ingest the pill?! Joel Hawthorne explain!" Silva was outraged to say the least. "I will. But... Not until you tell me what is going to happen if I tell you." Joel negotiated. Silva's eyebrows arched. "Dad... Can I handle this?" Marc interjects, and they both looked at him. Joel sighs and walks towards the door. "Just shout if she tries anything funny." He told his son and he walks out. "Can... I tell you instead of my dad? Since I am the one taking it." Marc asks permission from the dragon, hoping to appease her. Silva's expression softened a bit, but she still gave Joel a begrudging look, even while he was outside. "See, I have a condition. Whenever I don't take a pill, my body would begin to shake violently. And that's the worst case scenario." Marc explains. Silva takes that in, but she remained silent to hear the rest of the story. "I usually take these monthly. Because... If I don't, then the minor symptom will arise. Which is hearing the voices of animals." Marc continues and Silva looked up. "Why would you think it's a symptom?" Silva asked the young man. "That's what my dad and my psychiatrist told me. I... had a little accident when I was young you see. Though the memory is hazy and jumbled." He said, and Silva gave an agitated sigh. "Joel Hawthorne... How could you..." She said as her hands began to morph into claws and her grip was crushing the hand rests. "A-are you okay?" Marc asked. "I'm sorry. I lost control for a second." She said and she gets up and signals Euclid to perch on her arm. Right on cue, Joel comes back in and Silva shot him a venomous look. "I take it your conversation is over?" Joel still had time to crack a joke, much to Silva's chagrin. "Yes. But I will be staying here. I did use up most of my strength to conceal myself in that puddle." Silva groans and walks towards the door, but not before stopping beside Joel. "Talk with him. You've concealed too much for far too long."  Silva whispered and Joel's face tightened. The dragon leaves the father and son alone, after a minute of silence. Marc sighs and walks towards his dad. "Um... Dad? It's kind of late for me, so uh... I think I might skip school today." Marc gives his dad a devilish yet sheepish grin. In which he ruffles his son's head. Making a mess of his already messy brown hair. "Hehe... Yeah. Wanna take a ride with me?" Joel asked and to which Marc replies in an instant and enthusiastic yes. Little did he know, that after meeting Silva, knowing his father's former position, and his mind curiously kept asking him: What on earth is an aberrant? And if he is one... What does that mean for him?

“You can what?” Angela’s voice was heavy in disbelief, her face doubling this emotion strongly. “I... I can use all seven elements.” Gilliam replied, looking almost ashamed and questioningly at Angela. Her strong emotional disbelief almost made it sound like it was a very negative thing. “No, I mean... I heard you but... Are you sure?” her tone was still very disbelieving but at the same time, she didn’t seem to think him a liar either. “Well... yes... Look..” Gilliam turned around to face the empty area behind her cottage and went through the elements to prove his statement. “Fire.” He started explaining as he made a tiny fireball before sending it into the air. It flew up well above the canopy before setting off a tiny fiery poof explosion. “Water.” Proceeding with the show-and-tell he channelled and sent off a stream of water, splashing onto the ground a mere meter away. This process went through the other elements. For Earth, he made a grabbing motion towards the earth he deformed the earth into a small hill as he pulled it back up, almost as if he grabbed something underground and yanked it up. For Wind, he pointed his palm towards the trees and had them gently sway from a wind that emanated from it. For Aether, he replicated lifting a rock from before, but this time much less force was put behind tossing it into the jungle. For Light, he grabbed a branch from the ground before raking it along his lower arm. It scraped the skin up, not enough to properly wound him but enough to make some superficial scratches and red marks. Charging his hand with pale green energy and waving it over the new wound, it faded immediately. For Darkness he grabbed some plants that grew in the treeline around Angela’s clearing and channelled some dark angry energy around the plants, having them instantly wilting as their tiny life force entered his body. “So yes, it seems that I can use them all..” He re-confirmed to the still-in-disbelief Angela. She stood there with her mouth agape for a good solid few seconds, having problems processing what she just saw. The sheer disbelief on her face was almost to the point where she looked angry, which in turn made Gilliam more and more uncertain about if this was a good or bad thing. “I... I’m having problems with this but... But that is amazing!” her face finally showed something else, the transition from disbelief into one filled with amazement. She finally looked like this was a good thing. The much relieved Gilliam lowered his shoulders a bit as he let out a relieved sigh. “Oh.. good... For a moment there I thought this was a very bad thing... You... looked almost angry.” “No. No. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just,... I haven’t even heard of a mage that can use all seven elements. Mages usually have between one and two, a few times you can find three. But all seven are... unheard of... I... I think you might be the first. You are hero material!” Her explanation had Gilliam turn a bit embarrassed, this much praise was odd for him. There wasn't much in the explanation to misunderstand either. He was special but being the only one? “The only one? Isn’t that a bit... farfetched?” He finally asked, having thought about this for a second. “No, not really. It makes a lot of sense. You learned the spells so fast, you had all that power behind the rock you threw, and no headache or other problems after using magic even though it was your first day. And that’s without mentioning the lack of a Foci... I think that might be what the prophecy spoke about, you are a prodigy of magic, that is your great power.” She was still in a state of shock and amazement, her face now clearly told that this was positive, as well as confirming more of the prophecy at the same time. “Soo... I’m some sort of Über mage?” Gilliam looked at his hands again, this time not with dread or disbelief, but with his sense of wonder and satisfaction. If what she said is true then he might become a powerful mage. This was nothing short of amazing. “.... U... Uber?” She hung up on a strange word she didn't understand. “Ah... yes... well... It’s a term, a word, from my world. The best translation based on how it’s used is a step above super. So a Super mage.” he felt a bit dumb not considering this as he used the word, but it just came naturally from him. “Well, yes. That’s an understatement. Since this is still the first day you are using magic, and you have learned eight spells, showed more power with one of them than certain mages do after a week of training and without the negative side effect that I felt myself even after several days of training... You... you are a wonder!” Her complimenting tone hit Gilliam quite well right in the Ego. The summarizing and praise of his current status fueled it quite a bit, he started to feel amazing. Perhaps it would not be that bad living in this world after all. “I do wonder-” Angela mused after letting Gilliam settle in on his metaphorical pedestal. “-Just how much power do you have...?” It was a valid question, given that the book recommended a feather or leaf to train, even then use a Foci as it might be too hard to get the spell done properly without, and though he didn’t know how long it took to regenerate mana, he could potentially have a decent pool to start with. The book also mentioned that the power of the spells is relative to how much you gather during the casting of the spell, so... He could in theory find out relatively easily. “According to the book, if I just fuel everything into one spell we can find out? I might collapse if I use too much but my body should stop me before it becomes dangerous....” He didn’t sound entirely convinced, the book had not lied so far but at the same time, this felt like it might be potentially dangerous. “The danger depends on what spell we use. I don’t think we should use fire... A supercharged fireball without control could be... well... I like living, so... I think the best could be telekinesis. There is no lack of heavy things to lift and the worst that happens is that you either cannot lift something or that it falls back down.” She nodded sagely at her proper insight and analysis of the situation. She was great indeed. “That makes a lot of sense.” He agreed with her logic, if something is too light he can just drop it back down and find something else, but if it’s too heavy the only thing is that he strains himself without it going bad. The other elements all had their ways of hurting them. Telekinesis was not too different but it was easier to measure the effect without becoming dangerous. “Let’s start with the boulder back there” Angela pointed in the direction of the boulder that was the recipient of the rock Gilliam threw earlier. He nodded in agreement and came with her over to where it was located. It was a decently sized rock, easily both as tall and wide as a grown man. Angela took some distance and Gilliam mentally prepared for this. Going through the steps he focused, gathered the needed energy to start the spell and stretched out his hand towards the boulder. The spell locked on and he started fueling the spell with more and more energy until either the boulder lifted or he reached his max and could not lift this weight. He didn't want to overdo it, so he fed the spell with more energy slowly, and in the end, the boulder lifted! There was a bit of effort but it was far from problematic. Like lifting a bucket of water on an outstretched arm. It was very heavy, yes, but it was manageable. He looked very happy at his achievement as this rock would weigh... What... 30 tons or something? Doing the thrusting motion and it used a considerable amount of mana, however it flew a good 20 meters before crashing into the ground, tearing trees with it and causing a great level of destruction. This drained him a lot, he had to widen his stance and grab onto a tree for support, he grabbed his head and was blinking hard and often. “Oh... I think I know what you mean about the overuse of energy thing... I feel weak, headache, tunnel vision and... this sucks...” he sat down as he explained this and ended up landing on his behind with a thud. Angela walked over to him and sat down on her knees beside him, looking at him with a bit of pity. “Now, that is the feeling I remember. Just relax and it’ll go away soon-” Her tone and expression changed to a praising one during her comment. “-But that was still amazing. To do this much on your first day. Most mages use weeks, if not months or years to get to the point where they can lift something as heavy as this.” Gilliam inhaled deeply and laid down on his back during a long, drawn-out, exhale. “Thank you for the praise, it’s going to feel much better once this fades... How long do you think it’ll take?” There was a hint of desperation in his voice, his face confirmed that this was far from pleasant. Angela could only look at him with a knowing expression of understanding his condition. “That depends on each individual. In my case, it didn’t take too long but I have heard it takes almost no time at all, up towards hours. I think the factors on how much you exert yourself, how used your body is to exert yourself magically and your Mana Core. As all of these are individualistic I cannot say in your case.” Gilliam let out a dissatisfied click with his tongue, he would just have to ride this one out. And he would make sure to not over-exert himself like this if he could avoid it. He was very powerful for a beginner, and also had a high mastery potential. But at this exact moment, he was feeling rather shit. Sure, it might be a first-world problem... all things considered, but it was his problem and he currently had to deal with it. He placed his arm over his face, placing the inside of his elbow over his eyes to shut out the light. “So... Since I’m recovering like this... Tell me more about this prophecy I’m a part of. I get that it, and your visions, told you where I would arrive and that I’d become a hero and all that nice stuff. But do you have anything specific?” His voice hinted that he was trying to force himself to relax, his current situation was not incredibly pleasant. “Well, the short of it is that I saw many details, but they were almost random-seeming, and not always in the correct order... I think... It’s not easy. But the prophecy itself was more a collection of visions, like pages from a book torn out at certain key places. I saw where you would arrive but not when. I saw what you would look like but not your name or anything like that. Like how I saw that you would become a great hero and know deep in my heart that you would have great power, but didn’t know what ability this was, just something hero-like.” Her voice had a hint of defeat. “Given the lack of specifics, I cannot say exactly what you are to do. You are to beat something, but not alone. I think it's a world-affecting event but I don’t know if it’s just one thing or a series of things. The image in my mind of you at the end was battle torn but triumphant looking with a staff, sword or long object in one hand and something smaller but also elongated, slightly thicker on one side than the other item in your other hand, standing on the ruins of something with many people cheering your name.” Her gaze goes back to the resting Gilliam. “I am there beside you, so are two or three others... Hard to tell, to be honest.” Gilliam chuckled a bit, he was looking at her face through a little opening he had made simply by lifting his arm a bit to the side. His chuckle had Angela’s brow curl up in mild annoyance. “No, no. I’m not laughing at you.” he tried to defend himself. “I just can't imagine myself as the hero you mention. It almost sounds a bit... stressful. I never really liked that kind of confrontation, never good at fighting. I always preferred to talk things out, or just run if it came to it.” He didn’t sound too proud of this fact, he didn’t have anything in the sense of scars that showed fights lost but his tone still hinted that he had to use the art of running away in the past. Angela shook her head, but her face had an oddly approving smile. “Running away from a fight you are certain to lose is not bad. It's a simple instinct and makes sure that you’ll live another day.” Gilliam didn’t have much in the sense of a comment to it, so he just remained silent, sparking an awkward quiet between the two. Feeling this general uncomfortableness Angela decided to break it with a topic swap. Still sitting next to Gilliam, she didn’t seem to worry about his situation, perhaps since she had been through it before she knew that it was not dangerous and you only had to wait. “Anyway. Since you are gifted in magic, I think we should find you a teacher, or at least someone better than me who can explain things to you. I know there is much more to magic than the beginner book I have. Proper spells take more effort to master and have higher power, they can also be much more Mana efficient. Since the book is a beginner's book that lists a simple and weak spell from each element to test yourself on, it’s lacking in proper explanations.” Moving his arm away from his face, he was looking generally a bit better as a whole. “That would explain why they were so easy to learn. And I do have a lot of questions about some of the terminology used.” Sitting up with some effort, he continued his explanation as he flipped through the pages of the book. “The book mentions something about Structured and Unstructured magic but doesn’t explain the difference. Just that the spells listed in it are easy to learn because they are unstructured. And though you explained it to me, the Foci isn’t explained nor is anything about the how's and why’s of magic.” Turning towards Angela he had a newfound determination on his face. “I would love to speak with a... no offence... But a proper mage, so I can learn just how this works and become a better mage.” Like he suddenly realized something his face changed from determination to a more embarrassed one. “Although... before that... Could I borrow your toilet?” he forced a smile at the end. Angela looked like she was a bit surprised at the full topic change but this changed to a more neutral tone a second later. “I don’t have any toilets in my house here, use the jungle.” She said this as if it was the most normal thing ever, which had Gilliam think for a second. “There... are toilets in this world, right?” Before she got the time to answer he did so himself. “Oh.. yeah... you know what a toilet is so naturally there are... Makes sense that there wouldn’t be plumbing out in the jungle...” Scratching the back of his head he felt dumb, not considering his location and only focusing on the minor details. She laughed as a response to the moment of panic in both his voice and facial expression. “Don’t worry, there are toilets, the type of plumbing depends on where you are in the world but you don’t have to worry.” There was a little smirk on her lips still, she was enjoying his reaction. “Oh.. good... Well... I mean... I can always go in the woods, but it’s not the same..” His voice was extremely relieved, making his defence fall rather flat. The attached forced smile didn’t help either. “Well... I guess I’ll have at it.” There was a grunt at the end as Gilliam properly got to his feet, looking around for a good direction he just started walking into the jungle a bit. Angela didn’t stop him or say anything so it couldn’t be too wrong. And it’s not like he needed to get too far into it, he only planned to pee, so he didn’t have to consider what leaves could be good, bad or even dangerous to wipe with. Having relieved himself he realized that it isn’t anywhere good to watch his hands, he wondered if he should just ignore it but it just felt a bit... wrong... A spark of an idea bounced in his mind and he tried casting the water spell, it made a stream of water that he could use to wash his hands in. Though he didn’t have soap handy he still felt that this was amazing, he used magic for something mundane but he felt like he had the best ideas ever. At the same time, it felt very overkill to do something like this to just rinse your hands. He decided to focus on being amazing instead and aimed back at Angela with a huge smile. “I trust you figured it out?” The snarky tone and smirk were a reference to his moment earlier. “It was a hard puzzle, but I got it in the end.” Though making it sound like a great ordeal it was not more than a dumb joke. And though a chuckle was shared between them he also realized something else, looking at his hands as he opened and closed them a bit as a sort of test of something. “I also think that the Mana over usage thing is fading. The back of my head is still dull but it’s not bad anymore.” Angela got to her feet to face Gilliam. “Power, all the elements, learns easily, lots of Mana and a short recovery time... You truly are a prodigy mage”. Her tone was not exactly happy, not negative in itself but more full of envy. Gilliam smiled to himself as he continued to look at his hands, being a prodigy mage didn’t sound bad if you first were thrown into a world with magic. “But-” Gilliam started. “-Now what?” Though he was stoked that magic is real and that he could command it surprisingly easily, he didn’t know what the next step was. “We can spend a few days here if you want, so you can get used to things. But I think we should find you a teacher. The best place to go might be the academy where my father works. If he can’t teach you himself he should at least have some connections” she smiled. It was the kind of satisfied but hollow smile, she did mention earlier that she didn’t like always being tied to his name but at the same time for Gilliam to get a better foundation was probably a very good place to start. “That... sounds like a good idea” He didn’t sound overly certain of himself, he was getting used to the base idea that magic was real but this was still a different world, he had been here perhaps a few hours and it was properly dawning on him that he might be here for a while, if not the rest of his life. Learning the basics of its ways is not a bad idea. “For now, play with magic a bit more, I’ll prepare an area for you in the house,” Angela commanded in her still envious tone on the subject as she was getting up, dusting the jungle debris off her clothing. There was an odd determination in her eyes. “I won’t lose!” She had clenched her fists and looked upwards, nowhere in particular. “W.. what?” This both caught Gilliam off guard but also sort of broke him out of his train of thought which was only barely mentally present. Angela looked at him with a burning passion in her eyes. “If I’m to stand next to you as a hero, I can’t have you leave me behind, I’ll catch up to you my own way!” Before Gilliam could properly respond she darted off like she had done so many times already. He thought to himself for a moment that though she was oddly adorable she was a weird, weird person. Though this was quickly ignored as soon as he returned to the conclusion that he was to play more with magic! He opened the book to the Telekinesis spell, which was the most interesting one at the moment. Sitting down he started to read the whole chapter again.

He woke with a jolt, inhaling sharply, covered in sweat and heart pounding. He needed a few long moments to try to steady his breathing. Slowly starting to get control over it and the chaos that was his mind was in, he calmed slightly. As he came to his senses he started being able to process what was around him. He was in a jungle of sorts, tall narrow trees with large-leafed branches, most of which were at the tops fighting for the sunlight with the other trees. The ground was covered in plant life, large leafy bushes, broken branches and a network of roots. The air was heavy and humid but surprisingly the temperature was not too bad, especially considering that he currently wore a simple attire of a black T-shirt, pants and shoes. His blonde hair was still in its short ponytail. With a pained grunt the man forced himself to his legs, first now noticing the strange swirling pattern on the ground and the cleanly cut hole in the canopy leading down to it. Almost like a cylinder shaped blade slammed down from the sky, cutting all in its way, digging a swirly pattern on the jungle floor before depositing him here and fading away. He had so many questions, so many things started spinning in his mind. Where was he, how did he get here, who did this and why. He could remember what he thought were the last few days; summer break and living alone had him going shopping for groceries, he was going to make dinner but on the way back home he... he got run over? Pondering this for a few minutes the images came back to his mind, like playing back an unskippable movie in his mind he could not do anything but watch as he was crossing a road a moving truck driven by a black-haired man with a goatee swirled around something in his way, ending up on a straight path for him. He managed to get out of the way initially but the driver actively aimed for him and... Well, you don’t win against a truck with only your body. “So... I died...” There was clear disbelief in his voice. The thoughts kept spinning; how could he be dead if he was alive now. He clearly was alive, a pinch to the stomach and failed attempts to wake up only cemented the facts. But if he was alive, where was he now? How did he get here? Did he survive the truck but was later brought out and dumped in the woods? This also sounded unlikely, there were no jungles anywhere near home. Pondering this for a few minutes he ended up inhaling deeply, holding his breath for a second before exhaling all the way. “No use stressing about it.” Though not talking to anyone in particular it seemed to be a reassurance for himself more than anything. His thoughts were actually quite logical; Either this was a dream and anything he did was of no consequence, or whatever happened had already happened. He just had to make the best out of it and try to get back home. Looking around a third time he got a better look at the place: There wasn’t that much in the sense of grass but mainly smaller leafy plants, green moss covered trees and all in all it was pretty dense, save his little open area. An odd thing was that though this place was mainly bark-covered trees there were the odd patches of bamboo as well. He finally found that from every direction he could walk only one had a little path leading away from this area, shrugging to himself with a sigh he started walking. Having walked down this path for quite some time he couldn’t really do much but take in the scene. Had this been a planned hike it would have been rather nice. Though highly humid the temperature was kept in check with a gentle breeze, the scenery was dense jungle but a welcome change to the concrete jungle he normally called home. He only had one set of clothes and no signal on his phone, no matter how many times he put it on plane-mode or rebooted it, he hoped for friendly civilization at the end of this path. Not to mention that he was getting hungry and thirsty. He was on the way to make dinner back before this happened, after all. He was decently hydrated before but though he was on a path it was not exactly paved, so the movement and humidity was getting to him. He was in acceptable shape but his breath was getting heavy and strained. Not hearing the sound of running water that didn’t seem like an option. He didn't trust his luck at going for various plants or fruits in the jungle either. He didn’t have many other options than pushing on. Shortly before he was planning to take a break the path led him to a larger clearing. Walking into it he found that it had a cottage placed in it. There was some bamboo-like construction, some horizontal bamboo on stilts, the horizontal parts were bamboo that was split along the length, it went off into the jungle, running water came through a gutter-like structure it made. The cottage itself appeared to be made of various jungle plants, mainly larger trees for the support structure and a mixture of almost plank-like wood pieces and mud to make the walls, the roof appeared to be thatch. The building itself seems to be around 6 by 7 metres (~20 by 23ft), one story construction. Around the cottage were a lot of simple constructions, things like a simple bathtub which was basically hollowed out from a large tree stump, a washbasin and other amenities. Feeling a bit out of place he walked around the building to find the door, which was simply on the other side of it. “Hello?” A bit hesitant to raise his voice. He didn't want to just bang on the door in the middle of the jungle. “Anyone home?” Still uncertain, he walked to the door and knocked on it. “I’m somewhat lost”. Honesty is always the best way to go, especially when intruding. The door flung open and a young woman was standing inside. “For the last time, Geof, I’m not in*” Her loud and aggressive dismissal stops itself as she realises that the intruding man was not the Geof that she expected, and that he almost fell over from the sudden swinging of the door. “Oh. Oh! It’s you!” She proclaimed in excitement. “Finally, after all this time, please, please come in!” Eagerly she invites him into her cottage. The young woman seemed to be around 16 years old, clearly an albino with pale skin and white hair in a round bob-cut Her eyes were blue but had a hint of red in them making them slightly purplish tinted. Her attire fits the mental image of a monks’ garb, though also white in colour. It was loosely fitted to her with some wrappings tightly fastening it around her wrists, waist and near her ankles. “It... well.. What?” He was incredibly taken back at this reaction. He would definitely have remembered someone like her but she reacted like she knew exactly who he was. Perhaps it was something that happened in the blank time between the supposed truck-incident and waking in the jungle? In the confusion he acted on auto-pilot, gave her a nod bow and apologised for the intrusion as he entered as requested. The inside of the cottage was simple, it was easy to see that considerable time was put into making this as nice as possible given its materials. There were most things you could need in a place like this; a small coat-room you entered from the main door, inside from that was a larger sitting room that doubled as the kitchen in a corner and had a good stone area for a fireplace on the other side. There was a simple door leading into a closed room as well as some curtains of sorts leading into another. “I have waited for this, let me get the stuff!” Without waiting for a confirmation or explaining anything she started scampering around her home, gathering books, some scrolls and other various objects. The table he sat down at originally had some cups and a plate on it, they were quickly removed and the table was soon mostly covered in the various objects she had collected. “Now.. I... No... Let me start properly.” Appearing to realise herself being rather flustered she sort of snapped back to reality and noticed her guest’s visible confusion. Clearing her throat and recomposing herself as she grabbed her fist with her other hand, giving him a proper bow. “My name is Angela Sizoc. I am a mage and martial artist in training and I was given a prophecy and visions about you.” She smiled happily and was rather ecstatic. “Err... Gilliam Gibson.” His voice was very uncertain, he didn’t even get up from his chair, bow back or reach out his hand. He just sat there and looked at this young woman in a slight disbelief. “I understand that this might sound... odd.. But it will hopefully make sense in the end.” She seemed to realise the situation but continued anyway. Which was surprisingly fine, Gilliam couldn’t do much more than just sit there and continue being confused anyway. “First of all, you are in the world of Lisica. This is not your normal world. I don’t know the circumstances on just how you got here but I know that you are in our world now. The prophecy tells that you will do great things, but not in detail. It explains that you are from a different world and there is much you do not know. I’ll try to explain some of it now... And for simplicity’s sake, hold your questions to the end!” She clearly seems to enjoy this a bit, and it appears that she has had plenty of time to prepare for this, given the collection of maps, books, scrolls and other devices that she placed on the table during her frantic collection moment. Gilliam slowly nods and clearly doesn’t seem convinced. She started explaining, pointing at maps and showing drawings. Explaining that they were in the continent of V’ida, the other side was Albion and some neutral kingdoms in between. Proceeding with a weird mist in the middle that might do weird things... Albion was run by their religion, and V’ida was run by mages? That didn’t feel right. There was a war because Albion saw the mages as a force to fear that needed to be snuffed out or controlled... and V’ida disliked Albion because of some fanatical obsession with religion. Because of their focus on magic a mage rose in social rank in V’ida right away, and in Albion this was based on their religion and dedication to the people. There was more to her explanation but since Gilliam could barely follow what he got, she went through so many things. From her pointing and explaining he understood roughly where they were as she pointed on the map. But he was still hung up on the magic thing. This became even weirder when she confirmed that there was a dome of.. crystal? That was covering the known world. This was an amusing fact given certain groups of people back home and their beliefs. She moved between topics and explanations so fast that it was hard to follow, she had clearly prepared for this but in her overpreparation it all ended up feeling a bit too... rehearsed and fake. Not to mention that there was no time to actually go into depth in any subject. Gilliam was still sitting there, doing a bad job at absorbing this while nodding sagely, though his face was the utter definition of disbelief during the whole explanation. Magic, Dragons, Dwarves. This all sounds like a game or any fantasy media. “Now, about magic.” She puts the map away and uses a few seconds to look for a book, which she opens to a bookmark made of a dried leaf. “There are seven elements; Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Aether, Dark and Light. Most mages have access to one or two, in a few cases three or more but that is rare. Even then they don’t always have extreme control over it, I for one am a Light mage, but I can only heal myself and not others.” As she explained this as the most normal thing ever, Gilliam could not help himself from looking at her in an almost rude, eye rolling, way. She didn't seem to notice and continued her prepared explanation. “I don’t have too much knowledge in magic, I can only do my own so if you want more information about this I have prepared a book for you. That’s what most of this is; better explanation for the things I just explained for you.” She gestured towards the books, scrolls and mountain of information she placed on the table. She almost looked like she expected to be graded for her performance. The only grade she got from Gilliam was a gaze mixed with being overwhelmed and disbelief. “Oh, I didn’t expect you to believe me right away, I should prove it! Come, come with me!” Not missing a beat in her command she grabbed his hand and started pulling him through the main entrance and back into the clearing in the jungle outside of her house. “Now, how high would you say that the human limit for jumping is?” Glliam narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brow, is this a trick question? Is she going to break some world record to prove to him that magic is real? “I don’t really know... Unassisted I’d guess... 3 metres (~9.8ft) or something?” He was clearly not certain about this number and guessed based on what he had seen on various shows. Not really waiting for an answer, Angela focused for a few seconds before she crouches and kicks off, soaring to a height around halfway to the jungle canopy, which looks to be about 30 metres (~98ft). Gilliam’s eyes grew large; this is impossible, that jump is 10-15 (~32-50ft) metres or something. There is no way anyone can do that unassisted. He looked around, almost expecting to find some wirework or a trampoline under the ground, but he was standing on the same ground and she was inside with him a minute ago. Everything he could see and observe explained that this is indeed real, but it doesn’t make sense. Landing without effort before walking over towards a thick tree at the edge of the clearing. Again she focused for a few seconds, inhaled deeply and let out a single short shout as she stepped forward delivering one punch to the metre diameter thick tree. Immediately as her fist made contact it cracked the tree all the way through, but the tree still seemed to stand. She let out a dissatisfied click of her tongue. “I’m still in training, so I couldn’t bring it down properly with one blow.” Though she looked a bit ashamed at her lack of mastery, Gilliam was nothing short of amazed. That blow should not only shatter her fist but her slender frame could never deliver this level of power. “This is all... just.” His mind screamed; Overwhelming, though he didn't say it out loud. He struggled with grasping this, he’s clearly in a dream. It has to be, this doesn’t make sense... Unless what she says is true? “The visions didn’t explain where you are from or what your world is like, but they did show me that you would struggle with accepting this. I cannot show you my magic... But you might be able to use some yourself.” Her warm smile is oddly comforting, all things considered. But this just raised more questions. “I... can use magic?” The tone of his voice screamed confusion, although with a tiny sliver of hope. Who doesn’t want to be able to use magic? “Possibly. The visions don't show exactly what you are capable of doing. And the prophecy only explains that you will have great power. This might be in martial arts, swordsmanship or even something else. I don’t know but there are ways to test that don't require you to hurt yourself punching trees.” There was a bit of a sheepish smile growing on her lips, she tried to force it away but failed. “And.. what is that?” His voice broke a tiny bit in the question, he recomposed himself to complete it properly but it’s clear that the idea of not hurting himself to find out things was a good place to start. “The books I have, one of them contain novice introduction magic, even new mages who have never learned are usually able to create a magic light. If you just do as the book tells you to, and if you have the gift, you should be able to manifest a light. That will show you both if you can wield magic and that this is real.” Like before she didn’t wait for Gilliam’s answer, she darted to the cottage before her sentence was properly completed, after a short minute and the sound of something falling down inside she came back out with a book in hand. She opened it to a bookmarked page and handed it to Gilliam. “I hope you can read this, I’m honestly glad that we speak the same language... But if you can read this, try replicating what the book tells you to. The worst thing that can happen is that you fail, so there is no danger.” She had an odd hopeful look in her eyes as she handed him the book. Gilliam took the book and had a glance at its contents. “You have a point... if this is another world it’s a bit odd that I can understand you... And that I can understand the book, it’s no problem at all reading this. Actually, it makes a staggering amount of sense..” He kept reading and suddenly something just clicked in his mind, an image of strange runes formed in his mind alongside some other information. The explanation of the flow of mana, for some reason this alien concept also just made sense; like trying to use a limb you don’t have, it's still something you can imagine. He did some simple movements with his left hand as he focused with certain mental images like the book told him to. At the last movement a small orb of light formed above his hand, glowing brightly. His uncertainty was blown away by its glow as his face changed from a mix of emotionless and disbelief into nothing short of extreme glee and curiosity.

The sound of a gunshot was easily noticeable from some distance, the trees and vegetation did a good job halting its spread but it was still quite loud. This was the sound of pebbles hitting the boulder that Gilliam managed to throw a short distance before, he was picking them up with his magic and with both a physical and magical thrust they were sent flying with tremendous speed. Though his aiming was absolutely not perfect at the moment, he still aimed for the boulder in the distance, when it hit the pebble would explode into fragments and dust. He quickly found out that the more energy put behind the thrust the faster it would go, which made sense if you compared it to muscles and throwing, the harder you throw, as in the more energy you put in your muscles, the faster and further it would go. The few shots he sent flying with massive energy behind them broke the sound barrier, adding a second snap to the event. Gilliam couldn’t do anything about the large grin on his face, as the saying goes; had it not been for his ears it would have gone all the way around. A physical impossibility but does wonders to explain the visual side of it. Angela had rushed over to check out what the unnatural sound was, but after a simple explanation from Gilliam, both to what he was doing but also the physics behind breaking the sound barrier, she was confused about the explanation but let him continue, going back to her own thing. Though he was having the time of his life, he had to take breaks, he was absolutely overdoing the power he put into those spells, he genuinely liked the idea that he could send things flying at supersonic speeds. Though, if Angela was correct he had an abnormally large mana pool, so this might not be a common thing. The book also mentioned that these spells were unstructured, whatever that meant, it didn’t explain it at all but it did state that they were inefficient. Perhaps a structured spell somehow streamlined the spell... to make it use less mana.. Somehow? He really didn’t know, but if this was what he could do with an inefficient spell then he was really looking forward to playing with it optimised. Having lost track of time a long time ago, he swapped through the elements. The book didn’t detail much about Light or Dark magic, the little test-spell was the only proper information about them in the book. It touched on that Light spells were healing and restorative in nature, and though you’d think that Dark spells were the opposite, that was not the case. There was mention that it dealt with life energy but also that it had stranger applications. The most interesting to Gilliam was the Aether chapters, nothing was properly explained in this book besides the very introductory things, but Aether was the so called ‘non element’. It was a fundamental element like the others, sometimes considered ‘the element of energy’. For some reason it had the least amount of attack focused magic but was the most versatile of them all. At least according to the book, which was a bit hard to properly understand without actually explaining anything. For now, Gilliam took this at face value, he was going to learn more later, so he continued to test out things with the various elements, testing the power difference between a little and a lot of energy pumped into it. He didn’t do this kind of testing with Fire, Light and Dark, simply due to lack of understanding and control he didn’t want to burn down the whole jungle. His testing and playing was suddenly cut short by another echoing sound in the jungle, his stomach growled with the force of an angry boar. Clearly all this mana usage and regeneration ate through his body’s energy like there was no tomorrow. He needed sustenance! “Shame I can’t just create food...” he muttered to himself as he picked up the book before heading back to Angela’s hut. As he got back there, he saw her training in her own form. She was standing in an incredibly wide stance and doing some breathing... He had no proper idea what she was doing but it looked very martial-artist’y, for the lack of a better word. Opening his mouth to ask about food his stomach decided to announce the situation with less words, breaking her concentration with a growl. Though she was clearly a little annoyed that her focus was broken she couldn’t really do more than chuckle. “You have learned one of the drawbacks of magic; food” as she got into a more common standing position her voice carried a fake sagely tone, though fake in sage-tone it was clear that she knew about the statement from experience. Gilliam nodded. “I had no idea it was going to be this bad... I mean... If I look at it logically the body needs and uses energy but.” He patted his stomach as he explained, hinting that they ate about an, what was it, two hours ago or something? That dense bread and piece of meat should have kept him going for at least a few hours of normal work. Clearly having a large mana pool was neat and cool, but replenishing it apparently needed energy in its own form. “Well, we’re leaving this place in a few days at the most, might as well eat the food we’re not going to bring.” she smiled, seeming honestly happy about leaving. “What about the books and the building itself?” Gilliam looked a bit hesitant, they were leaving because he was here, so he felt a tiny bit guilty. “That’s no problem, Geof can handle that. Though he’s insistent on certain things I’m not interested in, we had a deal long before you landed” she smiled. Given the way she opened the door only a few hours ago when he knocked, shouting something about Geof, they clearly knew each other. Not knowing the details Gilliam still guessed that men are men and this was probably something with some intimate goals... It usually is for most. “Oh, that’s good, then. I still can’t say I’m fond of the thought that I’m that important in your life that you’ll just abandon your home for someone you don’t know...” again the guilt was clear and heavy. “Don’t worry about it-” she started as she got back into her wide stance. “-I’m doing this for selfish reasons as well. So it’s not only you” Though it was toned as a joke there were some hints of facial quirks in there which hinted to this being true but that there was more to it. “Just go eat, we’ll leave when we’re out of food or you feel ready.” nodding towards the open door during her explanation she returned to her breathing exercises. Gilliam didn’t want to interrupt her more than he already has, he sort of opened his mouth to speak but, she seemed to prefer focus at this point. Going into this friendly stranger’s house he felt... out of place. Not just physically or metaphorically but he was given so much by this person, by Angela, without really giving anything back. Now he’s entering her house and is told to just eat her food... He didn’t feel comfortable with this but, his stomach had other plans and wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Gilliam got some more bread and meat from the box she got them from earlier and started scarfing it down. It was somewhat bland but not too bad, like before he couldn’t do much but comparing it to the whole grain and slightly more expensive breads back home. Interesting that in this world odds were higher that what he considered normal was probably expensive if available at all. Modern society was really spoiling people if you properly analysed it. The food disappeared faster than expected, being deep in thought as he ate didn’t really help realising just how fast he was eating it. Chasing it with a large mug.. cup.. thing, of water had him feeling somewhat satisfied. Not the same as a proper dinner back home but it was plenty. Getting a proper look around in the building he first now got a chance to properly take a look, the first time there was so much explanation and just everything at once, so he didn’t get the moment to take it all in. The building was very simple, as he noticed from the outside when he first arrived it was made up from the jungle, it was basically a small log-cabin of sorts. The gaps are filled with mud and smaller bits of wood, the roof seemed to have a simple wooden support structure but was covered in bundles of leaves. The flooring was just many smaller branches tied together into a sort of stick-mat, making a surprisingly stable platform. There were tooling marks at the end of most of the larger logs so if she made it herself she would most likely have used at least some tools. Even the furniture was made from local materials, all in all it was a rather cosy log-cabin with homemade furniture. This would have cost a fortune back home, but here it just seemed to be something she might have done to pass the time as she waited for him. As he was analysing her craftsmanship he started checking out the stacks of books that she had prepared. All from history, to magic, to politics to maps... She was incredibly prepared and, to think she would open a few to show him things and he would use one of them. It almost felt a bit wasteful. The map was interesting, it wasn’t too detailed but rather simplistic. There were some upside down V’s that were bunched together for mountains, simple streams and rivers, it all looked something simple one could make with a pen, or quill in this case. Not knowing the economy of this world, he knew that maps tended to be expensive in the past, so this is probably a cheaper one she got for the explanations sake. She really put effort and time into this. He started feeling a bit worse about the situation, on one hand he was absolutely stoked about becoming powerful, about using actual magic. He always loved magic from games, stories and media back home, so this was literally a dream come true. But he didn’t feel comfortable with how much of her world revolved around him, it was oddly nice in one way but it was a daunting thing to live up to. Thinking back to her determination to not be left behind, he decided to himself that he wouldn’t let himself fall behind either. Not only is this fun and interesting but if she is going to follow him around he would have to become someone worthy of following! And, as she said, worst case scenario if enough of what she said weren’t true, at least he had a local to guide him around. Scanning the available books he couldn’t find other ones that had any magical sounding title. Shame, he was limited to the introductory book for now. Not really leaving the building he sat down and started reading the book properly, he had been skipping a bit back and forth, missing a lot of details he found when he came back to those pages before so this round he’d read it from cover to cover, that should give him a better picture, right? Not realising how long he had been reading he suddenly realised that he was being spoken to due to a clap! “Ah, good, welcome back to reality” Angela smiled at him with her hands together. Apparently he was so into the book that he must have missed her speaking to him before. She continued speaking before he could really reply. “You were pretty deep in it, I assume that you found something interesting?” She had moved from her position not far from the door to taking one of the chairs around the table. “Yes, I did, but this book is annoying...” Gilliam started his answer as he turned back to the book, pointing and flipping pages as he explained. “The book does a good job in explaining the idea behind what Arcane magic is, but besides the test-spells for each element it only mentions a lot of concepts that it doesn’t explain. Like the Foci, Structured and Unstructured spells, that these spells are formless, whatever that means and... Hell, it doesn’t even properly explain much about the Light element. The other elements have details that hints to many other spells or concepts, but the Light chapter only explains the basic healing and that you have to study hard...” He sounded quite frustrated, yes this was just an introductory book but he was used to Earth’s level of guidance material. Any good or smartly written material would at least explain the base concept in introductory books... Or at least the ones he preferred to consider proper. Angela sat back in her chair with her arms halfway crossed as she rubbed her chin in thought. “I can’t remember too much from the classes, since they didn’t apply to me I didn’t pay attention. But I can at least explain why Light is so poorly explained.” Gilliam’s annoyed face lit up considerably, proper information! “The thing about the Light element is that, depending on which teacher you have, and I had a really, really good teacher, there are different thoughts on how many spells there really are. Dad boiled it down to a single spell; Cure.” She unfurled her arms and emphasised her explanations with her hands. “If you want to heal a wound; you cure it. If you want to remove parasites; you cure it. If you want to remove poison from the bloodstream; you cure it... I’m sure you can see where I’m going.” She took his book away and flipped to the Light section, which was considerably shorter than the others. “So when the book is teaching you one spell, it’s teaching you the one spell in the Light element. The reason it’s so hard to master is that it requires understanding of the body you are curing. Wounds are often the easiest as we have grown up seeing what our bodies do, how the wounds close and heal over time, with Light magic you are simply speeding that up with your own energy.” She continued to explain that the Light element is one spell applied with knowledge, so anatomical knowledge was incredibly important. Lesser educated healing mages could only do wounds and fevers because they didn’t know what your bodies were doing for the more complicated stuff. One could cast twelve different fireballs or fire spells, that only needed knowledge of what fire was and either make or learn a spell about it. But Light uses the same spell for any application, it’s just how you move your mana around in your own, or your patient’s body. Gilliam blinked a few times sort of mentally vacantly to her explanation. This was very different to how he expected it to work. But it sort of made sense? If so, his modern understanding of how the body worked could aid him... if that was the correct method of thinking, of course. Angela continued. “As for the other spells, the formless spells are the ones you can cast without first making a magic circle. I never learned to do it but as part of casting certain spells, to focus and control the energy properly you will need to make a magic circle, most mages can make these in the air but I think there are ways around it but... I’m not good enough to explain that to you..” She ended the explanation with a look of defeat. She had explained before that she was a healing mage, but she could only use her magic on herself, if so it made a lot of sense why she didn’t bother with all the other things. Changing into a more commanding tone her face became sterner as she got up from her chair. “For now, keep training with what you have, we can’t have my future hero slack off now, can we?!” Gilliam felt again invigorated by this, there were decent explanations to things and... Well, he just needed a better teacher. Angela seemed to have the basics of Light magic since she was a Light mage, but due to her restrictions she slacked off learning the rest. Gilliam could absolutely appreciate this, the ‘doesn’t affect me’ kind of mentality had his attention decline in several classes as well so it would be somewhat hypocritical of him to complain to her about it. For now he would master these Unstructured Formless spells in the book, if he was supposed to be some sort of über mage, he was going to give it a proper effort! Turning back to the book he kept reading where he had left off before Angela clapped him back to reality, instantly going back to his bubble of existence he didn’t properly notice Angela leaving the room, it was time to read about Darkness magic!

It hadn’t taken that long since the duo entered the cabin to eat and pack. The food remained the same piece of bread and dried meat, it took a bit of water to be properly edible to Gilliam’s standard but it wasn’t bad. Especially not when considering that this was probably long-time storage-food. Besides, he’s being fed for free, he’s in no position to complain. And yes, she was clearly doing this for her own long-term goal but for all intents and purposes she was feeding him for free. The packing also didn’t take too long, in Gilliam’s case he was wearing everything he owned, Angela used a bit more time to get everything she needed in a backpack. She had given Gilliam a shoulder bag, something akin to a leather messenger bag that he could use to carry his own food and a few things he might want to bring. He opted for one of her working knives, food of course and the magic book, but that was really it for him. Looking over his clothing he was still in what he arrived in yesterday. Not certain how this world would handle a T-shirt and jeans he at least wanted to wash them. A second day in the same attire wasn’t the worst he had been through but he did consider how spoiled he normally was to just put on clean clothes fresh from the dryer. “It will take us a few days to get to Che’or from here-” Angela explained as she was fastening some straps on her backpack. “-We’ll hunt on the way so don’t go eating all your food right away” she smiled as she pointed at Gilliam in an accusative way. He had no response, he had realised that food was going to be problem for him, at least for a while. “What are we going to do in Che-or?” Gilliam tried to replicate the name of the place, it sounded similar enough? “Is that where the academy is?” Angela shook her head as she lifted the backpack onto her back, fastening some straps around her hips. “The academy is about two weeks on foot northwest from the Capital, so on the Northern isle. In Che’or we’ll teleport straight to the academy.” Gilliam blinked his eyes twice, teleportation? That sounded both terrifying and amazing, the fantasy and sci-fi stories he had read and seen often had different thoughts and feelings about it, but to most fantasy nerds this was a very cool thing. “We’re going to teleport?” he ended up voicing in a sort of hopeful tone. “Yes, it’s a bit expensive but I prepared a token for when this day came” she smiles as she pats her thigh, most likely where the token was. Though this was a good thing, travel wise, Gilliam was again feeling that he was being given too much. He had known her for less than a weekend and she had already pre-prepared for expensive travel. He kept reminding himself that she was getting something out of this as well as she continued explaining. “We’ll pass through Geof’s farm and let him know that we’re leaving, he’ll take care of the cabin from there”. She had already opened the door and was on the way to leave by the time she had completed the explanation of their plan. Gilliam didn’t have much of a choice than to follow Though he did feel a bit weird having her leave her cabin just like that she did seem really interested in doing this for herself, as she kept reassuring him. In the end Gilliam decided to ignore those thoughts the best he could. Everytime that was brought up she seemed to have some plan that, yes, revolved around him but at the same time was for her own personal goals. Meaning it wasn’t too bad, right? He didn’t like taking advantage of people like this but given how pushy she was, perhaps it was the other way around? Shaking his head he couldn’t make sense of it at the moment, they apparently had days of walking ahead of them so he could talk it out as much as he wanted on the way. Nodding at her tiny caretaker he exited the cabin with her and they set off to meet Geof! This took about half a day, it was a surprisingly nice walk although a bit harder than expected due to the terrain. Gilliam thought to himself that he was way too used to the asphalt, concrete and stairs making up a relatively flat world. This path wasn’t even a path at all, it was just following Angela’s navigation which Gilliam could best explain as ‘somewhat that way’. Given the terrain and how winded he got from just traversing, not much was done in the sense of smalltalk. He didn’t even get to take in the sights, not only due to the thick vegetation but also due to having to look where he placed his feet all the time. Originally he had planned to lightly train some spells as they walked, perhaps toy with some telekinesis or something but that there was no chance of that happening at all. “I think we’ll take a break here” Angela started with a smile having heard Gilliam’s grunts and heavy breathing for... he forgot when that started so probably a while. Just finding somewhere random and instantly plopping down he felt almost instant relief. “I didn’t expect that we’d do a jungle hike right off the bat... I thought there was going to be at least some well-travelled path for us to walk along...” There was a hint of complaining in his voice, something she picked up on right away. “Oh? We have some pampered cityboy here?” there was a clear taunting tone in her voice, like she wanted to try and hit a nerve or sorts to make some fun of. “Yes, to a degree you don’t even understand.” Gilliam replied. He had not been in any cities in this world but if Earth’s own medieval time or if this was anything like stories and media then... Modern society was on an almost stupidly funny different level. This did deflate her facial expression to a micro-pout, the joke was completely ruined with honesty. “Well, don’t overdo it on food or water, we’re moving again in a few minutes”. She took her backpack off, taking a small sip from the waterskin fastened to the side of it. She didn’t even look winded or even like she had been moving at all. No doubt from all her training but Gilliam did feel like this ticked his ego a little, the small girl a solid head shorter than him was doing much better than him physically... While carrying a backpack of stuff much larger than the one he was carrying. It all made sense logically but there was still something in the back of his head that made him sad. The few minutes passed almost instantly for him as he saw her getting up and picking up the backpack again. He groaned as he got back to his feet, a little more than needed with a slight humorous tone to it. Given the little smirk on Angela she took the joke. He was not in horrible shape, but he was not in good shape either, being a student in the world of computing was not known to passively increase your physical prowess. They shared a nod and continued, returning to the same staring at the ground as they trekked through the jungle. Suddenly Gilliam noticed something, he had taken a few steps on grass that didn’t have an abundance of roots and jungle in general. Lifting his head and looking around he saw that the jungle was clearing! He could see further, a large green field worthy of modern envy spread out in front of him. There were some hills and non-jungle trees in the distance that mixed with the vegetation he came from, it seems they were leaving the dense jungle and entering something he was a bit more familiar with. In the near distance there was a clear farm, a large barn-looking building connected to a large fenced field, surrounded by four ploughed fields where different colours of plants were growing, not far from the large building was a smaller more house-looking construction. It was a very stereotypical farm landscape. “That’s where Geof lives-” Angela explained as she kept walking at the same pace as before. “-He’s a bit... tactless and straight forward, so don’t hold that against him” her tone of voice hinted that he might be a bit weird, she was facing away so Gilliam couldn’t confirm if she hinted anything else with that. “I’ll live.” he replied with a pant. They might have just left the jungle but he was still not used to this kind of distance trekking. Currently he was just happy being able to look anywhere else than his feet. First now he realised how clean the air felt. He hadn’t considered it in the jungle, though it was cleaner there as well. It was something else in the open landscape where the wind had been a bit more free but the air felt so clean, so crisp. It was nothing close to the dense polluted one back home. Since he lived in the city he didn’t have the best comparing point but it was still very nice. He did notice that there weren’t any hints of salt in the air, even though she pointed near the coast during her explanation. Perhaps the area she pointed at was larger than he thought? Not really putting too much thought in that at the moment he just followed her to the goal, but now he could take in the sights a bit more. Though that said, besides being large open fields, looking perfect for a field to his untrained eyes, there wasn't really that much to look at. Just enjoying the possibility to lift his head for now he followed his friend. They got closer to the farm and a few more things had started coming into view. There were some farm animals doing... farm animal things around. Most were grazing, some were running about, some were walking towards them looking curious. The only thing really sticking out was a beefcake of a man pulling his own plough in one of the fields. That seems to be where they were heading. The man looked like he was a bunch of toned muscles grown sentient. It was somewhat intimidating at a distance, but it became a bit stranger as they got closer. Angela shouted Geof’s name as they were in shouting distance, the man stopped pulling the plough and looked towards the sound. First then Gilliam noticed his horns. As they got even closer he got a better look on him. The man looked normal, to use that term, his skin was suntanned from working outside since the dawn of time. He was incredibly well built, looked like a pleasant man to spend time with but the thing that stuck out was the horns growing out of his forehead to the sides, first growing sideways before they curved to points pointing forwards, much like a bull. He wore a brown shirt with the arms rolled up and some simple brown pants, both seeming to be some soft leather. Gilliam couldn’t do much but stare, this was his first interaction with any non-pure human, he remembered that Angela did mention in a sentence that half-beasts were a thing. There was so much else to consider that he didn’t even realise it at the time, Angela was unique enough from before so this just didn’t register. “Afternoon, Angela!” The man spoke louder than he needed to by two levels. His voice was like that of a bass-voiced narrator, the creamy voice that would have your ears melt. “Hello, Geof:” Her volume was normal, at least hinting that he was just being loud. “I have come to call in that favour.” She spoke like this code was the most natural thing ever. “Oh, so that dream of yours is real? This is the man?” Geof sounded like he knew about the prophecy, just not like he believed it. Angela corrected him when he said dream, interjecting the word “Prophecy” as soon as he said it, but he didn’t seem to pay it any mind and just completed his question. “Yes, he is.” she changed tone from the slight annoyance of him not using the correct terms to answering him instead, she turned towards Gilliam as she confirmed Geof’s question. Both of them ended up staring at him for a few seconds, which put Gilliam on the spot, what should he do with this? “Nice to meet you.” escaped his lips without him really thinking, it was more an attempt to break the awkward silence that was starting. “Hmm... If you are the hero as Angela claims, I suppose I should be honoured or something.” there was some severe disbelief in his voice, he rubbed his chin with his mudstained fingers, leaving a patch of dirt behind. There was also a questioning look in his eyes, not just physically looking down on Gilliam but metaphorically. Gillam wanted to answer, but was actually a bit intimidated, this felt like the kind of person that could punt him into low-orbit. And that was before he considered the concept of horns on a person. Angela seemed to have picked up on this and continued the conversation. “Yes, I left the house, if you could do as we agreed that would be great” Geof turned his focus over to her instead, letting Gilliam relax a bit. “Yeah, that shouldn’t be a problem. Should I just sell the books or you want me to keep them somewhere?” “Just sell them, or keep them, just keep all of it. I won’t return to that place” She shrugged at the question, it seems like she really didn’t care. Perhaps books weren’t as expensive in this world as Gilliam first thought? They continued their conversation about plans and what to do with things for a few minutes, in between that talk there was an attempt for a date from Geof’s angle but this was quickly shot down. Gilliam felt like the third wheel when two close friends met, which was pretty much what this was, there was nothing he could do and he just had to wait. So wait he did. Looking around and taking in the farm it was interesting how similar this place was to Earth, the same rough construction on the barn and house, the same rough design for the plough, the same... Well, everything. The thing that really set this place apart at the moment was really Geof himself, but if you removed his horns he could just be some big strong man, perhaps adapting to this world would be easier than originally expected. After a while of catching up, discussion about what to do with the various things in the cabin, and the cabin itself, Angela decided to change the topic to them moving on. They still had a few days of travel before they got to Che’or so they should get moving. “I think that’s about it-” Angela changed the topic with the subtlety of a slap to the face. It was abrupt enough that Geof clearly raised an eyebrow from whatever they were talking about before, Gilliam wasn't paying that much attention. “-I think we’ll have to just catch up another day.” She grinned at her friend who returned with a grin of his own. “Yes, let’s do that.” he said in a commanding voice, angling it like an order more than the suggestion that sentence tends to be. Slapping her shoulder with enough force that would probably floor Gilliam, she stood fine and just smiled warmly in return. “Just don’t let it take years.” he added. Gilliam didn’t consider that before. How was communication in this world? On Earth you were just a phone call or some form of text message away from getting hold of almost anyone in the world, no matter the distance. How was it here? Could magic do the same? He would have to ask her about this once they got to a more traversable road on their hike. “I can’t guarantee anything, sadly.” Angela replied with her smile fading. Though Geof was a bit pushy about the date thing they still looked like they had a good tone going. And given that it might be years between meeting friends Gilliam could understand the tone change. Some goodbyes later and the two found themselves on the road again. Just this time on an actual road. It seems that there was semi-steady traffic to Geof’s farm, so there was an actual dirt road to walk along now! This made Gilliam oddly happy, he could look elsewhere than his feet, he didn’t have to stress to just move forward. He felt a bit weird at how happy this made him. Though all this, Angela was still the one leading, the main change is that this time Gilliam could walk beside her and not follow behind her. Gilliam started up some talks this time, asking about her personally as well as the world as a whole, it really helped that she knew he was literally from another world. No ridicule for not knowing the basics and the ‘everyone knows this’ kind of tone. He didn't learn much more about her than she had already explained, most of her life has been in training after she came of age, she got the prophecy at a young age so she had a life goal for the last 10 years, she got the first vision when she was 6 but it was not until this became a repeating thing at the age of 8 that they found out that it was a vision and not just a dream. So the last 10 years she has done different kinds of training like the academy for her magic and various trainers for her martial arts. She said it herself that her life has been somewhat boring from another person's viewpoint, she never considered it herself as she felt like she’s living for her dream. He ended up thinking her ‘boring life’ was rather commendable, she had a clear goal in mind. As a now ex-student Gilliam also had a sort of clear goal but not properly, he was taking an education to see where to go from there with it, she had a proper goal and a dream within a dream.. Or something, due to following the prophecy. He still hadn’t gotten used to the thought that this much revolved around him, but he ended up with the thoughts that he’d just have to see where this went. If nothing else there was the whole magic thing, something he really liked a lot. Asking more about the world she gave him some general pointers and concepts, the important thing he took from it was a deeper explanation on something she touched on in the first introduction moment, his kind of noble status. It seems that here in V’ida just being a mage puts you at a higher social rank than non-mages, you were literally a noble by default. The rank of noble was dependent on a lot of things, like what kind of mage you are, your power, how many elements you had and if you were a specialist or not. In some cases, as a powerful and recognized mage you could do whatever you wanted to commoners without anyone caring, you might be questioned but a dumb comment about being looked at wrong could be enough. Naturally this changed if this person was under the protection of another mage, there was a whole different group of politics and rules when mages were involved. Not much different from the limited knowledge Gilliam had about the Samurai culture in Earth’s history. Angela didn’t have all the specifics in mind, as she didn’t care for being crowned a noble or not, though she had that ability as a mage it was very weak. Since she could only heal herself and not properly show it, or even make a show of force, she was at the very bottom of the mage hierarchy, meaning that any social power she could obtain was simply due to the grace of her fathers’ reputation, something she wanted to get out of. The rest of the walk was filled with small talk, a pleasant calm on the way towards Che’or.

Holding his light bright and without problem Gilliam took the time to look over his fellow students. It quickly became clear that they were completely new at this, which was perfectly fine as everyone starts somewhere. But Gilliam got exactly the same explanation earlier and he had the light going before he knew that magic was even real. Though one part of him was extremely happy, another side of him was kind of sad and felt sorry for everyone else not having the cheat-gift that he had. He decided to do his best to never gloat about this power unless necessary somehow, this was just a bit unfair and he didn’t want to become a bully. Most students managed to get some semblance of light to flicker into existence but faded after a second, some had some super dim candle-light thing going for a few seconds before it just faded. Some managed to almost flashbang themselves and get that annoying light-spot in their vision for a while according to their complaints. The more he listened to them the more he started to learn that though he was unfairly gifted there seemed to be an age thing as well. He had a good, what, double their lifetime of mental maturity? Sure, he didn’t know magic existed until less than a week ago, but it seemed that imagination and mental processing was both needed for magic to work so... Perhaps him getting the light spell that fast wasn’t all just a gift, it was an age thing? He was deep in thought as the teacher started addressing him. “Mr. Gibson.” Gilliam snapped out of his thought process and locked eyes with the man, it was almost uncomfortable like his gaze pierced your very soul... How was a man with this kind of cold piercing stare allowed to teach children? “Are you aware that your light has been on for ten minutes now?” Was Gilliam that long in his thought world? When you focus on something you can forget the passage of time but ten minutes already? “Oh.. no.. I’m sorry... I was thinking of something. Should I start over?” No wait, he shouldn’t need to do that, right? The goal was to have the light on for one minute, he apparently did ten, isn’t that good? Or did something happen with the light when he was mentally away? Perhaps his lack of focus had it flicker or something? “That will not be needed. You have passed the first test. Tell me, how did you keep it that strong, clear and stable for that long without focus?” This sounded almost like a test, the kind in maths where if you just give the answer but not how you got it, you might only get half points if any points at all. Gilliam was uncertain, he wanted to say that since it was this easy he didn’t have to even focus on it, but he felt a bit like a ‘better than thou’ kind of douche in a room full of kids doing their best. Perhaps he can hint to the teacher, adult to adult? “I... don’t know? It just came naturally when I learned it. I did practise keeping it lit a bit, though.” The tone of his answer seems to have worked. Most students murmured to their partner that since Gilliam was older and he had trained, that’s why he was good. But Jial seemed to have a different thought, though it was a bit hard to say for sure it did feel that the idea worked. “How long can you keep it that bright and stable?” Jial asked at the same second as Gilliam completed his own statement. “... That’s a good question..” Gilliam pondered for a few seconds. He hadn't really found a limit. During the tests when walking from Angela’s cabin to Che’or he did try to find out how long he could have it going during his random spell training, and though he didn’t have the know-how to sense how it was going he felt it was going fine even after having it on for a few hours. “I haven’t tested until I failed, but during my last testing I could have it going for at least a few hours before I just didn’t bother more. So I don’t exactly know.” He decided to be honest, he was here to learn and though this might be annoying for the kids he was here sort of for his own sake as well. Jial’s face was impossible to read, if this was a good or bad thing. Logically speaking it should be good but what was this man thinking? “It’s not uncommon for students of your advanced age to get the starting elements faster than others.” This confirmed Gilliam’s earlier assumptions, though if what was mentioned earlier the Heptagon mage thing should also aid. “How many lights are you able to control at the same time?” he asked with the same deadpan, almost angry apperance as he had kept since he entered the classroom. “Erm... that’s a good question as well.” Gilliam had not tried several lights before, in theory it sounded easy but he couldn’t say before he tried. Doing the movements and channelling the energy again he split the flow of energy into two, making sure not to affect the current stream too much as he set up another path for the mana to go through. This felt oddly intuitive to compare both of them as sub-processes of the same main program, strangely enough his way of thinking within coding kind of worked out here. It took a different kind of focus to get the second light to spark into existence, through that said it was somewhat easy, just different. A second light was now present, continuing to find his limit he did the same process again; dedicating the energy flow needed to the existing lights before trying another one. A third light, a fourth light but it all stopped at an unstable fifth light. At this point he had five light sources, though the fifth one started unstable it seems that it stabilised shortly after; it was just the extra needed focus during creation that had it flicker at the start. “I... feel this is my limit..” Gilliam replied after the few minutes needed to create all this was over. “Make another” Jial commanded to Gilliam’s surprise, all five lights flickered once in his surprise hinting to their tie to his mental state. Though, there was nothing to really lose here. The worst that could happen was that the lights go out and he would then know his limit. This calmed him down a bit, stabilising the five orbs he currently had going. He didn’t feel that this affected his mana reserves or flow at all, it seems that the light spell was stupid simple in its construction and drain so this was more a test of his focus rather than the other limiting factors. Taking a deep breath he calmed himself down a bit more, this was just a test for his own sake, anything else is just secondary. Repeating this to himself he tried to remove the stage fright and fear of failure aspect of the ordeal. The programming way of thinking worked so far, he mentally allocated everything according to a code structure. The source of energy was the problem, but it was stable at the moment so connecting another drain to the source was just a matter of focus. Stabilising it was just to make sure that the connection was proper, cloning the existing working structures should aid with this. His focus narrowed to the lights he was looking at and to his empty hand. Doing the process in drawing out another connection to his mana reserves, the metaphorical connection of the hose to the larger pool, stretching it into his hand and having it pool up there into a sphere of light; much like having a thin hose connected to a water balloon, letting it inflate in his hand. These weird ways of thinking worked! Though it took considerably longer to get the sixth light sphere to form than the other ones, especially than the first that only took a casual thought, though this took considerable effort and time it worked. “Another.” Jial dryly commanded as soon as the sixth orb stabilised. Again causing all now six orbs flicker a few times before returning to their solid glow. Gilliam was prepared for that to happen, and for it to happen again should he make another one working. But this was getting interesting, he was fired up. Going through the same process again was hard, much harder. It started feeling impossible but he decided to take this time, don’t rush it and ignore how long this took. The existing streams were working and stable, as long as he didn’t change anything to them they should remain good. Connecting and stretching out another metaphorical hose was not a problem, keeping the flow steady was. Though with careful consideration and a very narrow focus he slowly managed to get another orb to form in his hand. This was unstable and dim, fading into nothing and back to a weak glow several times much like an ancient and worn out lightbulb. He focused on it more and more but felt the connection to the other six orbs waver, causing them all to flicker a little. Returning the focus to the six the seventh he was working on dimmed out and faded into nothingness. Though there was no light in his palm the connection to his mana pool was still present, he wanted this, he really wanted this to work. So he took his time! Increasing the flow a tiny bit, it started glowing dimly, keeping this stable alongside the others for a few seconds then increasing the flow a tiny bit more. This incremental illumination of the seventh orb was slow and tedious, took a considerable amount of focus for ‘just some lights’, but he was adamant, he felt it could work. Keeping doing this for, well, he lost track of time so he didn’t really know how long this took but after enough baby steps he managed to get seven glowing orbs of light! This time Jial didn’t ask for another, he clearly saw the strain and knew that another one would just collapse it. “Keep them glowing as long as you can.” he ordered instead. This had them all flicker as Gilliam mentally sighed and prepared for the long haul, this level of focus was legit straining, it felt like doing hard calculus in his mind without actually being good at maths. He did his best, he kept all seven orbs fed with energy, kept the connections stable and in check, kept the orbs in form and floating. Though only a few steps it was not easy. Suddenly the school bell tolled, breaking his focus entirely having all seven orbs pop and turn off at the same time. The seven flows of energy all stopped and all spells failed. Gilliam cursed a bit, both at himself for losing focus but mostly at that damn bell that still startled the shit out of him. Now that his focus returned to the norm he realised how much this had affected him. He was tired, winded and almost sweating. He felt like he had walked up the stairs a bit too fast just with his mind. It was a weird experience to say the least. Jial seemed to have a slight smirk on his lips, it was subtle but any emotion stood out on such a face. Gilliam couldn’t confirm if this was true or just wishful thinking from his side. “Class is dismissed, work on your light until tomorrow.-” before Jial was done with his sentence the kids in the classroom started packing their things, some were already on the way through the door. “-Mr. Gibson, do you mind remaining?” The tone was the same as everything else he had said. This Jial seemed to be a weird character. Though his voice was not monotone it was oddly devoid of emotion or any emphasis unless clearly deliberate. Gilliam just nodded and waited for now, Jial seemed to take some notes or do some teacher-stuff as the room emptied. As soon as the last student had left, leaving both of them alone in the classroom, he made a pulling motion at the door which closed itself, Gilliam recognized this as a very simple telekinesis spell. “Mr. Gibson. I was informed by the headmaster about you. I had my doubts where to place you at the start. Seven lights is impressive.” Though the words he said made it sound like he was indeed impressed, you could not tell by looking at him. “Unstructured like that I’m only able to keep five.” This took Gilliam off guard, he was better than his teacher in this, on his first day. Naturally this had him somewhat ecstatic but it also almost felt like he was cheating. He decided to focus on the former thoughts rather than the cheating feeling. “Structured is an entirely different story, which you will learn later. Based on this I believe the headmaster in that you have tremendous potential. I would like to personally, and privately, teach your next class in magic circles.” This sounded like a request and order at the same time. He had a very strangely commanding aura. Perhaps that’s why he did well as a teacher? Gilliam considered the scenario a bit, on one hand this felt like he was again given special attention, but based on what Angela and Ledels mentioned just yesterday this was probably some ulterior motive in giving himself credit for having taught Gilliam things. Though he was getting the feeling this was going to become a thing more and more, he decided that, to hell with that thought. If this gave him special training by masters or experts then they are both gaining, aren’t they? If he paid a teacher to teach him something, he was paying in money. If he gets the training for free like this but the teacher gets some PR points, then he’s paying through advertisement, this was just some alternate form of payment. At least this is how Gilliam explained it to himself, in the end he was getting specialist treatment and training, so he was winning on it regardless. Not to mention that Jial introduced himself as a specialist in magic circles, if this was true that he was good at it, then who better to learn from? “I would like that.” Gillaim responded after a few seconds of thought. There was no need to not take advantage of the situation for his own benefit, after all. “Good, then let’s start immediately.” Jial was apparently only nice to the younger students, but then again Gilliam was stoked to learn more so this didn’t matter. Jial started immediately to explain, as he did that a pad had started moving on the blackboard behind him, erasing the chalk-written notes from the class. “We will focus on first drawing the magic circles, then we will teach you your first spell through it. Like a Foci helps you direct the energy correctly, a magic circle does two things; first it helps control the mana flow by channelling energy into it, second it acts as a lens to concentrate the effect to exactly where you want. But before we go into depth, make a line in the air like this-” Drawing his finger in empty air he made a yellow-white thin glowing line. It was perfectly straight and looked like a super thin LED-string just hanging there. “-This is done through an application of the light spell. Instead of forming an orb; like a quill or ink-pen, deposit the light along your finger as you draw it.” This metaphor instantly clicked in Gilliam’s mind. That made sense, if you let a weak and steady flow of energy out as you draw your finger, your finger basically becomes a magical pen of sorts. Looking at his hand he focused the light to pool up in his palm, but rather than having it become a sphere he stopped growing it by restricting the flow of mana, much like pinching on a hose of water. He then let that energy flow into his index finger and pulled it across the air, letting it ‘spill’ off his fingertip. It was splotchy, almost like finger painting and compared to Jial’s yellow-white Gilliam’s was more teal-like. Jial’s line was crisp, straight like a ruler and looked like he took glowing ink to the air through a pen, Gilliam’s looked like finger painting without a goal. However, it was a success, there was a glowing line in the air just hanging there. Gilliam could not help himself and poked it with his other hand, this apparently destabilised it so it practically shattered and faded in the matter of a split second. “Good first try, try to make it thinner. Rather than guiding the energy to spill off your finger, focus it on a point and let it be pulled off like a pen. You are pushing the ink out. It needs to be drawn off by the receiving medium.” This also made sense to Gilliam. He had been using a syringe method by pushing out the ink meaning it didn’t go out smoothly, but all pens of all sorts leave a trail at the point of contact based on.. Well.. several things but mostly about the ink flow being present but drawn off the point as it is absorbed into whatever you’re drawing on. With this in mind Gilliam did the same thing again, but rather than guiding the energy to the tip of his finger he guided it into a point above his finger, like an invisible claw of sorts. Drawing again made a perfectly smooth line! It was not ruler-straight as Jial’s but it was like drawing an ink-pen across paper, just teal glowing and arced where he just drew in the air. Gilliam thought he saw Jial raise an eyebrow, but if he did it faded fast enough that he couldn’t properly validate it. “Impressive. A clean line on your second try” Jial complemented. “Why is mine blue?” Gilliam asked, not having considered that light can usually be of any colour, but this was a different colour than the light spell this was apparently based on. “For most, the line takes the colour of their element, or one of their elements if they have several. Though with training you can make the line any colour you want. You as a Heptagon mage can choose the colour as well. Since you did this without thought the teal colour has some significance to your thought behind magic circles.” This was explained like it was a known fact, given that he specialised in magic circles and taught children he had most likely seen this many, many times before. And the logic behind his explanation also makes sense, Gilliam back home in media and stories always felt that the base colour of arcane magic was always this kind of teal colour, seems like that became his standard. “In a realistic scenario. Good mages can tell what kind of spell you are casting based on the brief moment they see the magic circle. The colour is important there. This means being able to change the circle’s colour can throw an opponent off. Having it be red will have them expect fire. If you then cast an earth spell this can become the difference between a fight and instant win.” Gilliam didn’t expect to get combat lessons the first day, but this made a lot of sense. “A magic circle as mentioned. Is a focusing and controlling element of a spell. If a spell is a candle’s flame the Foci is a reflector and the circle is the lens. Of these the lens is the most important for a concentrated result. You can heat an ant with the sun but a lens lets you increase the effect dramatically. Just like that a spell can be used more effectively, at a lower mana cost and hit where you want.” During his explanations the chalk moved on the blackboard by itself, emphasising his explanations, drawing a candle and putting an oval behind it and a thicker oval in front, showing the light going everywhere before bouncing against the reflector and being focused into a point by the lens. “In most cases a spell cannot work without a magical circle. Often due to mana cost as you would need vastly more for a worse result. But also often due to how the circle guides the mana into the correct form, shape and trajectory.” During his explanation he draws a circle in the air with his finger, some internal structure makes a triangle with a smaller circle within it. He waves a hand along the outer perimeter which forms a bunch of runes and letters. “A circle will also have commands as part of its structure, it can guide energy, control mana pathways and make it easier to focus on a spell. The seven lights you controlled earlier, that job can be done to the point where it’s almost no effort. I mentioned that I’m only able to hold five orbs like that. This is true however with a structured spell like this.” He waved his hand through the example magic circle, having it fade into yellow smoke, he then proceeded to make a circular motion with his hand twice, the first circle created the geometry of the magic symbol, the second filled it with runes and symbols. The outer circle had a line of runes, letters and symbols traced along it, the inner geometry looked like two layers of squares on top of eachother in 3D space, there were runes around and inside them. He charged some energy in his fist, put the charged fist inside the circle and opened it. The magic circle glowed for a split second before it disintegrated into a plethora of golf ball sized lights that started hovering around the room. If he was to guess there would have to be at least a hundred. “As you can see, I can easily control these lights with only a thought. Something I would not have been able to with an unstructured spell. This is a part of what makes magic circles powerful.” Gilliam was amazed, though that circle looked complicated it had amazing effects. And it kind of made sense: a proper magic circle could alleviate the concentration and focus needed to do things, it could focus the energy used into a point and get greater effects at lower effort, even aiding you in aiming. This alone sounded like it could fix the problems he had with the training spells, in how weak they were, how hard to aim and easy to resist. “Are all circles that complex?” Gilliam asked, referring to the oddly three dimensional one that Jial just created. “Yes and no. I will teach you the basic circles. They will work for what they are intended to be. I will also teach you the structure of a circle, how and why it works and how to elaborate on them. The basic light circle looks like this-” As he explained this the chalk on the blackboard had already started drawing the circle. It was simple and straightforward; a circle with a triangle inside it, the overlapping points where the edges of the triangle touched the circle, smaller circles were placed that each had a single rune in it, the three runes read: Light, multiply, focus. Gilliam realised that he could understand the runes, which made things much easier! Jial continued, this time using his own magic drawing to make the circle he used before. “-When you elaborate it on your own you can strengthen and even alter its effects.” Taking a second and more thorough look there were new runes, different variants of runes meaning the same thing. For example there were four different runes all meaning Multiply. Due to the different runes meaning the same thing, he had many, many more usages of ‘Multiply’ than the basic circle. His Three dimensional drawing had more than one triangle nested in tiny magical circles on each of the four corners of the cube within the double major circle that were covered in other runes that seemed to have a lot of Control runes in it. “So the Control runes help you with the many, many extra Multiply runes. Since all of them are structured around the Light rune, this makes the circle take care of most of the multiplication and control, letting you focus on just one casting and feeding them with energy?” This was the analysis based on the explanation he had. Jial for the first time had an emotional response; Surprise. And a lot of it. “You can read the runes?” his voice cracked a bit as he seemed to not have expected this at all. “... Yes?-” Gilliam replied as if he was asking a question, he was more uncertain about the situation. “Isn’t that normal?” He didn’t really know what to reply with, since the mages use these runes he assumed that everyone could use them, how else are you going to use the language. “No, it is not.” Jial replied as his face finally returned to his calm demeanour, though his voice was shaking a tiny bit. “We spend considerable time, testing and researching to find out what rune to use, where to make it work, and you can just read them like that?” He made it sound like Gilliam could read a mystic language nobody knew, but needed nonetheless. His way of talking also changed to less commanding and less full stops in his sentences. This sounded weird even just after knowing the man for a few hours. “Well...” Gilliam was happy, a bit, but again he was uncertain how he should act with all the other stuff surrounding his gift. Whatever made him able to understand the language people speak here might also have branched out. He felt lucky that his hopes from last night were true, about not needing the language-spell thing done to him. But this felt a bit much. “If you add some logic and your explanation, it would make sense that this is how the runes work... no?” For now he just wanted to know if he was correct or not, wanting to find out if his analysis of the concept was correct before they trailed off into something weird. “You are indeed correct. Repeating the same rune too much seems to have lesser effects, in some cases even detrimental. Finding other runes that mean the same has a synergistic effect with other runes having the same and similar meanings. The lines connect the sub-circles together to work in unison.” The explanation he gave and the examples he used when pointing at runes, lines and the smaller circles. This felt more and more like code. The main code that connects smaller codes to do sub-processing jobs and feeds the information around where it needs to go to be processed correctly. This is all working as a program. “Then wouldn’t it work better if you didn’t have repeated runes at all? You have the same four runes to multiply over and over, if you used five or six different runes instead, would that work better?” Gilliam asked. Though that part didn’t exactly match the coding he was used to, it had a slight sense to just how one could code the same function. Using different coding languages or just a different person with a slightly different way of thinking, could calculate or handle data slightly different ending up with a potentially more robust system in the end? Jial blinked twice and looked at Gilliam with a strange mix of wonder, curiosity and confusion. His voice shaking a little in a kind of anticipation Gilliam had not gotten used to coming from this man. “You know more runes than this?” “I think so, yes.” Gilliam responded honestly, not really understanding the importance of this language, but it seems he can get some practical testing done through Jial!

Jial was still in his weird emotive state, looking at Gilliam it was almost like he was staring a god in the face, the same kind of disbelief and wonder. Gilliam continued his statement about knowing the runes. “I can’t say for sure as I haven’t seen them before today but I could read yours, right?” The tone of his voice changed to more and more hesitant through the sentence, he realised a bit too soon that there was no good reason to why he knew a language like this without having seen it before. Jial’s face, emotional state and all around body language went back to his normal self. “Quite...” There was still a hint of interest in him but it was now hard to see again. “Tell me, Mr. Gibson. How do you know this language?” There was almost a blaming tone to his voice, it might have been a bad idea to mention that he hadn’t seen it before... Again, the cat’s sort of out of the bag, might as well be honest to a certain degree. Letting out a sigh, Gilliam intended to be honest about things save the other world thing. “I have no idea. To be honest I learned that magic existed like a few days ago, so I’m a bit new to all of this. Perhaps it’s tied to the Heptagon mage thing?” This was an honest answer, he had no idea, whatever that let him understand the language they were speaking now was potentially also why he could understand the magical runes... Or perhaps they are two random chances? The language was done in one way and the Heptagon mage thing, the one that gives him this weird understanding of magic, was what gave him the.. Well.. Understanding of magic? Jial didn’t look entirely convinced, but then again he didn’t even look too interested when Gilliam managed the seven lights even though he claimed to be impressed. “Not much is known about the Heptagon mage’s abilities. It might be, yes.” His eyes became more piercing than before, he did confirm an excuse that Gilliam could use in the future if needed but at the same time he didn’t seem to believe what he was saying. “Putting that aside. How well do you know this language?” It seems that his interest in the subject gave Gilliam a free card for the discussion. “I have no idea, if I think about it I can see runes, like how you have the four Multiply runes, if I think about the runes and think about Multiply, I also see these two.” Gilliam got up from his desk and went over to the blackboard, using the chalk he wrote up two runic symbols. “I can’t tell you why it would work, but if you swap out some of the repeating ones with those, I think it might be better.” Gilliam shrugged a little at the end, he knew this was a fact somehow, but he couldn’t explain why. In the other other-world tropes the person being sent somewhere is given some gifts, Gilliam had long-since assumed that he got some über mage powers, and if the magical language is tied to this that could well enough just be a bonus there. Jial pondered this for a solid minute, he seemed to do some mental calculations or... something. Suddenly he manifested the same magical circle he used before to make the hundred or so lightballs. Touching some runes with his fingers having them disappear and instead exchanging them for the ones that Gilliam wrote on the blackboard. Like before he charged energy in his fist and put it in the newly updated magic circle, opening it the magic circle, like before, disintegrated into many small orbs of light. Though impossible to say at a glance how many there were, there were easily another 50, if the original number of 100 was correct. It felt, from a viewer perspective, that the addition of the runes had increased the spell about halfway. Jial’s eyes widened as he saw the effects, his reaction was so strong in fact that it had the lights flickering and dying out randomly before the whole spell collapsed. “It worked....” he looked into the air as he said that in disbelief. Turning to Gilliam he repeated the sentence: “It worked.” A little less disbelief this time but it was clearly there. “It would seem so.” Gilliam smiled back at him, thinking to himself that he might have accidentally helped Jial with some weird breakthrough. Not waiting more than a few seconds Jial went to the next step of the experiment. He manifested the starter magic circle with a triangle inside the circle itself, the one that he explained that they would be using earlier today. Though the runes were different. Instead of Light, Multiply and Focus, this had Light, Strength and focus. “That one is different, it’s the rune for Strength, right?” Gilliam commented as he noticed this, assuming this as a test. “Yes.” Jial confirmed as he poked it, having it disappear. “If I told you I wanted the ‘best’ rune for strength, which one would you draw?” There was a hope in his voice as he asked. Gilliam decided to let whatever this gift was to take the reins, so he just turned to the blackboard and drew the first rune he imagined with this in mind. It was a simple rune, like all the other ones, looking seemingly mundane and simple. “This one. It’s not just like ‘Strength’, it’s kind of like an upgraded variant meaning ‘powerful’.” He felt a bit interested in himself that he knew this, but Jial seemed to like it even more. Not hesitating he copied that rune into the spot that the Strength rune was before, and activated it like before, channelling energy into his fist and opening his hand within it. The circle disintegrated but formed a fist sized light so bright it felt like standing in sunlight, both of them had to turn away well before the light reached its peak power simply because of the pain. Jial cut the mana flow to the spell having it poof into nothing. Turning to Gilliam with some weird eyes... A kind of desperation mixed with an epiphany and some weird emotion mix Gilliam could not pin down. “I will teach you what I know of magic circles, in turn can you teach me some runes when possible?” Ah, that was the missing emotion; pleading, though it was not a nice colour on him he did have a good deal. Gilliam helped him with some runes at times and he got a specialist’s training in a field. “So. I get your mastery of magic circles, in turn I help you with runes when I have the time and chance? That seems a bit too good to be true.” Gilliam decided to call his bluff, deal... whatever. He wanted to make sure that there was no bull between them. “I will admit that it seems you are getting the most out of this to your untrained eye. However you underestimate the power of the words. As you saw now, swapping out a single rune had a massive difference in effect.” He sounded incredibly keen and honest about this. This also confirmed that he didn’t just pump in an insane amount of mana in that light spell. From what it sounded that one rune change might have unlocked some weird amplification or 1:1 energy usage thing. Gilliam didn’t know how this worked enough to really even know what to think but it was amazing, if nothing else. Depending on one’s arrogance it can be mused that too much power to someone and whatnot, but all things considered; Jial has a lot of experience but he was a teacher, he seemed to be quite smart and even if Gilliam helped him often he would never reach the same mastery of the language as Gilliam passively has. So in short he didn’t see any problems with it. “I don’t see a problem with this, you scratch my back, I scratch yours, and whatnot.” A simple yes could have been enough but Gilliam wanted to emphasise that this was a mutual deal for some reason. Gilliam took out his notebook and ink-pen in preparation and like that, so started one of the hardest and complicated lessons Gilliam had had in his life, interest and progress did wonders for motivation. He learned the importance of the different shapes, when to use it, why to use it, what not to use and how small changes in angles could have dramatic differences. The main problem Gilliam ended up with was the three dimensional circles, he could draw them when guided but he used some time to understand their construction. A whole other dimension added a strange level of complexity to things but Jial was actually an incredibly good teacher. Once he found the level of detail, jargon and metaphors to use with Gilliam this went much smoother. “The minimal magic circle is just that; a circle, but in that case it doesn’t help at all with the spell and the only thing this does is to give the spell somewhere to go, I can use that to help aim but nothing else.” Gilliam started his series of questions to make sure he understood. Jial simply nodded, so Gilliam continued. “The only real reason for the geometric shapes is to link the runes together, if you have two runes a line is enough, if you have five you need a pentagon or pentagram or something, though the latter can link one rune to two, or the other way around.” Again Jial nodded, it seemed like there was nothing to comment on yet so Gilliam again continued with his test-explanations. “If I want to link together several circles like your light spell, I need to make complete magic circles small, so I need a very thin and clear line to draw, but this needs to be placed exactly on an intersection to ‘lock into’ that point. In this way I can in theory link how many circles I want together as long as all of them are complete?” This part had a more confused tone to it. “Yes, though when you project a magic circle you need to know that once it’s locked down it needs to be projected exactly like that. Exactly. A single rune, a single line, a single intersection not aligned can have potentially catastrophic results and might kill you. The simpler the circle the less the details matter.” Jial emphasised some of the concepts on the blackboard, drawing a small area of a circle and on purpose misaligning a small triangle a few millimetres (0.1inch). It was subtle but clear when pointed out. Gilliam appreciated Jial’s honesty, this really put things into perspective. In theory he could make a ten layered multi circle construction of doom. But the level of detail at that point needing to be utterly perfect explains why that’s not used more often. And though the problem was not in this being impossible, it just became tedious and hard to do in any practical scenario. The more complicated a circle the more things it could do but also the more power it could hold, as most circles were charged up with energy to activate. A massive ten layered circle of doom would take tremendous energy, if this were to fail due to sloppy drawing... “The runes between the intersections, along the lines and curves, they are more like guiding forces to make sure that the energy goes where it needs to. Kind of like a one-way valve or restraints around a pipe for structural strength.” The tone of explanation ended in a definitive statement of fact, even though all of this were questions to make sure that he had understood. Jial again nodded. “That is correct. In theory any line needs no more than one or two runes. Due to lack of knowledge in the runes, more of them are used to compensate. With your understanding this might change.” “Wait-” Gilliam interjected, seeming to have just realised something. “Doesn’t all of this mean that the magic circles are not locked down for each spell, they can be altered on the fly? I read in the intro book that parts of what made structured spells was a predetermined magic circle?” There was uncertainty in his voice, the information he read simply explained that Structured spells are easier to learn or teach away because they are a list of predetermined things needed for a spell to work. Much like a checklist if you did all the listed things properly the spell would always have the same result. But the teachings he have here and now hinted that the magic circle, the core of Structured spells, could be altered on the fly with enough knowledge. Jial nodded. “Both are true. Structured spells have predetermined magic circles that has been researched, tested and confirmed working. This means that it will work for me, you or anyone able to cast the correct element. This means I can teach it to my students or any other mage. It will always work as long as the proper circle is made.” So far this made sense to what Gilliam had read. “But with anything, proper understanding and research can improve or alter the magic circle entirely. Many mages use years to make spells, only to sell it to someone later. You have the ability to read and understand the runes. Take the basic light spell circle.” As he explained and mentioned the circle he manifested the simple spell circle with the three runes Light, Multiply and Focus. “This is the first circle the students will learn. It is harmless even if you fail, so a good start. It will always work as long as it’s drawn properly. Even if drawn a bit off-” To simulate the effect he’s speaking about he purposely made all the lines a bit wonky, a bit wavy and one of them even weakly arched. “This will still work fine, even though it looks like it’s drawn by holding a brush by the handle’s end. However, changing the runes-” he touched the rune for Multiply and put in the one meaning Strength. “-this changes the effect from many orbs, to one stronger one. This takes knowledge, knowledge that can only be taught so far. Students will learn about this but it’s mostly focused on in the second year after they have a proper foundation of knowledge.” Waving his hand dismissively through the circle had it dissipate in smoke. “The book you read was the introductory one in your room, correct?” Though Gilliam nodded Jial didn’t seem to wait for a response and just continued explaining. “That book was made to be as simple and introductory as possible. The problem about explaining too much is that it’s daunting to new students. It doesn’t say that the magic circle is always predetermined and rigid, it just states that the ones the student will learn are predetermined and will always work.” This made a lot of sense, start with the simple, don’t over explain and once the student is getting the hang of things, go to the next level to keep them challenged and learning. The problem Gilliam had was that he didn’t read into things properly, he took things at face value as fact due to his own lack of pre-knowledge. Though this was an introductory book he was the problem more than the book. Internally cursing himself a bit he realised that he needed to have a more open mind in the future. “Although, that said-” Jial continued his explanation. “-doing these changes on the fly in combat takes a massive amount of experience and quick thought. It’s easier and safer for anyone involved to keep to the tested and true. This doesn’t mean that a mage will only use the same magic circles his whole life, but more that you should research, test and find out what works before you need to use anything in combat.” This sounded like it was from experience as well as a textbook example. Gilliam perked up a bit when discussing combat, though that’s not all magic is for it was always an exciting concept back home. Depending on who you ask it might also be the ‘proper’ use of magic... In a world without magic. Kind of ironic how strong some opinions were about the nonexistent. “Casting combat spells is about speed, this is why the simplest circles are used as they are faster. If you are able to project the whole circle in one movement and your opponent needs two; you might have won in one move. This is why we teach magic circles as pictograms rather than drawing each line separately. All students start with singular lines to learn but they will not be considered having properly learned until they can project the simple circles in one move.” This felt a little harsh, but it made perfect sense. This was a school that taught mages for several reasons but self preservation aside, military services were some of the reasons. Jial continued before Gilliam got a word in. “This is a good example why most mages carry grimoires, they are not only for notes and research. If you have a complicated circle it can be incredibly helpful to see it in writing form as you cast it. This might have the spell take a few more seconds to cast but depending on the spell it can increase the success chance substantially.” This made a lot of sense, the reason to carry a book into combat was for visual reference. Sure, you might remember the simple circles or something you have spent years perfecting, but once you want to cast a spell needing a complicated multi-layer magic circle seeing it on paper could indeed be very nice. “This is also why physical combat is so important and part of the curriculum.” Jial added, breaking Gilliam out of his train of thought in surprise. Jial seemed to notice his surprise. “Why use complicated spell circles and expend your mana if you can just stab someone. Or what do you do if someone attacks you faster than you can complete your spell. This affects your focus more than most expect.” Gilliam pondered for a moment, and it’s true. Though it might be the best way to go in certain games which are based on numbers, reality is different. If someone is charging some amazing attack you shouldn’t wait, just shank them, throw a rock at them. Magic is a tool just like a weapon, you should use the most appropriate tool. He halfway started understanding Angela’s view on just punching things. Sure she was augmenting this with her weird form of training but it was simple and effective. At this point he realised that this also meant that he was going to learn physical combat, something he had absolutely zero skill in. But it sounded fun if nothing else! Drawing his breath to ask Jial a question he was instead startled like there was no tomorrow from the school bell. It gonged once signalling that it was lunchtime and that the class was over. Gilliam had not been given any curriculum so he didn't know where to go or what to do. “I’ll send for food.” Jial halfway ordered, wanting Gilliam to remain. “We can do that?” Gilliam was not sure how most things worked, he wanted to continue as well but, well, this was a blessing in itself. Jial seemed to concentrate for a few seconds and then focus back on Gilliam. “I have contacted Frederick, my aide, he will bring some food.” Gilliam smiled a little, apparently Telepathy was also a thing that had to be experimented on later but for now there was more to learn! Almost as if part of the same sentence, Jial continued where they left off. The bell rang a while later, besides the startling nature of it this didn’t stop their talk and discussion. Every example of circles and runes was improved by swapping at least one rune causing Jial to take some notes on the runes’ meaning and details. Then they continued to learn and bounce questions back and forth. Most of the lunch talk was about charging the magic circle with energy directly, that this was the basis of a magical trap, if several mages were working together casting a single spell or in certain cases if a spell needed a specific way to release the energy. Most of the time this was not used but it was good info nonetheless. A magic circle can work in any medium, the light-drawing is used as it’s fast, accurate and easy. For more permanent concepts they are often drawn with something or just engraved, both could be done with magic or by hand. Circles could also have areas dedicated to special functions like using whatever was inside an area as fuel or as a source of input, in those cases the area was often left blank with runes around it instead. The teleportation circles worked like this, leaving a blank area inside for the people to stand in. “Wait, so the circles aren’t specific to the spells?” Gilliam realised and needed confirmation. “I didn’t really consider that but just swapping the runes could let the same circle work for many spells...” He felt a bit dumb realising it now after several hours of talking and learning. “That is correct-” Jial confirmed without any condescending tones. “-The light spell I used to amplify the single light, or create several smaller lights only had one rune changed. If I instead were to put a Fire rune instead of Light, this would create a fire source.” This was like a mind blowing moment for Gilliam, but it made sense. Since the geometric shapes depended on what you wanted to have done, and the runes altered the effect, there was no reason to not use the same circle for many spells as long as it needed the same amount of runes in the same basic configuration. The light spell with Light, Strength and Focus could have Light swapped for Fire, as Jial suggested. This would create a fire source. Swapping Fire for Water would just create water. Though, since everyone were limited by their attunement, a Fire mage putting in water would have the spell fail as it was given the wrong kind of mana. Much like how certain constructions needed the correct fuel; putting gasoline in a diesel car would not only not work but could ruin the engine. Putting fire-mana into a water spell could have bad results as well. “Hold on... This feels almost too easy...” Gilliam was a bit taken back, it felt too simple. But the more he pondered about it the more it made sense. Though everyone could use the same magic circles they could get slightly different results based on their element. And different elements would act differently, a stream of water, fire and earth would act very differently due to their mediums. The bonus here is that the school only needs to teach a few specific circles and concepts, letting the students swap out for their own runes. Keeping things simple kept it safe for starters. “The simple spells aren’t complicated. A force missile, a fireball, an ice spear, a rock. All of them are the same concept of throwing some collected energy at your enemy. Why would it need different magic circles? The mana and rune decides the element, the magic circle is just the lens, after all.” The wisdom of Jial made perfect sense. This was back to the information that started all of this. Gilliam had been so caught up in things that he had forgotten the very, very base of things. Sure, he was spoiled with the elemental aspect of it but there were clearly plenty of things he didn’t know. During their testing a man came in after knocking. It was a young man, looking 20 something years old, he was incredibly well built, had tanned skin and a very calm and fair expression. This man felt like a farmer stereotype used for examples. He was carrying a wooden plate with food on it. He had collected an assortment of breads, meats, cheeses and some water on the side. Wordlessly he entered, placed the plate on the desk near them and left with a bow, not interrupting Jial’s talk at all. Gilliam assumed this was the mentioned aide, and since Jial didn’t react at all he was very aware of him, ignoring him for now as he got himself some food they continued discussing, explaining and learning. Ignoring the following bells Jial continued his tutoring, explaining that there were different ways to nest magic circles. Like you could have light pass through one lens that did one thing, and then another lens to do something else; likewise could this be done in a magic circle. This needed preparation, planning and correct distancing. The planning was extra needed in the order of things to happen, if you had the second of three circles manifest the spell, the third one might not be able to do it’s thing. If they were placed too close to each other the previous circle might not be properly done, and if too far apart then the energy might become unstable before entering the next circle. Jial used the light spell as an example, being harmless it was a perfect teaching tool. Explaining some simple circles with only two runes to have the light change colour, he placed them at the correct distance and it did indeed change colour as planned. Crunching the circles too close together had the spell just fail as the collection of energy could not properly funnel into the colour-changing part, or the colour didn’t manage to change properly before it was being manifested; causing more problems. “Now, with everything we have talked about, explained and tested, I would like to see you try on your own. Keep to the light spell for now.” Jial ordered. Which was fair, a test after all of this just made sense. Gilliam pondered, he had been able to draw lines all day so that was fine, he was a bit unstable on some of them and he could not manifest whole circles in one move, but that was not expected either. He had already tested the simplest of light spells as part of their talks and testing, but this was different. Doing something with light, he could make it strong, weak, big, many... The world was his oyster in a sense and rather than not knowing what to do, he was burdened by too many options. He didn’t want to just change the colour or intensity of it, he wanted to try something else. He formed an idea! He started by making a circle, it ended up teal in colour like most of his magic circles. Inside he formed a Heptagon (7 sided shape), he made a small circle for each one of the corners and put in the runes that felt right with his idea in mind: Light, Stream, Beam, Metre(~1 yard), Strength, Power, Energy, Control. Then he started feeding it with energy, not sure how much to give it he decided to caution on the weaker side, there was already enough power built into it. The circle charged more and more until he stopped channelling and activated it. In a split second the circle collapsed into a metre (~1 yard) long thin beam extending from his index finger. It almost looked like someone had just drawn in the air but it had a weird intensity to it, it almost seemed to radiate heat in it’s closest vicinity causing heat-haze around it much like above a fire. “You... Made a beam of light?” Jial asked confusingly, not seeming to have managed to decode the magic circle. “Kind of.” Gilliam poorly explained as he picked up the wooden board that his aide used to carry the food earlier. He held the board in front of it and slowly moved the line of light through it. The intense light burned its way through the wood like it was not even there! Gilliam smiled satisfied that his laser creation worked as planned. Cutting the energy flow to the spell the beam faded into nothing instantly and his finger was no longer deadly! Jial’s jaw had dropped and his eyes looked like they were about to pop out from his skull. Gilliam smiled embarrassed back at him. “Too much?”

Angela’s expression soured, she grew angry at the way they were treated. “It is true. I’m not lying, go on, test him.” Gilliam was starting to piece together what was going on here. Angela knew something was going to be special, powerful or somehow fancy with him even before she met him, and she was quite surprised when she found out that he could use all elements. Based on her explanation a few days ago, a mage using all seven elements was so unheard of that they are just mentioned in stories and legend... The receptionist might be a bit rude with things but her reaction wasn't completely wrong. The receptionist stared at Angela’s dare, seeming to wonder if she should humour them or not. In the end she turned to Gilliam. “Tell me, young man. Your friend here claims that you are a Heptagon mage.” Gilliam looks back at the receptionist with a deadpan serious expression. “And she’s correct, what’s your point?” He didn’t mean to come out as rude, he tries not to but it was hard to not be a little bit crass in response to her behaviour. The receptionist was taken back a bit, it almost seemed like this hit a nerve and she was about to go into a rage-fit. “I can prove it if you wa*” his simple idea of just casting all spells would prove it, it's what convinced Angela but the receptionist had other ideas. “This is a waste of my time, leave before I call security.” She wouldn’t have any of this. Seeming to be so certain that this was impossible that she wouldn’t even humour the idea. Angela pointed at a pin on her chest, Gilliam hadn’t noticed her put that on. It was a disc of three materials, seeming to be copper, silver and gold where the circle shape has a band cut out of the center which is then made silver, the left of it is copper and to the right of it is gold. On top of this disc were seven triangle shapes, much like the pizza shape, in Angela’s case all the pieces were a dull metallic grey except the lower-left piece which was pure white colored. “As a graduate of the Academy I want to speak to a teacher.” This seems to have activated or called on some law or rule, the receptionist looked furious but at the same time she calmed down a bit verbally. She inhaled and let out a deep, annoyed sigh. “Very well. Wait here.” There were no pleases or politeness to her tone, this was a crass ‘you win this round’ kind of tone. The receptionist got up from her chair and walked over to the central column staircase before she started walking up the two flights of stairs, entering a door up there. Angela had a mixed expression, she seemed annoyed that this happened at all but also a hint of a smirk in the mini win she ended up getting. Calming her emotions she turned to Gilliam. “One of the teachers should be more willing to humour us, at least I hope so.” She didn’t seem convinced by her own statement. Gilliam didn’t pay her insecurity too much though, worst-case scenario he could just walk up to some random teacher during outside-time and flaunt his spells. It’s... arrogant and obnoxious but it would instantly prove everything and get them heard at that point. At least that’s what he thought, it made sense but he couldn’t really say that he had done something like that before. Alternatively he had a massive mana-pool according to what Angela stated in the jungle, so if he just sent some massive spell somewhere... Though that could be interpreted as an attack so... Perhaps not as good. These thoughts were poorly hidden behind the guise of taking in the sights of this place. Though it was not what he was focused on, it was still an impressive place. The weirdest part was how everything seemed to be just a hollowed out massive single chunk of stone. If you were to build this the normal way it would have bricks, or several slabs somehow needing to be joined, though not a problem in itself you would easily see it by the stone’s natural pattern breaking up. But here it was clear that it was just one chunk, the lined patterns stretched across the walls and ceiling. The wings of the academy that he saw outside had the same thing going for them, although they were their own unit, to so speak, so not part of the central or outer wall’s single-rock-build. But it is insanely impressive nonetheless. The large room was silent as they waited, luckily it didn’t take long before someone came down. Gilliam threw the man that came down a glance, he was about his height, slender and old, long white beard and hair, black robe and was carrying a staff that looked like an upturned tree with the roots holding onto a crystal orb. He was carrying a wooden box in his other hand. Angela looked very happy to see him, so this had to be someone that could believe her. “Ah, Angela, it’s good to see you again.” The man smiled at her as he came closer, first now Gilliam could see that he also had a pin similar to Angela, his had a white disk and of all the triangles only the upper left was colored yellow, the others were a dull metal. They seemed to bow to each other, was this the proper way to greet someone in this world? Gilliam hadn’t actually properly met that many people yet. “Is this the young man?” the very wizard looking man asked as he turned his focus to Gilliam. Angela simply nodded rapidly, the man must have noticed as he just continued talking. “I do sense something from you, but tell me; are you really a Heptagon mage as Ms. Lark says?” There was a clear tone of disbelief in his voice, but also some curiosity mixed in. His voice was calm but oddly commanding. “Yes, Sir.” Gilliam replied not really realising that he added an honorific. “I get that it’s unlikely so I can understand her disbelief:” Though he didn’t really excuse Ms. Lark’s behaviour, he did understand it. “Well, we have a very simple test for that-” he smiled as he let go of his staff, which remained standing in place almost like it was still held. The man drew attention to the wooden box in his hand instead. It was a very ornate wooden box, perfectly cubical with all corners and sharp edges covered in golden protectors. He tilted the lid to the side, letting the golden hinge do its job to reveal a seemingly multi-layered glass or crystal orb inside. It was resting on a specially made pillow with a slot in the center. “Place your hand on this.” he commanded with a smile. Angela looked very interested in the situation but there was also a sense of victory in her eyes. Gilliam didn’t see a reason to not comply, he assumed this was some sort of magical sensor thing, he had read about them in stories back home. Reaching out and placing his hand on the orb first had nothing happened, there was a slight tingle in his hand. Then suddenly there was a bunch of different colours scintillating inside the orb, it glowed stronger and stronger of the various colours to the point where it was hard to even have it in your sight. Gilliam averted his eyes but kept his hand there, he assumed that the man would move the orb away or something if it went bad. This went on for a few seconds before Gilliiam felt that the orb and box was pulled away from him, the bright light that illuminated the room faded instantly and it was again possible to look in the direction of the box. The old man looked shocked, like.. Well, like he had just confirmed that Gilliam was indeed a Heptagon-class mage. He stammered as he tried to start the sentence before eventually succeeding. “I.. I’m.. Y... You are a Heptagon mage, with incredible potential at that!” He looked happy, ecstatic even, this calmed Gilliam a bit as for a second there he wondered if something was wrong. “Yes?” Gilliam asked, he was happy to know that he had incredible potential and getting confirmed that he indeed had all the 7 elements but he was still a bit uncertain what the next steps in this process were. Angela broke in, letting the man process this a bit, leaning towards Gilliam a bit and whispering. “The brightness is your magical potential, the colours are your elements.” She smiled at the simple and oddly logical explanation. In that case, given how incredibly bright that glow was, Gilliam apparently had incredible potential indeed. Gilliam nodded at Angela as a response to the explanation, but he was still a bit confused. “So... now what?” he smiled sheepishly. He did know that at some point he was supposedly to become a hero or do some great deed or whatever it was. But he could barely capture a rabbit with his current abilities so anything more amazing than that wasn’t exactly available to him. Angela had explained that she wanted him to get at least the basic tutoring in the academy, so this was probably the first step of that. The old man managed to almost calm down and compose himself. “Well. First things first. My name is Ledels Saleg, I am the headmaster at the academy.” He gave a proper deep bow, so it would seem that this was indeed a greeting form. “My name is Gilliam Gibson.” Gilliam responded as a reflex. He intended to introduce himself regardless but this came a bit on the same automatic reflex than a planned event, taking himself a bit off guard. “Well then, Mr. Gibson. If you want to, we would very much welcome you as a student here at the academy.” Ledels smiled widely as he finally remembered to close the wooden box with the orb in it. Once it was closed he again grasped his staff that was still standing on its own, it seemed to ‘unlock’ from its standing position as soon as he touched it. “Well.. yes... I guess so, isn’t that why we’re here?” He didn’t seem sure of what to really respond. On one hand Gilliam just wanted to sleep, on the other he really wanted to get better at magic. Angela did explain the idea for him to train but... Didn’t this cost money? Or did this world have some free tuition thing? “Good, good. Let’s get you registered.” Ledels seemed a bit too eager about this in Gilliam’s mind. Though this seemed to further their goal it just felt a bit odd. Not that he had anything else to do, and he really did want to learn more about magic. Ledels didn’t waste any time and had already walked to the reception by the time Gilliam was ready to respond. Fumbling in some drawers he took out a few pieces of paper, a small bottle of ink and a long feather. “Just sign this and we’ll get you set up, and don’t worry about the cost, we’ll waive it for you”. He smiled surprisingly happily. This rubbed Gilliam the wrong way, though it was a good thing that they were willing to do this it just felt a bit... Too good to be true. Nothing is free and everyone has ulterior motives, though a very pessimistic view on life it’s something that’s hard to not get used to in the modern world of Earth. Taking the papers and very casually starting to glance over them, he replied to the old man. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly grateful for this but... Ignoring the cost of something like this feels too good to be true. What’s the catch?” Though Gilliam tried to be an honest and polite man, this ended up a bit blunt and to the point. The headmaster’s smile faded a little, he still looked positive all things considered it still seemed to bring him back down. “There is no catch, th-” he was interrupted by Angela that tapped her finger on the receptionist’s desk, grabbing their attention. “What Ledels meant to say-'' she started explaining, looking at the headmaster with narrow eyes before turning towards Gilliam with a more pleasant and honest expression. “-is that you are a Heptagon mage, this will bring not only the school a lot of prestige, but him as well for registering you when you were turned away at the door. To be honest this is basically a publicity stunt, you will potentially be paraded under the guise of special training but, hoping to gain your favour if that will be needed they are giving you this as a publicity thing-” Smirking a bit she turned to Ledels. “-Isn’t that right, Mr. Saleg”. The tone at the end was almost mocking, but at the same time oddly satisfied. Ledels cleared his throat and ran his hand down his beard before sighing. “You really are your father’s daughter.” He looked defeated and frankly a bit annoyed. It seemed like she had removed some veil revealing the stage-magic trick he tried to perform. “You get free tuition but in turn become a kind of advertising for us. To be honest the cost of your full three years if you take them all will easily cover the advertising this could have been. Not to mention odds of the school being gifted by the nobles for just meeting you... well... She covered it quite nicely.” Though his tone was honest he still seemed a bit embarrassed and defeated. Only now Gilliam could actually read the papers he was given, they seemed rather straightforward and logical. Signing that the school is of no responsibility if he gets hurt, that should there be a need for it he could be drafted to defend V’ida against... yeah, pretty standard and what you would expect from the paperwork tied to a training school with military ties. Gilliam considered this and thought that the worst one could be that if there was a war or something weird, he might be drafted, but he didn’t have any proper ties in this world nor did he have any family to take any punishment. Though he might be socially stunted this didn’t really seem like a problem. There was no penalty of dropping out, at least not for him, the major issue is that you don’t get any money back from the remaining time but since this was covered anyway it didn’t actually matter. Reading through everything twice to make sure he didn’t miss anything, he filled in the information he had available. Family, next of kin, location of birth and such details that were tied to Earth was... It just didn’t feel right writing down the facts. After all of that was done he handed them over to Ledels who looked at them with a raised eyebrow. “You missed a few things here, where you’re from, family, next of kin. All of these are important details.” He had a strict tone, it seemed like they were actually important. “I don’t have any of those here in Lisica.” Gilliam replied proper honest, a part of him wanted to just waive them but a part of him wanted to subtly test the otherworlder aspect on someone not aware. Ledels looked a bit confused. “That.. doesn’t make sense, do you have amnesia? Did you come from the Mist?” Gilliam vaguely remembers something about the mist when Angela gave the massive information dump the first day, to be honest she said so many things that he had problems remembering almost all of it. This was also before he believed in any of this so it was even harder to pay attention. “I-” As soon as he was to reply Angela broke in by just speaking for him. “Comes from a complicated background, given what you get from this let’s just write down that he came out from the mist.” She had a manipulative smile, seeming to clearly know some backdoors or almost blackmail-like points. Or rather, considering that this tuition is a freebie for Gilliam but is a massive marketing and PR campaign for the headmaster personally as well as the school, this was not just blackmail-like. The little devil had him there. He again sighed deeply and scribbled something on both copies of the contracts, then signed both of them before handing one copy to Gilliam. Looking over them he saw that as Angela suggested, he was listed as ‘None’ for a lot of the personal details and the reason was listed as ‘Misted’. He made a note to talk to Angela about this later, given how easy this excuse was to use in this context it might be good to have in pocket for the future. “Right-” Gilliam announced as soon as everything was in order. “-Now that the paperwork is done, what’s next? I’m not entirely sure how this school works...” Though he had studied in his life before, all mandatory years for kids and youths back home, as well as vocational studies within computing and coding, this didn’t mean that it translated exactly to a magical school in another world. “First you take this-” Ledels answered as he wrote a few things on some papers and fished out a pamphlet and a key from a drawer, handing both to Gilliam. “-this is a simple map over the school grounds, having a bit more detail than the one you have there-” he pointed at the folded paper in Gilliam’s pocket. “-I suggest getting something to eat and just resting today. There will be a lot of information in the room, I’ll send for a tailor so we can get you in uniform and ready for tomorrow. Meet up tomorrow at 4-1-1, there will be some introductory classes there. You’ll spend most of the day there.” Looking at the map it had a small explanation of how it worked with the wings, fields, levels and whatnot. The key he got listed 3-3-45, meaning that he was in the third wing, third level, room 45. Since 45 was an odd number it was on the left side with your back towards the tower. A simple system, following similar logic as cruise ships, certain roads and neighbourhoods back on Earth... It was only the afternoon at this point, though there was more time left of the day, the thought of food, rest and pre-reading a bit to prepare and talk to Angela a bit was more interesting than staying here and talking. “Ok... I like the sound of that... I think I’ll keep to myself for the rest of today...” Gilliam sighed, though he was incredibly interested he didn’t want to be ridiculed on day one so he wanted to just learn more about his cover story as well as the school as a whole. “Oh, that’s no problem, we can get your food to your room” Angela smiled happily, it seems she was intending to come with him from the start, making him asking her to come and explain was just unnecessary. “I’d like that.” he smiled back at her. Though the headmaster didn’t lie or exploit him too much, he still held back some details that would be considered properly honest. So though he got free tuition he still couldn’t place his trust in the headmaster entirely. Not that he could trust Angela absolutely either, this was the fourth day he knew who she was so... However she was higher on the list than the headmaster at the moment. “For now let’s go.” Angela nudged him on, stopping the headmaster from starting a new sentence, even though he seemed like he had planned to start one. Without waiting Angela started guiding him to the stairs along the wall marked with a large 3, but also with SouthEast and some other numbers. Though they got some weird looks on the way from the few students that were walking these hallways at the moment, there wasn’t the need for more than a nod or casual greeting. No complications had them reach the room easily enough, the key unlocked the door without issue and Gilliam got a feel for the standard of this place. The room was rectangular, deeper than wider. A window at the end wall opposite of the door. A bed in the corner near the window and a cupboard with two large doors to the other side of the window. A small desk with writing utensils, a chair with it, a smaller gathering table with three chairs, a standing mirror and a set of drawers with what looked like a working sink. Angela pushed him in and closed the door behind her. “So... I think we need to talk a bit...'' She sounded very serious but she still looked calm and her normal self. Perhaps this was not as serious as it sounded?

Reading about Darkness magic was a bit odd. Though he had already figured out that it was not the opposite of Light, it was just different, he was still not completely certain about it. The book almost seemed to purposefully not detail it too much, given that the only spell explained was the life draining thing that could wilt plants. There seemed to be way more to this element than he thought but due to the lack of explanations he couldn’t really figure out what it was. Since this was a beginners, almost test-like book, it kind of made sense that it wouldn’t explain everything. Books were expensive in the old times on Earth so perhaps that was the thing here as well? Or perhaps they wanted to make sure you were inspired enough to go to their schools? Angela did mention an academy thing. Gilliam couldn’t decide if this was a Go-to-School scheme, or Buy-the-books scheme, but it felt like some form of payment thing regardless. The problem here was also that once he had read through the book, he didn’t really learn that much new. Both Light and Dark were extremely poorly explained, and though Angela’s explanation did help a lot in regards to Light, there were still so many questions about... Well... Everything, really. Not understanding how spells properly worked save the detailing in the books on these specific training spells, Gilliam couldn’t just create new spells either. Or, he might be able to but decided against it for safety reasons. It would be a shame if he exploded due to improper technique or something like that, no, instead he aimed to master the fuck out of the few things he could! For now that meant figuring out things that kind of made sense in the way of training. Training earth was simple, he would move earth up and down, make pits and then filling them, perhaps trying sculptures. Though that worked to a certain degree the resolution on what he made was... bad.. Trying to make a person ended up looking more like a blob monster, but it worked if nothing else. For water the only thing he could do was create a stream of water, much like a garden hose set on low. It worked, the water was even drinkable and didn’t disappear over time. But he couldn't use it for anything super practical. Air was... windy... More than anything. He had moved trees with it but that took a surprising amount of energy. The comfortable amount of energy for him was not much more than one of those hand-held collapsible fans you got everywhere back home. The telekinesis thing he had used considerable time on, it was the most fun of the lot, it also felt easier than the others. Perhaps he had an affinity for it? Or perhaps it was just the time used on it compared to the others? Hard to say without some more testing or someone who knew more about it. Like before he didn’t want to experiment too hard with Fire or Dark magic, and life magic needed a patient... He was not comfortable using himself or Angela for this so that would have to wait. Figuring out that the weird spells detailed in the book were almost meant to be underpowered, so they were perhaps by design weak so young kids trying out things wouldn’t accidentally explode the neighbourhood before they get proper training, he decided to continue playing with the telekinesis thing! It was still fun, he could launch things literally at supersonic speeds, but like he found out before that drank energy like it was paid for it. So instead of getting closer to headache-town he decided to try control more than power! He started stacking things, throwing things at specific targets and moving things in the air. It was... not perfect to say it nice. Like with the pebbles before he had a 10% success rate at the moment. He could get as much power as he wanted out of most of it but power didn’t mean much if you missed your target, not to mention that if you hit the wrong target.... No.. that was much worse than missing. He wanted, no, he needed better control. Not having realised how long he was doing this, he sort of came out of his focused world as Angela had come for him again. She had found him in the small clearing that he had made by destroying trees, moving and stacking rocks and logs, uprooting small trees and simply being a dick to nature. “I see someone had fun” she tried to smile alongside her comment but it came across a bit more worried. Gilliam had started learning magic earlier that day, before that he didn’t know it even existed, the concept of how much progress was weird or not was alien to him. Angela had more knowledge and she seemed slightly unnerved at what he had done. “Yes, I had!” he replied back with the glee of a child playing his favourite game, completely missing her facial expressions. “Most of the spells are weak, almost by design, but I’m getting the hang of the telekinesis thing.” he bragged, tone of voice was more matter-of-factly but still highly enjoying it. His explanation was backed up by a handful of pebbles slowly spinning around him in a line almost like a pebble-made hula hoop. “I can see that.” She clearly referred to the man-made clearing more than his finer control over the pebbles. “If this is what you managed in half a day, I’m suddenly more glad that I know that you’re on the side of good.” she didn’t seem to doubt for a second that Gilliam was a hero of the side of good. After all she seemed incredibly certain about the details she had gathered from her visions. Though, this did bring up a thought in Gilliam’s head. Sure this was apparently his new real life but in all media he was used to, there were always bandits, highwaymen or whatever you want to call them. Not to mention that if her prophecy vision thing was real he would most likely have to fight... like a lot.. With this power, lifting several tons, he had broken thick logs through testing and... He might kill someone. Frighteningly easy as well... As his facial expression grew alongside his train of thought, Angela again broke him out of it. “Are you... doing OK? You look a bit pale...” She seemed a little worried, though her tone of voice wasn't too uncertain her face showed a different story. “I just realised a few things... I’ve been so deep in learning and mastering this new power that didn’t even exist in my mind as real a day ago, that I didn’t think what I might end up doing with it. I haven’t even punched a man properly in my life, any fights were always play fights and... Now I have the power to crush people... I mean, look at this” Like if he didn’t believe that Angela would believe him, seeing the clearing they were in, he pointed his right hand towards a standing tree, about 40cm thick (1.3ft) in a grasping motion. The tree made a low squeaking noise like the wind was blowing on it, but as he suddenly closed his hand into a fist the tree imploded a small fist-tall section into the thickness of one’s wrist, sending splinters and wood chunks flying around its roots. It didn’t take long for the tree to break the remaining structural support and start falling over. It stopped before it hit the ground due to the other trees, branches and vines tangling everything up. “That wasn’t even my all.. I..” he looked at his hands almost terrified of what kind of monster he had become. “I can do horrible things with this.” Angela’s face had softened to a calm, smiling and almost proud expression. “I think that way of thinking is good. With that mindset you won’t become some tyrant or monster. Besides, if you need to fight you have me!” making an overly manly flex, which was supported by her slender frame actually having considerable muscle now that she flexed it. “Besides-” her flex ended in a calmer stance with her right hand supporting itself on her hip. “-you can aim that thing, right? Just trip them, steal their weapons or pull their clothing apart. You don’t have to kill anything that attacks you, just enough to stop them from doing harm.” There was an odd sense of experience to her voice, though she did have very good points. A weapon is only as dangerous as the one using it, and the better you are at using it the more versatile and less dangerous it could become. This calmed Gilliam’s fears considerably, his terrorised expression calmed down to a more content variant. He still seemed like he was stressing out a bit but her explanation helps. “I... honestly didn’t consider that. If it’s life or death I might be fine breaking some bones so, thank you.” he smiled honestly at her. This didn’t fix the problem he had with the newfound power and what he could do with it, but it did make him stop and think for enough seconds that he realised there were so many more options and ways to use this weapon of his. “No problem at all” she replied with a wide smile. “But let’s go back for today, it’s getting darker and... you’re eating all the food, so I think we’ll leave tomorrow.” She turned around and started leaving in the middle of the sentence, so Gilliam couldn’t see what expression accompanied this, but based on the tone of voice this was a positive thing. Not really answering he nodded at her, not considering that she was facing away at the moment, but he got to his feet and started following her. Using a casual movement of his hand to remotely pick up the book, moving it into his hand, amidst the other thoughts and feelings there was still the giddiness of being able to do this at all. Mastering this aspect should be very fun! On the way back fatigue was not as much creeping in as it was storming in like an angry train. As soon as the adrenaline was calming he was starting to properly feel it. It seemed like Angela could see it on him as she had an oddly satisfied expression after having a look at him getting a bit more sluggish. Getting back to the cabin didn’t take that long, he did this training close by after all, but shortly after getting inside he was guided over to where his little bed was. It was not more than a stick-mat of sorts, supported up by some wooden legs it made for a decent frame. On the top of it was a stuffed bag, it looked like a melted mattress or a thick blanket that didn’t have any internal structure. But at the moment none of this mattered, he shuffled over and the last thing he remembered was halfway laying down into it. Opening his eyes he felt almost hungover, a groan escaped his lips as he struggled to sit up. It felt like he had been working out for the last two days, but with weights that were a step too heavy for him. Besides the sluggishness after literally just waking up he felt physically fine, but he was tired somewhere else. The worn out feeling was clearly there but also not. In short he felt kind of like shit. Getting his ass out of bed he quickly felt the need of nature, in general feeling pretty dirty he decided to do his best here. Not wanting to wake Angela up he wanted to sneak out. Though, as soon as he looked over to her sleeping place he noticed two things. First, she wasn’t there, second, the sun was very much up. It seems he was the slower of the two. Nature didn't wait for no man so this took priority, leaving the cabin he found her outside taking one-arm pushups with a large log tied to her back. The log seemed to weigh more than he did so this was... Just not right, her smaller frame with all that weight and she was just pushing through. “Oh, good morning!” She stated to him, seeming like she was barely winded. The sun was almost straight above them, this was no morning. “I’ll get back to you.” Gilliam replied as he speedwalked into the treeline to relieve himself. Luckily this was not exactly a problem and was taken care of rather swiftly. Returning to his caretaker feeling refreshed she chuckled as he got closer. “So, now that I’m in no urgency.” He started the sentence before he was in proper conversation distance, this was more of a conversation starter. “Thank you for letting me sleep in, I feel like shit but I think I needed that”. Gilliam couldn’t do much but smile a bit embarrassed. Though probably everyone liked to sleep in there was still things not right about the situation, he still felt a bit guilty being taken care of. “I remember how it was after learning to use magic, using far too much the first few days was pretty bad the day after.” Somehow managing to get up to standing, although heavily leaning forward for balance, she managed to get somewhat upright with all that weight on her back. Pulling a dangling part of the knot on the rope that held all this in place the whole ordeal fell to the ground with a heavy thud. “That shitty feeling will pass, it’s somehow tied to the same effect where you used up all your mana yesterday.” Gilliam nodded, that felt about right. Though it’s not the same it was somewhat similar in feeling. The thing yesterday was in his head and body, this felt more like... in spirit and feeling? It was hard to explain. “It’s not the same, though. This feels... Like it’s not me, but it’s me. I feel like shit but there’s no physical discomfort, I’m fine. But at the same time I feel like... You know when you really want to do something but you feel too bored to start, it sort of becomes a weird form of effort to do anything even if you want to do it? It’s like that kind of... Blarghness to every single movement of my body. Instead of muscle pain I have... blargh-pain?” He tried to explain it but this was something he had no idea what was, how it worked or, well, anything surrounding it. He had some second hand knowledge from someone who possibly slept through classes, and an elementary-school level book, of sorts. “Oh, that’s amazing!” she broke out, looking incredibly happy, like if he had found a small bag of money on the ground. “How’s that amazing?” He wasn’t as much uncertain about this being good or not, she seemed to have control over that but... How could this feeling be good? “It means that your Core has improved!” She seemed ecstatic about this! Not that it made sense to Gilliam but it sounded good? “Oh.. I forget... you don’t know how this works.. In your mana specific abilities have two specific components, named the Core and the Boundary. The core is your mana quality and where your mana comes from. The boundary is how much you have available for instant or short-time use. If you imagine the boundary as a bucket of water the core is the stream of water that fills it. You can empty the bucket instantly, but it can take time to fill it. This is the relationship between the Core and Boundary.” she points to her solar plexus as she talks about her core, and makes a spreading out motion to cover her torso when speaking of her Boundary. “Now, the quality of the Core does two things, first it can refill the Boundary faster, second it deals with the quality of your mana. Better quality has a higher effect. If a spell needs a certain amount of mana to be cast, a bit less is needed of higher quality mana... If that makes sense?” There was a slight confused look to her, she was clearly uncertain if this otherworlder understood the complexities of mana. Gilliam thought about this for a good solid few seconds. “No, I think I get it. The Core is the power source that fills the bucket, it uses time. The bucket is the ‘available right now’ mana that can be spent faster. It’s much like a battery and capacitor, this makes sense!” Gilliam was happy, first because he properly understood something, second because apparently his magical ability had improved a bit! Though Angela had an agreeing expression at the first part of his explanation, with buckets and water, she turned a bit more quizzingly at him when he started talking about electronics. “Capacitor? Battery?” she could replicate the words but they had no meaning to her. “Ah.. Things in my world. In short terms, a battery can give out energy but it usually does this slowly over time, it can give out a lot but not instantly. A capacitor can be charged with energy, it usually doesn’t hold too much compared to the battery but it can use this energy virtually instantly. Much like the stream and bucket” he smiled at the end, a bit sheepishly as he felt kind of odd explaining the basics of electronics to someone in a world where electricity apparently didn’t exist in that sense. She slowly nodded, her face told the whole story; she understood the concept but had no idea what he was talking about. “In short-” Gilliam broke in before this became too technical. “-I understand. My stream has improved.” As he ended his explanation she turned to nodding instead! In her own, albeit more mundane, explanation he was correct! Then that face turned a bit sour again. “I... really am happy for you, I am. But this progress is a bit...” It was clear that she was just envious, understandable all things considered, but there wasn’t much Gilliam could or even would do about it. Gilliam didn’t really have an answer or comment to this, he was enjoying the positive parts happening to him but he didn’t exactly want his caretaker to end up with a sour taste towards him in the future. “I’m... sorry?” he tried, if nothing else to end the awkward silence that grew after she explained herself. “No, don’t be, it’s great for you but.. I can’t help being a bit envious. I used quite some time for my first Core improvement. And the progress of your magic, it’s unlike anything I have seen so... I really am glad for you but I’m also annoyed” She was surprisingly honest with her feelings, though embarrassing or annoying depending on who you ask. She was pretty open. “Well... Perhaps I just started out with a really shit core? So the first upgrade just means that I took a tiny step, where you might have taken a larger one?” Gilliam shrugged, there was some truth to this, how when you start working out for the first few times after being a slouch you’d see almost immediate improvement, but this stagnates a bit over time. “No, that’s not the case. Based on how much mana you used on your spells yesterday, and how fast it regenerated the time you got the headache, or how it didn’t happen at all when you limited yourself after that. Your Core and Boundary are both pretty good from before. In fact, once this stabilises you will most likely notice an improvement... or..” she started thinking for a few seconds. “In fact, I don’t think you might, since you don’t have too much experience with your last Core, you don’t have much to compare it to?” Sort of pinching her chin as she looked to the sky in thought she didn’t seem too certain about how that would work. In her defence, Gilliam was a very unique case, both as a mage but also as a person in this world. Before they could continue any talking there was the familiar growling from Gilliam, he almost grasped his stomach in the hopes of having it shut up. It didn’t. He couldn’t do anything but be embarrassed of himself but it broke the thoughts and feelings back to normal. “We could eat and pack?” Angela joked in the tone of a topic change. Gilliam only silently nodded, he had never had this problem with his stomach before. Not that he had expended energy in this odd way before either but this was getting dumb. Angela laughed as she headed back to the cabin, Gilliam following her with a hint of shame.

Gilliam unloaded his bag, placing it on the round table in the corner, as he waited for Angela to start the talk. He was a bit nervous based on the ‘we need to talk’ trope back home but given her expression and the scenario this should not be that bad... Right? She pulled out a chair from the round table just to the right once you entered the door. “So, I think we need to go through a few things, simple but important things-” Gilliam didn’t feel as paranoid anymore, her body language didn’t hint that this was something dramatic and rather just important. “-I don’t think you should share where you are actually from, it will be hard to explain for most people and might cause other problems, especially if the wrong people start believing you-” Gilliam imagined himself as some weird research specimen strapped to a table somewhere. She did have a point, he was already going to be weird enough with his magical gift, adding this on top of it could become weird if not problematic. People tend to dislike what they don’t understand and... “-so if we say you were Misted then that would allow you to say that you’re from anywhere you are used to, in case you slip and say something weird.” she smiled like he should know what that means. His uncertain facial expression had her continue explaining. “Misted people are people that come out from the Mist. You remember the Mist, right?” Gilliam still looked confused and gently shook his head. Angela smiled in a sigh and continued. “Well, in short. The Mist is some weird magical mist.. Fog.. thing that’s sort of in the center of the known world. That’s the large area in the center of the map I showed you earlier. We don't know too much about it but the short is that it’s incredibly magical and it does what it wants to do, ignoring what we understand as logic almost like it has a mind of its own. Now, given the area it covers and the few people that have been in and come out alive can confirm, there is land in there. It’s just not possible to go in there at all without either never coming out, showing up dead, coming out mutated with something strange or in a few weird cases; coming out before you go in...” She gave Gilliam a few seconds to process all of this before pointing at him. “This is where you come in. Though not super common there is still a surprising amount of people coming out of the mist without any proper knowledge, memories or.. Well.. logical reasoning. This means that you can just say that you are a Misted person and that would excuse your lack of knowledge, etiquette and that you don’t know where you’re from.” She seemed a bit proud of this excuse, though it made sense it’s basically a simple blanket-lie that can cover all the missing pieces. Not a bad idea although a bit weird. “Now... The bad part of this-” Ah yes, there it was. Gilliam was expecting some drawback to this, this lie sounded too good and too easy to use in a lot of cases if there was no downside. “-For most people there is really nothing to gain by claiming that they were Misted. This will also make people look down on you. You’re not exactly an otherworlder with this excuse but you are an outsider of sorts. People tend to dislike outsiders unless they can gain something from it, so I think you being a Heptagon mage will have them not consider the outsider concept that much... I hope.” Gilliam pondered this for a moment. It was not a bad idea. It branded him as an outsider which he actually already was, this was just a lighter variant. If they had fabricated a story that he’s from an area or something then that lie could be discovered somehow and a lie like that could make anything worse, no matter how small, in the wrong scenario. If Misted people could not be proven just like that, and due to unfamiliar landmass in there any names and things he accidentally mentioned could be excused as an in-Mist memory. The main negative side about having the outsider status would be compensated by the status boost of being a Heptagon mage. This was actually a pretty good lie. “So, simply put, when I act weird, say something about home or simply need an excuse, I can just say I was Misted?” He bottom-lined it quite hard, he had learned in his life that if you ask for confirmation with dumb questions it very often helps to learn things. “Well, yes, basically. In your case that could cover most of it” She didn’t seem too happy about having to lie, but she was satisfied with the lie she had come up with. As Gilliam was about to ask a question, there was a knock on his door, the two inside shared a questioning look like they expected the other to know who it was, in the end Gilliam went to the door and opened it. Outside stood a man in a suit, the suit was utterly perfect on him, clean and straight. He had his hair combed back and either some oil or hairgel due to its shine, this was topped with a short but perfectly trimmed beard. The man was dapper as hell. Ah yes, Gilliam remembered now, the headmaster did say that he was going to send a tailor to him for the sake of the uniform. “Ah yes, please come in.” Gilliam gestured with his open hand for the man to enter. “Good afternoon. I am Albert, the head tailor for the academy. Mr. Saleg wanted me to take your measurements so we can have the uniform ready for you right away.” His voice was a little higher pitched than expected but he was extremely clear in his pronunciation. He introduced himself with a proper and deep bow. Angela gave Gilliam a pat on the shoulder as she headed for the door. “I’ll find you after class tomorrow, you have fun.” She smiled as she closed the door behind herself, not really giving Gilliam much time to respond more than a casual wave as the door closed. Albert had no time for an awkward silence to build up, he simply started commanding Gilliam to stretch, bend and stand in specific poses as he took some measurements before making some notes in a small notebook in his chest pocket. This only took a few minutes, the man was fast and effective, he clearly knew what he was doing. “There, that will be it, Mr. Gibson. We will have a few sets of your uniform ready by tomorrow morning, you can get replacements ordered in the reception should that be needed.” And like how he entered, swiftly, politely and with a deep bow he was gone. The door closed behind him and Gilliam was now properly alone for the first time in this world since he met Angela. It was an odd feeling but he had something to do so it was not like he was going to have issues with this. Looking at the round table they sat with and spoke only a few minutes ago he saw the papers and books laying there. Before reading the Student introductory information and accompanying introductory books he took a round in his new home. The desk had drawers with papers, a notebook which was just a stack of papers tied together at the spine with some leather flaps as cover. Though his desk had an ink-vial and quill present it seems that there was also an ink-pen! Lucky days, he didn’t have to carry around a vial and feather all the time. The pen worked like most modern ink pens, the kind you could refill by putting the writing head into ink and pulling a little lever. This sounded stupidly expensive to make... Sure, magic could cheat but, considering the modern world and mass production it still felt quite expensive. Though it did mean that taking notes and writing anywhere was much simpler. The rest of the desk had some weird almost cotton-like sheets that he didn’t know what they were for, though shortly after he found a mini-guide on the very center of the desk that explained everything, it made sense; the ink uses a moment to dry properly, these weird cotton-like sheets were put in on the active writing page to absorb excessive or undried ink, this would save everything from smearing between the pages. The guide was probably there for uneducated plebs like himself, so he was grateful for the school planning for people like himself. The cupboard was empty save a messenger-style leather bag, not very different from the one he got from Angela, just that this one was a bit nicer and had a stamp or engraving of sorts of an even seven edged shape with a circle around it. It seems to have the same shape as the school as seen from above, at least according to the map. The drawers had some towels, hygiene things and that was about it. The sink worked fine but seemed to only have one temperature; lukewarm. It worked both for hygiene as well as drinking, although not super refreshing. Everything in the pile of info was rather straightforward. A copy of the map he got from the headmaster, information of what is where and why; like communal toilets and showers split up by gender. Though it also mentioned that some of the training spells can be used for cleaning and disposing of filth, so many students make themselves a self-cleaning chamberpot as part of their first magic device training. Other than practical information like that there were some signup forms. Two that caught his attention, the first of which was the language learning ritual, where they could plant a whole language in your brain so you just instantly understood it perfectly. There was a cost related to this and... he really needed to get a crash course in the economy and value of things in this world... Up until this point he had not even seen money properly. He would have to talk to Angela about that tomorrow. And besides, he could understand whatever language Angela was speaking perfectly, perhaps he could understand other languages as well. If not he could probably just sign up for this later, it only took a few minutes after all. But the even more interesting sign up was the Familiar ritual. Gilliam knew what this was from stories and other media back home, but he wondered if it was the same here. The documentation explained it in rather decent details, but the important bits were that it was a soulbound companion that would be utterly loyal to the mage while keeping its personality. This was a friend and companion for life, not just a pet. Though, there were drawbacks, there was the cost of feeding it, if you had a small one like a mouse this was not expensive, but if you got something large and exotic you might need to spend a fortune on food for it. The soul link also goes both ways, something as simple as a mouse could be held hostage against the mage, worst comes to worst if it dies this would affect his very soul. There were more pros and cons listed, but in short this was a serious thing to consider. During the students’ time with the academy housing and sustenance would be covered much like the mage himself was covered. Some restrictions applied, Gilliam interpreted that as if it ate the souls of the innocent that was not going to be covered or accepted. Chuckling to himself he continued checking the other material, there were some more introductory books to magic, giving a general brief overview on things like terminology. This had Gilliam very interested, opening the first page this book didn’t joke around. Just the table of contents listed a lot of things he wondered about, like what a Foci is, the base concepts of a magical Core and Boundary, as well as the most basic of most things. Not noticing the time this ate up the rest of Gilliam’s evening, though he was suddenly interrupted by a knock on the door as food was delivered to him by a young human girl before she scampered off. He ate the simple food which was a small round bread, some meat and cheese as well as a mug of water on the side. A simple but perfectly fine dish. He ate as he read which eventually had him go to bed long after the sun had set. Though he went to bed at a reasonable hour it was somewhat hard to actually fall asleep, considering that tomorrow his proper mage training started. He was stoked, a bit too stoked, which had him thinking, overthinking and just generally hard to sleep. Suddenly waking to the sound of a massive church-like bell tolling twice, he was at the rough end of the wing he was in and this was thundering. His heart beat hard and fast, feeling like it’s trying to escape his chest. This... this was a horrible way to wake up, a perfect jumpscare. The reading material did mention that he’d be woken up by the school bell but good gods this was bad. He already didn’t look forward til the next day when this would happen again. Though, it was only two tolls and as his pulse calmed down to a more human liveable number his brain started waking up. He was going to learn magic today! Oh, this was going to be good, he got eager. Very, very eager. Kid on Christmas kind of eager. Getting up, washing himself and getting ready there was a knock on his door, not expecting anyone at the moment he was a bit hesitant but at least put on his pants before opening it. Outside stood Albert as dapper as ever he was holding what looked like a stack of something wrapped in a piece of black cloth that again had some thread around it to keep it in a neat package. “Mr. Gibson, these are your school uniforms. As mentioned yesterday should there be a need to have them repaired or have new sets prepared, please refer to the reception.” Gilliam was surprised and amazed, these had been prepared overnight, he took the measurements just yesterday evening. Reaching out his hands he had the package thrust in his hands, he managed to morning-mutter “Thank you.” But he didn’t get a chance to properly say anything before Albert simply bowed and left in a kind of speed-walk. Closing the door after he stepped back inside he placed the bundle on the round table before opening it. The knot was a pull-release knot so it was super simple to get it unpacked, the cloth almost fell open on its own in a neat presentation. Inside were three sets of uniforms that consisted of a white shirt, a black vest and pants, a simple leather belt and a jacket to cover it all if needed. At the bottom of the bundle was a pair of shoes, it also seemed that the cloth used to wrap it all up was actually a cloak. Referring to a note placed in the bundle, and remembering reading the introduction last night it seems that the coat and cloak can be used at will depending on personal preference about temperature and layers of clothing. The shirt, vest, pants, belt and shoes was expected to be used at all times you were a student, save times you leave the school grounds or during vacations. There was some explaining on how to wear the school pin, which he had not gotten yet but the description mentioned that it’d be given to him as soon as it was ready. This pin should be fastened to the outer layer clothing, save the cloak if that’s used, so it was always easily visible. Alternatively the same hole that the pin needle went through could be used to place a small chain or string, making it into a necklace or similar. There were no actual rules on how to wear it, you could glue it to your nose if you wanted. And though that would get you ridiculed it was visible so would be accepted. Gilliam imagined having it as a necklace was going to be the easiest, but he didn’t know if it came with thread or a chain, so for now he was just going to bring the string with him. Putting on the uniform, its form was nothing short of perfection. Gilliam had never had an attire that fit this perfectly, he could move in it surprisingly well and when not moving around it was just proper on him at all times. Mentally praising Albert, and possibly his team if he had one, he was nothing short of amazed. Almost soiling his new pants as the bell tolled once more, it was apparently time for breakfast. The half hour of ‘get your ass out of bed and get dressed’ time was over. Though there was nobody forcing you to eat this early in the morning Gilliam couldn’t not consider how much magic usage could drain you... He might not want breakfast but he absolutely needed it. With this in mind he packed up the introductory books, the notebook and fancy ink-pen, a few extra sheets of paper alongside the cotton-like things, the map and information pamphlet and set off! Exiting into the hallway there were not many students there, he was near the end of the hallway so that made sense, though looking ahead there were a bunch of them walking towards the center column. Though practically nobody went all the way and took some side exits here and there. According to the map and introductory info there were several rooms on the first floor, at the end closest to the central tower, in each wing dedicated for a mess-hall kind of place. Food was mostly served in a buffet style so save a few students that might have special dietary requirements everyone just picked what they wanted. Gilliam hurried along his co-students, down some stairs and went with the torrent of people ending up in several of these rooms. This felt oddly familiar, get in line, get a plate, get your food and eat it. It was pretty much the same as home, in hotels and the like, except the lack of paying and otherworldly creatures and people. He still had a hard time not staring at the beastfolk. Getting in line, he acted like he felt like he should, nobody talked to him and nobody seemed to care. He was dressed and acted the part so it was all good. He got his plate, picked up some breakfast consisting of a nice smelling soup, some pieces of bread, some water to drink and an apple. He was surprisingly happy to find that there was food here that he could just recognize, no weird different fruit or whatever. Finding somewhere to sit was not a problem, it seems that the school might not be to capacity as there were plenty of places to sit alone, picking one of those tables at random he just sat down and started eating. There seemed to be other people sitting alone, certain groups of people talking happily, sadly and otherwise sitting with their clique. All of this felt pretty normal to most schools. The food was done in not long and as expected, his pants luckily remained unbreached as the bell tolled once more. Oddly enough he could hear it at exactly the same volume as in his room at the end of the wing, shouldn’t it be louder now that he was closer to the tower? For now he considered asking but chalked it up to some magical bullshittery and started moving towards the classroom he was told to meet up at; 4-1-1. He was now in wing 3, so he just needed to go into the main room of the central building and take the first door on the first floor, the first room should be just inside. This was getting exciting, he followed the people and did his best to behave properly, which was not a problem as most of the people here were students, most tired or apathetic to his existence or excited just like him. Getting into the main room that just yesterday had the angry receptionist and the meeting with the headmaster, he took the planned two turns to the left and ended up in Wing 4, 1st floor. The first door was nicely marked as ‘Introductory class’, solidifying that he had made it to the correct place. He felt a minor victory as he had understood the school navigation properly. Entering the room through the open door he saw several people in here, all human except one man looking large, strong, bulky and green. Was he an orc? He fit the image of an orc, or at least half-orc, that Gilliam would expect based on modern media. Deciding to not get involved with anyone just yet, Gilliam just found an available seat and waited for the class to start. Several more students came in, found themselves a seat here and there, the only one that set themselves properly apart was a young girl. She had long deep-red hair, blue eyes and had a body that most people would consider perfect. Gilliam couldn’t get over that she looked to be what.. 13? 14? Whatever it was she was very young but it was almost weird to consider her build compared to some of the other girls in the class. Not really having any interest in girls that young, considering that GIlliam himself was 26 years old this became a curiosity more than anything more. Now that he considered it, though he couldn’t validate his green classmate’s age due to not being used to the race, he was easily the oldest man in the class. Everyone else seemed to be 12-13 years old. Well... He was not going to let that change anything, he was here for his own sake more than anything else. The bell tolled once more, this time Gilliam was a tiny bit more prepared and only got an internal startle. Almost like announcing his arrival a man came through the door at that exact moment. He looked 40something but in good shape, he had wireframe glasses, short messy black hair, a grey robe and the most piercing eyes you had ever seen. Waving his hand towards the door as he entered it closed on its own as he walked to the front of the classroom. As he turned to face the students Gilliam got a look at his school pin, it was the same shape and form as everyone else's but it had a white disc backing it, signalling his status as a teacher, and from all the triangles on the seven-sided shape only the yellow, upper left, was colored. This signalled him as an Aether mage. “Good morning, class. For the new students my name is Jial. I am an Energy, or Aether mage. I specialise in spell circles and will be teaching you the basics.” His voice was oddly common, the kind of voice that you could easily forget as just something you heard on the street, though by that nature it was almost too common and became one you could easily identify. He spoke in short and to-the-point kind of sentences, he simply seemed like a man who didn’t like to waste time. This was either going to be amazing or horrible. He seemed to take a glance across the room before taking some notes in a book. “First, we’re going to cast the light spell. Then we’re going to take it further from there. Pair up if you want to or go at it alone.” He went on to explain how to gather energy, how to move it around in your body and frankly, this felt like the exact same explanation that the introduction book that Angela gave him was using. “Once you have a light stable for a solid minute, we can move onto the next level.” Gilliam knew this was the introductory class, but this felt a bit simple, was it going to suddenly get harder? Doing as the teacher said he formed a light-orb, the same tennis-ball size as he always made in the ‘default’ glow strength, which could easily illuminate a room. This... was apparently a bit much, the class almost in unison turned to him with various eyes of either wonder, interest, annoyance or curiosity. The teacher didn’t seem to bat an eye and just tapped his finger hard a few times on his desk to get the attention back to the front. As everyone turned around the chalk on the chalkboard, seeming to have a life of its own was writing up the goals and explanations that he mentioned before, seemingly almost without his thoughts or guidance. Gilliam just held the light glowing, not knowing what was a standard size or strength he just did as told and held it glowing for the planned minute.

They were walking and talking for hours. It seems that the plan was for Gilliam to get some tutoring at the academy. Angela wasn't super happy about using her father’s name as it sort of devalued her own achievements but in this case it was too good to not use. Since her father had been a teacher at the academy a long time ago before he went into hiding, she still had some possibilities there. Explaining that though there is an entrance exam for those who are not pre-approved through the proper channels. And since Gilliam didn’t have a proper benefactor he would have to get through the exam. “Don’t worry, it’s simple and from what I’ve seen I’m sure you can pass it with your telekinesis alone. You’re also a Heptagon mage, so I’m sure you would get a scholarship even without my help” This was explained in a tone hinting that it was common knowledge. “Heptagon mage?” Gilliam asked, he guessed it had something to do with him being able to use all seven elements but it didn’t quite register. Angela started explaining, using her finger to simulate numbers and points in the air. “How many elements you can use will put you in a class of mages, this class is based on shapes and their corners. There is the Dot-mage that can use one element. Then there is the Line-mage, they can use two elements. The Triangle mage can use three... And you see how this goes. The amount of mages of each class drops dramatically the higher in the list we go. There are the most of Dot mages, second most of Line mages... and so on.” Using her hands and fingers to draw the shapes in the air when mentioning them, and emphasising group sizes like if she were holding different invisible spheres between her hands. “Now, the order goes Dot, Line, Triangle, Square, Pentagon, Hexagon and Heptagon. This should be explained better to you at the academy but in general, the more elements you have the more powerful you are and the easier magic comes to you. Me as a dot-mage struggled more learning spells that will come... super simple... to you...” her tone of voice went into envy territory as she compared them, her face dropping a bit at the same time. Through shaking her head and continuing she pulled her out of it. “Many will not even believe that you exist, before I met you I hadn't even heard of a Heptagon mage. There were probably a few but I haven’t heard or read about anyone before now.” This put Gilliam on a weird pedestal, he got that he was a rare commodity based on earlier explanations but with more detail this just made it worse.. Or better.. Depending on how you looked at it. He liked attention to a certain level just like the next guy, but he didn’t like intense attention. Given the weird mixture of noble, mage, fancy mage and everything he was becoming, this... Was kind of weird. On one hand he liked it, on the other it felt weirdly daunting, like he had something large to live up to. Deeper detail than this she didn’t want to get into, so she didn’t teach him wrong. Given that she was as limited as she is and didn’t have any interest in the mage laws and politics, she was mentally elsewhere for most of the classes. Instead they started talking about other things, like the fact that there is a dome around the world that was apparently a well known, proven and tested fact. The problem was that people didn’t know what was on the other side. Considerable time, effort and funding has gone into investigating this but no holes or openings into whatever outside world there might be, was found. Mages have tried flying along the roof of it, scrying was done and, well, actual effort has been done with this. The weirdest part is that there are two confirmed meteors that have landed, during night the stars are visible as is the sun, but if you go close to the wall you cannot clearly see through it. Gilliam didn’t have any good answers but it all felt made up, though as he thought that he was currently playing with making some magical wind to blow some leaves along the road... So perhaps his thoughts on what’s made up and not weren’t exactly perfect. “Let’s set up camp for the night.” Angela suddenly said and started veering off the road. Gilliam was a bit unsure, there was still a lot of time left before it became dark. “Isn’t it a bit early?” he added to her, though uncertain he still followed her as she headed for the treeline. “We need a little time to set up camp, if we don’t want to use the food we have with us we need a bit of time to hunt. All of this is better before it’s dark” She had plenty of points, though they could make a fire, it was not exactly something you hunted in, and once it got dark everything they wanted to hunt was going to be in hiding as well. He nodded to her statement and simply added a “Ah, that makes sense!” as he followed her into the woods. The forest was not exactly a jungle, they left that behind half a day ago, but there were still some hints of the jungle vegetation. A tree here and there, some recognizable bushes and the like. Other more bark’y trees had taken over as the dominating vegetation but it was clear they were still in jungle-range. Wildlife and nature had apparently spread seeds quite the distance, all things considered it was somewhat interesting to see. Angela set up camp like a pro, it was clear this was not her first time doing this. Gilliam on the other hand, struggled a bit more. They didn’t have a tent to pitch but they used a piece of stitched and waxed leather as a tarp of sorts, Angela showed him how to hang it up, making sure it was tight but also having an angle to it so if it rains it will fall to the side and not pool up. She showed him how to stack the fire, where to place everything and practical information as to what leaves were good and bad to wipe with. Gilliam wanted to make a comment about the latter but... This was vital information if you considered the effects of accidentally using a bad leaf. Once the camp was set up it was time for hunting. “How good are you at sneaking around in the forest?” She asked as she made sure her knife was in proper order before sheathing it. “I have never hunted before and the closest I have gotten to sneak around in a forest was playing paintball many years ago.” he replied without considering the lack of Earth knowledge. As should be expected, she didn’t know what this was. “Paint... ball...?” She should know what paint was, the barn at Geof’s farm was painted, but the ball and playing part didn’t seem to register. “Ah... Well... Imagine a war-game where you sneak around and shoot the other team with paint. It hurts a bit but is completely safe, just a ‘us against them’ kind of game.” He decided to use broader terms and not get into it properly. “Well, I suppose we’ll see how good you are” She smiled, it seems that she got the gist of it but not properly. Worst case scenario they had food, so they should be fine. And if it didn’t go so well this round she could always just hunt alone the next day. There was no danger but she seemed to like the idea of Gilliam testing out all the things. Making a ‘follow me’ nod towards the deeper parts of the forest she started moving, Gilliam wondered how something so white and pale as her could hunt at all. Though with that said white cats do well in non-snow areas so perhaps that’s not going to be as bad as it sounds. Sneaking through the forest it seems that they were highly reliant on Angela’s tracking and perception, Gilliam looked at the areas that she had investigated and... saw nothing of value. He knew that experienced trackers looked at things differently than normal city boys like himself but it was still weird that she could get any value from the patch of dirt they were looking at, he couldn’t even see a footprint. Though it seems that hushed talking was fine when tracking, so she tried to explain what she was seeing and how she analysed this, though she might as well be pointing on a blank piece of paper, he couldn’t see any of the things she was pointing at. Though, eventually they did end up finding what looked like a weird and surprisingly large pigeon up in a tree. Angela let out a dissatisfied ‘tch’ sound “And the one time I don’t have any ranged weapons.” This was in a hushed tone seemingly for herself. Gilliam had not tested his max range on his magic but he knew he could shoot far. Though shooting with telekinesis was not something he was super accurate with and dialling in the force he was even less skilled with. Meaning he would most likely obliterate it rather than having it be edible afterwards. But what if he just grabbed it directly? Stretching out a hand he let his magic extend, more and more, until it made contact with the bird! He smiled a bit as he intended to make this instant. Though he had not been hunting or killing in his past life, something like a bird that was killed for food felt oddly fine, hunger and the situation might have added this. He managed to aim the mana around its head and neck but as he closed his hand to make it quick two things happened. First he felt an odd resistance, like squeezing against an inflated balloon there was this pressure fighting back. This also startled the bird having it wrestle itself out of the remote grasp and fly away. Gilliam felt defeated, with all that power he apparently had he couldn’t even fight a bird. Angela looked at him with a mix of surprise and pity. “I... might have forgotten to mention this since it doesn’t affect me but using magic on living beings. They will often resist. When you throw fire at them there is nothing to resist as there is fire, but when using mind-affecting spells or physically affecting spells like telekinesis everyone can resist. Like if you use it on me I can just power through, at least in the start.” She smiled a bit in pity but also a bit at herself for forgetting such an important detail, especially before a hunt. “So... I’m useless, then...” Gilliam added in a defeated tone. He could shoot pebbles at supersonic speed that would destroy most targets (if it hits) but... He couldn’t take out a dumb bird. “Not useless-” she retorted. “-just untrained. You can try again on something else, use a different spell or find another way to use it?” She had some good points, when you fail during training then you try and try again until you learn. Alternatively, where one tool might not work, try another one. He had other elements available, he could also use things differently. Considering the different possibilities, if something was on the ground he could use earth magic to sort of spear it, if it was flying he could use air magic to blow it downwards. Telekinesis was fun so he might have been leaning towards it because it was fun rather than what was the best choice. Making a dedicated nod he again started following Angela, she would have to do the scouting here as he probably couldn't find anything if it landed on him. It didn’t take long before Angela froze in place and made a stopping motion with her hand for Gilliam, a ‘wait’ palm motion towards him was plenty for him to stop. She put a vertical finger to her lips as she motioned for him to get closer. Doing as told he did his best to sneak around the large tree she was hiding behind and, even when pointing at it he needed a few seconds to actually see the rabbit that was eating some leaves. She followed up with a smile and an ‘after you’ motion, apparently signalling that he could have another go at things. It was slowly getting dark so there might not be more chances than this, Gilliam steeled his mind. Again he wanted to use telekinesis, but this time he thought about it more. Like the last thought he had after the bird the earth spearing didn’t feel like a bad idea. Though rabbits had a tendency to bounce like the acrobatic gods they were, what other options did he have? Water? No, the best he could do there was to shower it gently. Air? He could make a decent gust of wind but nothing that would affect something moving on the ground. Fire? ... Absolutely not, that would probably cause a forest fire. Light was positive in question, telekinesis needed training and Darkness needed contact so, Earth actually sounded like the best. Since rabbits tended to bounce a lot as he considered before, why not just plan for it? The moving of earth spell wasn’t super amazing, he hadn’t tried to make thin needles coming out of the ground before, he had just moved slabs and made holes. Wait, that was the answer! He didn’t need to gamble something and lose their prey, he could do something he had done before! He focused the energy before he cast it, before he had cast it with a stream of energy that moved the earth incrementally, that would just have the rabbit dart off. But during his testing he found out that if he let it build up first and suddenly released it, like blowing or collecting the air in your cheeks you could let out a stream of air or have your lips ‘pop’, letting out a pulse. The latter worked better here as he could then move the earth suddenly. He had no idea how much energy to use, so he decided to use a bit more rather than less, just in case. He built it up and up, like charging a camera flash he let it build up a little bit, but not too much; he knew that he had a massive Boundary which could make more than needed. After a short while he felt the energy should be good, pointing his hands towards the target he waited until he ‘felt’ that he had connected with the correct patch of dirt. Then he let the energy go, the mental image was of a hole in the ground larger than the rabbit and deep enough that it cannot jump out. Making a downwards push like if he was moving the earth manually like sand it seemed to work! Suddenly the dirt was pushed down underneath the rabbit but it was fast, managing to almost bounce out of the hole before it couldn’t hold onto the steep sides and ended up falling into the hole! Pumping his fist in the air he strangled a “Yes!”, though letting out a satisfied grunt instead. Angela smiled at his childish glee as she ran over to the new rabbit-pit, not wasting a moment's time she jumped into it, ending up with the ground reaching her chest, bending down and punching once. It was silent in the pit before she got back up with a dead rabbit in her hands! Success! After making sure it was dead she started dressing it, explaining what she did to Gilliam. Though he was... fine... with it, the first few cuts into the cute creature were uncomfortable to look at. But after a few cuts were done and it looked more like meat than an adorable pet, the uncomfortableness faded. “When possible you want to bleed the prey as soon as possible, if you’re unlucky with waiting the meat might suffer or even go bad.” She started explaining what she was doing and why. “If you make a few cuts here and here, then do this-” she made sure to do things right and suddenly, almost like magic of her own, she had a rabbit’s pelt in her hands. “-you can get a nice rabbit pelt. A pelt like this, no holes or cuts, can sell for a decent sum.” she added as she continued butchering. Now that it just looked like meat there was no problem watching her do this. Taking out the guts and as much of the non-meat as possible she just left that in the forest. “You mind lending me some water?” she asked as she was now less than clean from her fingers to above her wrist. Gilliam was more than happy to oblige, creating a steady stream of water akin to a tap back home. She proceeded to wash her hands and knife, as well as the worst of the rabbit's skin before picking everything up and heading back to the camp. She gave him thanks before she started moving. Getting back to the camp was not a problem... for her. Gilliam would have used more time on this so he was very happy that she was there. Igniting the campfire was easy, fire magic was a blessing. Although he did use a few tries as he started out with a weak flame, too weak to ignite anything, and worked his way up. He decided to be careful rather than setting them both on fire. In the end they had a rabbit over the fire, Gilliam felt incredibly happy with this as he waited for it to cook, completely ignoring everything else in place of his satisfied smile. Angela handled the cooking, though this part he could probably have figured out. Not the same but he had grilled plenty of things in his life so this should be doable. Though when possible it’s often better to leave it to the professionals. An incredibly satisfying meal later, it had grown dark before he knew it. They must have been somewhat close to the equator or something since this place grew dark almost instantly once it started. Nothing the first spell he learned couldn’t help with; the magical light was practical! “Wait... won’t we get attacked by bandits?” Gilliam suddenly realised as they were getting ready for bed. He might not consider the realism in place of the media he has consumed. The media angled to create drama for the sake of entertainment, but it was still a scary thought. Angela chuckled. “This is not a popular road, we’re in farm country. We’re also deep in the forest in a random location. There won’t be any bandits here, that’s something to worry about when we get closer to Che’or. For now the most dangerous thing is that you might get poked by wildlife, but even that is too scary to really do anything.” She seemed completely unphased as she was getting ready for bed, shoving herself in the sleeping bag lined with fur. Gilliam did feel a bit better about things, he had camped before so the possible wildlife part he was not scared of. They had a fire and if she was this calm about things there shouldn’t be anything to worry about. He tried putting it away and going to sleep, though the less he tried to think about it the more he had weird worst-case scenario thoughts about the what-if’s if she was wrong. Every forest sound made him jump, what if there was something hunting them? He didn’t know the local wildlife and... Eventually he fell asleep but it took longer than it should have.

Waking up to an unfamiliar sound, he could not properly place what was going on until his eyes focused properly and he saw it was just Angela doing the rubbing and spinning wood thing to reignite the campfire. Flopping back down again he realised that it was getting bright, his eyes did not like this at the moment, just having woken up and meeting it under the tarp. “You seemed restless.” Angela commented without turning around. “Tossing and turning for quite a lot last night”. Gilliam groaned in response as he sat himself back up. “I started thinking about ‘what if bandits come’ or if there were some hungry beasts nearby... I guess vivid imagination...” He didn’t see any good way or reason to not just be honest, though it didn’t sound that mature of him to overthink the scary things in the night it was still the truth. Angela chuckled as she was blowing on the little ember she had made with the wood, before moving it over into some kindling. She kept working the little fire, feeding it with strips of bark and thin strips of wood until it was actually burning, it was then transferred to the campfire and used to properly light it up. “A good imagination is valuable for a mage, but I suppose it can be a problem like this”. She was clearly enjoying this a little bit but at the same time tried to hide it behind facing away from him. Her chuckle still betrayed her attempt. Gilliam decided to not draw more attention to it, he knew it was somewhat childish, based on the facts the odds of any of those happening were slim or she would not have gone to bed like that without setting up a guarding rotation. But at the same time, the new world for him and all that stuff, the stories and tropes he’s used to, it was hard to push that aside. Unpacking himself from the sleeping bag Angela gave him yesterday, he stretched a bit after getting on his feet. They were sleeping on some bedroll/thick blanket thing, but it was far from the comfort of a modern bed. Nor was that bed he was given in Angela’s house but he felt that he couldn’t complain too much, she was caring for him which still felt odd. The only thing he had contributed so far was to capture the rabbit... Something he was pretty certain she could have done easily as well. He would have to find a way to repay her. “I’m heating up the rest of the rabbit-” Angela explained as she turned her head just enough to see Gilliam in the corner of her eye. “-I assume you want some?” The tone of voice was not as much a question as it was a statement that she was doing this for him as well. Gilliam nodded as he saw her looking in his direction. He was usually not a man for breakfast right after waking up but this was a special situation. Sure he could eat on the go but his body probably needed the energy. Walking over he sat down near the fire not far from Angela. “I assume there will be more walking today?” This was also not toned as a question, more as a conversation starter rhetoric question. “At least we’re on the road now, but it’ll still take a few more days. When I walked there myself it took two days, but.” She eyed Gilliams body up and down a second. “I added a day when I planned for the trip with you” Her smile was filled with sarcastic humour, though it was hard to avoid the fact that he was absolutely not in as good shape as she was. “I’m surprised you didn’t add a week.” Gilliam joked in response. If she used two days normally, adding a day or two for his sake was nor a bad idea. But unless jogging the whole way was her plan, a whole week was a bit much. “If it had taken that long it would have been faster if I just dragged you the whole way there.” She mused looking into the fire. With her strength she could probably do this without that much effort. “I assume a lot of my skin would be missing at that point..” His mental image of the massive scraping several days of being dragged along a dirt road could cause. “But you have healing magic, you could train that at the same time!” She... had a point, unsure just how effective his healing magic was at the moment, the idea was still not entirely horrible. “I... think I choose to walk instead.” Although this whole conversation was in jest Gilliam still had an honest tone to that statement. He had shown to take any excuse to use magic as a good reason to, but this was not exactly a pleasant thought. As a joke it was fine, but when he mentally imagined the world of pain it still didn’t feel right. They both shared a chuckle afterwards. It didn’t take long before the food was heated, eaten and the camp packed down. The fire was doused by the stream of water from Gilliam’s spell, he was glad to see an application for it besides cleaning things and making drinking water. He did think to himself that he needed to analyse and consider all forms of applications for spells. A stream of water is ‘just’ a stream of water, but like a garden hose it can be used for many different things. Perhaps he could consider some different way to send it flying, make a form of nozzle with his hands, magically or otherwise. Though, based on that he was using a training spell he guessed that most ‘proper spells’ would probably be better at things than this one. Shortly after double checking that everything was packed or ready, they set off again, first out of the forest to the road and then towards Che’or. The walk was uneventful, which was a good thing in one way of thinking. Using the time to practise casting magic while walking, talking and otherwise, Gilliam got a few new ideas of the different spells, like the hunting last night hinted that just making pits could be very good in combat. He might not even have to make it large enough for a whole person to fall into, enough to step into could have you fall over or even break your leg. Though it required some special timing or preparation. All the spells were limited, the one that had the most versatility was the Telekinesis spell but even that was limited in control and finesse. Sure, he could pick up heavy things and send things flying, but if he wanted to hit something particular or if he wanted to slap someone with a stick this was surprisingly hard. For now he assumed this was due to the training-simplicity of the spells and kept on training, not like he had much else to do besides this and small talk. The next night followed the same pattern, the only difference was that it rained a little so the tarp actually had a proper use, they found a small cave that aided them in keeping the fire dry but that was the main problem. The hunting this evening ended up landing one of those fat pigeon-like birds. Though it did take him four shots to hit one with the sharpened sticks he used as projectiles. Using a sharpened stick meant that there was less damage done to the bird so there was a higher chance that there was something edible remaining. Angela showed him how to prepare the bird, which after plucking was surprisingly straightforward. This night was calmer for him than the last, the sound of rain aided a bit in making a static and familiar noise. Like last night he woke to the sound of Angela waking up the campfire. The morning and following day was just as uneventful, Gilliam trained a bit more and managed to get a telekinesis spell to mess with a flying bird, though it wrestled itself free fast enough and flew off without a problem. Defeating Gilliam’s ego a bit to Angela’s amusement. The third night was just cloudy, and though they put up the tarp again it didn’t seem like it rained that time either. There was no luck hunting this round so they had to eat some of their brought rations instead, not as tasty but filling. Gilliam again woke to the sound of a campfire being resurrected and stoked, going through the same ordeal for the third time before they were back to moving. Traffic had increased a bit, there were some carts moving now that they were on the wider roads, Gilliam got plenty of weird looks, most likely due to his clothing. Angela got her own collection of looks, which was more likely due to her being an Albino, hard to miss and quite rare. “There we go!” Angela suddenly exclaimed, startling Gilliam a little. “That’s Che’or.” she pointed along the road. Looking in the distance it was absolutely not hard to see. A pretty large city, stone walls and a bunch of buildings inside, there seemed to be a fortress, castle, keep.. Whatever it was called, there was one in a sort of corner of the outer wall. Even from this distance it was easy to see that it had its own walls around, probably for some class segregation and protection of the important people. They weren’t high enough that he could make out any more details than that, but he was getting kind of excited. As they got closer in the following hour the walls grew larger and larger, everything grew more detailed. There were a lot of people going in and out, many carts of various sizes and shapes. Entering the city they weren’t stopped, the two of them got plenty of looks but they weren’t stopped. This was also the first time that Gilliam got a better look at different races. Sure, there was Geof but he was one man and he was pretty human, save his large size and horns. Here the collection was a bit different. First, there was quite the collection of animal-human hybrid people, all kinds of animals from dogs, to wolves, to tigers, to cats and... It was a large collection. Though he knew these people existed, what surprised him the most was the varied nature of them, it was not just the different animals but also how much Human there was in them. You had people like Geof that were almost pure humans with just a small trait or two, to people who walked on all fours and looked like animals with slight human traits. It was to the point that Gilliam almost didn't notice other races like Orcs, Dwarves and even goblins. He found the latter interesting in its own right since modern media almost always put them down as sub-intelligent ‘level 1 monsters’. Angela had to poke Gilliam to get him back to reality, she gave him a bad look hinting that he might have been staring more than he expected. The excited feeling of all this new info was easily overshadowing his embarrassment for acting like an idiot. And on top of this he got a new wave of stimuli as they came through the gates. There were things happening everywhere. Most buildings along this road had some form of shop on the first floor, there were Inns and places to eat, the spaces between buildings had a popup stand if there was room, if not there were people carrying things in bags trying to sell or buy. The buildings seemed to be mostly stone, either oddly square rock on top of another like bricks, or just a large slab of stone. Gilliam assumed some magic could be involved in the latter. Most of them had wooden studs and some were fully wooden, though there was an odd lack of painted or colored buildings. Most seemed to be covered in something, the wooden ones might be some tar or other black oil-looking thing but most of them were left naturally colored. All in all this was incredibly similar to what Gilliam felt a fantasy medieval city would be like. He didn’t even realise the large happy dumb smile on his face as he followed his very easy to notice friend. This lasted for a while, the input and new interesting things to see kept flooding over him, as soon as he always got over the shock of seeing something neat, something new entered his view. But his smile instantly soured in a split second, his more serious face taking over instantly as he nudged Angela. “Is... this what I think it is?” he asked as he motioned to a corner of the square that had people of different races, although without a shred of a doubt more beastfolk than any other race. They were either chained to a pole, in cages, or walking about but with unmistakable collars hinting to a leather pet-collar just a bit more fancy. Though most of them looked to be in acceptable shape and form there were a few that were absolutely not. Angela looked to Gilliam, noticed his expression and what he referred to. “I... Guess you don’t have slaves in your world...” she stated more than asked. “Here in V’ida its legal and rather normal.” She said this in a tone of voice hinting that she’s so used to them that she didn’t even consider mentioning it. Her expression didn’t really change much but she explained a bit more. “Half-beasts are second-class citizens, depending on their background and other happenings they are commonly seen as slaves. They are treated well, it’s illegal to mistreat your slaves but... It’s not exactly easy to know what happens behind closed doors...” Gilliam had conflicted feelings about this. Slavery was all around illegal back home, as it should be. “There are different kind of slaves-” Angela added, in a tone hinting that she wanted to cheer him up. “-There are the slaves, but then there are the forced servitude cases. Where they are only temporarily slaves to pay some debt or something. In that case they are more like servants without pay... Oh-” like she remembered something good she continued in a better tone of voice. “-You remember how I said that mages are automatically nobles and have a lot of social power? It has been found earlier that a slave manifested magical gifts, suddenly outranking their master and by default was freed... Now.. With that possibility people tend to in general be careful about treatment of their slaves.” she nodded sagely. This did improve Gilliams mood a little, if nothing else it’s illegal to mistreat them and extra motivation to treat them properly is that they might have the gift and legally being able to turn on their masters. Though he was not fond of the slavery thing still, if they are treated well then, fine, he could live with it but... Knowing the messed up people existing back home he didn’t assume the lack of them in this world. This culture shock hit him hard. Angela did her best to change the topic and focus on different things, often magical in nature. This actually did help Gilliam think about other things a little, letting him process all of this a little calmer. Though they were here with a goal in mind this was still something he didn’t expect. A short while after following the main street a bit more, they came to a different plaza. This area had several perfectly cubical buildings, they all had different words or names on them, and some of them had a short line in front. To the side was a much larger building with a much larger line going into it. Based on the signs, text explaining and cries pointing and explaining this was the teleportation area. It seemed you could rent a teleportation mage’s services for different prices and times, but the main thing here seemed to be the cubical buildings, they housed teleportation circles. Based on the names on them and how things seemed to work you got a ticket of sorts and then went to the building to where you wanted to go and poof, you left. This was further strengthened as Angela led them to one of them with the text ‘Helvan Shores’ on the front of it. There was a short line of only a few people, not even enough time for some smalltalk and it was their turn. Angela handed the token to the man outside and entered the cubical building like she had done this many times before. Gilliam followed after and found himself in a cubical room covered in magical circles engraved into the stone directly. It seemed that the stone walls, ceiling and floor were completely flat plates of stone, making up completely smooth surfaces where the engravings had been made. Half of them were dimly glowing and the others were just grooves in rock. A robed man stood in a corner surrounded by a weird dedicated magical circle that Gilliam could not find replicated elsewhere in the room. “Please enter the circle” he gestured towards the center of the floor-circle that had an inner circle with nothing inside of it, hinting that all the magic happens outside of it... or something, Gilliam didn’t know magic circles but it felt logical. Gilliam followed Angela into it and the man just nodded, as they both stopped inside the inner circle the dull engravings started glowing as they seemed to build up energy. “You should close your eyes.” Angela warned. Gilliam looked in her direction and as he saw her with her own eyes closed he immediately followed her warning. It only took a few seconds before he felt a weird pulse around his body, like warm water splashing across you before instantly drying up. He heard a few steps and opened his eyes to see Angela moving towards a door. Looking around him he saw what felt like the same room, just that the man in the corner was no longer there. Feeling a bit confused he guessed that the teleport worked as intended, and followed her to the door. She opened it and stepped out like she had done this as well many times. Gilliam was more taken back at the place they were in now. Straight in front of him was a row of buildings like the one he was coming out of, it seemed that the cubical rooms were connected to make a long rectangle instead. To his right the large green field they were in seemed to end at a wall, but to his left was a very large field with many people, some were idly relaxing in the open field in the sun, others were training on some spells much more powerful than what Gilliam could produce. It seemed that there was a wall around this place that made a triangle pizza shape, he was along one wall near the tip and to his left, the large area, the main part ending up with the crust as the outer wall. Suddenly he noticed that there were people in front of him. A young beastfolk boy with what seemed like some lizard features and a familiar looking collar, simple clothing and a messenger bag seemed to be there, waiting for them. He took one glance at Angela and just stepped out of her way, but he came over to Gilliam. “Is this your first time here?” he asked, seeming happy and enjoying himself. Gilliam was just uncertain about the situation, he didn’t like the slavery thing but this kid looked happy, in good health and, the only thing out of place was the collar. “Y... yes..” Gilliam managed to mutter out. “Oh, good, then you should have this!” the boy explained happily as he fumbled in his bag, taking out two pieces of paper before handing it to him. “Have a nice day” he smiled before he ran to a sun-filled spot and laid down, seeming to soak in the sunlight. Gilliam took a glance over the papers given, one seemed to be a penned map, the other seemed to be an information pamphlet of sorts. A quick glance over the map showed that the whole school had a 7-point shape wall around the whole complex, with long walls going from the points to a smaller 7-point shape around the central tower. This created some triangles between the diagonal walls, it seems he was in one of those. There were also some names and numbers, it seemed that the diagonal walls were numbered as wings clockwise and the large fields were named based on the elements. As he looked over the pamphlets he followed Angela, who seemed to know where to go. Taking in the sights of the place they were in he didn’t get a chance to properly read the pamphlet, something about a badge, the school’s importance and general info. He decided to read it later. She led him through the tip of the triangle where a door leads into the center shape with the tower. Only now did he get a proper look at the walls, it seems that the walls almost looked like a mountain chipped away into this shape, though there were the patterns you can find inside other stones or mountainsides they were still one single piece. The walls for the Wings and outer walls seemed to at least be their own units, but this still meant that each wall or ‘unit’ looked like it was a single stone. Entering through the sturdy wooden door he came into a large lobby-like room. It spanned the full width of the center area and was two levels tall. There were doors that went into the Wings as well as some stairs leading up to the second-level of the wings. A spiral staircase in the middle seemed to lead into the tower. The furnishings were very nice, antique but maintained, polished stone floors and nice walls, it seems that though the construction was in stone there was a considerable amount of wooden structures, like the stairs, desks, benches and more. Angela walked over to the receptionist and started talking to her, Gilliam being a bit further behind overheard the receptionist let out a mocking laughter as she looked at Gilliam, she stopped herself quickly but the damage was done. He was wondering if he looked that out of place that it was worth mockery, he did look kind of peasant like with his dirty clothing even though it was perhaps a bit out of place. “That seems unlikely, please leave.” the receptionist ordered as he got within conversation distance. “We don’t cater to liars.” She eyed the both of them with contempt.

Savia had taken flight as Gilliam readied himself, letting him do his thing without affecting her. Darting forward Gilliam barely saw Kintas move before the next thing he realised was that he was on his back looking at the sky. “Oh.. wow... You’re bad.” Kintas smiled as he reached out a hand to help Gilliam up. Gilliam was well aware that he was bad but he didn’t have to rub it in that much, he still took Kintas’ hand to get up. What happened to the spark, was it just adrenaline? If so, that was duuumb. Stupid body... His smug and better-than-thou facial expression changed a bit as he looked Gilliam up, still holding onto his hand in a handshake of sorts. “You can still be trained, but it might take a bit longer than the other students. I don’t know your situation but most of them have at least held a sword before. I get the feeling that you haven’t?” He was right on the spot. Gilliam always liked looking at specialists in a field, they had interesting input and could ‘see’ things normal people could not. Though, that said, it was probably not hard at all figuring out that Gilliam was absolutely not skilled in this field. “What gave it off? The fact that I suck or the fact that I told you 10 seconds ago?” Gilliam replied a bit cheekily, this man was half-scummy but in a bearable way so Gilliam couldn’t not respond in kind. “Both.” Kintas smiled. “But you can still be trained. It’ll just take a bit longer than some.” This time he sounded proper, almost like an actual teacher and not like a bully having fun on other people's behalf. “Though, to be honest. Based on what I saw back then, I think you should stick to magic for now. I might be able to stall for time against the big ones but even I couldn’t take down that gate.” He gave Gilliam a brotherly pat on the side of his arm saying this. One of his students chimed in suddenly. “Can I also just focus on magic?” Based on the young boy’s bruises he was not doing too well in the combat class. “Absolutely not-” Kintas replied as he took the training sword from Gilliam, handing it to the boy. “-You will be fighting even more!” The boy looked like he was about to cry, this was clearly not his forte. Kintas clearly reacted on this and went in a bit closer. “Consider this, you might not be good now, but you’re already way better than this guy.” Pointing with his thumb over his shoulder he clearly referred to Gilliam. And though that was most likely true, it was somewhat sad... “Though this guy might have ‘amazing magic’ or something-” the tone of amazing magic was incredibly taunting and fake sounding. “-If you stab him as he’s channelling a spell he’ll go down like anyone else, so this is a good skill to have.” Gilliam nodded at Kintas’ teachings to another student, it was the same that Jial mentioned before as well. Which made a lot of sense, there were plenty of tropes back home in that the good or bad guys often let the other side charge up these doomspells that take valuable seconds if not minutes to get ready. When back home a gun could take care of this problem very easily, a crossbow, sword or simpler spell could do the same here. Hell, if you consider the winning spell that Gilliam used against the demons a few days ago, though it had to be created there and then, it took like a minute or something, and he needed several people to protect him. So though it’s a kind of obvious common sense thing, it’s still incredibly valuable information. Being compared to Gilliam seemed to do the trick for the kid, he was not entirely into it but he calmed down and seemed at least willing to tolerate continuing. For now, Gilliam decided to leave the combat area, it was true that he needed training but he also needed to get better as a mage. Given that he had a gift in the latter it became a priority for now. He knew how magic circles worked and could apparently make them on the fly but he needed to properly plan out a few and learn them by heart. Though with his mana reserves he could rely on unstructured spells when needed like that, it was not optimal. He also wondered how hard it was to learn teleportation, if he could at all, that sounded very practical. So much to do, potentially little time and not even knowing where to start. As he was thinking of what to do, Aeris teleported in next to Gilliam, giving him quite the startle. Letting out a sudden startled swear hinted strongly that he’s not used to this. “Good gods... Do you have to do that?” He asked Aeris, she seemed like a little troll but she should learn how to behave a bit... “Yes, I do.” She smiled, like this was a stated fact. Taking a look at her now she seemed to have a healing wound on the side of her head. There is an area that barely has some scarring, clearly healed well, but it’s missing hair. This hints that she had a wound that was magically healed but the hair needs to grow back on its own. “What happened to you?” Gilliam asks, a bit worried as he squats down to the young girl. She fidgets when asked about it and rather seems to subtly change the subject. “Jial said he needed to speak with you right away. I can take you to him.” Holding out her hand like the other times she teleported him, this seemed somewhat urgent. Since she popped up here to find him odds were they knew where he was, some tracking spells on the badges seemed plausible, they were named after all. They could have walked over and talked to him but sending Aeris felt like it was either urgent, or they were far away. Gilliam held his hand up in the direction of Savia, she took this as an invitation and landed in his hand, taking up her normal position of hugging an available finger. Taking Aeris’ hand without prying further into what happened to her, he prepared to be temporarily blinded. And as expected a bright light later he was indeed blinded for a second before it faded back properly after a few seconds. He found himself in a rectangular unfurnished room, there were two doors, stone walls, floor and ceiling, a desk to the side and two doors. This felt a lot like the room the woman was waiting in when Gilliam did the familiar ritual. In the room was Jial, some white haired kid and a short man Gilliam had not seen before. “Ah, good, Gilliam.” Jial reacted to them landing there, though he turned to Aeris right after. “Thank you, Aeris. You can go now” He had an oddly warm smile to it when he spoke with her. She smiled and teleported out, after which Jial’s face returned to the normal emotionless stare as he turned back to Gilliam. “Now, this is Nolis-” he motioned for the white haired kid, who’s badge had a silver plate and only the black field colored in, showing that he’s a 2nd year Dark mage. “-And this is Ghaos, our Master Battlemage.” Ghaos was a short man, some 150cm (~59inch) tall, though he was made only of muscles and more muscles. Though he was balding he had shoulder long brown hair, calm brown eyes and a large nose. He was wearing an open robe of sorts showing some of his chest, with what you could see of his hands, face and rest of skin; he’s covered in tattoos. He almost looked a bit dwarf just with human proportions, he was carrying a stick looking like a metal quarterstaff covered in runes and engravings. His badge had a white disc, but no colored fields; more like some weird golden wavy lines? They almost looked like golden threads floating in the air. Ghaos just nodded when he was introduced. “Now, I heard about your language testing in Wing 4’s mess hall today-” Jial started explaining. Gilliam was not surprised, the rumours would most likely have spread and there could have been some teachers in the mass of people, if nothing else the people working as servers were part of the faculty somehow, no? “-Though we don’t exactly understand it, the tests done in our class and earlier today could mean that you understand many more languages.” Jial had a slight smirk to his statement. “Yes... I have no idea how it works but... why does this feel weird?” During his reply Gilliam felt something weird. It was almost like he had some odd muscle ticks in his jaw as he was speaking. “Interesting-” Jial replied, now looking at Gilliam with a very intrigued expression. “-I changed language three times during that explanation and you understood it all, in fact it seems you replied in the last language I used without even realising it.” He kept looking at Gilliam and said a few random words, before continuing a full sentence. “I sense some mana in you change when I change language. It feels almost similar to our language extraction spells, just.. Different. Somehow.” Gilliam pondered this for a moment, and things started making sense. When he arrived in this world he did have a worry about not understanding language. Either whatever gave him the Heptagon magic also gave him some autotranslator thing, or like the other spells he has been using; he’s doing this subconsciously somehow. “It could be a subconscious unstructured spell?” there was a heavy questioning tone to that sentence. Though it could make sense based on how he knew unstructured spells working. Their strength is their versatility and the possibility to just work as long as you can imagine it properly. And with common media, translators and stuff like that; imagining a translation spell was surprisingly simple. The odd part is that he didn’t know any of the languages. No translators did this on the fly, it was always a lookup function. Jial pondered for a few seconds. “That could make sense but how do you understand the words? Unless... Repeat the words after me exactly as you hear them.” Gilliam nodded and again Jial proceeded to say a few random words like table, door, grass and so on. Gilliam replied the best he could and after a few seconds Jial summed his findings. “You’re not using the exact words I am. Your spell might be translating their meaning instead of the literal words. Interesting.” Jial seems to want to continue this but Ghaos clears his throat in an attention seeking way. This snaps Jial out of it and apparently back to the matter at hand. “Yes, right... I suppose we can look into how it works later, for now. We need that ability of yours.” As his sentence neared the end he moved for the door, Ghaos entered first but Jial and Nolis followed right after. Savia flew up into Gilliam’s hair rather than staying in his hand, she clearly liked his hand but she seemed to like the warmth and isolation of the hair more. Gilliam was a bit uncertain about the situation, the aid they wanted was language based but he was not entirely prepared for what was in the next room. Entering he first noticed that the room was covered in runes and magic circles, he didn’t have the time to read into them all but the few he managed to understand was relating to material strength and messing with teleportation and remote events. The room itself was the same size as the rectangular one they came from but it was rotated 90degrees, so they entered on a short side and walked down a long room. At the end of this room, where there were no engravings at all, but the existing runes seemed to affect that area as well through some... thing... Gilliam didn’t understand yet. In the end was a cage, barely large enough to stand upright in, but inside the cage was the matter at hand. Chained up in the cage was a woman, she had blue and light purple skin riddled with scars and old wounds, long white hair with some hints of purple undertones reaching her chest, literally glowing blue eyes, horns extending from the front-top of her head, curving around in a spiral shape not unlike certain goats. The horns go around a single full rotation in their helical shape. Her ears are pointed like Gilliam would assume elves have, she had a very fair complexion save a healing wound across her nose. She has a long and slender tail ending up in a spear-point shape, it has the same colour as her skin. And finally she has digitigrade legs ending up in hoofs. She had chains fastened to her legs, arms, her tail as well as her horns. Seems they didn’t take any chances at all with her. As soon as they entered she started shouting out to them, wanting to be let go, how she would muder them all as soon as she got loose, how they were all going to fall to her master in the next wave. They were, in her words; completely fucked. Gilliam looked at Jial a bit confused, clearly wondering why they had a.. Demon woman? Captive. “Her capture was a weird stroke of luck. Although not the best event. Aeris were bringing us to the field. Teleporting back and forth. Though one teleport landed her in the wrong place and she was hit in the head. Knocked out instantly. One of the demons brought her back through the gate. We spoke with her and... she was understandably terrified but when she woke she saw a fire hellscape, jagged mountains, death, heavy air. Much like we’d assume a demonic hellscape to be. She reacted and teleported back to the academy. Seems like teleportation works through the gate as well. This brought the one carrying her at the moment along for the trip. She landed in the Energy field. Luckily Ghaos was there and instantly knocked this one out. Aeris was taken to a healer right away and will be physically fine.” He motioned for the captive when he mentioned ‘this one’. Gilliam pondered for a few seconds over this, it would explain the head wound that was healed and her hesitance of speaking about it. It must have been a traumatic event being kidnapped like that. During the explanation the demon woman was shouting things about how they were all still going to die, how she was going to feed them all to her master. “Well, the good news is that the translation thing seems to be working.” Gilliam made sure to speak to Jial and not look in her direction. “It doesn’t seem like she knows that I can understand her, but currently she’s just saying that she will kill us all when she’s free. How she will feed us all to her master. But the concerning part is that we will die during the next wave.... I think there will be more gates.” Gilliam rapidfire translated the things she had said, but the second wave part was the worst aspect of this. The threats they could ignore for now but the confirmation of at least one more wave was... not good. Jial pondered for a few seconds. “Well, we’ve already gotten some more information out of her. That’s a good start. We need more. Since you’re the only one that can talk to her. See what you can find.” Gilliam saw that one coming, but didn’t like it. Though it made sense and this was a literal war, he still didn’t like that someone was chained down to this helpless level. Well, he just needed to talk, that was no danger. And just making sure that he didn’t spill anything to her, just the other way around. “Besides sharing info, and clearly not allowing her release, is there anything I can tempt her with if needed?” Jial considered for a few moments. “Food as long as it won’t hurt anyone. We can ease some of the chains. If she’s willing to submit to a forced slavery brand we can let her properly loose.” That last one ticked Gilliam wrong. “... Forced... slavery brand?” He had asked before he realised that he could guess more than he really wanted to know about it. “It is what it sounds like. It is a mental compulsion spell that forces the target to become the slave to a person. They are compelled to do anything and everything the owner orders them to. They cannot harm them even passively. It is... an evil spell. We do not like considering it but. Mr. Gibson, let me remind you that this is war. I will defend myself and mine.” The latter part of his explanation was... true.. But he said it with a forceful tone, he was willing to go where he needed, Gilliam was certain of that. So if they needed to commit evil on someone for the greater good, he was sure that if Jial would see it as needed he would not hesitate. “Let’s hope we don’t need that.” Gilliam managed to reply as he turned to the demon. Sure, she was an invader but it felt a bit much to go that way. Walking over to the cage, but stopping out of range of anything she could do even if she did get loose he let her complete her rambling of swears, threats and explanations of horrible things she would do to them. “You know, it’s not really going to help your position if you keep throwing shit like that.” he talked to her. He had no idea if he was using the correct words but based on testing it seems that he would reply in the language he’s auto-translating. She suddenly stopped mid-sentence, she was baffled, taken off guard and simply unsure what to do with this. Now that she wasn’t angry or yelling at them, all demon things considered she didn’t look half bad. She would probably look better cleaned up and smiling but... “So, first... Let me just say that I don’t know what has happened to you the last few days, all I know is that you hurt and were kidnapping a friend of mine. You already said there was going to be a second wave, mind sharing when that is going to be?” Gilliam was polite, laid out the details and wanted to start on a flat surface, as it were. “You... can understand me?” she replied, sounding more surprised and calm than Gilliam expected. “Yes, it might not be perfect, so I might miss a few words, but I can understand you fine.” He didn’t want to get into it too deep, there was no need, but it was probably a good idea to pre-warn her about some words being off, just in case. “Please, please don’t kill me. I was just yelling and being mean to try and have it to be over with quicker. I didn’t think anyone could understand me, I thought this was the only way out of being tortured. I’ll tell you whatever you want, please...” Her voice broke several times, she started crying a little and she sounded genuine. Unless this was a pretty good lie she... was compliant? Gilliam was incredibly confused, he expected more anger, more... well... not this. In a weird way this felt more unsettling than when she was angry and yelling at them. “Err... Excuse me? You.. I.. Wait. No.. hold on. I honestly thought you were going to be super angry, yell at me and we would have to start some negotiation thing... I... I’m fine with this but... It’s hard to believe.” He was still confused, but at the same time he was just not certain if this was part of a lie or true. Again it looked true but a good liar would make it sound like that. “They... My people are not good people.. We open portals into other realms, kill and take resources before we do it again. The weak of us are tortured, wounded and treated horrible. I just want this to end, but...” She seemed to have pulled out some bad memories as she actually started crying. Given that her body was riddled with old and healed wounds it matched so far. “I just did as I was told, if I was good they would let me eat, if I didn’t listen I would be punished and left to my own... Or eaten...” “So... you’re a victim of your own race?” Gilliam asked, it kind of felt that way but she had clearly done bad things. “But you attacked and kidnapped my friend, the girl.” “No, no. I didn’t do that.. Well... I’m not innocent but.. One of the imps knocked her out and brought her through the portal. I was tasked to move them to the temple.” That sounded like it made sense, Gilliam couldn’t remember anyone of her apperance on the battlefield although... he didn’t exactly have a chance to look around properly. “And then what was going to happen to them?” He had an unhappy questioning tone, he kind of had an idea, with the whole feeding to her master thing. She was hesitant in answering, stopping herself a few times but seemed to persuade herself somewhat. “We... We took them to the temple of our master, he eats them to gain power.” She wanted to tilt her head forwards but the chains attached to her horns stopped her. Pushing the horror of that thought aside, Gilliam needed to know more. “What... What is your master, what do you mean he gains power?” He was a bit taken back, are there things that gain power from just eating other creatures? “He is Lord Vozellath. He looks something like the gate-master that went through the gate into your world. The large one. Just that he is twice as large as him. Our race can gain power by eating others, or eachother... Growing larger and stronger, healing more and more. If lucky they can inherit some powers from the ones they eat. Certain of us has gotten magic that way.” Her head was still held up by the chains but it was easy to tell that she wanted to dip it forward. “The gate your people closed was just a scouting portal to see if... there was.. meat here... There will be another one in not long.” Gilliam was a bit horrified, he had read stories of monsters being able to do things like these but... Having it be real was just... wrong. “Though... All things considered, I’m sure you can understand that it’s hard for me to just believe you like that. You might just be a very good liar for all I know.” He wanted to see her reaction to this, if she was a good liar there would most likely not be any reaction but... it was too good to be true, that Aeris brought back a compliant enemy. If it’s true it’s great, naturally, but... “What.. what can I do to make you believe me? I’ll do anything, just... don’t kill me or send me back...” She was honestly crying at this point. Turning to the others he realised they were looking at him with extremely hopeful eyes. But before he got to say anything she broke in again. “Slavery, that’s right! We did that all the time. Your people are good with magic, you know how to do the magic slave spell?” She sounded... hopeful.. She was actually throwing herself into this.. She suggested this herself and... Wow.. She must have had a terrible life... This time turning around again without replying, he faced the others. “So... She’s completely compliant, she wants to help as they treat her like shit in her world. I think her scars are from her own people. They enter worlds to get ‘meat’, which are us, to feed to their demonlord ‘Vozellath’, who apparently grows physically stronger and larger with this... He can also inherit powers from their ‘food’ if lucky. The gate from a few days ago was a scouting portal to check viability, now that they know it’s a good place they will return soon...” Gilliam winced a bit at the next part, as he kind of knew where this was going. The others were waiting with a mixture of uncertain and horrified eyes at the explanation. “To prove that she’s speaking the truth she’s willing to go into a forced slavery thing... As long as we don’t kill her or send her back she doesn’t care...” Both Jial and Ghaos thought to themselves for a few long, long seconds. “I say we do it” Jial broke out. “She wants to do the ritual. And she’s willing to give us information. We can spare some food for that. And she’s willing. It’s not that bad then.” Ghaos thought a few seconds more. “Well... Is it really? I mean... normal slaves can try to say no to certain things At least they can resist if you are telling them to do something bad. A mind-slave contract... If you told her to kill herself she would do so without hesitation.” Gilliam disliked this the more he heard about it. Jial didn’t seem phased. “She might be a prisoner of war. She goes into this willingly. And she was feeding our people to be eaten. I’m fine with this.” He seemed determined, Ghaos seemed like he was still not happy about it but being persuaded. Gilliam turned towards their prisoner with a weird sad and dissatisfied face. “They are contemplating doing the forced slave spell on you. You do know this will make you unable to go against their orders, right? No matter how bad...” She nodded, eagerly, which caught Gilliam off guard. “Yes, but the will not hurt me, right? They will feed me as long as I give info and answers?” Ah, this actually made sense now. With the slave thing she could not resist and would do as told, something she would do willingly anyway. Back in her home she would have to do as told, or be physically wounded, beaten or even just eaten by her lord... With the slavery thing she would belong to someone completely but at least she would be cared for... Gilliam hated to admit it, but in her specific case, this was actually a win-win situation. “I suggest we have Gilliam do it.” Jial suddenly said to Ghaos. “WHAT?!” Gilliam’s head whipped around fast enough to almost have Savia fly off, looking at the two men talking amongst each other. “You want me to do this? Why?!” Gilliam could not see why he should do it, if Jial wanted this so much then why didn’t just he d*... Oh yeah... no... that made sense. “It’s because I can talk to her... isn’t it...” He realised it after complaining. It made perfect sense, you couldn’t order anyone that can’t understand you, and even if they do answer you... you can’t understand that either. Jial nodded. “You are correct. If it was any of us then you would have to follow us anyway. This way you get an aide at the same time.” Oh, Gilliam hated this... He understood the importance of it. “Why is me getting an aide a selling factor to forcing someone into slavery?!” An aide he could find anywhere, from the school information at some point there was going to be a Circle recruitment thing where he could somewhat hire or get people willing to work under him. “Oh, no. This sounds more interesting-” Ghaos smiled. “-Most mages have an aide, like Jial here, but who has a demon as an aide? The Heptagon Mage, of course!” He toned it almost like he was Gilliam’s hypeman, that this now became a reputation thing. “Imagine the publicity that will give not only you, but the school? A student not only shut down the gate but turned one of them into his servant?!” He actually seemed to be having fun with this. Jial nodded in agreement, not as jolly or fond of roleplaying; he didn't do things like Ghaos but he was agreeing. “If there are to be more of these gates. It will be a good idea to have some poster-boy Hero.” Though he had a point, morale and whatnot, this was... “Why am I getting pressured to force another person into the ultimate slavery?” Gilliam wanted out of this, but at the same time he did see the logic in it so he kind of needed to persuade them for his own sake as well. “No, no pressuring or forcing. She wanted this, right?” Ghaos smirked. Gilliam let out a deep groan as he turned towards the chained up demon. “So... They are pretty set on this, since I’m the only one that can talk to you, they want me to do it...” Inhaling deeply and exhaling, slapping his cheeks having Savia be super confused about what was going on, Gilliam had to confirm it with her again. “We will be fighting your people, we will be killing your people. You will be forced to help with this. You will most likely be ridiculed and have all kinds of slurs thrown your way, depending on the hate they might also attack you... I might have to travel around so this is unavoidable... Are you still sure you want this?” Gilliam wanted to paint this in a bad picture, have her reconsider, demons are attacking the world so if someone would throw rocks at her in the streets it wouldn’t actually be that weird. “... Will you try to stop them? Will you feed me?” she asked, looking more curious about the food and trying to stop them rather than the stuff going to happen to her. “Well, of course you’ll be fed. And though I cannot guarantee that I’ll be able to stop anyone I’ll of course tr*” He didn’t get to complete his sentence before she nodded as far as the chains allowed her. “Then I’ll do it! My people are fuckers that deserve to die. I... deserve to die.. But if you try to stop them, you will feed me. I will help you stop, kill or whatever you want.” There were a few things in her voice, she seemed happy to kill them... Given the scars that Gilliam could see just here and now, this made sense. Food was apparently a problem in her world and.. Well.. This did still seem like a good idea for her. “I can see her nodding!” Ghaos commented, almost like this was some weird bro-frat-party thing where someone is sent to ask someone else out. “Then we’re proceeding with this.” Jial added. So... this was happening then... Fuck.

“What do you mean ‘almost’ gave it your all?” Detia’s voice broke a bit, both in anger, surprise and just being too loud for her vocal cords to handle. Gilliam’s vision was slowly getting better but he was far from seeing details yet. “Well, you told me to use all my mana, it was my first fireball so I accidentally held back a lit-” His explanation was cut short as she broke in again. “No, I mean, what was that massive thing? That wasn’t a fireball?!” Her loud voice and uncertainty aside, it sounded like she was more surprised that it was so far out of the expected that she couldn’t handle herself and turned angry. Gillaim could not fault her for that, or, technically he could but he was too high on himself at the moment. In his mind this went perfectly, save the vision thing... but he got to try this out and it was amazing! He was super glad that this was done in a fire-safe area but he learned a valuable lesson, especially if you consider the difference in energy-usage if he were to make a Structured spell with all of this in mind.. If Unstructured uses about ten times the energy... and a Magical circle can be the lens that focuses and strengthens your spell... Good gods, he could do so much damage... He would need a better place to test these things. Detia had started going around in circles in a surprise fueled rage, she was not good at handling her emotions. Gilliam felt a small hand on his shoulder as Aeris had come up to where he sat. “Don’t worry, I think it was amazing.” her voice sounded honest and genuine. “Thank you, so do I.” Gilliam added in a reply, it was honest from his side as well, and though he could not see properly in the center of his vision the surrounding area was fine enough that he could see an excited smile on the young girl. Forcing himself to his feet, he sort of felt around, moved his body, shook his head. “Sooo... Is the no-mana headache thing happening delayed this time as well.. Or...?” He was unsure, he did remember Angela stating that his Core had improved a few days ago, but he didn’t know exactly how that was going to handle any of this. Detia broke in with a response which was more a statement to herself. “Oh, and he’s not even getting mana sick. Great!” It was so sarcastic that you could almost grab the sarcasm in the air and box it. Gilliam took this as praise, this was great. “Well, would it be poss-” Gilliam wanted to go back and take a look at the aftermath now that things were most likely settled. But his Boundary had other ideas. It was the same thing as last time, his mind was about to break, his vision narrowed and he could now almost only see the bright spot. He had to widen his stance to not fall over but after a few seconds ended up sitting down again. “Oh, it caught up to you.” Deta’s voice had an oddly happy tone to it. Gilliam felt too horrible to come with a retort or even try to look at her. For now he just sat there, waiting for this to pass. Last time it took a short while so it should go away at the same time now, or something. “Yeah... it really did... I hate how it’s delayed like that.” Gilliam complained as he had placed his face in his hands, blocking out as much light as possible, it helped a little bit. “Well, good. Doing all of that without any drawba*, no wait. No.. What the fuck were you thinking?!” Detia’s sentence started out with her being happy that he at least had to pay the price for this, but she interrupted herself to change the subject back to her complaining. Gilliam moaned in annoyance, he was absolutely not having a good time, but she kept badgering, she could wait a few minutes or something but no... “What did you tell me to do? Didn’t you tell me to give it my all? Or to be specific, I believe your words were more ‘Biggest Fireball’ or something?” His tone was annoying and had heavy pressure on the Biggest Fireball words. He understood she didn’t expect this much but that’s on her, not him. He’s fine with surprise and some weird annoyance not expecting this but she was being a bit much, especially considering that she clearly knew the zero mana pain thing. She calmed down a little, but was still somewhat angry, at him, for some reason. “Yes, I did, but I didn’t expect you to blow a deeper crater in the whole quarry!” She raised her voice again in disbelief. Gilliam realised just how little she was used to emotion and whatnot. Her lazy lifestyle probably had her being outside of social situations a lot. “That is on you, not me. I’m sure Jial or Saleg told you a few things about me. I don’t know how much info there is about Heptagon mages but why are you yelling at me when you didn’t even somewhat try to find out how much mana I had before you told me to go ham?” His voice was annoyed, he was getting angry at this. She was entitled to her surprise, that is fine. She could even throw him some shit for this, that is also fine. But now she’s blaming him for not doing her job, checking up on her student or even asking about the mana-pool size before telling them to go nuts. “What about asking next time?” he looked at her clearly pissed at her. Though it’s not fun being blamed, when it’s your fault it at least makes sense. Being blamed for something that isn’t your fault triggered him a lot. And yes, an argument could be that since he’s out of the norm he should have double checked, but he’s new to all of this. This seemed to have the opposite effect than planned, she seemed to get angry, her whole face turned furious as she inhaled deeply. Though, as Gilliam expected a high-volume lecture she actually calmed down, seems like she processed it during that buildup phase? “That... yeah... that makes sense...” Turning around she made some distance between them. Gilliam decided to not demand an apology or anything, at the moment he just wanted this bloody headache to take all its shit and leave. Aeris just stood on the side, she was not part of this and seems to have decided to not get involved, probably a smart move. Once this talk died down a bit Gilliam was given downtime to rest and leave the worst of the zero-mana problem behind. He was still sluggish and would absolutely not be able to cast a similar spell anytime soon, but he was good enough to move around and perhaps cast simple things. Getting to his feet he had to smile a bit now that he could move again without hating himself, but at the same time this was a very interesting condition. Only a week or so ago magic was only a fairy tale, but now he could do wondrous things. This pain was totally worth it. “Oh, you’re doing better?” Aerith asked curiously with a smile. “Yeah, a little, still a bit wonky but I’m fine.” he smiled in return. Aeris seemed like a nice girl, calm and polite, not like certain socially awkward teachers around here, he thought to himself as he held back to eye Detia with slight annoyance. Turning towards Aeris properly, Gilliam squatted down to get to her level. “How many times can you teleport us around? I assume we’ll be going back soon but would it be possible to go back to the quarry?” He had no idea how teleportations work, he was still sort of used to this being an expensive and high level spell, from popular media it was often that certain mages could only cast a few of them a day. Detia did introduce Aeris as one of the better teleporters but none of that meant anything to Gilliam without any reference. “Hmm...” Aeris put a finger to her chin and looked into the sky, pondering her answer. “To and from the academy-” she started counting on her fingers as she seemed to mentally feel for the answer. “Six!” she held up three fingers on both her hands towards Gilliam. “That’s great!” he responded, he still had no idea if that was a lot or not, but it was plenty to take them to the quarry before going back to the academy. Turning towards his rambling teacher he had to raise his voice so she could hear him. “Hey, Detia. We’re going into the quarry, you want to come along?” Detia turned around with a strange face, it was a mix of annoyance, interest and... Something else, couldn’t quite put his finger on it. “Damn right I’m coming along.” she didn’t sound happy about it but she did seem adamant about being part of it. Aeris held her hands out like before, Gilliam took one and after walking over so did Detia. Trying to avoid the blinding light Gilliam closed his eyes this time, it was only after the weird teleportation feeling subsided that he realised the bright light was still there, So it was not light per se but rather some part of the spell. It was probably part of the disintegration and reintegration process? Magic was weird at times. Now finding themselves roughly where GIlliam stood when he channelled that firespell he took a look around. The place was absolutely covered in debris, everything was wet, rocks and boulders around, it looked like the aftermath of a war. Walking to the edge to look into where the lake was he found out that there was no lake. It was slowly refilling from water running back to the lowest point but the whole lake was spread across the mountainsides. There was a substantial crater as well, looking at it from this range it looked like it was 4-5m deep (13-16ft), and about double that wide. That was in solid mountain rock, underwater in a small lake. Gilliam was beginning to understand Detia’s reaction a little bit, she probably expected some beginner student with a small boost in abilities, not some missile blowing up in there. The more he thought about both how awesome and how dangerous this was, his mind started wondering about the results if this was cast with a simple amplification magic circle... The results would be horrifying, or amazing, depending on how you looked at it. Also considering just how much mana this took compared to the streamlined structured spells, he apparently had quite the mana pool, or quite the Boundary to use local terms. “Soo.... I made the lake deeper...” he sort of commented to the others, not really knowing what to say about the situation, this comment sort of forced itself out to break the silence. The others came over to the edge as well, Detia sighing in some weird response but Aeris looked like she was beaming with interest and excitement. Gilliam thought to himself how the two reactions were quite the opposite of eachother. “Aeris, please take us back, I need to talk to the headmaster a bit.” Aeris just smiled, which seems to be her default expression, as she held out her hands like before. Gilliam took one last look at the aftermath of his fireball, his mini-sun, before he took Aeris’ hand. And like before there was a flash of bright light before they were again at the academy grounds. When they landed pretty much where they left from, Gilliam noticed a few things. First Bob was just chilling in the sun, a lazy lizard much like his master. But there was also some weird commotion, many of the adults were scampering about and looked somewhat distressed. Detia facepalmed for a second as she pointed on the ground, facing Gilliam. “Wait here. I need to inform them that the massive explosion was not something to be worried about.” Before Gilliam could respond she had already ran off, though he wanted to make a point about Ms. Lazy actually running, he held back as this was pseudo his fault. On top of this she actually had a good point, the explosion was substantial and the quarry was in the mountains a distance away from the academy grounds, if the explosion could be heard this far away it was natural that they would react like this. “I’ll be going, then.” Aeris smiled at Gilliam. “But she said for us to wait here?” he asked, the facial expression from Detia did hint that this was mainly for Gilliam but he wasn't really sure if this meant Aeris as well. “Nah, she said that to you. Besides, who’s going to stop me from leaving?” As soon as her sentence was completed she was gone, literally in the blink of an eye she had popped away somewhere and was out of sight. Gulliam chuckled as he sat down next to Bob. “Seems like you have the right idea here, Bob.” The lizard didn’t react more than moving his tail a little, at least hinting to it still being alive where it was ragdoll-splayed out in the sun. As he was waiting Gilliam decided to play a bit more with unstructured magic. It was costly but good exercise. To get a feel for the difference he tried replicating his 1m (~3ft) laser from yesterday. The first five attempts failed to even manifest it, it flickered, flashed, failed to light up and just didn’t behave properly. Making sure to aim upwards just in case he used more than the 5 failures to get it to remain stable. He had to give it more and more energy, focus on keeping the containment in a beam or it would just glow out everywhere. It seems that the magic circle with the beam rune took care of that by itself. The addition of the power and energy runes also helped a lot with the mana cost, as keeping the beam sustained Unstructured was possible, but demanded quite the focus. Though he was not in perfect shape after the Sun-ball he cast before it felt like it should still be enough to get things working properly. As a test he double checked his notes and cast the Structured variant of the laser right after, this went off right away and worked just as intended. He could feel the mana being drained slowly but it was more like a gentle controlled stream where the Unstructured variant was the faucet on full. Dismissing the spell he was starting to get some ideas of how things worked and tied together. Unstructured magic really fit Detia’s lazy personality. No remembering or testing of spells and spell circles needed, just think of what you want and do it. With that in mind she had probably built herself up a substantial Boundary to keep doing it that way. Given how she reacted to Gilliam’s fireball it also hinted that her Boundary was smaller than Gilliam’s, as she’s an expert on Unstructured magic this gave Gilliam some context of just how large his Boundary was. In game terms her Max available mana was much lower than his. Looking around again it seems that the chaos had subsided a bit, almost like everyone got a text explaining that everything was good. Perhaps some telepathy? Jial used something like that to speak to his aide before, since they were ready for something then this might have been a mental broadcast or something? Well, in any case they were calming down, which was a good thing. Now the only thing that remained was to wait for Detia, something he hoped would not take as long as their first meeting. To pass the time he kept testing out Unstructured magic, lifting a stick, pulling some grass, trying to feel things from afar with a variant of telekinesis and some sensory link. It quickly became apparent that you could do almost whatever you wanted with Unstructured magic, the main problem was just that it was unrefined and stupidly mana expensive. Most of the effects were ‘good enough’, but like with the laser test; a few more attempts to refine the concept would most likely have it working better but it was still suboptimal as a spell. Sure, if he wanted to alter things, have it bend or whatever, that was easier to do as an Unstructured spell but a Structured spell was more practical if you knew what you were after and had the time to alter the Magic Circle. Gilliam had taken some notes, concepts and started some ideas and new spell circles in his notebook when Detia came walking back. “I think we can end today’s lesson here. You seem to have the basics of things and based on what I have seen so far-” she had a weird pressure on that last part. “-I think you’ll figure out the rest on your own.” She seemed almost a bit annoyed at things, which is understandable to some degree. Gilliam mused that some of it might be because he learns fast, has a lot of mana and needs only a tiny bit of effort to get major results. Someone with Detia’s lifestyle would most likely envy that a bit. “Keep the book.” Was the last thing she said as she turned around, starting to leave. Bob seemed to wake his lazy self and started walking after her. “Any good last hints before you leave?” Gilliam asked her before she was out of conversation distance, hoping she might have a neat hint or something that could put him on a good path. “Get a familiar, they are absolutely worth the effort.” There was a tone to that sentence. Bob turned around, looked at Gilliam and then followed Detia again. The tone hinted that she might actually enjoy Bob. Her whole existence sounded lazy and she wanted to skip anything that took any sense of effort, but this was ‘absolutely worth the effort’ coming from her. Perhaps he should reconsider it and at least read up on things a bit more. Though there was still a little left from the school day, it was nearing its end. A lot of things had happened and all around, it really had been an interesting and educational day. Gilliam didn’t know what was planned for tomorrow in Angela’s schedule but he supposed it was something interesting. Since he was sitting outside, the weather was nice and he didn’t have anything specific planned, he decided that this was as good a place as any to read up on familiars a bit. He had the introduction book in his bag so there was no need to go anywhere. Finding a better sitting position he ended up with his back against one of the walls, he had taken out the book and flicked to the Familiar section. Most of this was a repeat of what he found in the note before, how they need to be cared for, school will aid as long as you’re a student, the soul bond, boons and cons for everything. But the book elaborated a bit on the wonders, and problems, of having a familiar. First, the negatives. You are bonded on a soul level so if your familiar dies you will take a horrible hit. Many mages even lose their ability to cast magic for a short while as their soul heals. Due to this many mages decide against getting one, since you don’t know what you might get you might end up just getting a target with you. There is also the personality thing, if the familiar feels strongly about something, let’s say the familiar has a fear of water, you will be influenced and start to at least dislike the water. Likewise if you dislike something or someone your familiar will adopt this as well. The connection is stronger from Mage to Familiar than it is from Familiar to Mage, but it does go both ways. But, the list of wonderful things were much more written out and interesting. Not only do you get a companion for life, but you get an aide in anything you do, due to the link they will enjoy what you enjoy. You get a partner in studies, in life, in friendship. You basically get a best friend that has all the same interests and dislikes as you do. Many mages also use the familiars to do non-important tasks when the mage is busy. Reading this last part Gilliam was reminded of Detia and Bob... The letter and getting Aeris, but it made sense. Their interest about the topic would align so the familiar should not feel abused about it either. The book even confirmed this. Sure, there were some downsides, especially if the creature has some weirdly exotic and expensive food, this would become the mages problem after graduation. But the more he read the more persuaded he became. He was also super biassed from familiars in media back home but he kind of wanted this now. And the ritual normally costs extra, both to cover the ritual itself but also as a kind of scare-tactic, if you can’t afford the ritual you can’t afford to care for the familiar, kind of thing. But in Gilliam’s case the school already decided to cover everything, that should cover the familiar ritual as well, right? The book was written by and for the school, so it had some localised info, one bit was that this ritual was almost always done on Fridays, the reason is that there are no classes in the weekends, letting the student and Familiar get to know each other before the next week starts. Luck would have it that it’s Thursday now, so if he wanted this to happen he could have it happen already tomorrow. Closing his book and packing his stuff he got up and left for the reception. He decided that he wanted this, so might as well get that started! He was already rather close to the door leading into the main hall of the school. A door later and he found himself inside, the reception being off to the side he walked over, finding a middle-aged man with greying hair sitting behind a desk. “Good afternoon, how may I h- Er.. How may I help you?” He stuttered as he took a look at the badge around Gilliam’s neck. Odds were high that he reacted to all the triangles being filled. “Hello. I would like to sign up for the Familiar ritual tomorrow.” Gilliam smiled. “The name is Gilliam Gibson.” he assumed this needed to be properly registered and though he would probably get more known later, simply due to being a Heptagon mage, he named himself for simplicity’s sake. The man nodded and smiled before he started checking a book. “Ah yes, there is a slot open tomorrow morning, right after the Fifth bell.” As the man checked the list he looked at it a bit weird before facing Gilliam again. “Mr. Gibson, there seems to be a mistake, you’re already on the list for tomorrow.” He looked a bit confused, something Gilliam mirrored. “Excuse me? I just decided only a few minutes ago...” This was.. Well.. good, but didn’t make sense, are people here psychic as well? The man checked some papers and flipped some pages to what looked like notes. “Ah, it seems someone else signed you up, an.. Angela Sizoc? It’s signed off by the headmaster?” His tone was questioning, seeming to double check with Gilliam if he knew this name. “According to the notes here a letter should be given to you before the end of the day explaining this.” He didn’t sound as questioning anymore, it seems this last part removed the responsibility from him and gave it to someone else, so he sounded more at ease. “Ah, that works out fine, thank you for the help.” Gilliam nodded at the man and headed back towards his room. He might as well get some more research and ideas done today, he has more things he wanted to test and some ideas he wanted to write down before he turned in. From what it sounded he would get the needed details later, so he didn’t have to bother the receptionist for now. Getting some food on the way, he was close enough to dinner time that he was fine just picking up a plate of something. Ending up with a decent bowl of stew, some bread and a bit of fruit on the side he headed for his room. It was a bit finicky to unlock the door and hold the plate of his food, but he managed in the end. Only as the door opened did he consider that he could use telekinesis for something of this... It’s probably a good idea to not rely on it too much for the simplest of things but in this case it could have been practical. Entering, closing the door with his foot he placed the plate of food on the round table, and as expected there was a letter addressed to him. Opening it, the contents seems to be an official document and information, stating that he had been signed up for the Familiar ritual tomorrow at 08:15 at the Fourth bell. Some extra information such as where he should go, what he should do to prepare and all that kind of things were in the letter. The only thing was really that he needed to have some time off, preferably the whole day, to get used to the familiar. Now, since this was set up as part of Angela’s schedule this meant that nothing else should be planned that day. She really did well with this, he had to make a note to properly thank her later. For now, it was a mixture of food and personal studies. Tomorrow was going to be another exciting day!

“What did you do?!” Jial had lost his composure completely, his calm and collected appearance was replaced with an incredibly surprised and uncertain one. His voice was raised, though not by much but enough to make a difference. “I... concentrated the light into a beam..” Gilliam responded both honestly and without detail. Given Jial’s reaction he guessed that people didn’t know what a laser was. And since the light spell was generally assumed to be a weak and super safe starting point, this just furthered the assumption. Though all of this Gilliam had to put in seven runes, most of them might not even be listed anywhere practical, so it was still a safe starting point. “Should I not have?” Gilliam did his best to hold back a smile, though all of the uncertainties and reactions he honestly did enjoy this reaction. If his assumption was correct he had basically invented lasers in this world, sure, some mage before him might have done it but if nothing else it was not common knowledge. Jial did his best to calm down, almost returning to his normal self. “Explain what you did.” This sounded like an order more than a request, he didn’t seem angry but more determined. “Not sure how much you guys know of light, but where I come from certain aspects of physics might be known that you don’t know of. Much like how a lens can focus the sun to allow you to burn paper, twigs and whatnot, focusing light much more than this allows for something like that-” Gilliam started explaining as he used his hands to emphasise something being crushed into a smaller area. “The particles that light is made of can be concentrated, I don’t know the theory completely but as far as I know; if there is a limit to how much it can be concentrated I don’t know what it is. There exists concepts of this light focusing that allows to melt metal from a considerable distance... Although this takes an enormous amount of energy.” He was referring to the weaponizing of lasers, able to take down missiles from afar as a defence mechanism. He didn’t know all the details about them but he knew they somewhat existed as concepts if nothing else. “This... can work at a longer distance?” Jial’s mind appeared to be spinning with ideas, he might have enjoyed the laser idea more than Gilliam anticipated. “Yes, one of the runes I used was actually a distance limiter, since light can travel in a theoretical unlimited distance if it doesn’t hit anything. I didn't want to hit walls or even worse; people outside...” He accidentally let slip that he knew this was going to be powerful, to try and save himself he abruptly added another defence. “I decided to use only a small amount of energy to make sure it was not too power...ful...” As soon as he added that he realised that he accidentally also explained that it could be much more powerful than this. “However, I had to add three runes of various power and energy concepts to make this work. I also added one for streaming energy to make sure it was properly fed, a limiter to limit the distance, a modifier for Beam to have it focus like this, and naturally for control to let me move it after it was made.” Gilliam was honestly proud of this, though he had a cheat’y understanding of the runes he was still stoked that he was able to make this up by himself. Naturally this was possible at all due to Jial’s extremely good guidance and explanation but even with the teachings given to him, he was happy about himself. Jial was still not sure how to process this, everything Gilliam explained seemed to register properly with him it just seemed to be an understanding error behind. In the end Jial had to sit down as he pondered a moment to himself. “All of this from the light spell.” he seemed a bit distraught. “Well, it also needs an understanding of light that I’m not sure is common.” Gilliam assured, partly as a comforter in why he could not have known, but also simply as fact. “Wait...” Jial exclaimed, seeming to have realised something. “If this is based on the light spell, then anyone can cast it...” This was a good point, everyone could use the light spell it seemed, meaning that anyone could make this work as well. Although it used runes that people hadn’t found or at least shared yet, just printing the circle and explaining it should be enough to let people use it. “I can... teach you if you want?” Gillaim was already certain this was going to be a yes, but he felt like asking anyway. Like someone slapped Jial he came out of his unrest and locked his gaze with Gilliam’s. “Please.” This was a determination that Gilliam had not seen before. Apparently this hit harder than Gilliam expected. The concept was simple, but since Gilliam didn’t know how well known this was in this world he started with the simple facts. It started with understanding that light is actually a stupid amount of particles that are flung from the lightsource, these particles can be bent and focused; this is why a lens works to let you burn something. You are collecting more particles together which together give their energy to the target which in turn heats up and catches on fire. A laser is a variant of the same concept, just concentrating the particles even more than you could imagine, to the point that the very air around it heats up. Explaining the idea behind the circle was super easy, Jial was an expert after all so only a brief explanation that he used a seven edged shape because there were seven runes he wanted to use. The circle was there to focus the energy as normal but the runes were not placed on top of the intersections, but in circles on the inside. Gilliam could not explain why he wanted to do this but it felt appropriate as he was making a magical lens that could ‘contain the power inside’. Jial took the precautions he could, he had Gilliam make the magic circle first and studied it intensely before replicating it. When both Gilliam and Jial felt this was proper, only then did he give the circle a tiny bit of energy before activating it. When this failed and the circle just popped into nothing it was clear that it was not given enough, giving it more energy the next try he kept this path of more and more going until he finally found the lower point of success. Like with Gilliam the circle focused itself into the thin beam of yellow energy, but it only lasted a second before it dissipated. Even to Gilliam’s untrained eyes this was Jial cutting the energy to limit the effect. “This... this is surprisingly low energy cost...” he seemed a bit scared. Gilliam was aware of this, though it ate its share of mana, and though lasers are not always super nice with energy demands back home, magic could skip a few steps in converting stored energy into the needed light. With this cheat in place this meant that the energy-to-light ratio ended up much better. Jial picked up the wooden board that Gilliam cut, and he went through the process again, giving it the energy he used before. The circle as expected made itself into the laser and he brought the wood into it. It burned a nice hole before Jial dismissed the spell immediately. Inspecting the damage it was not as powerful as Gilliam’s but Jial was smarter in how he did things, even then it managed to make a burn mark into the point where it burned all the way through. “I want to warn you, though-” Gilliam started. “-I don’t know how this spell will work with mirrors, but mirrors are used to bounce the laser around at home so... Gilliam wanted to warn him just in case. “Might be careful when you use it and test a bit...” Jial seemed to think for a second and nod to himself. “I like to think that I’d realise that, but thank you for the warning.” He seemed to take that warning very seriously, and a good thing as well. The test Gilliam did on his first cast cut through the whole board without effort, so if he were to pump some more mana into it... Well, it could be a bit dangerous if it reflected off something and removed your arm or worse. “I suppose this is a good time to talk about Obfuscation.” Jial nodded to himself staring into nothing, seeming deep in thought. Gilliam didn’t consider that, or at least what he assumed that Jial meant. If you see a mage cast a certain spell and get a good enough look at the magic circle, could you not just replicate it? This felt like something that mages would have found a way around, it would be not only frustrating but also dangerous if the wrong people just copied your spells like that. Imagine the laser in the hands of the 13year olds that just started school, a tiny conflict could turn bad. “There are a few ways of doing this-” Jial continued after moving his focus back to Gilliam, as he was explaining he conjured up the basic light multiplication spell, the one with the triangle and three runes. “-This is the basic spell circle. Now if I were to cast something like this almost anyone would be able to just take a glance and not only know what I was casting and prepare accordingly. But also copy it as they see the circle, its runes and the spells intended effect once I cast the spell.” Gilliam nodded, this was basically exactly what he expected. “There are different ways for different people. The easiest way is to require a specific mindset, almost like your mind then becomes the key. It sounds dumb and simple but when you make a magic circle you will find out that it depends on a certain understanding, expectation and general mindset. This is why focus is important when casting spells.” As he explained he pointed to his head and made some motions with his hands to try to show his point. “Like the laser, though you know the result by looking at it, you have already put in a considerable amount of pre-knowledge needed to be able to cast it. Had you not explained to me what a laser was, how you can compact light particles and the science behind it, I would not have been able to use your circle.” Gilliam blinked confused a few times as he processed this, he accidentally made a theft proofing in the spell simply based on knowledge that was not available. That makes a lot of sense. Jial didn’t give him more than a second or two to process before continuing his lecture. “Other methods used are related to the display of the circle itself. Although drawing it glowing is the simplest, it's not a necessity. It will use more effort and focus since you have to change the light spell as you draw it, but it can make the circle borderline invisible. Since you just need to display the circle somehow it doesn’t have to be with light-lines, it’s just universal because of how easy it is even in combat or your focus wavers.” This also made a lot of sense, everyone learns it because everyone can do it, then at some point you get used to it and it’s just easier. People often take the fastest way to get the effects they are after. “You can animate the circle, though this is most often used for, as my students call it; Cool effect-”. Still having the simplest of magic circles projected he makes the geometry spin clockwise and the runes spin counter clockwise. “-This just adds complexity to keeping it manifested and though it’s hard to know where the runes go, the runes still need to be in the correct place at the point of casting. This means that if you mess the timing up you’re just ruining it for yourself.” This made sense, you had to activate it at the correct timing, since the runes needed to be at their proper locations this just looked like a neat trick to seem cool. Much like many trickshootings are just that, tricks and could be done better the normal way. “I would recommend going for the simplest, mindset and if needed; make the circle harder to see.” Jial ended with a recommendation, which made a lot of sense. There is the KISS standard back home, translating into one of two sentences; Keep It Simple, Stupid. Or; Keep It Stupid Simple. In short, the simplest you can do something is often the best, oversimplification has its place but rarely in practical life. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Gilliam made finger-gun pointing at Jial with a dumb grin hinting at his pun. Jial was not amused. Gilliam’s grin faded, finger guns retreated, and he decided to change the subject before this turned into an awkward moment. However before he was able to start a new conversation Jial broke in and took over the conversation. “I think that’ll do for today, don’t you think?” There was a tiny smirk on his lips, and though he’s a teacher and could hide it under the guise of not overstraining his student, it was clear that he wanted to do his own thing for the rest of the day. Gilliam couldn’t complain, he had gotten special tutoring from a specialist, created his first spell, taught that spell to his teacher and all around learned a ton! “I suppose that can do for one day.” he smiled in return. He really wanted more, much more. He also had a ton of questions he had to write down so he didn’t forget them. During today’s learning there was mention of using external sources for energy in the circle, though he understood how to do that in the form of the circle itself he did wonder about these managems. By the time Gilliam had planned some questions Jial was already on his way out the door, in stead of any questions or new discussions he at least managed to shout out a “Thank you for today’s lessons!” before Jial had closed the door behind him. Gilliam was now alone in the classroom, tilting his weight backwards he pushed his chair only on its hind legs in a balancing act, but held in place as he put one of his legs on the desk he was sitting at. He looked to the ceiling and let everything process, today was a very, very good day. Quite a lot to process and a lot remaining he still wants to know. Taking his leg off the desk had his weight shift and tilt back in a proper position he took his book that was now full of drawings, notes and all kinds of things and started adding some questions or notes on things he wanted to check up on. The things he remembered here and now was that he needed to learn more about Mana gems, his future class schedules, unstructured magic and Foci. There were many, many other things he wanted to learn and look into but these were the things that stood out at this moment. There was also the thought if he should consider the Familiar ritual as well. Back home he always enjoyed the concept and liked the things that followed it, but this was not a game, this was real. If he bonded with something sentient then it could make things easier, but if whatever creature this is isn’t sentient then training, caring and whatnot becomes a part of this life. It’s not just like getting a cat that somewhat went on autopilot most of the time. He pondered for a moment before he decided that perhaps it was time for some air, his school day was long since over so he might as well go do something else. Parts of him wanted to find a quarry or something far away like that, he wanted to see how much damage he could cause with certain magics without being afraid of accidentally killing someone. Though this could wait for now, he had one new spell he could play with that was surprisingly easy for him to cast, it didn’t have much range yet but... perhaps he should play with the runes? Swapping out the Stream rune with a pulse rune and adding a higher buildup could perhaps make differences? He had to experiment... Something he didn’t want to do at random, if this went through a door or something it could be catastrophic. For now he got up from his chair, packed down all the stuff he had spread across the desk, taking care to put the cotton paper things in between the fresh ink pages before leaving the classroom. Not having a goal in mind he ended up aiming for outside. Taking a right turn to the main hall he found the first way out from there into the Air field. The sun was still up, although being that it was very to the west at the moment the field was mostly covered in shadow. There were many students here testing some spells, Gilliam decided to walk past them and just take in what was going on. The reading he did last night explained the easiest way to tell what year someone is, could be found based on their pin’s disk colour, using a common metallic value logic as medals. Bronze was year one, Silver year two and Gold year three. If someone had a badge that had all three metals this meant that they had graduated and finally white were teachers. Walking past the students it was not always easy to tell what metal the little 4cm (1.5inch) sized pin on their chest, around their neck or wherever, had. But the few he did see hinted to the level of spells they were training on. There was a large difference in skill between the few he could recognize as first, second and third year. Some first years were still to the point that they struggled with the glowing lines, if they were new that made sense so he couldn’t exactly judge based on that. The ones in third year had more impressive spells and circles. He saw some runes that weren’t in the list of easy to use runes, so they had either gotten some bonus info from somewhere or had reached some conclusions in their own research. This had Gilliam oddly excited, he had no idea what things he was going to be able to do but he was looking forward to it nonetheless. As he was contemplating taking a walk to wind down, he realised that he had not yet eaten dinner! The map in his bag told him where he needed to go for food and he still had some time to go! All meals were served in the Wing you stayed in, so Gilliam always ate in Wing 3. Luck would have it that he was in the Air field at the moment which was between Wing 3 and 4. Changing his goal to the mess hall he walked over to the door leading straight in there. Gilliam mused a bit to himself that whoever made the layouts of things on this place either did very well, or did less than well and he was just lucky at the moment. In either case this just made things easier for him. Entering the door into the hall of food he noticed that there was a surprising lack of people here, might be because the time was nearing end of dinner so most people had probably already left, perhaps many of them were the ones training in the Air field just now. This just made things easier for Gilliam, although he had experience with queueing he didn’t need to draw on this today and could just take a plate and go over to the buffet right away. Still feeling a bit odd that the foods here looked strangely familiar, being in another world he sort of expected something super exotic at times, but besides the collared ‘servants’ behind the counter this all felt oddly at home. Putting the whole slavery part behind him agian, he focused on the food, anything else would just make him depressed. He found himself at a table with some food, mostly meat, only a few vegetables and some gravy-looking sauce. It didn’t taste like gravy but it looked familiar enough that he gave it a go. That’s not to say it wasn’t good, just different. He enjoyed his food, although he was a bit sad not to have seen Angela today. He saw her just last night and though she probably had her own stuff to do, he kind of wanted to speak to a familiar face and perhaps gloat a little bit. Ignoring that for now he completed his dinner and left without much more consideration. It felt a bit weird just leaving his plates on the table but there was a sign specifying that was the thing to do, if nothing else he stacked it in a simple carryable way to make it easier for the people cleaning up after him. Finding himself in the Air field once again he took the scenic route and ended up just going to his room. It had not even gotten dark yet at this point, but he was oddly tired, having used his mind in high gear all day long he was getting somewhat worn out. Going back to his room and just doing some light reading, perhaps some testing before crashing sounded like a good idea. Coming down the hallway he saw Albert standing outside his door, looking dapper as always, not even looking bored. Getting in conversation distance he turns towards Gilliam before he’s able to start the conversation himself. “Good afternoon, Mr Gibson. I was told to give you this” There was no smile, no expressions, just pure professionalism as he handed Gilliam a small wooden box. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” he followed up as soon as Gilliam held the box, after a bow he walked off, no doubt to do more dapper things. Gilliam was a bit confused but took the box with him in his room. Wondering about its contents he closed the door behind him and immediately opened it. Inside was his school pin! Sandwiched between a small pillow in the bottom and another in the lid, it was polished and shiny, a bright bronze disc with seven coloured triangles on top, forming a nice rainbow heptagon. The backside of it had some pattern in it, the eyelet for the needle or string, as well as his full name engraved. There was a length of jewellery chain and a sturdy needle at the bottom of the box, as well as a little note explaining how to wear it. Gilliam went for the necklace method he had already decided on last night, it felt the easiest. The note also explained that this was weather, water and all kinds of wear and tear resistant, so you didn’t need to consider any weather, bathing or whatever. Just wear it. Gilliam appreciated that thought, it seems that either people complained about that in the past or the people who designed this just were good at thinking ahead. Well, if nothing else it looked neat and shiny! Now that this was taken care of, there was the question of what to do. However, now that he actually took a look around in his room he noticed that there was a letter in an envelope that was propped up against a candle on the round table he had in there. Picking it up it read his name on the front, apparently someone has access to the rooms on the campus, that made a certain sense but he didn’t like the idea of invasion like that. Well... this was also a magical school, so someone could just as well have teleported it in here for all he knew... Shrugging his thoughts away he opened the envelope and checked out the letter. It was from Angela, she had caught up with the people she wanted to at school. She had three goals when she was here. The first was to get him enrolled, which worked flawlessly. The second was to catch up with some friends, which she used most of the day for. The final was to have the school consider what Gilliam is and give him special tutorship, she apparently had to use her fathers name for this, she disliked that but it was for a good cause. She didn’t have the exact details but she knew that he was going to report to room 5-1-4 where everything would be explained to him. Outside of this she wished him the best of luck, that he had fun and perhaps made some friends; after all anyone there could be the other figures in her vision. She was going to see her father and spend a bit of time with him, this would take a few weeks at least so she wanted Gilliam to remain in the school until she returned. During reading Gilliam had sat down on a chair he pulled out from the table. Once he got to the end of the letter he half-threw it onto the table, knocking another paper to the floor. Groaning like an old man as he bent over to pick up the paper, thinking to himself that Angela had an almost motherly feel to her with all the planning and well wishes, she’s a good friend. Putting the paper back on the table he now ended up wondering what to do. The introduction book almost felt boring to consider, although it did have chapters about other things than just what Gilliam somewhat skipped ahead on today. The more he thought about it the more interesting it sounded to just look more into spells and magic circles. Before he knew what happened he found himself with his notebook open, taking notes and designing concepts that he wanted to try later in time, some notes about the mindset, what to think about and how to mentally imagine things as well as the circles and runes themselves. Suddenly it had become dark, well perhaps not suddenly but Gilliam didn’t notice the passing time. He didn’t know what time it was but it was absolutely time to go to bed. Tomorrow was going to be another interesting day!

The questioning had gone on for a while, Petal was surprisingly forthcoming and friendly. Not with the answering of things, she was somewhat compelled to do that so it felt a bit cheaty, but rather with how much extra information she chose to add. They learned not just about the invasion plans, which was oddly simpleminded. The demons are entering the world, attacking and bringing as many back as possible to feed their Lord. Once the inhabitants of the world were culled enough they would start harvesting it for resources. If the world was ‘good enough’ they would just move in and start the process anew from there. True parasitic in nature. The reason for this was how their culture and race worked. As mentioned they grow bigger and stronger the more they eat people. She explained how this worked as well and in simple terms, the more powerful an individual’s soul was the more of a ‘boost’ it gave the one eating them. Regarding inherited abilities, this mostly happens with mages or people with personal powers, never with natural abilities like wings or just being stronger than normal. The chance of getting something is either random or there is a factor they haven’t discovered yet. They are humanoid mammals, meaning that most weak points for most of the humanoids would also work on demons. The problem is their self regeneration which increases the higher power the demon is. As an example; Petal’s is practically nonexistent but the Gate boss, the large demon that came through the gate, could regenerate an arm in a few days at most. Faster if he eats ‘good food’. Regarding forces, there are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of them. The power hierarchy is split up in a rather common concept. There is the Lord who reigns over everyone, he’s the biggest and strongest which gives him this right. Under him are the Generals, Petal doesn’t know how many there are but not giving anyone too much power to topple the lord there is most likely only a few. Then there is the Second in command, there are quite a few of these, as this is the first proper social status rank. Then there are the Gate masters, like the large demon that came through the gate. They are the first rank of actual power increase. Under this are the warriors. This is everyone who has some form of fighting powers, all from just small cannon fodder imps to proper eldritch horrors, anyone not in any social power but who are under the command of the others are in this group. Lastly there are the servants, from which Petal is from, they are the lowest of the low, no combat powers, tiny and weak. The largest and most varied group is without doubt the fighters. The servants like her are basically worthless, they are given simple tasks and if they fail they become some torture plaything or just eaten. As Petal’s body would show she had been on the receiving end of such violence before. She said that in most cases it was for simple things, Gilliam found most of them to be trivial like accidentally dropping a healthy to-be-eaten victim before picking it up again. She had ‘damaged’ said victim and this got her beaten as a punishment. If you’re unlucky you might just get stabbed for the fun of it... Needless to say that the servant class isn’t happy about things. The Gate that opened now a few days ago was just a test-portal, given that the people brought back were humans, and magical at that, this world would be considered good for consumption. So there will be an invasion in not long. Exactly how long ‘not long’ is was a problematic thing to answer. Their world was a barren hellscape with jagged rocks, permanent red illuminated sky and no day and night cycle. The concept of counting days was not normal in their home. They will come ‘when ready’. Realistically, this won’t be too long since they have a taste for the world now, Vozellath would just gather his army and then they would start opening gates. They have somewhat control over where the gates open but they don’t exactly know where this will be due to not knowing the world, meaning that the first will open in the rough area of the first confirmed gate. Or they might open a gate underwater and flood their world or something like that. The initial red gem that spawns and gathers energy always spawns in such a way that it opens on ground level, but as mentioned ground level could be at the bottom of the sea, or on the edge of a mountain cliff, so a few scouts are always sent out first. The only bonus is that the gates are temporary in nature, even if left alone and in-use the portal will stop working after a while. The arch will remain so it’s easier to open a new one but there is a downtime before that can happen again as the gem recharges. Now, once this has gone on for a while, the Main Gate is opened to send the Lord into the world. Due to his power this is often enough to tip the power balance of anything remaining and that is usually the win-card. It is also a permanent gate. However, this portal is more unstable and demands a lot of resources to open properly, due to this they use the smaller portals first to make sure that it will be stable and proper, setting up a foothold where they can keep everything good and stable from this side. Petal didn't know anything about the portals themselves, she just knew they were two way, the already mentioned details and that if you managed to damage or affect the red gem in any meaningful way it would harm the mages back home. She had seen that happen which is the only reason she knew. She went into more detail than this but it was the broader strokes of the explanations. Jial had taken a lot of notes, asked followup questions and Ghaos even had to stop Jial from asking interesting but unneeded questions at the moment. Though a rather weird individual, Jial was a researcher at heart. “Well, I think we have what we need for now-” Jial suddenly explained after this had gone on for quite some time. He had been using a neat spell where the ink pen moved on its own, tied to him with a magical thread. Ghaos had been good at asking questions in the nature of combat and weaknesses, but took no notes. Jial turned towards Gilliam properly and continued. “-I need to take this to the headmaster, and we need to spread the information around the world. You should probably work on your magic.” Ghaos broke into the conversation. “Oh, I can help with that.” he grinned widely, there was an undertone of Gilliam ending up with broken bones from this... Though... All things considered, with just his own healing he could fix that, so proper healing mages could probably fix it in seconds. Magic was certainly convenient at times. Jial nodded at Ghaos before moving for the door. “I’ll send down some clothing for her-” Stopping on the way through the door to face Gilliam once more. “-I recommend that you treat her as a servant. Give her something to do. Not for her or your sake but everyone else. If they don’t see you taking advantage of the power you have over her. They might question it.” He had a very good but depressing point. From what Gilliam had seen, read and heard the time he had been here it was absolutely not common to harm or abuse your slaves, they were your property after all. You don’t key your own car, so to speak. However, they were still your servant, and a servant not doing anything might not be worth the upkeep. This was also a special case where ‘one of the enemy’ was going to follow him around, considering that her kind invaded and killed several people only a few days ago, seeing her walk around was most likely going to be... triggering to some people. But, for her to be even able to survive here she would have to show her usefulness, the information they got is kind of an ‘invisible usefulness’, not something you can see is from her, but if she actually properly does things for Gilliam publicly not only will this solidify that she belongs to him but also gives her a higher value in the eyes of society. That last part Gilliam could understand, it was not too far from how the world worked back on Earth. You are most commonly valued by what you are doing, and if you do nothing you usually have no value. The bar for what was defined as useful was incredibly low but anything is better than nothing. “So, I just give her menial dumb tasks, and it’ll help?” Gilliam wanted some form of confirmation. He hadn’t thought about it before but since she is from the enemy, as soon as she didn’t have any use to people, once she had shared information, once the war started becoming worse she would most likely be publicly executed as a show of force or morale boost... Stuff like that had happened earlier in history so... Perhaps it was a good idea that she ended up with him and not some local. “Anything is better than nothing. I placed the mark on her forehead on purpose. It could have gone anywhere but this should aid you more.” He didn’t wait for any response and just left, the door closed itself slowly once he let go of it. This was probably a good idea. Based on how he said it the mark could probably go wherever, but to make a large point of this it was probably not a bad idea to have it in extreme plain view. He had thought this through surprisingly well, having Gilliam smile a little, was Jial actually a softie at heart? To people of this world and especially to the teachers and students, she was ‘just a demon’. If she died, was stoned on the street or worse most wouldn’t even care. One of the few “He means well, but he’s a bit odd at times.” Ghaos smiled as he patted Gilliam on the back with the force of the little wrecking ball he looked to be. This had Savia spur to action as if it was an attack, but again she seemed to realise that it was nothing of the sort and went back to tangling herself in Gilliam’s hair. “Though he has a few good points. I don’t know you that well but I can tell you don’t like the idea of slaves, especially forced ones. But people are very easily swayed by emotion. Though she might not have had anything to do with it by choice, people will still see her as ‘one of them’-” he emphasised this by nodding his head in tact with the words. “-So if you treat her a bit roughly in public that might not be a bad idea.” Gilliam could tell that Ghaos was not too fond of that idea himself, but like everything the two of them had said down here it seemed based on a very analytical view on the local culture, which they knew quite well compared to Gilliam. Was he going to do this? Absolutely not. He had to train his magic, yes, absolutely. He had some offensive powers he could do unstructured, as well as the laser if need be but he didn’t have anything defensive. That was at the top of his list, barrier spells. This felt like something that Ghaos might be familiar with given that he was a battlemage, and he did hint that he could train Gilliam, so why not start right away! “While we wait for Jial-” changing the subject without any subtlety. “-I have been thinking about protection magic, and since you said you could train me. We might as well start right away”. This was not just to protect Petal, but also to protect himself and as many as possible when the invasion kicks in properly. He was not going to hide that there were a few undertones of him just wanting to learn more magic as well, but that was not the main drive now. Ghaos smiled wide, both happy and somewhat proud. “Oh, I like the way you think! Sure, we can start right away. Jial prepared me about you knowing the runes. I don’t get it but it’s good for you.” He pondered for a few seconds as he put his runed quarterstaff against the wall. “You wanted defence first. I am more of an offensive man myself-” he smirked a bit at his joke as he continued without pause. “-but the most versatile is Barrier magic which is tied to Aether.” he started walking a bit back and forth, never really leaving the reach of his staff. Savia had long since fallen asleep in Gilliam’s hair, and Petal had just been standing there and observing them for a while. Being in an unfamiliar place, with unfamiliar people, speaking in an unfamiliar language, having just been enslaved and being practically naked. She handled this surprisingly well but it was clear that she didn’t exactly know what to do here and now. She ended up fidgeting with her hair. “Barrier magic really shines as unstructured spells, as a good barrier mage can create any shape of any size at the blink of an eye as long as he has the mana for it. Structured spells are good if you know what you want, like a shield, sword or thing you imagine you’ll use often. The common structured spells are the Shield as mentioned, but also a dome to protect an area.” Ghaos also used his hands when explaining, mimicking holding a shield, a sword and a dome shape with his hands as he mentioned the respective concepts. “The strength of the barrier depends on two things, the first is its shape, the second is how much mana you give it. The second has two ways of working, you can either give it a chunk of mana that it handles on its own, this is very practical with Mana crystals. The second is to just connect it to your mana pool. The latter is without doubt the strongest but might have you run out.” Ghaos held his hand in a stop motion towards Gilliam, there was a brief flash of a magic circle, too fast to make out any details or runes but there was a triangle with a rune at each corner. In the same blink that the circle existed and disappeared, a large disk formed in the air between them. It looked like a translucent manhole cover made of flickering yellow light. There was no sound but it glowed a little. Petal reacted by taking a few steps back and Savia remained sleeping. “In concept it’s basically physical light, if you touch it you will see what I mean” Ghaos explained and used his non-spell hand to give him a go ahead. Gilliam stepped closer and touched the shield. It felt a bit weird, tapping it there was no proper noise but more of a spark’y sound. It felt like it was made of stone or that kind of texture, as he tapped and knocked on it and it just felt weird. “There are different kinds of barriers, made of different things, but since this one is based on the Light spell it allows anyone to cast it. It is also simple enough that if you swap the Light rune-” as he started explaining the rune he also made a calm movement in the air, forming the magic circle. But this time let it hover to let Gilliam inspect it. It looked exactly like the multiplying light circle from earlier, but this time the three runes were Light, Solidify and Circle. As Ghaos spoke about the light rune he pointed at it specifically. “-With Fire, water or another element you can use, you can make a fire shield, a water shield or.. You get the point. This is why we teach this specific spell as it lets any student use it and build on it. Now you, being the Heptagon Mage and whatnot.” Ghaos made a whole-body wobble taunt and tone of voice to mock the Heptagon Mage title. Gilliam didn’t consider it at the moment, it sounded envious but it was not important. “You should be able to make it out of any element you might want.” Gilliam pondered for a moment as he took some notes in his notebook, making sure that the little cottonpaperthing was on the correct page when he closed it, so the ink would not smear or mark the other page. “Can you make it invisible?” This was an important question, as it could then be used as a trap or if possible, anchor it to yourself and since it didn’t block vision it was just always there. “Oh, that’s very possible. Jial’s barrier is almost invisible. So if you use Aether as a base you might figure out something.” It was clear that Chaos didn’t have super control on the other variants than the one he’s using. Perhaps that’s because he didn’t seem to have any elements? His badge hinted that he might be a specialist of some kind, no colored triangles so he might not have an element. “So... if I do this...” Gilliam first mimicked the spell as shown, with the Light rune and everything as normal. Once he channelled energy into the circle and activated it the circle disappeared and instead formed a glowing yellow disc! He had made a shield spell with ease. Inspecting it he considered a few things, light only illuminates when it hits something, light in-transit doesn’t produce... Well... Light. Meaning that the reason this glows is the light spell effect. It was also odd that it was entirely weightless, which made sense but it just felt weird. No weight and no momentum to it. Cutting the energy to it the shield faded basically instantly. Redoing the circle but swapping the Light rune for Aether, everything else was the same, channelling energy into it again it went the same as before, everything during casting felt the same but this time the disc was Emerald green in colour, still translucent but the completed product felt different. Ghaos smiled widely again, nodding with pride. “You got the idea of it. This shield looks to be incredibly sturdy, might actually rival mine.” he kept smiling and didn’t look envious at all, just happy. “Aether is the best element for a straight up barrier, seems like you caught on that quickly. The depth of the colour and the less transparent it is, the stronger it is. That goes for all elements but it’s easier to see when it’s not glowing.” Gilliam moved this one around a bit as well, it had the same weightless feeling as the light one, which should have been obvious. It just looked different and sort of felt different. Closing his hand didn’t do anything, it was not until he actually cut the energy to the spell that it faded. Or rather, it was not that he had to actively cut power, just stop feeding it. “You mentioned that it can draw energy from Mana Crystals, how do you make those and how does the spell circle change?” Gilliam had already taken up his notebook and taken some notes before he asked this question. “Oh, in that case you change it like this-” he projected the Light-shield circle again, but this time the top slot for a rune had a smaller mana circle inside it, that secondary circle seemed to be a circle with two smaller circles in it. The smaller circle had a Mana rune in its center, then smaller circles on the inside of the circle at the 12 and 6 O’clock points. In the top one was a Transfer rune, and the bottom one was a Charge rune. The Transfer rune was connected by a strand to a circle outside of the Secondary or main circle to an entirely different Triangle magic circle. It looked the same as the Light Magic circle, but the Top circle has a Light rune in it, the bottom right has a Gather rune, and the bottom left has a Transfer rune in it, which was connected to the other Transfer rune. “-The smaller circle in the top of the Magic circle only handles channelling of mana from an external source into ‘this’ magic circle. Now the external one looks the same as you might be familiar with. But its job is just to gather an elemental energy and transfer it through the line. Pay close attention now.” He moved the gathering circle onto the floor before he took out a small crystalline pebble from a pocket and poked that into the gathering circle on the floor. Nothing was happening until he pulled the connecting line between the two transfer runes, as soon as that connected the pebble glowed for a split second before it shattered into dust, the dust was absorbed into the gathering circle which sent it down the connected line into where the Light rune would normally be in the shield Magic circle, the whole circle activated and everything disappeared at the same time as the shield manifested. All of this took a fraction of a second. “So, it doesn’t activate until the line is connected? That... That makes button-based activation very easy.” Gilliam had an epiphany. And he was getting eager. Ghaos was a bit surprised but laughed happily as he dismissed the shield spell. “You got that already? Yes! That’s exactly correct. This is the simplest form of magic items. The physical triggers.” He shared in Gilliam’s fun for a moment. “There are more interesting triggers like if it’s looked at, touched, or more specific like ‘if Jial is wearing green shoes’. Though the more specific the harder the trigger is to set up.” “That makes sense, but how do you make the crystals?” Gilliam had some ideas that might work, but it relied on a few factors. “Not everyone can do that, but most mages are able to certain degrees. The way to do it is to sort of channel your chosen element into a single spot. Once it gathers it will naturally start to crystallise. If you’re able to do it, it’s actually really simple” To explain the example he held his hands one over the other and started channelling mana into a point between them, as the mana grew and condensed more and more it started taking physical form. Almost like how blood coagulates in the presence of air, or how glue does the same, this process seems to do something similar with Mana. Oddly passively. Once he stopped channelling the crystal fell down into his lower hand. It was only the size of a pebble, but the same size before activated the shield so it’s pretty good. Gilliam had to try this, having magical batteries sounded amazing. Replicating the trick Gilliam held his hands over another, his left palm facing up and right palm facing down, right over left. He has chosen Aether for this, it felt appropriate for his ideas. Channelling his mana into a point between them it actually took a few tries to aim correctly, focusing mana to a pinpoint like this was surprisingly hard. If you miss the pinpoint it wouldn’t form as it needed to start central and grow from there. After four tries the fifth try he figured out the trick, much like Ghaos after just a few seconds a pebble sized gem formed, but rather than stopping Gilliam let the energy flow more for a good solid few seconds more. He didn’t really count the seconds but stopped when the gem hit fist sized. It was hovering in the air during the channelling process but as soon as he stopped it sort of fell as if gravity was suddenly activated. It landed in his hand with a small slap. It was more transparent than the one that Ghaos made. “Ah, mine is more transparent. Does that mean that it’s weaker like the barrier thing? Looking at Ghaos after he posed the question Gilliam guessed this was not the case. Ghaos’ jaw was agape. “N- no... For Mana crystals the cleaner they are the better. Yours is almost perfect... I get now what Jial meant about disliking you a bit.” This was clearly in an envious tone, so Gilliam took it as a compliment rather than something to get annoyed at. “If I use this in a spell, will it consume all of it at once? Or can the same Magic circle tap it more than once?” Gilliam’s plan was nearing possible! He wanted to make a shield generator, not only for himself but for Petal. “I.. No...-” He was still a bit taken back at the purity of the mana gem. “-In most cases it will just continuously feed the magic circle until you disconnect it. The pebble I used broke because it was empty. This will be able to keep a shield going for quite the time...” He was still envious, but he was smiling in a way that he was clearly proud of his student at the same time. “Just... don’t drop it... They are fragile and Mages sometimes uses them as simple bombs...” He looked a bit worried. “Ah.... And since this is relatively large and pure... it will..” Gilliam didn’t complete the sentence before Ghaos did it for him. “Most likely kill us, in a confined room explosions are much more dangerous.” He had his hands up a bit like he was ready to catch it if Gilliam were to drop it. “Ah, then, you can have it...” Gilliam handed it to Ghaos, he used a few seconds to make it and if Ghaos liked it that much then this could just be some minor payment for the teachings. The battlemage was dumbstruck. “You... you’re giving me this? Do you know what this is worth?” He sounded like it was indeed quite expensive. “Since you say it like that, I’d say a bit. But since it took me.. What.. 10 seconds to make without effort, for my first time. Take it as payment for your teachings today” Gilliam smiled widely as Ghaos did the same, taking the gem from Gilliam and starting to look at a lightsource through it immediately. Petal didn’t know what to do during all of this, she seemed to recognize that magic was going on but she was just idly standing there. She seemed like she wanted to say something multiple times but didn’t manage to find a moment to do so. The door suddenly opening had her let out a tiny startled noise, everyone turned towards the door to see Jial coming in with a stack of something. “I have some things. It's a simple servant dress. And a slave collar.” He said this without thought of tone and thought of anything else. They had talked about this before so this was just the end of it. “Have her put them on and go... do things today. I suggest; work on getting used to Combat-cast some spells. I’m sure Ghaos can show you.” Ghaos was looking at his neat new gem with a glee often reserved for children and candy. “W... what? Oh yeah, sure. We can go outside and train a bit of combat.” he smiled, snatching his staff from where he left it against the wall. Gilliam took the clothing from Jial and handed it to Petal. “Put this on, it might be better if you wear the collar, marking you as a slave officially might... hopefully.. Have people behave a bit around you.” The tone was absolutely not certain, but he was going to do his part to try. Petal started putting on the dress, taking the collar after. “I don’t mind, I am your slave after all.” She still had an oddly satisfied smile to her. Given her story and explanation it was clear that this was a better life for her but... Gilliam still felt that it wasn’t right. But if possible, releasing her from this could also be dangerous. During all of this Savia was just sleeping in Gilliam’s hair. She managed to hold onto some strands with her feet and hand-claw-finger things in her sleep, probably a survival mechanic from her forest lifestyle. “Let’s go beat you up with magic!” Ghaos cheered towards Gilliam as he moved for the door. Seems like this was going to be another weird day...

It was strange bringing Savia to the mess hall. First it was too early for food but he was given some breakfast once he asked nicely, explaining that it was for his familiar. Given that she was quite small, it didn’t take much food at all, they were fine with it. At the same time it seemed like they didn’t actually care that much about the rules for that, if there were rules. The people working with the food just fed you if you’re hungry anyway. Bringing the few small pieces of meat outside he handed them to Savia. The cuts were the size of the whole of her so a bit much, however her expression was practically glowing. If she had a survival-like life before just being handed food like this must be like magic in itself. Not waiting longer than needed she squatted down in Gilliam’s hand and used her wing-fingers as hands to hold onto the meat as she ate. Gilliam ended up enjoying this to a weird level. Firstly there was the ‘a cute pet is eating something’ moment, but there was also this oddly satisfying sensation. Was this also part of the familiar bond? It was strange, they had not even known each other for a day, but he felt towards her as he would a friend of years and years. Even though he didn’t even know what she was. She ate her first meal since coming to... this part of the world. Gilliam realised that he needed to read up on Savia’s species. She could answer things for herself but should something happen he wanted to know. From what he read, healing magic works based on understanding, so should this be needed he needs to know how she’s different on the inside. Skin and bone wounds he can handle but what if she has other organs? If nothing else she has venom and those spine spikes, so... This was just a momentary thought, the tour continued after Savia had completed her meal. There was still plenty left of the day but all recommendations are to take the weekend to do things together. So why not do just that. “So, Savia, what do you do for fun?” Gilliam asked, starting a conversation to get to know her better. “For... fun?” She didn’t exactly seem to understand exactly what this fun was. “What do you enjoy doing, like if you have a day where you don’t need to get food or hide, what do you do?” He realised that explaining this concept of not having to hunt or flee to a creature that had lived its whole life doing just that, was oddly problematic. Looking at the sky Savia slowly waved her wingarms as her tail flopped back and forth a few times, her face deep in thought. “Savia doesn’t know. Savia has never had a day like that.” That was a surprisingly depressing answer, but it made a lot of sense. Food in the wild is rarely something you can store long-term, you eat it then and there, and tomorrow you need to find new food. “Oh.. Well... Then we need to find you a hobby.” He smiled in return, lifting the tone of the conversation. “I have found that I like to learn magic. What things do you think you might like?” It was hard to fish for information when the one you’re talking to has never really done most of the things now available. “Help Master!” She shouted from her sitting position in his hand. Seeming happy with just that idea. Gilliam chuckled a few times. “I guess we’ll find out as time goes.” She was helpful and happy at least, so that was a good thing. Though he did want her to have at least somewhat of her own thing going on. When he planned for the Familiar ritual he was fine with the pet logic to the master and servant. But since she was sentient this felt a bit different. For now she was enjoying herself so that was fine. Walking around the school, showing her other students training certain magic, mock battles, the melee fighting training and basically anywhere he was allowed to walk. It was surprisingly fun giving someone a tour like that, even though he had only been here a few days himself. “Now, the last thing I suppose is my room, you’ll see that later anyway but I suppose we can have a go right awa*” Gilliam stopped himself mid-sentence, there was something weird, an odd feeling roughly ‘that way’. Based on what he saw around himself he was not the only one that reacted, this felt just... weird.. Like feeling the heat from something at a distance he could sense ‘something’ in a specific direction. He was not far from the main south exit of the academy, so running through it he quickly found himself outside the walls. There were plenty of people having met up there already, Aeris from the other way was bringing people out, disappearing and coming back with other people. She landed many mages here, including Ledels, Detia and others. She even brought the melee instructor out. All students were brought back into the walls instead, landing a teacher outside she brought students in. The poor girl looked exhausted. Gilliam was one of the first there, but it didn’t even take a minute for the place to fill up with people. Everyone looked in the same direction, though currently there seemed to be nothing there but an odd feeling. Several mages were shouting commands at others, looking for those who are good at sensing things or could scry in any form. Gilliam was useless here. He closed his hand a little so Savia would not get knocked off, but made sure that he wouldn’t crush her and leave her a way out of his fist if needed. As everyone was trying to find out what was going on, there was a glowing red spot that formed in the air in front of them some 10metres (~32ft) off the ground, it was just hovering there, hissing in a weird water-in-pan sound. As it did the pressure that built up around it grew denser and heavier, the light flickered with various shades of purple, red and deep orange. Some mages decided to try to cast spells at it but the spells only seemed to hit an invisible barrier, at the moment of impact it seemed like a sphere barely came into view for a few moments before fading into nothing. The glowing sphere kept gathering energy as some of the teachers decided to throw some gems at it, which didn’t do much as they hit and exploded against the same barrier. Then suddenly a large ring of energy grew out from the sphere rapidly, all sound stopped, all the mages froze in the moment. For a few long seconds there was nothing happening, the glowing ring of energy, the size of a building, stood still in the air around the sphere. The mages were trying to prepare themselves as several of them had various magic circles already drawn in the air, ready to be activated at a moment's notice. A deep bass rumbling sound extended from the ring as it started to vibrate, doing this for a few seconds before it suddenly contracted into the center sphere setting of a huge explosion. The pressure wave was filled with fire, smoke, mana and debris as it had torn up the ground where it originally was. Many mages had shields to protect them but not all of them, some were hit by flying rocks and... It was not good. Suddenly all the debris, smoke, fire and pressure just stopped, frozen in time for a whole second before it pulled back into the center point where the orb was. It all imploded into another explosion but this time there was no debris flying out, there was a pressure wave that knocked over a lot of people, Gilliam being one of them, but in the center point where the orb was now stood a large stone arch made of debris, fire and the gore of the fallen mages. Inside this arch was what looked like a burning puddle standing upright, it reminded Gilliam of a few choice titles of popular media back home, this looked like, felt like and everything hinted to it being a portal. The red glowing sphere from before was still where it was, but it seemed to have solidified into a bright red gem at the top of the arch. In the few following seconds the mages started setting up fortified positions, earth mages made thick shields and platforms of dirt and rocks, Fire mages set up danger zones outside of the portal, certain mages tried to aim some attacks for the portal itself, the arch or even the gem at the top. But every single spell hit the same magical barrier as before. Gilliam didn’t know what to do, all of this was very new to him, chaotic and all things considered; he was still a newbie mage. During the preparation and attempts on damaging the gate the puddle flickered and waved for a moment before a large creature stepped out. It was a humanoid shape, easily 3 metres (~10ft) tall, almost as wide and built like someone who had trained his whole life. His feet were hooves and had double-jointed legs, bulky and strong body partly covered in fur, mouth filled with sharp teeth, glowing yellow eyes and topped off with large and intimidating horns. Its back had magnificently large wings that were currently furled together and in its right hand was a large one edged sword seemingly made from some dark colored metal. It let out a massive roar, enough that it made Gilliam’s ears ring. A moment later a collection of more demonic creatures came flooding through the gate. All from lesser imp-like flying to various spikes and protrusions. Spells started flying from both sides, the mages of the academy sent out a barrage of elemental spells. The spells crashed into the horde of demonic invaders, burning, piercing, exploding and tearing them to shreds. Demons screaming in pain, for aid and cursing the various races defending the academy. The demons finally reached the very prepared humans, most hit shields, walls or were stopped by concentrated magic aimed at the incoming attackers, however some came through. Claws, teeth, weapons and spells of their own tore some of the teachers apart. Spears, spikes and other objects rained both ways, impaling both the demons and the mage defenders. Gilliam was paralysed in shock, he had never seen someone die directly nor had he seen this much destruction and core. The grass and dirt along the road turned to bloody mud, the green vibrant grass had turned red, there was nobody clean left, even Gilliam was splattered from a vibrant green beam coming from the large demon creature that came out first, it impacted a young man next to him which tore him in two. The sounds, the smell, the sight of his fellow men literally being torn into pieces, being killed, being eaten. “..Gilliam!” a voice shouted his name as he was being shook vigorously. Snapping out of whatever void his mind was in, he first now noticed Jial. Jial was covered in gore like everyone else, he was wounded, blood running down his left arm and his robe was pierced along his right leg. “Gilliam, snap out of it!” A sharp snap of a slap landing on Gilliam properly woke his mind. “Jial?!” he was confused still, but the shock managed to snap him out of the worst of it. Getting a second to take in what was going on, he finally properly noticed Jial’s wounds as well as Savia in his hair grabbing onto it with her feet, trying to fly Gilliam away. She calmed down once Gilliam came to and started moving on his own again. The priority seemed to be Jial’s wounds, they looked like normal damage, Gilliam knew how those worked and proceeded to do his best with healing them. As the bleeding slowly stopped and the wounds ever so slowly started to knit themselves together in front of their very eyes, Jial continued. “Gilliam. Can you damage that crystal?” he pointed at the gem, orb.. Thing, at the top of the arch that kept the portal stable. “I... I don’t know.” Gillaim answered honestly as he was focusing on the wounds. “I have only cast one longer range spell and it.... It would most likely kill everyone here..” He sounded distressed, which made sense as he absolutely was. The comment about the spell was probably not wrong either, it made that massive crater in the rock of the mountain, so here in the open where it could hit everyone it, the shockwave alone was probably going to do some harm. “I heard from Detia. But if you use a magic circle, concentrate the effect, piece that gem, Gilliam!” This was a desperate order. One could tell from his face that he absolutely didn’t want to do this, but at the same time there weren’t other choices. “I’m healing you, can’t you do it while I do this?” Gilliam didn’t want to, this pressure, the situation, it was hard to even focus on healing which was surprisingly simple normally. Jial grabbed Gilliam by the hair, crouched down a little and lifted Gilliam to his feet properly. Their eyes met and Jial’s piercing eyes were very, very different from normal. They had a pressure to them, something Gilliam didn’t recognize. “Gilliam, people are dying-” he let go of his hair, it didn’t seem like this kind of attack was ever part of the plan, he just needed face to face. “-You created a spell in seconds before my eyes, you can fucking read the magical runes. You can do this. Easily.” There was an odd inspiration in his words, a weird rush of energy, Gilliam felt like Jial was right, he could actually do this. He needed time, but as Jial mentioned he used only seconds to imagine a complex subject as a laser. He needed to piece the gem, the shield sphere protected against damage. In that case what he needed was something to actually pierce everything, something strong. He had an idea. Looking at Jial with an odd sense of determination, the look alone seemed to put Jial at ease a little bit. “I need a little time.” Gilliam ordered. Jial’s wounds had still not healed completely, but they weren’t bleeding anymore so progress had been made. He was in no good condition but he nodded in agreement to Gilliam’s orders nonetheless. Wordlessly he turned around and in the matter of a few seconds three other mages came around them, Gilliam assumed there was some telepathy going on, he had seen similar reactions before when the general alert across the school faded at the same time. Gilliam needed something strong, something that could hold and edge, a spear would be perfect, and there were plenty of those around. Not taking the time to form a Magic circle, he tested with just his supersonic item throw. Telekinetically picking up the spear he aimed it well, as well as he could, even if he missed it would at least prove if this could go through the barrier. He focused a lot of energy, much more than he ever did when he threw the pebbles. Aime again and let all of that energy go. The spear cracked as it broke the sound barrier, soared towards its target and hit the shield. The impact caused the spear to crumble, bend and deform to an unusable blob of metal, the hilt shattered into splinters and spread itself across the shield. Everything fell to the ground like trash. Fuck. Gilliam noticed that the large boss demon took note of this and it didn’t seem to like it. Taking aim for Gilliam he threw one of the more eldritch looking creatures towards them shouting the order to “Kill that human!”. Jial formed a circle in a split second and did a slamming motion, in the middle of the air the parabolic arch the incoming demon was in abruptly changed to a downwards thrust into the ground. The guards around Gilliam did their best to hold things to their own, taking out incoming demons alongside the other men and women on the battle ground. Aeris seemed to have dropped in more people but the demons seemed endless. And the bossdemon had started to move towards them, attacking anything on the way. Jial shouted a command for someone named Kintas to stall the demon. Gilliam didn’t see who or what this was but the attention of the boss changed suddenly to someone else. He needed more energy, perhaps Jial was right, he didn’t have the time to fail a second shot, he needed to absolutely make it. Having seen videos back home about people shooting things the sentence ‘Speed penetrates armour’ proved that even a copper and lead projectile could penetrate most things, however if the target was just too hard to make a dent in, the energy would just spread. Immovable object problem. Considering the destruction the fireball did, Jial might have had a good point. He needed to just ignore all logic altogether and overwhelm the whole thing. He didn’t need a projectile, magic was its own projectile, he needed force, energy. A magic circle’s internal structure was based on what needed to be connected to what. A rune connected to two runes would cause either a synergistic or problematic relationship. More force put into acceleration meant more speed, he didn’t have to consider speed just pure force in the throwing, this is why a stronger man can throw further than a faster man, momentum. Air friction could tear anything apart if it moved fast enough, but a protection circuit could handle this. Gilliam focused everything on this thought as he created a magical circle in the air, putting in runes, lines and shapes. Altering the lines, swapping the runes, making the circle smaller and placing it within a larger circle. One of the guards around Gilliam had taken a serious hit, he looked alive but not combat worthy. He had to hurry and stop that portal. He didn’t have time to quality check the magic circle he ended up with, the long seconds he used to create it had already hurt a lot of people, the next thing was to execute it. Picking up another spear, this time with his hands, he channelled energy into the large magic circle. It had taken the form of three magic circles, the one closest to Gilliam was focused on protecting the spear, the second and third were just about adding throwing power at it, the second one had an aiming concept to go where he wanted as well. Charging the circle took a while, one cannot just throw all the mana at it like a bucket, it had to be channelled into it, sometimes in specific areas to make sure the energy went where it needed to. He pumped all the energy he could into this, this had to work. Demons tried to divebomb the circle more than once, throwing weapons, debris or just each other to interrupt the process. But Jial and his guards did a very good job at protecting it. The circle glowed stronger and stronger until Gilliam put the spear’s tip into it, it looked like it was stuck in the circle for a second as the glowing energy around the first circle started enveloping it in yellow light. The two other circles started glowing a bright light and suddenly in a blink and you miss it moment, the spear was gone. The only thing remaining was a stream of light as its own magical jet-trail. The light stretched across the battlefield, through a demon, through the shield, through the gem and due to the angle it went straight through the clouds, the end was not seen. Gilliam lost balance, fell and had to support himself with a knee in the ground and both his hands. He felt deep worry from Savia but he heard anything but worry from the defenders. Looking up the gem above the arch it had a cracked hole straight through, the cracks spread across its surface to the point that small parts were falling off. The portal started flickering as it grew unstable, it looked like a fire storm, orange lighting across its surface and it seemed like it was going out at any moment. All the demons on the field turned tail and headed for it, most got through, some were halfway through as the portal flickered and were cut in half. The boss started running, nobody strong enough to stop it at the moment, jumping through the flickering magical energy it got through, but not entirely. The lowest joint of its left foot remained as the rest of the gem fell apart, forcing the rest of the arch to fall apart like a house of cards. All the debris and gore that made it just fell straight down into a pile of rubble. The battlefield was completely silent for a few solid seconds before everyone cheered, this was a victory! Everyone that could heal changed their goal, there were more wounded than not. Most people got patch up healings, enough to make them stop bleeding out and not die. The critical people were focused on first and it just became a different kind of battlefield. Gilliam was out of mana, the headache, the tunnel vision, it didn’t make it easier, but he halfway crawled over to the guard that took the most damage during his protection and channelled his healing spell on any wound he could see. He was exhausted, the tunnel vision grew narrower and narrower until it simply closed. Darkness.

-GONG, GONG- Gilliam woke like he was tased to the spine again, the sudden jolt, the high heart rate, the heart trying to beat its way through his chest. He longed for the day he was more used to this, he’s fine with being startled a bit but this is just torture... Knowing that people can get used to all kinds of things, back home people lived next to train tracks and managed to sleep throuh their apartments shaking, so... hopefully soon. Well... He was awake now, the adrenaline alone would keep him going for a while so sleeping again was never going to happen even if he wanted to. However, today he absolutely didn’t want to! Getting dressed in record time, he again brought his notebook, refilled the ink pen and when everything was ready he left for breakfast. There were almost no students in the hallway at this point, the young youth tended to use as much rest time as possible, the ‘just five more minutes’ turning into half an hour does explain at least one reason why there is a second bell to kickstart breakfast... Gilliam got to the mess hall rather swiftly, partly because of the lack of traffic, but also the fact that he was speed walking. If yesterday was any indication of what today might be, it was going to be a good day. Yesterday was incredibly educational as well as fun, and that was somewhat random after a teacher just decided to trade knowledge. This round there is a specialist pre-dedicated to him. Sure this might feel different for the teacher but Gilliam was too high on the thought of what he could learn that he didn’t actually consider that at the moment. Without realising it he was already sitting at a table with some breakfast, he first sort of ‘came to’ once he had taken the fist bite of the piece of bread he had taken with him. Seems like his subconscious lacked protein as there was at least 80% meat on his plate. Gilliam considered going to swap out a few things but in the end it didn’t matter at the moment; the brain gets what it wants today. As soon as he was done eating, well before the third bell, he started moving to the room that Angela listed. 5-1-4, should not be hard to find. Entering the central heptagon room he took to the left, past the door leading into the Air field, as well as the door into Wing 4 and the one into the Earth field. The next door led into Wing 5, taking that door he came into a familiar hallway. There was almost nobody here, mostly some servants cleaning and preparing the location for the students, a few fellow students but mainly the cleaning staff. Entering the fourth room on the first floor he found two things, one startling him a bit. First the room was a simple classroom, quite similar to the one that he spent with Jial yesterday, just smaller. It had only eight desks, some cupboards and drawers along the walls and the teachers desk with the blackboard behind it. Made sense that if Gilliam were to occupy a room on his own that they would pick a smaller room. Now, the thing that startled him was the winged lizard on the teachers desk... It was absolutely not a dragon, but an actual lizard, dark green and blue scales all over, looking like a variant of a monitor lizard back on Earth, its body looked to be around 60cm (~2ft) to the start of his tail, and its tail just as long. Now the wings were feathery, much like a bird or an angel, they looked big enough to let him fly but it just looked like someone had glued them to his shoulder area. The fact that the lizard moved not only itself but also its wings independently as it turned to face Gilliam, was the main reason the wings even felt real and not just placed on as some weird costume. Next to it stood a cup of what seemed to be coffee, at least something black but it smelled coffee-like. It used its tail to push a letter towards Gilliam, it was simply a folded piece of paper with his name lazily written on it in blocky letters. In fact it was written wrong once as GIRLIAM, and the correct L was just written over the R harder and thicker to compensate. Though this was most likely someone’s familiar it felt weird having this large lizard staring at him unsupervised loose in a classroom. The paper was pushed towards Gilliam with its tail before it just let go of keeping its weight up, slapped down on the desk and went to sleep. Taking the letter at full arms length he opened it, the penmanship was sloppy, almost like it was someone's hastily scribbled notes. It read that “I”, referring to the writer, would come down soon, “I” just had to do something first. It was signed by a ‘Detia’. Ok, that made sense, the teacher had to do something important and sent a familiar with a note so Gilliam would know, not a bad idea. To pass the time Gilliam started reviewing his notes of the spells he wanted to test out that he started on yesterday, he needed to put actual effort into these as he wanted them to be proper. Though Gilliam was doing something he found incredibly interesting, the fact that this was meant to just pass the time as he waited for someone made him very aware of the passing of time. A few minutes turned to ten, ten minutes turned to 30, 30 minutes turned to an hour. This something must have been important, he was wondering if he should leave and go ask for him or her. He had no idea if Detia was a male or female name, but he wanted to find the lizard’s master. Though as soon as he wondered this the door opened slowly and a young woman came into view. This woman looked to be in her early 20ies, quite slender under her dark red robe, she had messy and unwashed black hair, cola-bottle bottom glasses, the really thick kinds where you wonder if she can even see light without them. The dark lines under her eyes almost hinted that she had never slept, ever. She looked like a destroyed mess. She felt like either someone who has studied for two weeks and slept an hour, or a nerd that stays up every and all night playing games. The only properly distinct feature of her is that she has purple eyes and a staff that was literally a broom handle with a bright red gem on the end... She entered, closing the door behind her and shuffled over to the desk and slumped down in the chair with her full weight. Gilliam wanted to speak to her but as he drew breath she lifted a finger in the ‘shush’ motion before she looked at the lizard. “Bob, coffee.” The lizard lifted its head towards her, then towards the cup of cold coffee on the desk, then looked back to her before going back to sleep. “Oh, you wondrous good boy...” she muttered a praise for the lizard as she took the cup towards herself. Holding the cup for a few seconds it started to let off steam and the coffee aroma started spreading out again. Just by holding the cup she had heated it? Gilliam was getting interested. She drank the whole cup in one go... It was steaming, though.. Wasn’t that hot? Gilliam was sporting an uncertain and confused face for a few seconds but she seemed fine as she placed the cup back on the little plate it came with. “Now... I’m Deti--a” her introduction was interrupted by a small burp but she continued speaking through it. Gilliam couldn’t hold back his laughter. She smiled in response but her eyes looked dead inside, she was not mentally here yet. A few waves and gentle Hello’s yet from Gilliam got no response. In the end he decided to take matters into his own hands and clap once, really loudly. This booted her out of whatever trance she was in and she looked at him with a mixture of surprise, almost fear and confusion. “Good morning, I am Gilliam and you are an hour late.” Crushing all the important factors into one sentence Gilliam decided to get it all in there in the possible few seconds she might be awake. “Ah, yes, oh.. I mean.. Err... I... what... wait..” She started fumbling around the desk, lifting the lizard's tail, checking her pockets for something until she in the end had a realisation moment with her finger in the air. “I prepared for this!” she whisper-shouted to herself as she went to one of the drawers and took out a book before handing it to Gilliam. Gilliam chuckled a few times through her fumbling moment but received the book from her. “An introduction to advanced level Unstructured magic?” he asked her as he just read the cover. The book was thin, had probably just 40 pages or something, a second glance showed that the author was Detia of Helvan Shores Academy. “Yes, read that, wake me when you’re done?” she smiled with a questioning tone, almost like asking for permission. Gilliam’s face had turned deadpan flat, whis whole existence just asked the question ‘you what now?’. “Aren’t you supposed to teach me this stuff?” he asked, almost feeling cheated without considering her situation. “Yeah, but that sounds like effort... Can’t you read the book and I can answer any questions once you are done?” she smiled only with her mouth, her eyes and the rest of her face was probably in some far away happy place where sleep was a constant thing. Gilliam pondered for a few seconds, perhaps he should try and find a trigger in her like with Jial? He didn’t seem to want to give Gilliam the effort until he was shown to know the magical runes. Perhaps if he could trigger some interest in this woman as well she might.. Well.. wake up? “I already know the basic introduction spells, why should I read an introduction book when a teacher is just here?” though there wasn’t much flattery in that sentence, it was halfway hinting towards the master being better than the written documents. She just smiled a weirdly vacant derpy smile and laid her head down on the desk, unless she was faking it she seemed to fall asleep in seconds. Gilliam was somewhat put off by this. He was fine with rudeness and lack of common sense, hell he was probably the odd one in this world but this was just straight up rude and disrespectful. The book wasn’t that long but he had to read it before she was to teach him? Fine, have it your way, he decided to skim it so he at least has the basic understanding of things before waking her. These books could have some good info that he might not know already, and if she’s an expert and she wrote this book it should at least have something. Wait, hold on... An introduction to advanced... This was not an introduction book, this was a next level book... Written by an expert... Gilliam was still a bit miffed at the treatment, but the more he pondered about it the more his curiosity wanted to at least see what’s in the book before he woke her. Opening the book it was... actually pretty well written, the words were proper and no misspellings, it seemed like she got at least this one written properly. However, as soon as Gilliam started reading he was hooked. It was not as good as proper teachings from an engaged teacher, but oddly enough this worked. The book was formulated in a way that the writer is speaking to the reader, taking up a lazy way of handling the introduction to the student... Letting her laze for a while. She wasn't kidding when she said that she planned for this... Gilliam was not sure if he wanted to be annoyed, sad or impressed. Well, there was no need to let this possibility slip, he was not sure how easy certain books are to get hold of so he might as well take advantage of things. He kept reading! The book explained the basics of what Unstructured magic is. In short, it’s magic without a magic circle. Why was this important? Because Structured magic needed runes, circles, perhaps a foci and a lot of remembering. Unstructured magic ignores all of that and lets you do whatever you want. It was still bound to your elements, and it had some hard drawbacks. First, it is like a mana hungry wolf. The mana costs of an Unstructured spell compared to a Structured spell doing the same thing was at the very least tenfold. The Structured spells also had the possibility of letting the magic circle help you with focusing, like the Light spell that most students learn first. Where most students won’t be able to have two or three lights Unstructured by the end of their first year, the simplest of mage can have four, five or more lights relatively easily. At least easier than the stress that Gilliam went through yesterday with the seven orbs, that started getting complicated from the third one onwards. Second, unless you have a very vivid and strong imagination, Unstructured magic would become problematic for you, since Structured spells need a concept or code of sorts in your mind you can often just read up on things and learn it. Unstructured magic requires everything to be in your mind, you need to consider where force is being put, how it is being put, what kind of conversion, element... and so on. A simple telekinesis spell can be considered as extending your hands telekinetically. This means that using both hands will be much better, if you want something to hover you might need more hands to support everything, in here lies the problem with your mental state. Structured spells can have control, power and other ‘cheating’ aiding structures built into the circle handling some or most of this for you. But, what Unstructured magic makes up for it is versatility. A Structured spell aims to do a single outcome, sure swapping some runes can aid this but you still need to make the circle, focus and do all this yadda yadda to get a single preplanend result. Unstructured spells lets you change the spell each cast, or even during the effect. Using the telekinesis concept, if you need more support just manifest more support, if you don’t need all of the support just cut it down to save mana and effort. The same in a Structured spell would need not only a re-cast but changing of the magic circle and its runes. Another good example of Structured vs Unstructured is the lack of ‘feel’ in Structured magic. Take picking a lock, something you should never do without good cause, the book warned. You can create a Structured spell that twists the lock, that tries all combinations, lifts the pins, tries again, feels for the click and so on. Unstructured magic lets you just flood mana in the lock and feel every single part it can touch, letting you feel around. In this example a Structured spell created by someone who really knows how to unlock a lock type, would be faster than the Unstructured variant. But the Unstructured variant doesn’t have you remember magic circles or things like that. There is also the thing that a Structured spell would work for a specific kind of lock, one with pins and tumbles needs one, another of the ‘old timey lock’ needs another as they are fundamentally different. So, in short Unstructured magic has incredibly high versatility but shit mana management. So specialists or people planning to use Unstructured spells a lot would need a massive boundary. Another positive is that if you can imagine it, it can probably work, there is no pre-planning needed, you just think of it and funnel energy into the idea. If you want versatility in ‘one spell’, sick of remembering tons of magical circles and runes? Unstructured is the way to go. Putting the book down for a moment Gilliam had to ponder things. First, this felt like brute-forcing magic, it was probably used to test spell concepts before it was turned into a spell circle. In modern terms a magic circle and Structured spell was akin to a macro. You can type it all out every time and it will work, versatility allows you to change code snippets as you write them, but that’s cumbersome and absolutely not without effort. A Structured spell has all of this pre-written, and sure you can do some small modifiers with secondary input, but this requires a different kind of memorization and though it’s more efficient it’s not versatile. At least not compared. Gilliam could see why Detia would like Unstructured magic... If she’s as lazy as it seems then this was a god sent to her and her lifestyle. Having a vivid imagination is probably oddly normal in a world where magic, which relies on imagination and mental fortitude, was normal. The end parts of the book turned into a super biassed explanation on why you should master Unstructured magic and expand your Boundary. How remembering things is for nerds and proper mages... Gilliam lost a bit of interest at that part. The factual parts of the book were really interesting. Detia as the author calling other people nerds was a bit funny and weird, given her apperance screamed ‘I’m a nerd’ and how she hit most of the tropes of them back home. In the end he had read the book, he skipped lunch and ignored the gongs giving him a heart attack as per normal. The weird part is that Detia seemed to just sleep through it, as did her lizard.. Bob.. was it? Just learning this was interesting enough that food became a bit secondary, he also ate a hearty breakfast and had yet to cast much magic today so he was still plenty fine on energy. “Detia.” Gilliam started, trying to wake her for the next lesson, he had read the book after all. “Hey, Detia!” he raised his voice a bit trying to have her snap out of it. Detia lifted her head suddenly, and it seemed like some part of her brain reacted. Her eyes were tired, her face blank and her whole being hinted that she was not mentally present yet. Gilliam decided to be a bit mean, but only because it was needed. He placed the book on the desk a bit harder than needed, making sure it landed flat in a loud slap. This startled her something hard and she found herself sitting upright with a surprised and slightly panicked expression. “What.. who... I... wh.. Oh.. Gil.. Mr. Gibson... How’s it going.” she smiled fakely at the end, like before. It also seemed like she tried to reel in some semblance of control in her frantic statement, even naming Gilliam by his first name, which seems that the teachers didn’t want to do at this place. “Good morning, teacher.” Gilliam couldn’t stop himself from a small grin, it seems that his plan somewhat worked. “I have read your book. It was interesting but I can’t say that this feels like I’m being tutored.” His voice was a bit annoyed. Though the book was incredibly interesting this still feels like he was kind of lied to. Not that he had gotten on paper that he was getting private tutors but if this was going to happen anyway he could just have gotten the book and gone somewhere else to read. “Oh.. Err... Well, that’s good!” she complimented, almost seeming that she wanted it to take longer, much, much longer. “To be honest, I’m a bit irritated that I was given a dedicated teacher and then just given a book, but the contents is actually interesting, it also explains a lot why I had problems with using certain spells when I tried to train getting to the academy.” Perhaps getting right on track with problems, or at least something within the topic of her expertise might wake her up, usually one perks up when something super interesting happens. She lifted an eyebrow seeming at least a tiny bit interested. “Go on.” Her voice was hinting and inquisitive, before it was bored and ‘let’s get this over with’ toned. “Well, I learned all the starting spells in the book, the Unstructured testing spells. I found telekinesis to be the most fun one. I threw sticks, I threw rocks, I lobbed boulders although the latter drained me harshly. I found out that I could shoot pebbles at supersonic speeds and, well. It was fun and dandy.” Emphasising his vocal examples with his hands he mimics some of the movement he did to make things work back during his testing. “However, I found out that when I tried to hunt with telekinesis the birds resisted, they were able to just get out of it. From your book I think that’s due to two things. I used only one hand, and my mental image was not properly formed. I had the strength but not the proper picture or resolve to go through with it.” Though all of this was voiced as facts and a realisation, there was still the undertone of a question, seeking validation or rejection of his statement. She seemed to process things a bit slowly, but ended up with a real smile this time and a slow nod. “That’s good, very good. It sounds like you are realising at least something from the book alone... I suppose I... need to train you directly then...” Though it was a good statement she seemed to rather want to go to bed and forget sentient life. “That would be very nice, yes.” Gilliam could not help but agree, he had learned a lot from the book alone but it was still not the same. He wanted proper teaching and get on the track of mastering this concept. Although he was far from a master in Structured magic, he felt that he had a better grasp on that than Unstructured. She let out a long and groaning sigh. “Fine, but we’re not doing this again tomorrow.” She slapped her cheeks and seemed to get into proper awake mode. “FIRST!-” she shouted loud enough to wake up Bob, though after taking a look around he just went back to sleep. “-We will do some tests, find out where you are.” Focusing properly on Gilliam she continued in the same sentence. “Jial told me you managed seven Unstructured lights, that’s good but I need to know more about your Boundary and Core. Let’s go play with fire!” That sentence was both exciting and terrifying to Gilliam, he really wanted to play with fire but there was a reason he had not done so yet. “Bob, hey bob!” Dhe picked up the lizard and shook him a bit. He woke up with the laziest eyes Gilliam had ever seen on a lizard. “Go find Aeris, we need teleportation!” She put Bob back on the desk and wrote something on a piece of paper she tore from a notebook she had with her. Handing this to Bob she lifted him up and tossed him towards an open window. The lizard managed to use this lifting aid to great effect and took flight for the window, slapping against the stone wall with the sound of a dead fish he was still high enough up that he could grab the frame. Climbing out the window he jumped and flew off. Detia didn’t even pay this any mind, she had started packing her stuff into a bag much like the one Gilliam had with him. And without any more words she just left. Gilliam assumed that the need for a teleporter, playing with fire and her packing her things all hinted that they were going somewhere. Getting his notes, his books and the Unstructured training book he jogged after her, putting it all in his back as he was moving to catch up to the oddly fast sleepy woman. She led him into the central room, skipped five doors and exited into the Aether field, where she speed-walked over to the teleportation embarking and arrival rooms. Promptly sitting down near one of the walls in the shade, she seemed oddly content. “Now, we can relax as we wait for her, we should get at least a few minutes of MOTHER OF F--!” In the middle of her sentence a young girl, looking 10-12 years old, quite petite, long hair reaching her hips and the brightest smile just showed up. She was carrying Bob. This startled the daylights out of Detia as she clearly expected to get some rest. “Hello!!” she shouted announcing her presence only after Detia had reacted. “Good gods, Aeris... I told you to not do that... My heart can’t take it.” Detia commanded as she was reluctantly getting to her feet. “Yes, but that’s not fun.” Aeris smiled in return. And great, if she was a teleporter and a trickster it sounded like a horrible mix... “Nolis said I could go with you, but I need to come back in a few hours at most.” She listed the orders given and frankly, jokes aside sounded like a good girl. “Yeah, that shouldn’t be a problem. I’m not imagining more than an hour or two.” Turning to Gilliam she finally introduced the young girl. “This is Aeris, Aeris Carter, don’t get her young age and small body trick you, she’s one of the best teleporters I have seen.” This didn’t put things into context for Gilliam, if Detia had not seen any other teleporters then anyone is the best. But she was a teacher so this should mean something. “Well, as long as you don’t disintegrate us I’ll be happy.” Gilliam said as he squatted down to greet the little girl properly. Her badge was a Silver disk with a weird symbol on it. It looked like a standing person with several circles along his body downwards. He supposed that it was a teleportation symbol. The silver disk stated that she was second year, school wise she was actually Gilliam’s superior, something he found very amusing. “Oh, that’s harder than you think, so don’t worry.” she smiled in return, seeming to possibly know how to do just that... Which was also kind of terrifying. Turning to Detia she took the next step of the conversation on her own. “So, where are we going?” Detia had finally properly gotten up and had her stuff properly on her, Bob was sitting on her shoulder like some weird draped skin. “To the mountain training grounds.” Aeris just smiled and held out both her hands, one to Detia and one to Gilliam. Detia took her hand right away but Gilliam only took it once Aeris had turned to look at him expectantly. A second or so after grabbing her hand there was a massively bright flash, as his eyes fixed themselves, something that went much faster had this been just normal lights, he could see that the scene had changed drastically. He was in a valley of sorts, there were rocks, scorch marks, craters and complete mayhem. It’s almost like someone just took explosives and flames to a quarry. There was even a small lake far down there in the rough center of this valley, some 100m (~330ft) further down than him. To be honest this was a perfect place to play with fire, nothing to catch on fire, in the mountains apparently and hopefully far away from things. “Now, let’s see what you can do. Unstructured, fire, your biggest fireball, remember to imagine properly, use all your mana and just go nuts!” she commanded, pointing at the sky almost like she was challenging it. It was odd that she was this fired up about this when not 10 minutes ago she wanted to sleep her life away. And, though this was a tall order it was actually perfect for him. He wanted to know his limits, what he could do and just where he’s placed on the mana pool side of things. Angela did mention that his Boundary was large but... just how large is ‘large’. “We’ll go over there.” Detia mentioned as she pointed in the mountains somewhere. She took Aeris’ hand right after and in the blink of an eye they were gone. Seems like she has been around fire mages before, according to her pin she had access to Fire, water and Air. So she probably knew fire quite well. Well, it was time to see what he was capable of doing. Starting with calming his mind, he wanted to do this right, he inhaled and exhaled in a deep sigh of sorts, doing his best to guide all of his mana towards his hand. In his mind he saw the power of the sun stream into his palms, crunched down into a fireball he wanted this to burn, to do some damage. In general he wanted to collect fire energy and send it flying into the water down there and explode. But the image had to be vivid. He put more and more detail on it before he properly started. The biggest fire thing he could consider were the massive suns he had heard of online in the scientific videos he had seen, so why not use that as a benchmark just... smaller. His hand was starting to gather energy, he pointed the palm towards the lake, his hand looked like he already held a sphere of something. Energy built up more and more, he wanted to put all in it before he sent it flying. The energy started manifesting as a mirage of sorts, flickering and bending light like above fires, his other hand was needed to have something to gather the energy between. Then it ignited and became a fireball, still the size of an orange. Gilliam kept feeding it energy. It grew larger and larger the more he fueled the fire, every now and then he stopped feeding it with energy to use his mind-hands to crush it smaller, then feeding it again. He repeated this process over and over, again and again until the fire started turning blue, the fire started screaming a high pitch whine rather than the normal fire you’re used to. For some reason this didn’t burn Gilliam but the ground around him started to show the effect of the radiant heat, the few plants or grass tufts that had managed to grow, wilted in the heat and burst into tiny flames before poofing into ash. The bright light from this orb rivalled staring into the sun on a good day, Gilliam was nearing the end of his current mana reserves, he wanted to have enough to send this thing flying so he didn’t drop it at his feet. Having reached the point of critical mass, where the fact of just keeping this thing stable between his hands was taking a massive toll on his concentration, this was as good a time as any. Turning both his hands towards the lake far down in the hole of the quarry, he used a sizable chunk of energy to magically shoot the fireball down there. The fireball was screaming a loud high pitch whine that followed the sphere as it was booted down at great speed towards the water. It took a second to reach the water, but it had started evaporating it before it got that close. As it was about to make contact there was a massive cloud of steam as it evaporated its way through the water until it hit something solid, this was the trigger after all. The following explosion was unprecedented. First it blinded anyone looking at it, the resulting explosion emptied the quarry of water, the shockwave would punch you in the face from quite the distance. This knocked Gilliam over without effort at all. The crater was severely deepened and there was more than one side of rocks that started flying, tumbling and avalanche’ing their way wherever they wanted to go. It was raining rocks, water, debris and the whole place was in chaos. Gilliam couldn’t properly see what was going on, he was dumb enough to look at the explosion. But he felt a hand on him and suddenly, after a bright light the sound of everything falling was gone. In stead he heard Detia’s voice, loud, angry, full of questions and ordering. “Gilliam, what the fuck was that?!” “A fireball.” Gilliam replied, still not able to properly see more than shadows around the massive bright spot in the middle of his view. “I almost gave it my all, it was my first fireball, after all.” he smiled in her direction.

-GONG, GONG- Gilliam woke with the same gasp of terror he has done the last few days. The bed is comfortable but... that alarm clock... Parts of him wondered if there was some form of volume button for his room. He would like to mute it but then he’d be late for everything. His heart pumped like he was going into battle and fast enough to be registered as dangerous... Oh how he still looked forward to the moment he got used to this... His brain was... not as fast booting up as his heart. Where his heart got a kickstart without equal, his brain on the other hand needed a moment. Sitting up on the side, his feet touching the floor, his brain started realising what was going to happen today. Waking up considerably in a few seconds he started looking forward to things instead! Getting ready with a happy face was a bit strange, a welcome kind of strange but strange nonetheless. He’s never been a morning man but this had him excited. He was out of his room with a full bag, well before the second bell, speed walking down to the mess hall. Grabbing something random at speed as he was too mentally elsewhere, wondering what kind of creature he might get, what kinds he didn’t want and.. Well.. His mind was racing. Eating whatever random things he put on his plate he started analysing possibilities. Though he was limited by his imagination and the new creatures he had seen in this world, he kind of went through them and made a checklist of yes and no. Few things made it on the no-list, slimy and seemingly useless creatures went on the no list, pigeons, insects, fish and the like. Though dismissing fish as a thing did sadden him a tiny bit considering his goldfish back home, he really hoped someone found and took care of it.. The yes-list was practically anything else, even mundane creatures from his own world would be fine, a dog or cat would still be good. So at least he didn’t have too high hopes. Looking around in the room well after the second bell had rung he saw people flooding in, many had their familiar with them, the ones that had the smaller kinds like mice or anything you could carry on-body. The ones with tiger-sized familiars or larger couldn’t bring them in, but many of them opted to take their food outside to spend time with their magnificent or weird creatures. His mind was so focused on this that he almost managed to not react as the third bell rang. Mentally waking up from his daydream he realised that not only was his plate and mug empty, but the third bell had indeed rung! He sprung from his chair and made his way according to the directions. It seems that the ritual was done underground, the central tower didn’t only go up, it also went down. So making his way into the central room, to the central column he entered the staircase. It did indeed have a spiral staircase going up but the one going down was where he was to go. Walking down a rotation he opened a door into a tiny room, a man in light armour, a sword at his hip and a staff standing in a corner looked at him as the door opened. He was sitting on a chair reading something. “Name?” his voice was rough and his face had definitely been punched many times. “Err... Gilliam Gibson?” Gilliam replied uncertainly, he had not been down here before so he had no idea what to expect. The man flipped his book to the first page, between the first page and the cover he had a list he read through. Without looking up from his book he explained the next steps. “Yep, you’re good. Go in there, first door to the right, the familiar room is straight ahead.” Flipping back to the actual part of the book he seemed to ignore Gilliam from that point. Uncertain he walked around this man, not wanting to disturb him, he walked through the next door and didn’t manage to relax a little until the door was closed behind him. For some odd reason that man, that guard was a bit scary... Something just felt off about him. Ignoring this for now, Gilliam headed down the hallway, taking the first door to the right which led into another hallway. There were several other doors along this hallway but there was a slightly fancier door straight ahead. The one straight ahead also had ‘Familiar Ritual’ written on the door. Next thing he realised he stood with the familiar room opening it he entered as instructed! Inside was a surprisingly bland room. It was a rectangle shape, another door on the opposing side from where he entered, a desk with a 30-something year old woman with long blonde hair and that was about it. The walls were the same stone as the rest of the academy and... Gilliam expected more. “Gilliam?” the woman confirmed with him as he closed the door. Gilliam just nodded, a bit out of his familiar waters here. She didn’t seem to mind or react much, just took some notes. “Do you know how the ritual is going to work?” Eyeing Gillima she asked her question with the tone and speed of someone who has asked this a hundred times before. Gilliam shook his head. “Only what was listed in the introduction manual and letter”. “Ok, then I’ll explain. First, you will enter that room, in there you will find a very complicated series of magical circles, go into the center circle and just release mana slowly until the crystal in the center of the wall opposing the door lights up. At this point all you should do is relax, the circle will handle the rest” This also had a very, very practised tone to it. Which just hints that this has been a thing for quite the time and always worked. “Should your familiar be exceptionally large, the room has plenty of space on the side which will be used, so there is no need to be worried. Also, should the familiar be too large to exit through the doors we will get a teleporter to bring you outside.” she added at the end. Which is a very nice thing, Gilliam did shudder for a second imagining doing this in a too small room. “So, I enter, stand in the circle, release mana slowly until the gem glows and then stop. After that I should just wait.” Gilliam bottomlined it just to make sure it was all correct. The woman simply nodded in response, it seems like he had it down. “Ok, that sounds simple enough... so... should I just go in.. or..?” After the explanation was done there was this odd pause of what to do, was there more or... “No, as long as you understand what you are going to do, and as long as you do not overcharge the circle, everything should be good” She smiles. “Wh... what happens if I overcharge the circle?” Gilliam very, very hesitantly asked. “Oh, you know. Not something good.” She.. didn’t answer but the pressure she put on it didn’t have Gilliam at ease. “Understood.” He didn’t ask anything more, this just turned terrifying enough as it was. Turning and entering the other room was not an issue, but Gilliam had to stop and take in the sights before he properly entered. The room was indeed covered, completely covered in magical circles. A quick glance found several ones that had to do with stability, connection of time and space, something related to communication, something to do with the spirit or something... All in all this was indeed a super complex multi-layered structure of magical circles. Someone has used considerable time making this, both making the structure but also engraving it and filling it with the needed gems and whatnot. Stepping into this wondrous creation he could only feel a mix of excitement but also some inferiority in here. There were so many things in here that he didn’t even understand. On one side that sounded like a reason to learn, on another it was oddly humbling. But, that was for later! He walked into the center circle, it was very obvious where he should be standing, and he started channelling mana. This felt the same as channelling mana into his own magic circles, just a bit weirder. There was a certain amount of feedback when you were nearing the cap of what the circle wanted or could handle, but for this circle that didn’t happen. This must be what the crystal was for. Standing there, not wanting to overload anything, he took it slow and steady, focusing on the crystal as he let the mana flow from his body into the circle. It took several minutes of constant channelling, not wanting to overdo it he wanted to do this calm and collected. Being super focused on that gem, when it suddenly lit up he was startled letting out an extra pulse of mana by mistake before he was able to stop it. He started to stress, did, did he break anything? The magic circles around him started glowing, brighter and brother. There was an odd hum he had not heard from magic circles before and this didn’t feel right. It took several seconds, there were a few circles that pulsed, some pulsed red, some pulsed purple, these were smaller circles, he didn’t know what any of them did. Then suddenly one of the smaller ones pulsed white twice and remained stable white afterwards, the larger circles started changing colours in a scintillating pattern before everything in the room pulsed powerfully once. Gilliam couldn’t see anything, his eyes were readjusting from the light to the darkness, there was some weird smoke that smelled like a forest, was that part of the process? Since the magic circles had stopped illuminating the room Gilliam looked around for his to-be companion... But there was nothing there? He couldn’t see anything but.. No.. wait.. He could hear something? Flapping, but it was very, very tiny. It was clearly flapping and not buzzing like something small would do; it just sounded odd. Like a tiny bird. Perhaps it was a sparrow or something? Due to the bright light before and the sudden darkness now it was too dark for Gilliam’s eyes by contrast, he channelled energy into a light sphere and let the smoke subside a little. Turning towards the flapping that was now to his side he locked eyes with a small, weird creature. It was about 6cm (~2.36inch) tall, looked like a harpy of sorts with feathered white wings as arms, a single clawed finger on the joint where the wrist would be. The humanoid shape was present but its head was ever so slightly enlarged, large pointed-oval shaped solid-purple eyes. Its skin was dominantly covered in white snake-like scales, not everywhere; there was still skin around certain areas of the body. Oddly long and pale blonde hair reaching its mid back, with the hair and body physique it’s definitely a female. Her legs are triple jointed, with a hip, backwards-facing knee-like joint and an ankle. Easiest comparison would be to a small earth-bird; like a sparrow. This comparison is also valid for the feet, which have one stronger toe facing backwards and three facing forwards, all of them with tiny claws. Her back seems to have tiny spikes extending along her spine, ending up at her tailbone where a long seemingly prehensile tail extends, covered in the same white scales as most of her skin. In short, a tiny scaled harpy with a tail... She managed to hover surprisingly well, just hanging there, flapping her little arms, looking at Gilliam. “... Hello...” Gilliam managed to finally get out. The little creature smiled widely, showing a toothy smile with small fangs. “Master!” it flapped and flew surprisingly fast, crashing into Gilliam’s face, remaining stuck to him by holding herself in place in his hair. Saying that Gilliam was surprised was an understatement. “Wait, hold on...” he tried to get her off his face, but with her small size he was afraid he’d crush her if he used any force. In the end he got her loose, ending up having her sitting in his palm looking at him happily. “Master!” she again stated in her high pitch, tiny voice. “You’re the familiar I summoned?” He was confused, not dissatisfied, just confused. He had no idea what kind of weird, but oddly adorable creature that sat in his hand. “Yes! Master summoned Savia.” she replied looking incredibly happy, scampering over to grab one of his fingers, latching on in a hug. “Wait, wait, hold on. Savia? Your name is Savia?” Things made a bit sense, the process was not super specifically explained but he did read that the ritual would contact potential familiars and sort of ‘explain’ to them what this was. Sentient familiars had confirmed that before that there is a weird voice, feeling and weird knowledge in their mind explaining to them what the familiar ritual will entail, and they can agree or not. Nobody knows what happens if they refuse, but it was explained that the ritual was set up in a way that refusal was a possibility. The theory behind this is that it causes better bonds and better matched familiars. With this in mind, and the fact that she is talking and has a name and everything. Odds are that ‘the voice’ explained it to her and she agreed to it, understanding the concept of the familiar ritual. That might be some of the runes that have some telepathic component to it. The little creature looks at Gilliam, still clamping herself to his finger. “Savia is Savia, like Master is Master.” She smiles like this is the most obvious thing ever. A smile grew on his lips, this isn’t the big terrifying thing he halfway expected, in its stead he got an adorable little mini harpy thing. There was this strange feeling as well, like an external happiness. When you become happy seeing other people being happy, something like that but on an oddly more personal level. This might be the familiar link thing, she is happy so he gets an external happiness shared feeling thing. But that logic, since he’s getting kind of stoked at this she should probably be feeling it as well, this was interesting! Being way too busy inspecting this little creature Gilliam actually forgot to leave the room, he just looked at this odd creature that looked back with pupilless eyes, sharing a weird moment. Though there was an enjoyment and intrigue factor to this he also just felt a bit confused. She had clearly accepted this, and he had accepted that he would become the master or owner of some creature. But the fact that she was sentient kind of complicated it, it wasn’t slavery but it felt oddly close to it. This is something he would have to think about at some point. As he had a look at the small needle-like spikes from her spine the door opened, startling them both. In came the woman from the hallway. “Mr. Gibson, congratulations on your ritual’s success. However I need to be blunt and have you leave, there are preparations needing to be done for the next student.” “Oh.. yeah.. Sorry, I was just.. A bit focused on something else.” He forced a smile and felt super awkward, almost like he was caught staring at something or someone he shouldn’t have. He nodded as part of his excuse and left the room, but on the way he stopped with the lady and sort of confusedly asked. “So.. now what...?” The woman smiled a bit but at the same time sighed. “As we discussed before you entered, you should have the rest of the day, if not weekend off. So the two of you can get used to each other. Both of you are confused, and this is a new experience. You are bouncing your confusion back and forth making you even more confused. This is normal. Just go outside, let her loose, let her explore, go with her and just be with each other.” She smiled honestly in the end. “I’m also not sure what she is so... might be worthwhile asking around or learning more, could be nice just in general.” As she replied this she also sort of ushered Gilliam out of the room, without giving Gilliam any moment to ask anything else she closed the door behind him. Parts of him thought this was a good idea... he would probably just be asking her questions all day if not... She has clearly been through this before. However, once his focus again came back to the little creature in his palm, the little creature squatting in a weird sparrow-like sitting position, she just smiled back at him and he couldn’t really do anything but smile back. This was cool and interesting, he had weighed the positives and negatives before so past-Gilliam already handled this. If what the familiar lady said was true, him being a bit weird at the moment was normal, probably related to the linking of emotions and souls with another creature. He hadn’t realised that he had kept walking during this, and he suddenly found himself standing in the central room of the tower. Well, there were seven exits to pick from, the closest one at the moment was the Air field, so might as well go out there! Letting Savia sit in his right hand he opened the door with his left, he couldn't take his eyes off her as some kind of fragile glass figurine, he didn’t want to drop her. Not properly considering that she was probably very adept at flying based on her hovering and crashing into his face after the ritual. It was still early morning, the sun hadn’t hit the highest point of the day yet so this field was very sunny compared to the others, showing a slight glistening effect in Savia’s scales. As they exited the door she squinted for a few long seconds before she opened her surprisingly large eyes properly. Finding a decent place to sit he just plopped himself down, he wanted to know so many things but didn’t know where to start. She just sat there looking at him confused, not having let go of his finger since she latched on down in the basement. This staring lasted for a solid few minutes before a bird flew past them, seeming to trigger some fear response in her. This sent a weird spike of some weird feeling in Gilliam. Parts of him wanted to just go hide from the bird, another part wanted to crush it in the air... He supposed this was why there was time set off to get used to this, it sounded like you might need to relearn a few feelings and learn how to handle the new stimuli, so a good idea. “So, Savia-” he started, she turned towards him attentively, causing Gilliam to chuckle once before continuing. “-You don’t like birds?” “Savia doesn't like birds... Birds eat Savia.” She sounded honest about that part, which makes sense. The spikes on her back hints to some defence mechanism, her small size could easily become a target to certain birds and other small-game hunters. “Where did you live before?--- What did you do?---” A list of questions started spewing from him now that the conversation was started. He also found out that when she referred to anyone it was always a name, hever a ‘he’, ‘you’ or other words like that. Based on her explanation she used to live in a forest with others of her kind, though they were smaller, dumber and had different wings. Her kind are swarm creatures, living in a giant swarm that both aids hunting but also survival. She can bite with venom, also inject poison through her spine spikes if she wants, but she controls this so there is no danger to anyone unless she wants to. This was very important in the forest as her swarm hunted with venom, eating anything they came across. At the same time it was a survival of the fittest and her swarm had been attacked more than once, they were dwindling. ‘The Voice’, as she named the thing that explained the familiar ritual to her, explained that she would become someone's servant, someone with magic, who would protect, care for and feed her. This was also why she started calling Gilliam for Master, that’s what the voice explained. That was enough for her as it was a vastly better life than the survival lifestyle. She knew what magic was, she had seen others use it before, so she knew that a magic person could protect her from birds! Introducing himself she could pronounce his name easily enough but seemed to prefer calling him master. Parts of him had to admit that he liked it but at the same time it felt a bit... However, Gilliam became very intrigued by all of this so the latter mentioned discomfort faded fast. She was not just a different race, that part he could handle with the others he had seen around, but she was different in many other ways. Being a super tiny flying swarm creature also gave her very, very different problems and views on things. He always liked other cultures and people in a ‘not me’ kind of way. Meaning that people that were different to him in ways he could not experience was oddly interesting to him. How life was different for them with whatever made them different from him. Now, this creature was not only different, but incredibly different. This was already a good day, this was just making it way, way better! “What other things can you do?” Gilliam asked after the other details were discussed. She had already explained that she had venom, though Gilliam was too big to hurt, he would just get a little sick. “Savia can bite, Savia can fly really fast, Savia can see in the dark!” She sounded super proud as she listed her list of abilities. The nightvision idea was intriguing to Gilliam, but he also wondered how fast she could fly with those tiny wings. “Can you show me how fast you can fly?” As soon as he asked, it was like he gave candy to a child, she smiled brightly and beamed in pride. Taking a few steps of his hand to the side she sort of tipped herself over so her tiny weight had her fall over the edge. She took flight with her tiny arm-wings and started flying around. To her credit, she was pretty fast, especially for something that small. The speed was comparable to sparrows back home. Gilliam didn’t know the exact speed but he had read somewhere that they could fly in the upper 40km/h (~25mph+) somewhere, she was surprisingly acrobatic in the air as well. It seems that her tail worked as a rudder when turning, allowing for sudden sharp turns seemingly without effort. She came back after a few rounds in the area and ended up hovering in front of Gilliam like before. She didn’t even seem particularly winded. He held out his hand again and she landed gracefully. “Master, Master!” She shouted out as she seemed to just have remembered something. “Savia has clawfeet! And long tail!” She lifted one of her legs and showed her feet to him, a few seconds after she waved her tail in weird patterns. “Savia can climb and hang onto things!” Bird-bouncing over to his pinky she grabbed hold of it with the tail and let gravity tip her over, she ended up hanging upside down from his finger, something Gilliam found oddly amusing. After which, almost to prove a point she grabbed onto the same finger with her tiny feet and let go with the tail. She struggled a bit more due to the size of the feet compared to his finger but it was still amusing nonetheless. Lifting his other palm close to her she let go of his finger and landed on her back in his palm with a little flomp, legs splayed in the air and a wide smile on her face. She was incredibly adorable. “So, Savia, have you lived with humans before?” It was time he showed her his new life. It was not going to be the modern marvel he was used to, but he could show her magic and the academy. “Savia hide from humans. Humans attack. Savia always hide.” She still smiled and seemed oddly happy now. Might be that her sense of security has increased so much with this bond that she’s no longer stressed out by it? “Well, since we’re probably going to be here a while, let me show you around. We can start by getting some food.” Like a spell in its own right, the mention of easily accessible food had her practically glow in excitement. This was indeed going to be a good day.

Gilliam came to, but he realised that he couldn’t see anything. He could breathe, hear and feel, but not see. It didn’t take long before he realised that he was blindfolded, it was ragged so there was a little light seeping in through the corners, the blow to his head had made things blurry in addition to everything else. The smell of the air was rank, it smelled like the dry heat of a drought with the addition of rot, meat and trash all around. It was not to the level of nausea but it was not far from it. The air was hot, the kind of hot and dry air that instantly dries out your nostrils, filled with just enough particulate that he could taste it in the air, but not enough to make breathing too problematic. Trying to keep calm was hard, when he moved around he realised he was tied up, the sound of metal against metal jangling hinted that he was chained up. The wound in his side burned now that he tried to move, the blade was still in there and his movement reopened it, this was solidified by the feeling of something trickling down his thigh, this also let him feel that he was naked. The air itself stung in the wound, this was not a good palace. Forcefully calming himself down let him listen, there were a lot of sounds. The strong wind in the distance, the sound of various tones of voices talking, he couldn’t make out what was said but he could hear them talk. What sounded like punching and other various sounds in the distance. Just, everything at once. Without any visual input it was very hard to place everything. Suddenly a small voice shouted “He’s awake!” This was followed up by the sound of flapping away. The other sounds faded, seemingly everyone stopped doing whatever they were doing and waited for something. This something came stomping closer not long after. Gilliam got more scared the closer the stomping got, it was terrifying not seeing anything, feeling all of this, feeling this helpless and vulnerable while something large was coming closer. As the something got closer, so did a foul stench, it was like a burning pile of trash getting more and more overpowering, its breathing felt like morning breath times a thousand. It metaphorically burned Gilliam’s nostrils clean, causing him to cough a few times as his lungs got used to breathing this. The feeling of something blunt crashing into the side of Gilliam’s head startled him, trying to shake it off didn’t do anything, it clawed around his head for a second before it caught on the blindfold and flew off. The blinding light overpowered Gilliam’s eyes, taking several seconds before he could see anything at all, and even more until he could see anything in proper focus. Though as soon as the blindfold was torn off his face he started seeing what was going on. He was hanging by his arms and legs on some chains that ended up with manacles around his limbs, they were fastened to what looked like an oversized door frame. He was a solid 3 metres (~10ft) off the ground, around him was a large collection of various demons. A small imp of sorts that was flying off with his blindfold, more humanoid shapes with wings, claws, tails, horns, fur and what have you were scattered around him. Some were dressed in armour and branding weapons, some were less dressed if not outright naked. In front of him was a large and terrifyingly familiar shape. A 3 metre (~10ft) tall demon, built like a bodybuilder, glowing yellow eyes, wings on its back, sharp teeth and a set of large and intimidating horns. Based on the missing left leg, at the lowest joint, it seemed to possibly be the gate master from the first portal. He briefly wondered how he ended up in this position, a sting from his wound, the blade still embedded in his side let him piece it all together. The runed dagger was probably some teleport beacon thing, the blinding light he felt after he was stabbed felt identical to the teleportation trips with Aeris. The sharp pain in the back of his head was probably someone knocking him out as soon as he landed in this place. Oddly smart to be honest, knocking him out as soon as he arrived, before he could even see from the blinding light in his eyes. “You don’t look like you’re shit.” The large demon spoke, a deep rough voice sounding like its vocal cords were subwoofers filled with gravel. Gilliam decided to try and take advantage of the assumed language barrier and not react to the words. “This... thing.. Took out two of our gates?!” the demon that Petal identified as the Gatekeeper shouted at the other demons around. Some yelled, some booed but most remained silent. “I can kill it with a flick!” the Gatekeeper raised his massive hand and flicked Gilliam in his chest. This felt like having a wooden log slam into his chest, this caused him to let out a failed muffled grunt of pain, it knocked the air out of his lungs, the dagger was ejected from his wound and though he couldn’t be certain, this might also have broken a rib. He coughed violently after it but did his best to stop as the coughs hurt almost as much as the flick itself. The demon was not wrong, he probably could kill him with a solid flick. Some of the demons started laughing, one of the servants scurried underneath Gilliam and picked up the dagger. This was a demon not too different from Petal’s apperance, though a male. He ran over to the Gatekeeper and presented the dagger to the Gatekeeper in a deep bow while holding the dagger on his flat hands well above his head. The Gatekeeper took the dagger and the servant promptly ran off to hide somewhere as the Gatekeeper liked the blade clean. “Tastes like weak human to me:” he laughed in a taunting tone, again a lot of the others joined the laugh around him, it was incredibly cliché. He needed to get out of here, find somewhere that he could heal himself, the wound on his side was not bleeding as much as it should have but it was still bleeding a lot. His potential broken rib and god knows what else that flick did to him. He wanted to go back, he was pleasant and entertained in the world before this, he felt sorry for the underlings of this world and even more for himself at the moment. He wanted to try to cast spells but decided against it, just in case it worked this might hasten his demise. According to Petal’s explanation of what they did with prisoners, he was most likely to be fed to some lord, alive was better so until that was happening he should be relatively safe... “Open the gate to the Heart.” the Gatekeeper shouted at someone Gilliam couldn’t see, he was too busy trying to find the least painful way to breathe. Gilliam wanted to force himself to gather more information but that was out of the question, his head hung forwards and all his focus went to breathing. It hurt so bad that he had to force himself to breathe through the pain, his body objected but there was really no choice. The flick might even have punctured a lung. Since healing magic was based on knowledge, hopefully these wounds were simple enough that knowing the possible problems could be enough... but he couldn’t openly heal, he couldn’t do anything but take it for now. Luckily for him it seemed that the Gatekeeper left after a taunting grunt to... probably help with the gate to the Heart that he spoke about. Gilliam was left hanging there alone, in plain view of everyone in the area. Suddenly coming to, Gilliam realised that he blacked out, he had no idea how long he was out for, like Petal explained before there was no moving sun here, it was just permanently lit up. Judging by the blood on his side it was at least a while, it had coagulated and he was at least not actively bleeding at the moment. Based on the pool of dried blood in the dirt beneath him he had lost quite a lot. He felt incredibly weak, breathing was still painful, his wrist and ankles were also hurting now although the pain in his chest overpowered this considerably. The only good thing was that he was not being actively monitored, all the demons around were doing their own thing. Some were fighting, some were quite intimate in the open area with the others and some were just sleeping. But this let Gilliam try to heal! He still had to be somewhat subtle about it, he didn’t know how acute their mana sense was, focusing some healing energy in his body, rather than sending the energy down his arm and into his hand for touch-healing, he did his best to gather it in his chest. The wound on his side, though not healed at least it had stopped bleeding, meaning at the moment it was secondary. Healing worked on knowledge so he started with the lungs, remembering the images and explanations he was given in school or through various media. He didn’t have proper knowledge about it but he knew that the lungs were some weird elastic material filled with blood vessels. Using this alongside just focusing on enhancing the natural regeneration in that area should mitigate his lacking knowledge... Right? He had to be careful, not gather too much energy while staying silent, any structured magic was out of the question as it would be too visual, the unstructured he could try to keep internal and, it worked! His breathing got easier, still pained from the broken rib or ribs but it felt a little bit better at least. Not wanting to stop too soon he rather overdid it in length and kept focusing on this longer than needed, only stopping after he didn’t feel any improvement for a while. Stopping healing all together for a good solid few minutes as he looked around to see anyone reacting, only after not seeing anyone did he try the same for the ribs. Not having proper knowledge at least he knew how bones worked, and though rough he had an idea on how they healed. Like before he focused his energy, gently, weakly, focusing it in his chest. It slowly started getting better, the pain subsided. This kind of back and forth healing, trying his best and keeping it small, gritting through the remaining pain as it slowly improved did just that; slowly improve! In the end he focused on the cut on his side. He had no idea what kind of internal damage was done so he focused on the external wound for now, that was closed easily enough. To at least try to make the internals better he couldn’t do more than accelerate the natural healing and hope that anything would fix itself.... He didn’t know how long he used this, but based on earlier tests this should be a five minute fix if he didn’t have any restrictions, now he probably used at least an hour if not more. It was very hard to tell here when the shadows didn’t move as the sun didn’t change location in the sky. His lack of blood he couldn’t do anything about, he had no idea how blood was created in the body, all he knew was that you often got water and perhaps some snacks or fruit if you gave blood, so he most likely just needed water and rest... He had partial rest... The Gatekeeper seemed like he was going to work on the gate with the others, Gilliam had no idea how long this was going to take, nor how much time had actually passed since. He needed to find a way to escape, preferably before the Gatekeeper was back as the locals would most likely be much more active when he was there. He needed to get rid of the chains somehow and escape. But he was weak, so very weak. But he didn’t have a choice. Escape here and find somewhere to heal, he had magic so he could perhaps just make his own underground bunker for a while... That actually didn’t sound like a bad idea... But first he needed to escape. The chains holding him looked old, worn and rusty, if they were rusty they were most likely made of at least some kind of iron. They were thick, not thick enough to tear him apart with their own weight but enough to be a problem. They could probably connect smaller boats to their anchors. But... Magic seemed to work, which was his only chance, no way he had the physical strength to do anything about them. But how to do that, he needed a way to break them all at the same time, at least his leg chains first so he could land, if he got the arm ones first he would probably brain himself against the ground... He was pondering for a few minutes, straight up physical force seemed the most likely at the moment, he didn’t have the focus to create any form of structured magic to keep things silent. The best idea he had at the moment was to use telekinesis to brute-force the chains and then just leg it, or use a flying spell and zoom away. This actually didn’t sound like a bad idea, but he had to be fast, he still didn’t know when the Gatekeeper would return. He was only three metres (~10ft) off the ground, even if he didn’t get his slow fall spell activated he could land at this height without taking damage... His current condition could change this but he was running out of options. Starting to focus the energy around his chains, he wanted to gather the needed energy so he could pop them all roughly at the same time, he didn’t need to shatter them, just break one link. Imagining a crowbar of sorts he focused for a good solid few minutes. Suddenly he noticed that some demons started looking at him confused. Shit. He had gathered enough energy for them to notice, he would have to strike now. Focusing the gathered energy into a forced bending of a single link in the chain close to his feet, not gambling to target the manacle itself at his current state, he was incredibly relieved to hear them break. The chain fell to the ground with a loud noise, this alerted everyone else to what was going on and had them stop what they were doing. Balls... Using the remaining energy he had gathered he mimicked the event on the chain around his wrists, again he was relieved to hear the chains break, but he was now in freefall and he quickly found out that in his current state it was faster to just land. He landed with a hard thud, spraining his ankle in the process. Focusing healing at max power on said damage he started running. Or rather limping away at his max speed. Luckily his max speed improved dramatically once his brute-force healing process hit what it needed and he was now fine enough. It still hurt but as the horde of demons that was chilling around him only a few seconds ago had now started chasing him like a chaotic wave of creatures. He needed distance, he needed to get away. Luckily enough the night before all of this weird shit happened he did get a rudimentary flight spell tested, it was not perfect but it would propel him! Forming the magic circle in the air the runes Aether, Flight, support and Speed in an odd format formed, this had Aether in a circle alone at the north point of the circle, it was connected to a triangle with the three others further down in the circle, making an asymmetric magic circle where the Flight rune was in the center of the circle, but at the top of the triangle. All this happened as the demon horde behind him came closer. The magic circle consumed the needed energy and then moved to embed itself on Gilliam’s body, his running stopped as he started hovering instead, a little smirk grew on his lips as he focused the spell forwards. This focus had him increase his speed dramatically. Though he was supported so he didn’t have to consider falling back and forth he was still not super stable, it was the flying equivalent of running on ice; stable enough until something went wrong. He made significant progress, and aiming upwards at the same time he got some height and a quick overview over the place; this had him dread more than before. He had made significant progress in getting distance from the demons, so he had a few moments before the flying creatures caught up with him, but in his vantage point rather high up he could see the whole world, so to speak. It seemed that the ‘world’ he was in at the moment was nothing more than a landmass flying in space... kind of. It was not black with stars but rather floating in a weird haze like a constant calm sandstorm of sorts. The landmass was huge, easily able to house several cities in the modern world but it was nothing more than a dry desert, lots of spiky rock formations and it kind of looked like the pictures from Mars back home. Just more pointy. There were some constructions here and there, from his elevated position he couldn’t see what they were or what they were made of but given the landscape and the place that had him captive it’s probably stone. For now he needed to leave, a swarm of flying demons were headed his way, and he didn’t want to end up back in captivity. Since there was no cover of darkness he would have to go underground. They would most likely just swarm any mountain range if he went to the closest thing that could be considered as such. Starting to fly downwards he just needed to get down and somewhat in hiding, his body was full of pain, lack of energy and general feeling absolutely horrible. He had healed the worst of the damages but he was absolutely not healthy or healed completely. Not to mention that in his weakened condition he was not doing well mana wise either, breaking those chains ate a lot of energy. Finally making it to the ground he made some more distance between him and his soon to be less-than-friends. Hiding behind some rocks he proceeded to cast a spell focused on earth; it had the runes for Earth, Tunnel and Restore. His idea was that he could tunnel downwards and later in another direction, the Restore rune was to make it look similar to before he tunnelled to hide his position. This seemed to work as intended, he found himself tunnelling dowards for quite a time, before he turned to an arbitrary side and kept going for a longer time. He had no idea how far he had gone, it was dark and in his haste he just went for it, using the glow of the spell itself for navigation. Deciding that this was good enough for now he stopped, using another simple spell to create a decent sized room. It ended up as 10 m(~33ft) in each direction, somewhat cubeish in shape. The air was dank but luckily it seemed that his wind spell didn’t just move air, it could create it. Much like how his water spell gave him something to drink. At this point he finally relaxed a bit, the first time since he woke in this world, the sudden rush of fatigue that followed had him instantly collapse and fall asleep.

Ghaos narrowed his eyes uncertain towards Gilliam. “Just to make sure...-” he started while still on the subject of the mind-slave. “-You do know that the spell doesn’t remove free will, right?” “... It doesn’t?” Gilliam replied. He was unsure about the whole thing, he briefly read about it but didn’t actually read into it, there were a lot of details he was lacking. “Ah, I think I see the problem now.” Ghaos smiled a bit to himself. “The spell doesn’t remove her free will nor does it affect her personality. The only thing the spell does is making her unable to go against any orders you give her, harm you and things like that.” Leaning a bit to the side he used his staff to support himself, even though it was as tall as him. “This is mostly used for criminals and dangerous slaves... In the legal cases it’s used, that is. In some cases it might be used to force a slave to do something they would normally not do but unless ordered they are still very much themselves.” Ghaos had a weird smile accompanying his explanation. There was more to this explanation than it sounded but in short the spell didn’t really affect the.. Well.. Victim as hard as it sounded. “As long as it’s not against any orders, she can act pretty much like she wants.” This really did put Gilliam at ease, he half expected her to live in a weird lobotomised daze and just do as told. It was an evil spell, after all. But in that case it really made sense why she would volunteer for this. Based on what it sounded like the whole ordeal would be better than what she lived with in her own world. Gilliam realised that he needed to get better at properly understanding something before he made up his mind about something... He always hated when people did that back in his own world so... He really was becoming a kind of hypocrite, was this what it felt like for the people only doing social-media-research but being certain about their own topic? “So... she will still be herself, she can do whatever she wants on her own unless it goes against an order. And an order is final no matter what it is.” Gilliam summarised, wanting to make sure he got it properly this round. “Yes, pretty much. Naturally they cannot do things out of their skill or physical abilities. Someone not able to lift heavy things cannot be told to lift a horse, they won’t manage, they will try but will just end up hurting themselves. And if you tell someone who can’t cook to make dinner, they will make dinner but it won’t be perfect. But they will follow the order to the best of their abilities.” Ghaos had properly read up on this subject, most likely Jial as well but Jial seemed the more direct kind of person. Ghaos felt more... grounded and proper about things. Gilliam still didn’t like the slavery thing, however this was a gray zone since she’s suggesting this herself. It was more like indentured servitude, and the only thing the slave spell was going to do was make her unable to resist orders... Could he not just make sure she wouldn’t hurt anyone but other than this give her autonomy? That would just be a secure way to let her live fine. The more he thought about it and the more Ghaos explained, the less bad this sounded. Yes, it was still slavery and mind-magic, but it’s not like she didn’t know what she was going into and... Yeah... he disliked the concept but in her specific case it was not a bad one. Just... he would end up owning another person. Though it was an invading enemy he felt it went against a lot of morals and laws back home. Slavey was oddly common here so it was less bad... but still. “Fine-” he replied to the other humans in the room. “-I’m not super fond of this but I guess it’s a better option than others.” Jial nodded and left through the door. “I’ll get the supplies.” Ghaos remained in the room, it was clear that he was the security guard just in case something happened. If he was the leader, captain or whatever it was, of the battlemages he was probably one of the better people for the job. Gilliam turned back to his soon to be slave. Considering this it was not as bad as it sounds. Yes, he will be owning someone else and they are compelled to do as he orders but... If he just didn’t order more than absolutely necessary she could have a decent life... As decent as a demon could have in a world where demons are invading... But, adding that she would become, as they mentioned it; ‘slave of the Heptagon Mage’... He didn’t like that she boiled down to a PR stunt but that could perhaps also protect her a bit. Servants, familiars and... The property of mages were passively given a certain status and protection, people part of a mage’s Circle was also somewhat linked that way as well. So, though this might just be Gilliam convincing himself, she was getting a better chance at things with this. Perhaps that’s why Ghaos and Jial were so relaxed about it. “So, it seems this is happening.” Gilliam had accepted this and either gotten it explained or convinced himself that this was not as bad as it sounded. He did have a modern Earth mindset but this was a weird scenario. Though he was not happy-happy he was still better than before. The chained up demon seemed legit happy about this, actually smiling a little showing pointed teeth and enlarged canines, akin to predatory hunters. “You know, I never asked your name. I’m Gilliam.” he smiled at her, realising that he should have started with that a while ago. “My name is Petal.” her smile faded. “Oh, that’s a surprisingly nice name.” Gilliam blurted out before he realised what he had said. “No, it isn’t. Cute and nice names like that are given to the lesser ones of us... It’s a sign of weakness and being worth the same as a mere flowerpetal.” She seemed like she was about to curse her own name. And Gilliam again realised that their cultures were quite different. It didn’t take long before Jial came in, interrupting the conversation, he was carrying a yellow hued gem as well as a fancy vial of some liquid. There were also a few scrolls tied together to a small stack. He started the process right away, unfurling the scrolls and reading through them. Gilliam got a glimpse and it seemed to be a simple guide to the ritual. He started by handing Gilliam the gem he brought. It was a little elongated, had odd shapes and bumps almost like it was naturally formed. Though not well you could somewhat see through it. It basically looked like vaguely colored glass. “Channel energy into this. Like you did with the familiar ritual.” As soon as Gilliam took the gem Jial went back to what he was doing, something with the inky liquid in the vial. Gilliam started doing his own part of things, he hadn’t done this a lot before, but it was the same as channelling energy into a magic circle. Starting to do so the gem changed colour a little bit, becoming pure white. The more he channelled the more the gem went opaque, he continued and the gem started to glow after a few more seconds. Ghaos approached in a slight panic “Stop. Stop. You’ll break it.” Stopping immediately the gem remained glowing like it was filled with LED’s, a pleasant glow about the same as a white smartphone screen. Not flashlight worthy but plenty to light up a pitch black room, at least in the nearest area you were standing. Taking the gem from Gilliam he handed it to Jial, who just took it and continued doing what he was doing. Taking a look over everything it seemed that he had used the ink to draw a circle on the floor, and another on her forehead. She looked a little confused but followed the mimed orders Jial gave her to lift her face and, well, it wasn’t like she could do much anyway in her chained state. The whole process looked ready once the larger of the scrolls was rolled out, displaying a larger and much more complicated circle, on which Jial placed the glowing gem. “I just need one more thing. Give me your hand.” Jial held his hand out for Gillaim to place his own in. Hesitantly he walked closer and handed Jial his hand. Jial immediately grasped his hand tight, and in one fluid motion Gilliam barely saw a very small magic circle activate in a flash before there was now something yellow on Jial’s finger. He swiped this past Gilliam’s hand which both felt like being cut and left the same expected wound of being cut, he started bleeding. Savia suddenly reacted and seemed like she wanted to pounce on him, but seemed to somewhat realise the situation and stopped herself. “Ow, the fuck, man. Why did you do that?” “I need your blood for the ritual. When people don’t know it’s usually less problematic.” He replied as he pulled Gilliam’s hand over the gem and let the blood drop down onto it, soaking into the parchment below it. He kind of had a point, people tended to wince and be all reluctant when you knew you were getting hurt, even if just one of those finger-tip blood sample things. But having it be random removed the self-inflicted stress. A few seconds later this was apparently done as he let go of Gilliam’s hand and waved for him to step out of the way. Following the gestures he stepped away, the wound was very shallow, not more than you’d get for accidentally bumping into an exposed nail. A few seconds of the most basic of healing magic that Gilliam could use had it go away completely to the point where you couldn’t see that it had ever happened. Jial looked at Ghaos who nodded at him, turning back to the ritual Jial seemed to start. There was a sudden glow of white light, it came from the gem and seemed to consume Gilliam’s blood and seep into the parchment before it made a strange white mist that stretched out and connected to the circle on her forehead. The complicated magic circle on it started glowing in a pulsing colour changing pattern. The mark on her forehead was scintillating in the same pulsing pattern, the main difference was that the clean circle on her forehead was forming lines. The ink was painted on her forehead but was now burning itself into her skin. Much like if you wade through snow, leaving a path behind you, small points of light were forcing themselves across her skin to form the new lines. She seemed to react only barely, either this was not too painful, she had some resistance or she just had a high tolerance. The process took a solid minute, Jial activated different parts of the complicated magic circle on the parchment. After which they disintegrated and followed the flow of energy from the gem into her forehead. The shape on her forehead started getting clearer and clearer, it seemed that it had formed a circle with 7-points along its circumference. The lines looked like a single line going between the points, but skipping every second point. It started at the first point at the top, skipped point 2 going to 3. Then skipping point 4 going to 5.It followed this pattern until it returned to the topmost point. The full path was 1-3-5-7-2-4-6-1. Making a strange, but somewhat simplistic magic circle. The process continued until the gem had used up all its energy, returning to its almost translucent yellow-hued self. All lights died down, circles deactivated and the complicated magic circle on the parchment was now completely gone, leaving only a blank surface. The symbol on her forehead was still very dimly glowing, Gilliam could barely see it even in the very poorly lit room they were in. “Good. It was successful.” Jial stated. “Looks like it.” Ghaos confirmed as he had walked much closer to her now. She was panting like she was resisting something without breathing for a short while. Which made sense... It looked painful so this was probably her powering through. “I suggest you start with the standard orders-” Jial explained as he was packing up the items he had used for the ritual. “-The normal starting ones is to never harm you or anyone else, directly or indirectly, and to always be honest with you. Formulate it however you want but you need to start with ‘I order you-’. That’s the trigger for the spell” He had almost cleaned up by the time he was done explaining, it was just the gem, some scrolls and the vial that was already closed. Gilliam walked closer and mentally prepared himself for the first, and hopefully, only order. Considering the formulation to cover it all properly, but not in a way that would hamper her too much. This felt so cringe, he felt his insides knot up like watching one of those compilations. “I order you to never harm me or anyone else unless I specifically allow it. I order you to always answer me honestly, truthfully and never withhold information.” As the order landed the mark on her forehead pulsed once. Gilliam guessed this meant that the order had been set, so to speak. This felt very robotic and... Well, he supposed that it was... Wait, hold on a minute. He turned to Jial and Ghaos. “Now that I think about it... Couldn’t you just have given her that learning language spell thing, there was a pamphlet in my room. You could just do that to her and one of you could have done this.” He was a bit annoyed at this, this was just thrown at him, though the language barrier could have been an excuse, according to the pamphlet a single spell can shove an entire language in your mind. “Oh, yeah, that’s true. But then we would have to take care of her.” Ghaos had a shit-eating grin in response. They clearly didn’t just forget about this... They just didn’t want the hassle, the need to care for someone like this or the possible stigma of having a demon with them. God damn it... “There is also another factor.” Jial chimed in. “You are the one who destroyed the gate. You are the Heptagon Mage. You are the one who will face the least problems with this. Just imagine it. A ‘normal’ mage-” he made finger-air quotes around the word ‘normal’ “-with a demon following them around after what happened. After what will happen. Having closed the gate. Having already become a hero though localised. You will face less problems than the rest of us.” Gilliam could sense a mix of a smile in there, but also some envy or annoyance. It was hard with Jial most of the time. And Gilliam hated to admit it, but he had a point. It became a PR or political thing suddenly. And though he would definitely have at least some issues when he had a demon tailing him around, given his lack of foothold in the world, the whole Heptagon Mage thing and that he was the one to destroy the gate... Yeah, it made some sense. He couldn’t let go of the thought that most of it was that they didn’t want to, and the mentioned reasons were added in hindsight, but damn it if it didn’t make at least a little sense. “Fine, but I expect that as some form of payment that you’ll at least give her the basic language pack. If you need a reason it’ll make getting info from her easier.” Gilliam mostly wanted that for her sake, if she was to integrate... somehow into the world she needed to speak at least one of the languages. And if there was a cheat that let you just insta-learn the language, it would beat having to use time to get sort of acceptable at it. “That can be prepared. Normally that’s a pretty costly event but I’m sure we can persuade them given the value of the information she can give us.” Jial looked to nowhere in particular for a minute, the last time Gilliam saw him do this he was telepathically speaking to his aide, the tanned farmer man. He suspected that the teachers had a network set up based on earlier events, so he was probably talking to a teacher or his aide now. “I have scheduled that to happen tomorrow. Not everyone is capable of doing this so we have to get the correct mage to plan for it. But for now I think that we will have a long talk with your new friend here.” Savia had taken to playing with Gilliams hair during all of this, not having anything to contribute nor was this really that interesting. Just people talking in a language she didn’t understand anyway. She almost needed help as she had accidentally tied up some strands of hair around her feet, but she managed to get them loose before she had to request aid. “Can we at least release her? I already gave her the order to not hurt me or anyone without me specifically allowing it. And I ordered her to always be truthful and not keep any information from me... The thing-” Gilliam pointed at his forehead “-pulsed... so that means it’s working, right?” It sort of made sense that this was how it worked, but... He was wrong with the whole base-concept of the spell earlier, so he might be wrong with this as well. “Yes. It pulses when a new order is implanted.” Gilliam wasn’t too fond of the word Jial used, but it sounded correct. “I think with those orders in place we can release her.” Getting the chains loose was a surprisingly elaborate process, not only did they have to physically unlock some of the chains, but others had to be magically released. On top of that there were some specific magical circles charged with several Pain-runes that needed disabling to even let her exit the cage. She was still in just simple underwear so this felt a bit wrong with three men in the room with her, but she didn’t seem to mind that at all, all she seemed to enjoy was being free from the chains. Bending and stretching she just wanted blood back in her limbs. Now that she stood upright, Gilliam noticed two things he couldn’t see before. First her tail could touch the floor with a little to spare, the whole arrow-shape part could lie down flat, second the hoof sounds made the sounds you’d expect from hooves. Though this was not something illogical it was just weird hearing that sound from a person... And lastly she was smaller than expected, it was hard to see while she was chained up in a weird seated position but she was only about 150something cm (~5ft) and rather petite. This kind of made sense, if her people grew in size and strength by eating people or eachother, she was a servant given the bare minimum of food so she would probably not grow. “I suppose we should start again with the information?” Gilliam asked the two others who nodded in response. Turning back to Petal Gilliam really wanted to give her some clothes, but this was somewhat important. This was a weird interrogation, mainly just asking her the questions again to make sure they are true, and asking followup questions or whatever the duo wanted to know. Might as well get this over with. “So, let’s go through this again.”

Gilliam opened his eyes slowly. The first thing he noticed was how bad he felt, he felt like shit both mentally and physically. The second thing he noticed was that he was in an unfamiliar room, the layout of several empty beds along the walls had a very recovery room feeling to it. Before he could sit up or do anything he felt a weird positive feeling kind of from the side, this felt like the same kind of happiness he felt when Savia experienced positive things before. It didn’t take many seconds before she crash landed on his face with a huge smile on hers as she repeated “Master! Master!” over and over. Seems she noticed him waking. Though there was plenty of happiness through their shared link there was also a sub-tone of relief and worry. Gilliam didn’t really know what to say or react to this, he was oddly fond of the idea of someone worrying about him this much but at the same time he felt a bit bad for her. “Hello.” Was all he managed to reply with, though he did have a slight smile as he did. Forcing himself to sit up, readjusting his position so he used his pillow between his back and the headrest he had a somewhat comfortable sitting position. This forced Savia to fall off his face, as he expected that to happen she landed in his cupped hands as he sat up. Shortly after he sat up and she properly got situated in his right hand she started rambling, Gilliam struggled to catch it all as she moved from topic to topic and spoke at an alarmingly fast rate. The best he could catch was that she was explaining the things that happened from her angle, which seemed to focus a lot around him. This made somewhat sense, they were the ones bonded, not everyone else. And though he didn’t know how her species were about everything the Familiar bond was somewhat unique in this. The end of her explanation was a bit different, it seemed to be focused around after the event, after he passed out. “Calm down, I can’t understand you when you speak like that...” Gilliam had to interrupt her, though he was interested in the whole story he was most interested in the parts after he blacked out. “What do you mean you needed to protect me?” He didn’t catch it all, but she mentioned something about protecting him after he ‘fell asleep’. “Master fell asleep, after helping. Savia protected master, other human took Master. Put master in room. Savia protect master!” She puffed her chest in pride during her explanation. Oh no... Gilliam became worried. Though it’s good that she did her best to protect him, the fight was over as far as he can remember. And she referred to whomever took him to a room so... This was probably the people of the academy. As he was about to comment on this the door opened and a young man in white robes came in, his badge had a silver disc, a white and red mark on it explaining him as a Fire and Light mage in the 2nd year. “Oh, you’re awake, that’s great!” he didn’t seem too distressed though as he came closer he didn’t get too close, stopping a few metres away. Given that Savia hissed at him, something Gilliam didn’t even know she could or would do, things fell in place. She had indeed protected him but she didn’t understand. “No, he’s a friend, he just wants to help me.” Gilliam explained to the angry creature in his hand. She looked up at him and immediately smiled both at Gilliam and at the healer. The healer smiled a bit as a result of this, although there was a hint of defeat in there. “She was adamant about your protection, I suppose we can be lucky that her venom isn’t that strong and we have healers...” There it was... one of her victims... She did explain that humans were too big to be in danger of her venom but it was still venom, even a bee sting sucked though it was harmless to anyone not allergic. “I... I apologise for her behaviour, she just wanted to protect me from the unknown...” Gilliam couldn’t -not- take responsibility for this. Though his teaching her about society was suddenly halted only hours after their meeting it was still on him to control the situation. A bit hard when unconscious but still. “Don’t worry about it, the important thing is that you are doing well.” There was an honest gentle smile backing up his statement. “You just suffered from severe mana fatigue, you were out for two days.Though I’m told that the man you helped would not have survived without it, so I can’t really fault you for it. I would have done the same.” His smile turned from warm and calm to a more proud nature. “Ah, that’s good. I’m glad he made it out.” Gilliam’s smile was more forced and painful. The man got hurt protecting him during... The fight... Now that the topic was properly brought up it all flashed before Gilliam’s eyes again; the chaos, the blood, the death... He felt nausea creep up in his throat, he had never even seen a dead person before but this... this was just too much. Those people didn’t deserve it, they were just trying to defend themselves, to defend their students, defend their fellow people, their world. Though Gilliam didn’t know any of them that well, he had just been here a few days after all, he still couldn’t excuse this. He realised that the mental image of piercing the demon with his spell didn’t even matter, it was an invader that deserved what came to him. The teachers and students did not. This had Gilliam curl up a bit, Savia jumping from his hand in flight, only to land in his hair in stead. She clearly sensed the distress but didn’t know how to handle it. The healer had a sad smile, he clearly knew what was going on. Given the situation he had probably seen it a lot. “Don’t worry about it. I know it’s not easy but consider the positives-” Gilliam looked to him as he explained, what could possibly be positive with this? “-You saved everyone else, nobody was able to close that gate but you did. Though we cannot be sure there is a chance you saved not only everyone here at the academy, but the areas around the school as well.” This... did help a bit, the situation was out of his control so changing anything was not possible, but he did indeed stop it from getting worse. Though not super heroic in a sense it was still very positive that it stopped. “Besides-” the healer continued, again taking Gilliam’s focus, he walked to the door he came in from. “-I think there is someone who wants to speak to you.” Opening the door and stepping out, he talked to someone outside of view. “He’s awake, fine physically, just mana deprived.” His smile was odd and honest. It didn’t take more than a second before there was the sound of someone getting up from a chair fast enough to make it move and hit the wall. A few fast steps after and a man came around the corner into view. It was the soldier he healed to the point where he blacked out. The man walked over with determination and without asking or even caring he lifted Gilliam from the bed and locked him in a tearful embrace. “Thank you... Just... Thank you...” His words were honest, filled to the brim with emotion. “I... You... You’re welcome...” Gilliam replied as he was literally dangling in the air through the hug. The man was quite taller than him and clearly incredibly strong. Even though Gilliam was somewhat ‘under attack’ at the moment from Savia’s point of view, she seemed to behave at the moment and not attack. Perhaps now that he was awake the shared bond aided somehow? The healer smiled at them, Gilliam saw him over the soldier’s shoulder. “His daughter is a student at the academy as well.” Nothing more needed to be said, he just closed the door to them. It took several very long and awkward seconds before Gilliam was let back on his feet. Still quite surprised at the situation he found it incredibly touching. “Again. Thank you. I know you were just acting in the moment, doing your job or whatever excuses you might come with but... I cannot thank you enough. Not just for myself but... If there is anything I can do, anything at all. Say the word.” He looked incredibly determined. Like, adamantly determined to repay this. “I don’t need anything in re*” Gilliam didn’t even get to complete his sentence, the guard interrupted him with metaphorical glints in his eyes. “My name is Asol Kineh. My daughter is Rotia, your badge is bronze like hers so you might have seen her. Long red hair, better built than most her age?” He sounded like he really wanted to introduce her to him Gilliam didn’t get to properly take this in, taking a better look at Asol Gilliam noticed now his face is scarred, clearly having some claw marks going across his nose and lips, the way they move seems like it might have gone into his chest as well. A brief flash of his bloody body, armour slightly torn where the claws had shredded themselves into his body. Like a recording Gilliam saw him turn his body to see the wounds, channelling the healing into his body, bleeding stopping and wounds slowly almost closing before he blacked out. “Oh, these?” Asol replied as he traced his fingers along them, breaking Gilliam out of his daydream. “I think they’re pretty cool, so don’t worry about them.” he sounded genuine but Gilliam couldn’t avoid the mental image of what he looked like after the attack. Literally being shaken out of his thoughts, Asol smiled at him. “No, don’t go there. I know what you are seeing and it’s not pretty. In stead focus on the good things and take your time.” He had a sad smile on his face, there were quite a lot of those today. Asol had clearly seen his own share of things. Both Asol and the healing mage did have good points, the positives are better than the negatives. Though this hit Gilliam hard, the positives did outweigh the negatives. And although it felt wrong to his core to weigh the lives of people like this against each other, the only thing you can do is your best, which is something Gilliam felt that he had done. Not exactly out of his pit of despair he was in a better place, Asol honestly helped more than Gilliam could have foreseen. He seemed like a good man and great father. “I think I’ll go get something to eat.” Gilliam said with only the hint of a smile, all things considered he was super hungry. “That’s the spirit!” Asol cheered as he halfway pushed Gilliam out through the door and halfway down the hallway before he had to part ways. He had neglected his job long enough. They parted in good spirits and though Gilliam still felt pretty bad he felt much better already. Making his way to the mess hall he got weird looks from a lot of people, in the form of hushed conversations, conversations stopping once he gets close, people just staring or similar reactions. It honestly felt uncomfortable, was this related to him saving someone or because he couldn’t save the others? The uncertainty made him slightly paranoid but at the same time, he went through the event like everyone else... It shouldn’t be that bad, right? Eventually making his way into the hall he got in line like normal. One pair of students noticed him and started staring, then others did the same and it didn’t take long before most of them were either just silently staring or talking amongst each other in hushed tones. It felt weird on several levels to be stared at like this by a bunch of young teenagers. After a short while a young student decided to speak up. It was quite hard to find out if this person was male or female, there were more male than female there but it was not easy. The young boy had a 1st year pin with only the yellow field colored. “Was it you?” he asked uncertainty. Gilliam was halfway uncertain if he wanted to answer or not, but he hesitantly replied with a question of his own. “Was it me who did what?”. Though it was without a doubt referring to the event but before he confirmed anything he wanted to just be sure what he admits to. “Did you break the gate?” The boy had the same uncertain tone to his question. Gilliam felt a bit relieved, though he halfway assumed this was what people were reacting to, he was incredibly relieved that it was a positive thing they were being all shady about. “Yes, it was.” Gilliam answered honestly, he tried to act humble and calm but there might have been a little satisfaction in there. “So, you were the one that sent that spear through both sides of the barrier, the crystal, the stone behind it and still reached the skies?” He was... detailed, Gilliam himself didn’t even consider that to get through that far the spear had to go through both sides, so double the barriers. There was probably some stone in the arch as well, so... The boy was correct but it felt weird. “Yes, I guess so.” This time he managed to act a little more humble, mainly due to the uncertainty of the situation. Given the staring from everyone around he was also not feeling entirely on top. “Please, teach me that circle formation!” His composure and uncertainty broke, the boy instead broke out in a wishful hope. “I only saw three circles and the effect, I need to know!” Gilliam realised this was going to be a trying moment. To get that over with as soon as possible he kept getting some food for himself and Savia. Though she didn’t eat much she still got her share which was just a random small piece of meat that had fallen off a larger one. For himself he filled a bit more on his plate as he spoke to the boy, if he could keep focus between them perhaps others would not break in? “I can’t properly remember it, I kind of just made it up then.... And ther..e...” As he completed his sentence he realised that he made it worse... Had he pretended to know it and just not wanted to share it, then everything would have been normal. But to admit that he made up a three-circle array with sub-circles nested within, on the fly... As expected, the boy in front of him was just baffled, like giving proof to your religious icon’s existence he was just the embodiment of confusion. It only took a few seconds for an almost unanimous “What?!” to echo in the room as most people hearing this couldn’t believe it. The fact that it was not dismissed as just bull, meant that... he already had a reputation or something. Gilliam didn’t know who to curse, if this was a teacher, Asol or... No, it was probably just some students. They were without a doubt on the walls, some helping and some just wanting to watch, rumours spread but when you can say you saw something first hand it becomes a bit more believable. “Wait, wait, wait.-” The boy finally returned to his senses and continued talking from there. “You made up that array on the fly?” Damn it, he couldn’t lie now after just confirming it, but perhaps he could make it a little bit less amazing? “Well, sort of. I did use a minute or so to get it properly set up.” Balls... this was just more bragging. Realising that eating alone wasn’t happening this round he placed Savia on the side of his plate and shoved her piece of meat over to her, she happily began eating without a care in the world. Gilliam started eating as well as he just started walking towards a table near the door. The young boy was still just as amazed. “Then you can create it again, or at least something like it, right?” Oh, the boy was sharp. Annoyingly so. This was true, he could probably do that, even though the pressure of the situation probably helped a lot. Desperation is a hell of a motivator, but even without that, given the weird knowledge of the runes he could most likely make something amazing by normal standards. “I don’t know about that-” Gilliam realised he was about to admit that he had just started learning, but that would just have another reaction. “-It was sort of a panic moment thing. I doubt I can recreate it just like that. Sorry, don’t think I can help you.” There, good, at least some truth. “I don’t believe that. You were the one that made that explosion in the mountains as well, right?” The boy had a smug smile, like he got him on some blackmail thing. And gods damn it... Gilliam doubted that Detia would share this as a teacher, she might but he seemed more likely that the young Aeris could have shared. He wanted to deny it... but he disliked lying without a good reason. Instead he sighed loudly and simply nodded. Using his mouth for eating. There was another reaction of most of the students in the room, though to Gilliam’s surprise this was more subtle and had them discuss amongst themselves. This made sense, the events outside against the demons were a good thing, he saved people and whatnot. The one in the mountain, they don’t exactly know what happened besides but they felt it. So the latter might be a bit more scary in a weird way, mainly due to the unknown factor. Gilliam decided to use this to just eat, he wanted out of here. Though, the more he thought about it the more he wondered if this was the Hero path that Angela mentioned, the so-called Prophecy. To be honest, it might be, if more of these gates open then it fits the concept. Though the preferred outcome is that this never happens again but given how adamant and prepared the demons were... that doesn’t sound likely. The young boy got a bit too close for Savia’s liking as it seemed he was about to ask for some teaching or whatever. Flapping her wingarms a few times she took flight ending up between their faces, hissing with quite some ferocity for someone of her small stature. “Savia protect Master, go away human!” She shouted in her tiny voice, the hissing was more terrifying than her statement. This actually worked and the young boy took a step back, Gilliam lifted his hand to a platform letting Savia land. “You don’t have to protect me against him, he’s friendly.” Like before, her mood instantly swapped over to satisfied and happy with a large smile. Sitting down in Gilliam’s hand she slides herself over to hug his ring-finger, being the closest at the moment. “You... can understand her?” The young boy asked, baffled and confused. “... Yes? Can’t you?” To Gilliam Savia had always just been speaking English. Come to think of it, all the students, teachers, Angela... Everyone was speaking English the whole time. He assumed it was some translation thing that had him think in the local language when he landed, which was V’idan according to the ‘learn a new language’ flyer in his room. Whatever language they were talking he thought Savia spoke the same one, he assumed that either she knew it from before or the summoning ritual taught her since she’s sentient. “N.. No.” The boy answered hesitantly. “The noises she makes doesn’t sound like any language I know, it sounds like forest sounds.” He seemed adamant on this and based on the nodding of certain students around him this was apparently a true thing. Things started making a bit sense, the local language, Savia, this might be why and how he knew the magical runes. If whatever has him understanding language is just letting him understand absolutely all language? Or at least a collection of languages? “Oh, that is interesting, how many languages do you know?” Gilliam was now interested in the young boy a little, if he knew several languages this would be a good test. “I know V’idan, Albionian, Alothian and some Draconic.” He looked proud of that, and to be honest, knowing about four languages is amazing so he was right to. The redhead from Gilliam’s class broke in, based on descriptions of her; this must be Rotia, Asol’s daughter. “I also know some Goblin and Orcish” she puffed her chest on this, based on the reactions of others this was apparently amazing. “Ok, hit me, just say something random in different languages and I’ll see if I understand!” Gilliam was a bit pumped now, almost forgetting the chaos and pressure from the room before. One could also argue that this kind of scatterbrain mentality might not be too good for a mage but such is life. The two spoke to him for a minute, saying odd things about his apperance, about things in the room and just things about the weather. Gilliam replicated it all in ‘English’. “... Everything you have said now sounds like the same I’m speaking now...” He was a bit confused, he didn’t doubt them that they were actually speaking in other languages, but to him it all sounded like English, perhaps a bit of odd grammar in some sentences but it was just more of the same. “I think I need to check with a teacher about this.” He didn’t sound sure about things, and he decided to not mention the magical runes as that would most likely swamp him. But this was indeed interesting. If all this was true, they were speaking in six different languages, adding Savia and the runes that make eight languages he just understands. Was this tied to his Heptagon gift? He had no idea, so he needed someone smarter on this. Noticing that he had managed to eat his food during the tests this was a good time to bolt before they started asking for more things. Sure, it was a bit hypocritical or egoistic to abuse their knowledge in language and just bolt without giving them anything in return but... He didn’t know how smart it might be to just give them magic runes, given the power and versatility that came with just adding or changing a single rune with Jial before. “Well, with that said, I think I’ll leave for now. Thank you so much for the tests, it helped a ton.” he smiled honestly and started for the door. “You don’t think that’s rude?” The young girl he assumed to be Rotia stated, stopping him in his tracks. “Oh, I do, though I don’t know what I can give back. I’m not teaching you magic circles or runes, so...” He decided to just be upfront about it. It felt more honest than leading them on. “I only want to master magic, anything you can teach me is good.” straightforward and honest. The problem is that he probably knew more than Gilliam did in most subjects “A date!” replied the young girl. Gilliam looked at her with a ‘you what?’ facial expression. “Ok, no, absolutely not-” Turning to her first. “You are like what, 13?” She broke in and corrected him that she is indeed 14, this stopped Gilliam’s sentence and had him start over. “So, you’re 14, that is 12 years younger than me, you’re about half my age. Absolutely not.” He could tell this hurt her feelings a bit, but he couldn't confirm if it was just because of the no to the date or if it was the flat out refusal. At the moment he decided to not go further than this. If nothing else it sets a precedence to everyone in the room so this wouldn’t happen again. “And you-” he turned to the young boy. “-I don’t know as much as you might think I do. Study the magical runes, there is more to be learned there than you think.” Though he had no proper basis for the latter comment it was based on the interaction with Jial. Since his speciality was magical circles he would have a decent grasp of it, and if he was that baffled with just a few new runes then this should be a good hint for them all. This time Gilliam left without being stopped, there were attempts from both of them but also from seemingly random students in the room wanting their own questions answered. “I am Rotia Kineth-” The redhead girl introduced herself as she had followed him and did her best to keep up. She was doing fine but her legs were shorter so she almost had to jog. “-You saved my father, he was probably waiting for you before, you can’t miss him, he's huge.” She smiled proudly as she introduced her father. “We’ve met, a nice fellow, it seems like you have a good father there.” Gilliam honestly, and with a tiny bit of envy stated. His own parents weren’t the loving kind. “He lifted me up in a hug.” He added at the end. “That sounds like him.” She giggled. She intended to say something else but was interrupted by the young boy. “My name is Jedark Suiaerl. I might only be a wizard but I intend to become a recognized name. With that in mind I would love for yo*” His introduction was simple and reminded Gilliam that he needed to re-read the hierarchy of the different mages. Though, Gilliam didn’t let him finish as it was clear where he was going with this. “I’m not taking you as an apprentice, nor am I teaching you magic or anything else of the sort. That’s what you are here at school for.” Speeding up he wanted to outpace them, but it seemed that both of them actually had pretty good stamina. “Don’t you have classes to attend? Please leave me alone.” Gilliam pleaded to the duo tailing him. Jedark replied with a questioning face. “There aren’t any classes, haven’t been for a few days. You didn’t know this?” Rotia broke in and answered for him. “He’s been asleep for two days, of course he didn’t know!” in a very matter-of-factly tone of voice. Leaving them to discuss between each other for a minute Gilliam realised that he had stumbled on an active melee sparring. There was a large temporary-looking ring made in the grass where two students were fighting with wooden swords. This was being overseen by the only adult in the group, he didn't look too tall, around 170cm(~67inch) or so, he looked slender but in very good shape. His black hair should have reached his shoulders had it not been for the ponytail he had it fastened in, his stubble hinted that he’s not a super kempt man. Currently wearing what looks like a green tunic thing with darker green stripes, black pants and shoes. Some belts held everything in place. At his hip was a sword that looked very flat and wide, the pommel was a hexagon shaped ring, its crossguard was two curved crosses sticking out on each side. “Oh, if it isn’t the hero!” he shouted out as he noticed Gilliam. This had the students in the ring focus on him as well, stopping the sparring in its tracks. “Is the hero here for some training?” he spoke in a somewhat grandiose but clearly fake for the fun of it kind of way. “To be honest... It was not my intent but... I could probably use some training.” Gilliam realised some of the mentioned things before, Jial stated something about in certain cases if you cannot use magic or if the swing of a sword is faster than a spell, the spell could be considered useless. “Someone give the Hero a sword, and we’ll see where he is. The name’s Kintas.” the trainer made a flourishing bow, overdoing it to the point of almost becoming obnoxious. “Oh, so you’re the one that stalled the bossdemonthing.” Gilliam stated as a student handed him a wooden sword, it looked much like what Gilliam would define as a longsword. Even though he seemed to remember that it was never a proper thing, the media liked that term. “I doubt I can do much against you, then. I think this is my first time holding a sword.” Gilliam smiled sheepishly. He was ready to have his ass handed to him. “Yes, but don’t say that, we could have a prodigy on our hands, you got magical gifts, perhaps you also got something for weaponry?” He smiled, looking stupidly cocky about himself. Gilliam waved the sword a bit to get a feel for it then took a stance that felt natural. Kintas eyed him with an impressed expression. “Whenever you’re ready.” he challenged Gilliam, standing completely relaxed without any hint of a stance or aggression. Gilliam was apparently to take the aggression, inhaled and exhaled deeply once he felt a tiny spark. Wanting to capitalise on this he darted forward, aiming to see if he could at least land a single hit.

Gilliam couldn’t say that he liked the cheering, it felt wrong. Yes, he won a duel and if what he had explained only minutes before, this was a legal and legit fight but... he did the magical equivalent of punting a child down some stairs... He felt dirty. He didn’t regret it, not at all. It was for a good cause, to use that comparison, but he still didn’t exactly like it. The students around him seem to share the same view, there were cheers, trade of things Gilliam assumed were bets and, save the healing mages and Garend himself, everyone was very positive about this. However bad he felt there was also this part in the back of his mind that enjoyed having gotten acceptable at this. To avoid the crowd of people as much as possible, this felt like a good point to leave. As soon as Petal came over they left towards his room. Interestingly enough having Petal around seemed to aid in this, given that people were still afraid of her they gave them the way by moving out of it. Suppose racism at least has a tiny, tiny, extremely tiny positive effect at times. He disliked even considering this a positive thing. Avoiding the kids asking him things he just rushed past them, they seemed to want to know something or ask him some stuff he didn't care about at the moment, not being the best of people in a crowd Gilliam just wanted to get back to his calm room. Luckily this was not a problematic thing, it seemed that the crowd were more interested in staying around the trainwreck that was Garend at the moment, letting him and his companions slip off towards the Third Wing. Passing through the Air Field was also not a problem. The wing hallways had several entrances along the sides for simple entry or exit, picking the closest one to his room they entered, climbing the square-spiral stairs up to the third floor before making for his room. The whole ordeal was rather rushed, speed walking and taking two steps of stairs for each step. He had done nothing wrong but he still didn’t want to handle that crowd, it still felt wrong, something he just couldn’t get his mind over. Sure, it was a kind of self defence mixed in with just how society worked here, but it was his first proper fight and it was against a child. The training with Chaos didn’t properly count here as it was a planned training session with an expert, this was just... He sat down and relaxed, this was very different from fighting the demons a few days ago, but... He kind of liked it... He didn’t sit and ponder for long, he had some time to process as he made it across the field and up here, as well as some moments after sitting down but.. No, he really does feel like he liked it. The power, the chance to put the snotling in his place, the metaphorical mega slap... in his chest... with magic. Was that why he was reacting like this? It actually might be. Petal was a bit worried, Savia even more so. She had flown from Petal’s hands and crash landed on his face. He had picked her off his face and let her sit in his hands for a moment, looking into nothing in particular as he continued thinking. Was he always like this? He might have been. Being lucky enough to never had to properly fight in his whole life before coming to this world he didn’t really know how he would react to all kinds of things. But like most people, at least most men, growing up on heroes and other cool characters in the media, he always liked the idea of being the powerful hero beating the bad guy. In his growing life this took many forms of epicness or simplicity but... The wish for power and the drive to use this for a good cause was very imprinted on him from a very young age. Petting Savia in his hand like a small sparrow he kept wondering about himself a bit more as he came to the conclusion that yes, he didn’t like to have potentially fatally wounded a child but he absolutely liked the power. According to Angela he was destined to become a hero in this world, to do great things with great power. He had a lot of different thoughts on being forced into this concept but... Was he really forced into it? He really wanted to be a hero, and like many he really wanted power for egotistical and heroic reasons. No. This was not a bad thing, this was just the first proper taste of power, the taste of his progression in the short time he had been training. The fight against Ghaos was controlled training, the huge explosion in the mountain was testing, the fight against the demons was very sudden but terrifying. This duel was the first time he had felt like he was in control, like he could actually put himself where he would like to be. A satisfied smile had formed on his lips during his contemplation, this put Petal at ease and Savia had long since calmed down once she felt the satisfaction over their bond. Being petted like this didn’t seem to be a negative thing either. Personally there was nothing against taking out smaller problems on the way but he was going to follow his childhood dream. He had grown since when he was the young and naive kid imagining that just punching the bad guys won the day, he absolutely disliked the idea of killing but... His adult mind understood the concept of permanent victory. He was thinking about this a lot, and many scenarios played out in his mind. All from the simplest of childlike heroism to the darker and more macabre ‘doing the necessary’ moments. His mind tended to overthink things when chance allowed, and the duel was clearly a first for him which sent his mind down this path. In the end his mind calmed down and he realised that he was accepting the possible bad with the larger list of good that comes with this. Yes, he was going to take this for what it was worth. “My Lord?” Petals voice spoke out for the first time in... however long he had been in this mental state. He reacted almost like someone came out from the shadow suddenly talking at a louder than normal volume. My lord? She had never called him that before... had she? “Y.. yes.. W.. what?” The complete reboot of his mind mid sentence had him at a loss for words. “Are you... Unwell?” she didn’t seem that worried, more confused. “Y- Yes. Yes I am.” Though he replied honestly at the moment this was not really true when he started this contemplation. This way of thinking was rather heavily frowned on in modern society so it was a rather strange blow to his normal sense of what normal is. “And... My Lord?” he put a questioning tone on the latter part hinting that he just wanted confirmation. “That’s good. You seemed like you went through a lot of faces there.” She paused a few seconds before answering the question. “Yes. You are My Lord, after all. Or should I refer to you in a different way?” She seemed to be a bit relieved. Though it was a good thing that she cared, Gilliam found her caring a bit odd. She was all nice and caring towards him even though she was an enemy only yesterday. She was now his servant for better or worse and... well.. He went through all these thoughts about the brand before but, he still felt odd about that she seemed to care for him even though this was not part of any orders. Ending up not wanting to ask her about it at the moment it sort of boiled down to her life having improved so it might be some way to try to keep it and not be thrown away.. Or something... He felt a bit mentally weird at the moment so he didn’t want to mix in more. “No... that works fine...” He was fine being called Lord, it felt better than Master. Master had gotten a weird taste in Gilliam’s mind due to how it was often used in... certain media. When Savia used it, it didn’t feel as weird for some reason, her innocence might be part of that. Looking out the window he tried to find out how long he had been in this mindset, Savia didn’t know the concept of time in any practical way and Petal’s way of measuring time was practically nonexistent. He would have to teach her this at some point as well. The sun was still up, well past its midpoint, they used half an hour on morning hygiene, a few hours on the early tour, some time on food, not even half an hour on the language learning thing and the whole duel thing took like 5 minutes so... He was apparently in his weird mindzone for a rather long time... Though there were still several hours left before a normal evening would be a thing. He really wanted to just take it calm, not do much in the sense of stress and just have fun with things but... He had to get better at magic, get used to thinking about things on the fly and attack with precision. He really did want to become powerful and learn magic for his own sake but... in this case it was also survival tied to it. There was an incoming invasion, if lucky they could sabotage it before the gate opened but... He needed to figure out some training method, one easy way to make up spells on the fly could be a concept association training thing... Yes... that could work. “Petal, I need your help.” He turned to face her properly as he used one of his legs to push out an available chair to her. She nodded and sat down without hesitation. “I need to get better at thinking about magic, so I would like you to quickly just example a scene for me, this can be something like someone attacking with a sword, another gatekeeper stomping towards me, an incoming spell or.. Well, anything really. I will think and manifest a magic circle as fast as I can and then I can use a moment to analyse what I did to improve.... Does that make sense?” He did realise that his explanation was not exactly super detailed or amazing, it made sense in his mind but it also had to somewhat make sense for Petal’s mind. She listened to his explanation and seemed to catch on the idea faster than Gilliam expected. Only pondering for a few seconds she started with her first example “A small winged creature is shouting and charging you with a spear.” Gilliam did his best to not think too much and just metaphorically blurt out the first idea he had. Flinging his palm out he manifested the first spell idea that came to mind, but only the magic circle, he didn’t fuel it with any energy or took it past the circle stage. On a second glance it seems he instinctively just made the barrier spell, the better one, that Ghaos taught him. That’s good, a defensive spell is a good start. Trying to not think too much he just imagined attacking the same creature and manifested the first example in his mind. It seems to be a slightly upgraded version of the spell that he used on Garend, an Aether sphere but this one was set to explode on contact. Not a bad concept. Gilliam took some notes and gave Petal the OK for the next example. At some point Gilliam sent for food, he decided that it was easier than going there himself after the whole duel thing. Students often did this during self study time so that didn’t even seem like a weird thing to do. This evening dedicated to magic preparation also gave him the possibility to plan a few other spells he had been wanting to set up, things like flight, small energy blades, slow fall and other good utility spells, he took notes of them and tested out the smaller things in his room. This was how the rest of their afternoon and evening went. Gilliam woke up to a familiar uncomfortable feeling, like someone having set fire to a specific spot in his room he felt a weird heat from that direction. This felt like what he had learned the gathering of mana was feeling like. Having jolted awake he found out that Savia had apparently been sleeping in his hair, as she was now super tangled and needed rescue. Petal was sleeping in the bed with him but seemed to have taken his explanation about modesty and covering up to heart so she was at least in her underwear. There was no time to consider any of this, he threw on his pants, halfway his shirt and shoes before he made his way outside. Savia managed to get herself loose during all of this and Petal got dressed, though having only a simple dress to add this was simple. As soon as he was kind of ready he made his way out, meeting the chaos of every single student in their rooms having had the same idea, the hallway was filled with panicky and curioust students. Briefly imagining that someone might take advantage of the chaos to attack Petal, he turned towards her as they were running. “Petal, if you feel that you are in danger, as in you are in danger of bodily or direct mental harm, you are allowed to protect yourself. But you should do your best to not kill any non-demons and bring healing to them. Demons you can do nuts about.” There was without a doubt better ways to handle that command, but this was what he managed on the spot as he was dodging students down the hallway. At the very instant he got through the door for the stairs down he found out that this was not going to work, the torrent of people moving through here was like any rush traffic; practically still standing. “Petal-” Gilliam turned to Petal suddenly, taking Savia out of his hair and handing her to Petal. “-catch up if you can, or meet me there.” Not waiting for a response he climbed through the closest window and jumped out from the third story they were currently in. Having practised a slow fall spell just last night this worked out wonderfully. It was simple, used Aircurrents to alter how he fell but confined it to just himself. He fell over as he landed, but he was unharmed, the spell needed some tinkering but for now this was a great success! Getting to his feet he made towards the feeling he expected was another portal opening. Having gotten out of the confines of the hallways there were much fewer people to elbow with to get there, he found himself outside of the southern gate like last time, just that the situation was very different this time. Students were still told to return but due to the volume of them this was more or less impossible. The teachers and faculty were preparing themselves, as was the guardforce. Ghaos was there, his staff’s runes glowing an angry red. He could see other familiar faces like Jial and Ledels as well, even Asol was present, although he was understandably much more scared than the mages. Like last time there was a red sphere that was already at the multicoloured hissing stage. Not wanting this to open, as well as taking advantage of the information that Petal gave them during the interrogation, if he could damage it enough it would destabilise and perhaps even hurt the demons conjuring this. Running over to Asol, Gilliam placed a hand on his shoulder. “There isn’t time to explain, can you hand me your spear when I reach for it?” This was what he had done before, though he intended to just use pure mana and energy the first time, during his testing and on-the-fly creation of the last spell it was easier having an object to throw, and a spear was good for this. “H.. Hello.. I mean.. Yes.. ok.. Yes!” Asol was taken very, very off guard but he somewhat remembered what happened last time and seemed to be fine with it. Not missing a beat Gilliam inhaled deeply before exhaling just as deeply. He didn’t remember the exact details of the spell from last time, but he remembered what it needed to do. There were three circles, one to protect the spear, one to propel it at idiotic speeds and the last one to aid with aiming. The first and second one were the important ones, and the energy for the second one could not be underestimated. He started to focus, creating a teal circle in front of him, populating it with geometric shapes, a collection of runes and sub-circles in place of certain runes. The second circle formed in front of it acting like a funnel of the spells behind it to aim it properly at the target, the third circle dealing with protection of the spear formed last. At this point nothing was complete, since Gilliam didn’t remember it from last time he had to recreate it from scratch, this changed runes, changed sub-circles, remade entire geometric shapes into newer ones. People around him started giving him space as the size and complexity of the circles grew, seeing that this was aimed at the forming angry demon orb people moved to the sides. Gilliam only caught a glance of the people around him reacting and though he didn’t know if they moved because they knew what was happening, or just the uncertainty at the amount of runes used, it didn’t matter. He somewhat knew what he was doing and people moved out of the way, win/win situation. The circle of energy started to expand from the circle, so it was not long now until the portal opened. Gilliam fed the first and third circle with their needed level of energy, which was almost nothing compared to what the second circle needed; this was a hungry boy. Gilliam fed it more and more. More and more. Enough energy went into this one circle to make certain graduates envious. The sphere’s circle was growing in size, would not be long now until it contracted, it had to be now. Extending his hand in a ‘gimme’ motion to Asol the spear was in Gilliam’s hand instantly, thrusting it into the first circle it collapsed around the spear and covered it in a deep emerald green field before the third circle contracted and spawned several smaller circles in row towards the target; guiding it’s aim. Activating the second circle had it collapse on the spear and in a blink of an eye later it broke the sound barrier as a whipping thundering sound marked the end of the spell as a long beam of light had extended from Gilliam, through the orb shield, through the orb and the other side of the orb shield. The magic jet-trail of light extended far into the distance before the whole beam slowly faded into nothing. The energy ring around the red orb faded into nothing over several seconds as the orb itself shattered, falling to the ground like coarse sand. The disgusting energy that was gathering faded alongside the energy circle and after the red orb’s fragments had settled on the ground everything went back to normal. Gilliam widened his stance, grabbing Asol’s shoulder for stability. Though he was not out of mana at this point he still felt wobbly, he was not used to spending this amount of mana in one spell yet, so the sudden discharge was oddly draining. People looked around, mostly at a mixture of the red orb’s disintegrated fragments and Gilliam, before a massive cheer broke out. A lot of different things were hailed in it, all from certain gods to other names he had no ideas about, but his name was very, very prominent on most of them. He couldn’t help but feel somewhat proud of his achievement, this time he had closed the gate before it even opened, no casualties, no one harmed. This felt good. Petal with Savia came into view at the same time, Petal looked amused but somewhat indifferent, Savia looked ecstatic on her master’s behalf. Gilliam was basically swarmed, physically and vocally with various kinds of praise. This felt a bit weird but it really felt good. This time he earned it and he knew it. He was getting back and shoulder pats, nods of approval and more questions for dates than he had ever considered in his life before. He was honestly happy until a sharp pain from his side suddenly announced itself like if he was stabbed. The crowd went silent, Gilliam only got a second to look around. A young student was letting go of what looked like a heavily runed dagger that was now left in Gilliam’s side, she was being swarmed and punched into the ground as Gilliam grabbed the dagger in his side. He could see the red glow in her eyes fade into a confused expression. But as soon as he made contact with the blade’s handle there was a strong energy surge and bright flash akin to when teleporting with Aeris. As the energy surge he felt had faded, but before he could see anything he felt something impacting the back of his head, everything went dark.

The battlemage didn’t waste time, getting closer with his staff in hand Gilliam quickly found that a shield didn’t mean anything for him. Using the staff in both hands Ghaos put one side around the corner of the shield, then with raw might he flung that sideways, not only did this send Gilliam severely off balance but it also moved the shield to the side. Ah yes... Even if you have an indestructible shield it’s still attached to your arm... This thought passed through Gilliam’s head a split second before the other side of Ghaos’ staff did the same. Like before Gilliam came-to on the ground. Though, the casting of the shield and stopping of the exploding crystal had shown Gilliam that there was a chance, it was slim, we’re talking snowball’s chance in a forge slim but it was there! And so started their back and forth. Ghaos would win some exchanges, Gilliam would almost win others. In short Ghaos kept wiping the floor with him. The few spells Gilliam managed to get off just hit nothing but the barrier walls. But he did manage to get more and more spells to actually cast. This went on for considerable time, due to focusing on the madman in the dome with him Gilliam didn’t properly have a control over the passage of time. He had no idea if they had been in here for minutes, hours, days or even weeks. It felt like weeks but logically speaking it should be the same day still. If nothing else based on the people outside. But it still felt like weeks. He had been ‘killed’ a lot of times, broken all kinds of bones, ‘woken up’ from what he assumed was head damage more times than he cared to count. The sadistic maniac of a teacher kept at it. Every time Gilliam improved a little or realised something it seemed like Ghaos did something, adapted somehow and made whatever Gilliam realised, worthless. Suddenly Gilliam’s first attack connected! He had managed to bring up a smaller shield, almost like a buckler of sorts, and rather than blocking an attack from Ghaos’ staff he managed to redirect it, putting the battlemage ever so slightly off balance! Having realised that smaller spells take less time to channel, thus are faster to cast, using third of a second from Ghaos being ever so slightly off balance Gilliam had managed to raise thin spears from the dirt ground. It was a handful of small spears that penetrated Ghaos’ legs and arms. Either the surprise of this action, or just that the spears pierced muscles or tendons, actually had the murder machine drop his staff! Not wasting a second Gilliam sent out a telekinetic strand and yanked that staff to his own hand! It felt like a strong victory just getting to this point, he had disarmed the battlemage! This lasted a total of at most two seconds before Gilliam found that Ghaos had closed the distance, already had his hand back on his staff and a fist was en-route to Gilliam’s face. Ah yes... That makes sense... He started out with hand-to-hand combat, why would it be a problem now. As his nose cracked itself back to where it should be and healed, Gilliam still took the short-lived disarming as a huge success, it gave him a motivation and had proven that there was a chance! Small and hard to take advantage of but it was there! This didn't change the power balance at all, Gilliam would have to figure out something. He was still riding on the high that he disarmed Ghaos a mere few seconds ago but that wouldn’t help in the long run. He only got the simplest of spells to cast at all, but they rarely hit, and the few times they did they didn’t have enough punch to do anything. This usually followed up by something breaking or waking up after having his skull caved in. There must be something he’s missing, trying to take in the options he had available, there had to be something missing, something he could do. His thoughts were often broken up by Ghaos’ attack actually breaking something. He most likely still pulled his punches, he also seemed to always wait enough to let Gilliam heal up before continuing. This was most likely part of his plan to crash-course Gilliam into learning something, but what, there had to be something he was waiting for. Trying to defend himself just fell short, Ghaos’ expert skill worked around that easily. Trying to attack either missed, Ghaos dodged or in the off chance that it hit, it didn’t do enough damage. Gilliam just didn’t have enough time to channel enough energy to have it matter. Well, there were a few times he attacked instinctively... No... wait... That might be it... He never wanted to hurt Ghaos, did he instinctively hold back? Like biting your own finger, you have the power to bite through a finger easily but you stop yourself subconsciously, it feels like you’re not able because your brain pushes the brakes. No, that made sense! Gilliam so far had just been attacking to attack, to try to cast a spell. The shield always had enough energy to withstand even a hard blow from Ghaos himself, why else does he work around and not just power through. But when attacking he suddenly didn’t have enough power? No, it was never about the lacking power, it was the breaks kicking in. This was a superpowered healing area, this had been proven again and again, Gilliam had felt this working fine to the point where he should most likely have died. Shattered bones fix themselves in seconds, even having some of his fingers torn off from a well placed blow mended themselves in just seconds. Ghaos himself said that this thing could regrow limbs easily. Why was he holding back? Well, the logic of not wanting to hurt someone, sure but... This was the only perfect palace to do it. Not only will he get practical experience without the side effects of long lasting damage or death. He could go nuts, just... Getting up from a broken leg, it mended as he used his other leg to support all his weight. Ghaos stopped in his tracks for a moment as he seemed to have noticed something. Gilliam thinks he knew what it might be but right now he needed to let loose! He had a straight up cheating level of potential knowledge about magic circles, the mythical runes mages use time to research he could read as words and concepts, he could make them on the fly. A grin formed on his lips, though a bit too soon as Ghaos didn’t plan to wait, Gilliam’s jaw made a sickening crack as Ghaos’ staff impacted it at great speed. Like before Gilliam found himself on the ground shrieking in pain. If this didn’t affect his focus nothing would, a shame that it affected it very, very much. A few seconds of healing and it had healed, Ghaos was more on the offensive than before but Gilliam needed to do something. Before he got back up he cast a spell on the ground, he didn’t think too much about it as there weren’t many consequences in here. The five point magic circle flashed and disappeared as fast as it appeared. In the instant the circle disappeared the ground shattered. Like someone had just broken a glass plate the ground beneath them had large cracks, loose rocks and a lot of instability. As he got to his feet two glowing circles with the rune for Stability had attached themselves to his feet around his ankles. Ghaos had to widen his stance and move around a little to find a non-broken patch to stand on. Gilliam was standing on rubble but his feet acted as if he was standing on solid ground. Turning towards Ghaos he didn’t waste time, he was going to ignore elements or anything fancy, he was going to treat this as the dirty fight it is, he wanted to win. Heavens how much he wanted to win this. Pointing his palm towards Ghaos, Gilliam formed a five runed circle. The five used were Aether, Ball, Power, Swift and Speed. The circle flashed like the others had before, the energy was drawn and a super fast yellow orb of energy blasted out from where the magic circle was only a fraction of a split second ago. Ghaos instantly recognized where the aim was and dodged to the side. However he was too slow. Even with his trained reaction speed he didn’t manage to escape the speed the double velocity rune could produce. Though he had moved his leg a little the sphere still burst through his calf like a bullet, trailing blood and bone splinters, kicking up dust and debris as it hit the dirt behind it. Ghaos seemed to have realised something else and took an aggressive stance, his leg mended as he did and as soon as it looked fine he took towards Gilliam. This time he pulled out two magic crystals and threw them at Gilliam. Gilliam didn't waste time, acting on instinct and not thinking more than needed seemed to be what did the trick. Incoming bombs, they were either a distraction or the main attack, easier to just block them all at the same time. Flinging up a Barrier he made it through Unstructured magic at the moment, it was easier. Tapping into Aether he created a dome around himself, this would stop the bombs as they detonated against it, but also stop Ghaos. To make sure it was strong enough he gave it a lot of mana. A split second later a deep emerald green dome formed around Gilliam, this had Ghaos stop in his tracks but the two gems shattered against its surface, exploding in multi-colored light. Gilliam had on purpose made his dome floor-less, this let him connect to the ground which was his next step. Forming a magic circle on the ground the ground around Ghaos suddenly sent out tons of spikes. He had made the targeting area larger than needed to accommodate any dodging, overdoing it a bit for the example. This worked exactly as planned, the battlemage jumped surprisingly high to the side, but the spikes covered this area as well and shot higher than anticipated. Most of them missed, breaking themselves against the dome above them, but the ones under Ghaos contacted and pierced the battlemage. Ghaos remained hanging, impaled in the air, his grasp on his staff failed and it fell to the ground with a metallic clang. Had this not been a healing charged area he would without a doubt have died from this. Dismissing the spell had the magic effect stop, but the spikes were actual earth so they didn’t disappear. To make it a little easier Gilliam broke them through the use of unstructured earth magic. The battlemage fell to the ground with an uncomfortable thud. He was still moving, but it took a few long seconds before he was able to stand again. Gilliam gave him a few solid seconds until he could move again, though he was still standing in his shield dome. Ghaos ended up with a palm towards Gilliam, looking defeated. “I think we’ll call it here, you learned what I wanted you to learn and I can tell from this point, you would end up just overpowering me again and again.” He looked defeated but oddly proud. “Oh... I thought we’d be continuing.” Gilliam sounded a bit defeated as he cut the energy to the barrier, having it flicker once and disintegrate. “If you absolutely want to fight more, I’m sure that Kintas out there would gladly be of assistance.” he gestured towards an oddly interested looking Kintas outside of the dome. Taking a look around Gilliam could now properly see what was going on, this event had pulled a serious crowd. There were kids... discussing with other kids where some looked very victorious and the other looked defeated, this felt like betting. Most looked oddly terrified, potentially from the treatment of these two men in here... it was brutal. Petal was just confused and Savia just sat in her hands with a satisfied smile. The sun had set and it was getting dark fast, it was late in the evening. They started this midday or so, meaning they had been going at it for.. What.. 10 hours? Gilliam really did want more... but at the same time he was uncertain if that was smart. He had made progress but if the Battlemage said that he was done, but Kintas could take over... Just how skilled was Kintas? “How good is Kintas?” Gilliam asked instead of wondering, often a better way of doing things. “I haven’t won against him yet.” he looked super defeated at his own answer. This answer also had Gilliam absolutely not wanting to fight him, remembering back to the invasion he was the one tasked to stall the Gatemaster as well... Kintas might be dangerous. “I think I’m good.” Gilliam replied a bit defeated. If he was that dangerous then perhaps in the future once as a test but... it didn’t sound fun. Kintas looked a bit sad outside of the dome, he clearly wanted a round but Gilliam was happy that Kintas respected his wishes. “But... Why did you have to be so insanely rough? You could have told me what you wanted to teach me, that could have saved so much pain...” Gilliam was whining a little bit, but it was more a question for curiosity. Oddly enough now that it was over and the pain was gone, it’s not that bad. It was a nightmare when they fought and his bones kept breaking but it felt oddly far in the past. Only now did Gilliam properly realise that his clothing was, well, damaged was an understatement. It was to be expected but he hadn’t realised during the ordeal. He would have to inform the reception later. Ghaos pondered for a second before he answered. “I could have told you that I wanted you to learn to let go of your restraint, the fear of hurting someone. But I have found that explaining this to someone doesn’t have the same effect as having them realise it themselves.” This made a bit of sense, in a lot of cases realising something for oneself has a stronger epiphany sense and might stick better, rather than just being given the answer. “I didn’t want to hurt you but... Well, I have done this for quite some time, the fastest and best way is to create hate or dislike. Breaking you over and over makes it hit better.” It really did sound like he knew what he was doing... They started leaving the dome as Gilliam pondered, one side of him wanted to report Ghaos for the hours of torture, but the other side of him couldn’t exactly fault the results. Due to the situation Gilliam was forced to figure out a lot of things. He got a good grasp on instantly using magic circles, before he had to think about them properly and draw them properly, now he could just instantly project them. He needed to think a lot about the usages of which runes for what effect, though he still needed some thought in it, the process was more fluid now. Getting direct experience like this, since it felt like they were in there for weeks there was something very different in how Gilliam felt about combat now. Before he had never been in a proper fight, now he went from cowering and trying to dodge, to being able to defend himself. Sure; in a legit fight Ghaos might just instantly end his existence due to his own self preservation, but Gilliam felt he had made considerable progress. Though very, very few times, Gilliam did manage to best the trained battlemage but it was only the times that he stopped holding himself back that this worked out. So the main lesson was to overcome the fear of hurting him. It might sound dumb but for Gilliam it honestly felt like something clicked in his brain at that moment. If your life's on the line, it’s you or them, and you better make it you who comes out of it. “Well... All things considered, it wa*” As soon as Gilliam set foot outside of the magical dome they had been in for hours, something happened. His legs gave out, his body didn’t want to listen and he toppled over, face planting in the dirt. Kintas laughed, Savia laughed, Petal didn’t know what to do and Ghaos chuckled. “I might have forgotten to mention that the construction here feeds you with energy. When you leave it, well... You have been fighting for hours.” Ghaos smirk hinted that he might not have forgotten, but rather chose to not mention it. And this made sense. Given the healing boost within the dome, and that he didn’t feel tired a single time, yeah it made a lot of sense. The feed of energy was cut, and as a shield spell it would stop working. His body didn’t have energy so it gave out. Managing to force himself to his legs he realised two things. Ghaos is an ass, and Ghaos is super well trained for being able to walk normally. Gilliam eventually got to his feet with the aid of Petal, but he was incredibly unstable, and hungry; oh wow he was hungry. “Go eat something.” Ghaos smiled. “I recognise that look from when I first fought in the dome.” His smile was knowing and empathic, it really did seem like he knew. “Go to bed after, there is no bell tomorrow, school isn’t exactly active when there is an imminent attack, after all” He gave a little wave to them before he walked over to Kintas, talking about something. He might be a bit weird with his teaching methods but he did have a lot of good points. Gilliam hated the pain but oddly enough, experiencing that much of it lessened his fear of it. Perhaps that was part of the plan? This was the last thing Gilliam thought about before he blacked out from exhaustion, he never even made it to get any food. Waking up, Gilliam felt heavy, Mentally he was fine but there was this odd weight on him, making it hard for him to move. It was too dark to properly see anything and.. No.. wait.. That’s wrong. Moving his hand to his face he picked a sleeping Savia off it... That fixed the problems with the light... Why did she decide to sleep on his face, and how is she still sleeping now that he’s basically grasped around h* ... hold on... Why is Petal sleeping on top of him... At least they were both clothed so it hinted to nothing of that sort happening. Playing back the evening before in his head he realised that he must have blacked out, but this way of waking up was... Weird. A quick glance confirmed that he was just laying on the bed, on top of the blankets and everything, Petal and Savia sort of made up for that by laying on top of himi. It was not all bad but it was weird. It made sense for Savia to do things due to the straight up soul bond they shared, but what was with Petal. She had known him for less than a day, and she had been in this world for like three days, two of which she was imprisoned... Savia woke up in his hand, which felt much like holding onto a feathered insect as she spazzed about for a second. Gilliam still really didn’t know just what she was but feathered insect was not incredibly far from it. “Master!” she shouted out with a happy smile, this caused Petal to wake up and start some morning stretches, still laying on top of him. “Sooo... Mind explaining what’s going on?” he asked the demon blanket on top of him. Seeing her glowing eyes this close was strange, interesting but strange. He had never actually seen glowing eyes before, light reflected in eyes; sure, but never generating their own lightsource. It was not enough to light up anything proper but it was enough to give the iris a blue glow. “You passed out. I carried you over here, your feathered friend showed me where to go.” She looked a little proud of this, given that she was a solid head shorter than him, it must have been a weird thing to see. But given what her ‘job’ was before, she would probably be much stronger than her petite frame would hint. “So... Why are you on top of me?” there was no annoyance in his voice, just confusion and curiosity. Which was true, it didn’t seem to be done with any negative meaning behind it but... it was still an odd thing when only a few days ago he was alone, with that Angela left to meet her father. “You seemed cold, so I thought to keep you warm.” she answered this in a tone like it was the most natural thing ever. “I assume you don’t know what a blanket is?” As soon as he asked it he realised how insensitive it could sound. Not only as a condescending question, but also considering that she was basically a slave barely given scraps in her homeworld. She replied by just looking at him with curious eyes as she shook her head. “If you get off me, I can show you.” Gilliam was not against intimacy, she was not bad looking even with the whole demon thing but it felt weird given that they met yesterday, and even weirder when considering that according to this world, he owns her. It just didn’t feel right. Though, since this was done on her own thoughts he felt a little better, he just didn’t like the thought of the forced aspect. She climbed off, letting him move properly again. Following and getting out of bed as well he could finally stretch a bit. Opening his hand let Savia fly off as well as she had been in his hand this whole time. Turning around he lifted up the blanket and showed Petal. “We usually just sleep under this cloth, it can warm more or less than clothing depending on what it’s made of and how thick it is. Like this.” Holding out his hand near Savia, she landed in it without question, he proceeded to put her to bed and put the blanket over her as one normally would with a person. Though it was surprisingly hard given her diminutive size, it still ended up looking somewhat correct. Savia enjoyed this a lot, a huge satisfied and amused smile was on her face the whole time she was ‘put to bed’. “It’s a bit hard to show with Savia as she’s so tiny, but you get the point.” he smiled a bit to himself as he looked over his little friend in bed. She was practically beaming. “It’s like a cloak, for sleeping.” Petal analysed, and she was actually pretty spot on. A cloak, hooded or not, was usually just a piece of cloth you draped around you. Not considering rainproof or whatever it did serve a similar concept. “Kind of, yes. We usually don’t wrap it around ourselves but just lie down on the bed, pulling the blanket over us. Perhaps not everyone but most of humans tend to do this at least.” Realising that this was only partly correct, as he didn’t know exactly how this world worked to that degree nor would it cover those unfortunate enough to not have beds, but it was close enough for this explanation. “So next time, just put me under the blanket.” He smiled. Though she had done a weird thing in his mind, it was done with the best of intentions so there was really not much more to add there. He just realised that he might have to teach her the basics of certain things. Now that the surprise of his sleeping situation had passed he realised that on his round table was a few plates of food! He didn’t have that there before, or at least he can’t remember that... But then again it had been a few days since he had been in his own room, given that he fell unconscious after the invasion and had to recover elsewhere. He also saw his bag on the table, it seems that someone moved it here when he was in the recovery room. Petal saw that Gilliam noted the food, she smiled widely and oddly satisfied. “You couldn’t eat before. I went down and brought food after carrying you up here.” One plate had only a stack of meat on it, the other had a very random assortment of a little of everything. “Eat!” she practically pushed him over to the table. He was hungry yesterday, and this had absolutely not changed overnight, he chuckled a bit as he was following orders from his slave, perhaps this weren’t going to be as bad after all. Sitting down he started eating, she followed suit instantly afterwards, starting to scarf down the stack of grilled meat on her plate. Savia seemed to be content in bed at the moment, so he just put a little food on the side for her, she could eat it when she wanted. Though it was cold, some parts had gone a bit stale, it was still a perfectly edible and a hearty breakfast. Once they had eaten, Gilliam decided to give her a tour and explanation of the basics of how humans did things. At least according to Gilliam’s mind for some of them as he was the one explaining. Given yesterday, and that his attire was quite damaged, and though he had healed he was still somewhat drenched in things... So a shower was probably not a bad idea, he was frankly rather smelly. Preparing what he needed for a proper shower he explained all the things as they went. He didn’t have any spare clothing for her, so that had to be fixed somehow. She seemed rather clean from after she came out of the cell, odds are she was cleaned while down there or something. Luckily there were private individual shower booth things. Meaning you entered and exited into a small two-room situation, a dressing room and a shower-room. This felt appropriate to avoid bullying or other scenarios. The deal was the same with toilets. Gilliam liked the privacy, this also made things much easier for Petal when time came. The toilets were instantly used by both parties, and Gilliam had a shower afterwards. He brought Savia with him, giving her a small shower as well. Asking her she used to just bathe in pools of water before, but this was much more fun and effective. Though with lack of hands she was not exactly good at soap usage, though this was an easy ordeal with her size, she was clean in no time. Gilliam took a bit more time to get cleaned up, some of the gunk had dried, but eventually he found himself refreshed. The main problem was drying Savia, her feathers were mainly on her arms which could be flapped dry relatively easily. Her body was mostly skin or scales so that was also not a problem, but her long hair was odd to dry, only due to its size. A simple unstructured magical wind took care of this in the end. After getting dressed, having used the same hairdryer spell on himself to dry Savia’s spot in his hair, he went back to his room with the things. After getting proper, he continued the tour and explanations for Petal. At least bringing her up to an acceptable level of knowledge about the minor things. Though a lot of it was repetition for things she already knew, there were a lot of new things in how people act with each other and just how certain things are used. The concept of queueing was foreign to her, as an example. They got looks, many, many looks. Though Gilliam was glad to notice that even the angry looks of people wanting to do something instantly quelled themselves. He was not sure if it was his threat, his reputation from before or the fight in the dome that did this. Not that he cared as long as people behaved but he still felt the need to keep an extra eye out. Going to the reception he spoke with the old man working there, explaining the situation with his shredded clothing, something the receptionist assured would be fixed by tomorrow, and asked about details regarding the language spell for Petal. The latter was also a simple task, there was no time planned for this, just ‘today’. When he was available he should just go up the spiral staircase and mention it there, they would just find someone that could do this and get it done. Thanking the man they left for the central staircase, going around it upwards this time they found themselves in front of a door. Entering the door they came into a second reception, this one a bit simpler and less fancy than the one below. It kind of looked like an office. A young girl sat behind the desk, on a very high-chair looking seat and reacted as they entered. “What can I help you w*?” She started a well-trained simple sentence but it was interrupted with a surprised sound as soon as she saw Petal coming into the room. The clear reaction of ‘gotta hit the emergency button’ could be seen on her entire body, she clearly wanted to do ‘something’ about the situation.

He had not been followed for a short while, taking out that wave of demons before might either be all of the available flying ones, or they had other plans in mind. Keeping the height until he got somewhat close, he saw the density of constructions change drastically. He was at the very outskirts before where you couldn’t land a stone at the neighbouring construction, the closer he got to this end of the landmass the closer things got to the point that he could see stone buildings close enough to almost touch. Looking down at the rough area that he stopped, this place felt almost like a decently sized city. He couldn’t properly tell from up here but there were a lot of rectangular stone buildings, almost all of them were one floor, a few had two and perhaps one or two had three, at least in size. The buildings appeared to be made of stone or some sandstone thing, they had rock-grey and sandy colours to them. Based on the fact that some walls appeared to be moving in the wind, it seemed that there were still a lot of tarps used, perhaps to block out the light and create some shade? All in all it felt much like a barbarian-city, though the proper constructed buildings might change that feel a bit. From this height it was impossible to properly make out anything walking, save a few very large individuals, but making up any details on even those was not likely. Moving back and forth, trying to evade any scrying that might be done, he also used the different angles to try and find out where to go. Still having his triple barrier active he didn’t feel entirely in danger. If the best they could do were those super-long range ballista bolts, this should handle that fine. He had used some time back and forth, managing to avoid detection it seems, at least based on the fact that nothing had come for him. Suppose his pale and dirty body hides well amongst the pale sandy colored skies. However he had found a few candidates for where the gate might be. One place at the almost edge of the city had some weird altar looking place, it also had a decent amount of activity around it. Another was a very shiny and golden blinged up building that might house something like that. And the last was the only building that looked to be perfectly cubical, this was based on comparing it to the teleportation circle rooms back in Lisica. Luck had it that they weren’t too far from each other, meaning if he didn’t get it at first try it could be relatively easy to get to the next. He would have loved to wait for nightfall, but as that never happened in this place he might as well just start his plans now. His mana reserves had refilled so that was good, but causing a large commotion would potentially eat up a lot of energy, but this also had a plan he could use. Ghaos was somewhat terrified at the mana crystal he made when he learned how to, if he just made a few of those, a bit larger perhaps, and just air-dropped them across the city he would get the free-fall time to get over to where he wanted to be before they hit the ground. In the fight with Ghaos he got to somewhat use a few smaller ones as grenades and they were super easy to use. Since Gilliam could apparently create high grade ones, based on Ghaos’ explanation, uncertain face and desperation to be careful with them, odds are that this idea should work fine. The best part with it was that he could create them and then just wait for his mana to recharge before he started his plan, he could then get the best of both worlds with large-scale bombardment at the same time as he had full mana reserves. Getting some severe altitude he wanted to get far enough away that nobody could sense the mana he was about to use, at the same time he moved away from where he wanted to go, an entirely different area of the city before he started collecting mana. Channelling mana out into a single point between his cupped hands had a small nugget condense, feeding more and more mana into it had it slowly grow. It looked like a glass or crystal shard, roughly spherical with some naturally occurring facets, though still very clear and translucent it ended up a bit more than fist-sized when he stopped. He could feel energy radiate from it almost like it just came out of some oven. For a short second he wondered how he would be holding onto these as he kept making them, but he then remembered his gift from Sirzan, the ring that could store things! Suggesting the ring to store this in its space had the crystal ball disappear, this didn’t seem to increase the value of the ring’s cylinder, perhaps it could only show the usage in 10’s and would then not increase until it passed the 11’th point? Well, in any case this was a very good thing! Gilliam continued doing this, stopping when he felt he was about halfway through his reserves, just in case something happened. Once it had recharged he continued making the orbs. This continued for a while until he felt that it was enough, the ring had not displayed the 2nd disk yet so it seems that the bunch of the magic crystal orbs he had created didn’t hit the 20% mark, if that was how it worked. He pinged the ring for an inventory, and he instantly knew that he had 8 of the orbs in there as well as the sword. Gilliam couldn’t help himself and smiled like a happy child at how this worked, he was looking forward to testing this with more varied or a random sum of something. But for now he had something he needed to do, first was to wait for his mana to replenish. At this point he was getting pretty hungry again but he didn’t have any food and getting any at the moment was not an option. So he waited for now. During his wait he realised that he couldn’t just drop this anywhere, sure most demons might be... well.. Demons, but Petal couldn’t be the only one not wanting this life. He didn’t feel comfortable anonymously bombing just anyone. Even at the place he first woke up, with the Gatekeeper, there were servants that didn’t seem to be super happy about their condition. And again, some if not most of them might be fine with it but all in all, Gilliam didn’t want to just drop this anywhere. In stead he decided to aim at one of the smaller camps, the problem was there as well, naturally, but it was much smaller than in the city or somewhere else. He could plant them just randomly in the desert but he felt that the distraction would be better if it hit at least something. So he flew towards one of the smaller camps as he waited for everything to recharge. A while after he was feeling great again, he had also reached a good candidate; it was a small camp not too far from the city, so it was hopefully close enough to cause unrest. Mentally preparing for a few moments he started his plan. Suggesting the ring eject all of the 8 orbs, he held his hand palm down in front of himself. Since it seemed that the ring manifested the object in his hand this would let them all just fall down. And as expected this worked as planned! They all manifested in a pile, almost like the ring expected him to have a massive enough hand to carry all of them, but this worked very well to his advantage at the moment. They manifested in a floating pile but this also meant they were already a little somewhat spread out. They fell as gravity did what gravity does, he started speeding towards the first location he thought the gate might be at, he had picked out the altar thing in hopes that this was the gate out in the open. He tried to count seconds as he flew, having no idea how long this would take nor how high up he was. Around the 20th second it happened. A bright flash in the area where the orbs landed, it was blinding but only for a split second, this was followed up by a visible shockwave extending out far into the rocky area of the camp, at this elevation he could see it move; but even that only lasted for a second. It tore the rocky formations apart, the fireball lifted dust and sand, it was truly massive. He didn’t get to time it but it felt like only a second before the shockwave hit him hard even at his elevated position, had it not been for his shields he might have been knocked out. This was much larger than Gilliam expected, it was not to a nuclear bomb level but it was absolutely devastating. This would definitely be a distraction... Since things apparently fell faster than Gilliam anticipated, he used a moment more to get to the area he wanted to get, though this was just as well as he wanted them to mobilise and move away from the areas he was about to check out. He aimed his way towards the altar! He had been flying for a short while, he was fast but there was still quite the distance to cover. Even at this high up he could see the demons below being panicky, he could hear a massive bell being rung repeatedly, most likely working as some form of alarm. Many flying creatures had started funnelling towards the area and so far this looked like a great success! This went on for the while he used to get over to the altar, and only then did he start flying downwards at max speed. He planned to break once he got close enough to see what this was. The dive didn’t take long, he was discovered well before he was in proper range, incoming arrows and a few spells here and there, as well as a lot of flying demons coming his way. He found out what he needed and... the altar seemed to be some massive demon with an amazing sword sitting in a throne made of skulls... Tasteful, but not what he was after. The local guardforce seemed to be much more than he expected and was heading his way. The ground forces were mobilising with ranged weaponry and the few magic casters they had available. The air forces were on his way, seeming that they intended to swarm him. He did not want this to happen and an arcane orb scattering was sent their way. Manifesting a spell circle it was the same that he tested not long ago, the carpet bombing spell but with the more sensitive trigger and range bonus. This was swiftly activated and sent towards the largest group of flying demons. It was as devastating as expected, the chain of explosions cleared out that entire area of anything living, showering their remains over a wide area. Gilliam didn’t have time to react. Ignoring the weak spells, arrows and thrown things that simply bounced off his shields he started making his way towards the golden blinged up building, it seemed likely and was closer than the cubical building. Flying that way at maximum speed he didn’t have the luxury of avoiding attacks. He didn’t have the finesse in flight to dodge, all he could do was do vague attempts or just tank it. The latter happened more than the former. The outer shield eventually was overwhelmed by a mixture of incoming attacks and suicide demons, though they exploded like bugs on a windshield they still sort of got an attack in, together all of this was enough for the outer shield to give in. He still had two shields left as he arrived at the gilded building, he had to bank on that being enough. Behind him there was a swarm of incoming demons, on foot and flying. Doing his best to avoid getting killed he had to do something about that. Manifesting a spell circle focusing on an Aether sphere, he added two explosion runes and four power runes before he filled it with energy and sent it into the group. The explosion was massive, filling the air with a mixture of debris, body parts, random chunks as well as sand and dirt. Using the chaos and result of the explosion he made his way into the shiny building, blasting down the doors with a much, much weaker variant of the same spell. This blasted both doors as well as some of the front wall into pieces, showering anyone inside in shrapnel, some of which hit Gilliam’s shield. As he found himself inside he mentally facepalmed, this was not much more than a glorified brothel of sorts. All acts you could expect were happening in here, and not much of it was behind closed doors. This was not what he was after and leaving through the door he came from was not an option, it was not acting like a weak bottleneck for the incoming forces of various forms. Arrows and spells again bounced off his shields, some of which still had enough momentum to do damage to the brothel’s patrons or nearby walls. Aiming upwards Gilliam used a variant of the dirt digging spell, but focusing it on stone as he added a few power and speed runes to make sure that it got through fast enough. He found himself outside again but this time swarmed by incoming creatures to the point that he couldn’t even see where he was going. This was enough to drive him to crashland on the roof of the brothel, their weight was more than his flight spell was designed for and it was not able to keep him aloft. The shield was holding, although the second layer was running out of energy fast. Quickly manifesting a spell circle Gilliam put in a few power runes, Aether again but this time made it a tiny bit more complicated. He made an explosion emanate from just outside his shields. For that to work he needed to give the explosion a linked rune that defined the start range so it didn’t explode inside his shield. Realising that it was better to just use the ‘second shield’ as the start point instead of trying to mess with ranges, he activated the spell based on that. This worked flawlessly and a large magical explosion extended from the second shield, this practically disintegrated the innermost demons, the others still got hit by a massive explosion but it seemed that some of the force was absorbed into the now vaporised creatures. It also seemed that some of the brothel roof took considerable damage from this. In the ordeal the second shield broke as well, he was now left with just one. Not wanting to give anyone time to react he started making his way for the last building, the cubical one. Full speed towards it he managed to get a little distance before anyone started following him again, this allowed him to not be swamped for the time being as he made his way towards the front doors. Everyone in the area knew of this chaos now, there had been enough explosions that this had announced itself. This meant that there was now a much denser collection of guards and protection around the building. Wanting to prepare, Gilliam cast another shield spell to regain the second layer, which luckily worked as intended, though he didn’t have any time to prepare a third before he was in the thick of it. Instead of casting a third barrier he opted to send out another explosive Aether sphere, this worked fine and as intended it took out anyone in its area, raining them back down in considerably smaller pieces. This also took out some of the doors into the building, allowing Gilliam to just pass through without effort. And as he finally got into the building he was rewarded by the sight of a massive stone arch, not unlike the gate that opened outside of the academy. He needed to start channelling energy into it, so not waiting for anything to happen he started the process, placing a hand on it and pushing energy with the gate as the focus. This seemed to work as the various runes along its stone construction, as well as along the floor and some of the walls started to fill. This was going to take at least a minute of constant channelling, a minute he would not have. To try to combat this he wanted a barrier around him, but by the time he was about to construct the spell circle they were already on him. He could not use any area of effect spells in here as that could damage the gate. They crashed into his shield, sending him flying into an opposing wall, the collective attacks that hit roughly at the same time popped the outer shield. He was back to one. He needed something that could hit multiple targets but would not explode and take out everything, the laser could work but there were a few reflective surfaces in here as well as a few metal pieces on the demons and their weapons, he didn’t feel confident enough in using that and not hit himself. He had not yet managed to make a plasma blade, save the little tool he used, but* Before he could continue that train of thought they were already on him, doing their best to hit him but hitting only the shield. It was nearing its limit and as soon as that popped he would be screwed. Oh, that’s right, the sword! He experimented on it only earlier today but for some reason he had forgotten it as it was not as good as explosions at the time. This was a perfect time! Pinging the ring he instantly had it in his hand, sending the first activation command manifested the inner guard and the slender glowing blade. Making a wide slash towards the creatures ahead of him it cut through the first few without effort, the next few took some swinging force to get through and the sword stopped in a large horned orc-like demon. The ones that were cut instantly fell down, the first ones were just cut in two and instantly died, the remainder fell down and would be dead very, very soon. The last demon whom the sword stopped in grabbed onto the blade, his skin that came into contact with the blade was sizzling like it was being actively cooked. He raised his crude and asymmetric sword into the air and tensed his muscles to swing down. At that moment Gilliam remembered and pulsed the sword once more, the wide blade manifested! In that moment the demon’s hand was cut into pieces and the wound in his gut extended dramatically. The minimum of force was needed to just continue pulling the sword through the rest of his body, having cut through most of him. This had most of the other demons react, the clear victory suddenly turned around with only a sword. Rushing ahead to take advantage of this, Gilliam found himself in striking distance of a large group of demons, some had already swung at him and though most missed a few connected with the shield. As the inner and final shield popped out of existence Gilliam pulled his sword in a wide horizontal slash, cutting through anyone and anything in its path, even the demons that were trying to block the attack with their swords found their weapons as well as themselves cut in two. The runes on the sword were slowly, slowly losing their charged glow, but a split second after that happened they recharged, almost as if Gilliam was keeping the blade charged. This gave Gilliam a second to recover, it was not enough to get another shield working as the spell circle was attacked by an imp that managed to destabilise it. Gilliam swung at the imp that became two half-imps immediately, but the opening allowed two male demons, not unlike Petal’s apperance to get in close. They both stabbed at him. Gilliam swatted one to the side easily enough, his sword digging deep into his body, but the other sword landed true and penetrated deep into his chest. He could feel the pain spreading through the adrenaline, breathing got harder and the shock of what happened was instant and terrifying. He was so close, literally within touching distance of the gate, he just needed to get out of here and he could have made it much easier. It was first now he realised how drained he was . He had chewed through his mana reserves by overdoing the magic, sending large spell after large spell to make sure he hit hard and true. This was clearly not the way to do it and, well, he didn’t have any experience so he made some bad choices. Swinging at the other demon there was no resistance as his glowing blade passed through his body like it was made of smoke. Gilliam was getting weak, he pulled out the sword in a reaction and focused healing in its area, the wound closed slowly and his breathing became better. Though this wounding seemed to have given the local force a morale boost and they made for him as well. A few arrows came hailing in and though a few precise sword swings took out most of them, two still landed. One in his right thigh and the other in his gut. Trying to support himself by stabbing the sword in the ground didn’t go well, it simply vaporised the stone it came into contact with and sunk down well over halfway before it stopped. And it only stopped them because Gilliam let go of it, losing its downwards force. He needed energy, he needed mana potions or something, any form of energy, he needed to rest. Pulling out the two arrows he focused a lot of healing energy in those areas, his gut more than his leg due to the knowledge of the compilations that can happen with intestinal things coming into wounds in the gut region. Parts of him were preparing him for what’s to come, several demons were heading towards him, swords, axes and other weapons drawn. He didn’t have any defence and not enough energy to set up any. As he went through this mental preparation for the end, he saw several things. Savia smiling at him, Petal mistaking how to use the most mundane tools, his teachers and their reactions to the different things he had done, and the first person he met; Angela smiling at him for finally being there to fulfil the prophecy. It was a shame he couldn’t help her with her dream, but hopefully she was safe with her fa* Hold on. As soon as he was to accept his fate the shine came back in his eyes, he had replayed his time in this world in the cliché ‘life passing before your eyes’ thing, but he had seen something good. One of the spells he was testing, he drew energy out of the plant when testing darkness magic. Though incredibly little, he did feel a little energised; like having a tiny cup of coffee. He had not experimented with darkness magic but... he could drain living things and revitalise himself! Not hesitating a moment he waved his hand in the air, this time the circle didn’t have the normal teal colour that all his spell circles had, no; this was deep black and gave off no glow. Almost like he erased the area in the air the circle took form. The main rune was Darkness, the other runes were Area, Drain, Absorb, revitalise, heal, energise. They were put together in the floating shadow that was the spell circle as Gilliam activated it. He felt that this spell didn’t need any mana, as it activated and started to absorb something from the not-yet dead demons around, forming it into long tendrils of red, purple and black smoke that spiralled around each other before disappearing into the shadow spell circle. The tendrils only came out of the still living, and they were instantly affected, they clearly got weak and groaned out in pain. They clearly wanted to scream but it seemed like they couldn’t muster the energy to do so. In the instant that the smoke hit the spell circle Gilliam felt a rush of energy. Like the wave of energy you get when someone startles you, or you suddenly get a powerful adrenaline boost, Gilliam was feeling better and better by the moment! His wounds closed, breathing was easier, the pain in his abdomen, chest and thigh was fading. In their place was an energised feeling like he was getting a sugar high in an instant and in short, he was feeling amazing! Not wanting to miss a moment he placed his left hand on the gate, proceeding to channel more energy into it. The incoming demons halted for a moment, their enemy having found sudden vitalization, deep dark and nasty looking smoke extending from their dying bredren at the same time. Using his other hand, Gilliam cast a barrier spell, something he barely managed to complete before incoming projectiles crashed against its spherical shape. The sword was still burning its way through the stone, some of its runes had completely burned out and lost their glow, but as soon as Gilliam grabbed the handle the runes started recharging instead, completing their charge in the matter of seconds. At this moment Gilliam felt a small drain going into the sword, it would seem that the sword pulled energy from its user to keep charged, he would have to experiment on this later. For now he had everything he needed, a revitalising spell he could only imagine was looked on negatively in any society, a steady stream of energy going into the gate, the sword in his hand and a barrier charging. The sight of everything turning his way had the lesser guardforce take a moment to wonder if this was worth it. The few imps that tried their luck ended up being targeted by the draining spell, cramping their flight muscles which in turn had them crashland only to be drained to death. This pause combined with everything else gave Gilliam the time he needed to fuel the gate properly, a wave of energy pulsed in its arch, connecting from the gem at the top all the way down to the ground. Not waiting a moment longer than he had to, Gilliam ran through. A blinding light in his eyes, like teleportation apparently always does, left him slowly. As soon as he could see anything there was a large sword heading his way. It collided into his shield and dented the stone ground under him. He didn’t even get a moment to take in the area around him, he swung at the arm of the attacker, removing it from its owner. Pulling the sword back and forth through the large sword it was cut into pieces; permanently stopping its further use. Not wanting this to happen again, he took to the air, just darting straight up as fast as he could. This gave him some good distance and a moment to take in what he was seeing. A massive landmass was spread ahead of him, it was more sand and desert, although it was a bit rockier than the Finger he just came from. Looking below him he saw that he had managed to leave one of the cubical rooms in his blinded daze, before he was attacked. There were several similar constructions to his right and left, behind him was the end of the landmass and a familiar drop into nothing. But, he saw something interesting, in front of him was a city, sprawling out through the desert, in between large rock and mountain formations. The city had several tall buildings, a few towers and to Gilliam’s glee; a blue tower. Suddenly Gilliam was knocked sideways as his vision was covered in fire. This felt like a fireball with more force behind it than the one Sirzan used. Since he was now in the Hand, the better mages he spoke about might be here. Not considering this much at the moment he made a beeline towards the blue tower!

Waking up to the feeling of heavy air, the kind you could have in your room if you didn’t air out for a few days. Gilliam felt horrible. Step one was to get breathable air, this time using a magic circle with the rune for Air, Exchange, Fresh. Tied to the Exchange rune was a rune for Old-Air. This magic circle did wonders, it removed the old and used air at the same time that it sent out fresh air to replace it. Though still a bit warm for his preference it was dramatically better. He could breathe comfortably and the air was as fresh as being outside in a field. Given the size of the room he made before he collapsed, the fact that the air was this bad meant that he either slept for quite a time, or that whatever the dirt walls here contained did its part in consuming it. In either case it was fixed now. Creating a simple multi-light-control spell, in fact the first spell circle he learned, fixed the darkness instantly. Just being able to see this little square hole in the ground was oddly calming. This also let him take a look at himself, he was dirty, the wound had closed but seemed like it was getting infected, makes sense... Luckily he knew enough from how puss and bacterial infection worked from watching videos on your immune defence on online platforms, as well as the little he had read at the academy, that though he might not be able to instantly fix it but he could at least improve the healing considerably. He needed sustenance and energy, he knew that the unstructured stream of water was drinkable and created clean water, so this was what he did next. Aiming became a slight problem but he might as well clean himself with the stream at the same time. It didn’t let him get properly clean-clean, but it got most of the shit off him. Though no soap he scrubbed himself the best he could and soon felt... well.. Sort of rinsed. He also filled up on water at the same time and this actually did wonders, hydration is key. Now he just needed food, something he had yet to learn how to make. No matter what he was going to do from here, he needed sustenance, so this became the next goal. In his dark underground cave he started experimenting on creating food. He didn't know how long he had been doing this, but he had been testing a lot. Using all the elements, trying to use creation runes with food, sustenance and other applicable words didn’t work properly. Water was simple as it was its own element, but food was different. He cursed himself for not taking survival seriously at the academy, everything was handed to him so he just took everything for granted. He had figured out that he could alter existing shape and form of existing objects but this was just like magical smithing, but he could not create them. He could change the shape of a rock, make a sword, hammer or even a small statue that was taller than the rock itself, though it could not change the volume of the rock just change its shape. The downside was that this took tremendous energy. Something as simple as changing a head-sized rock into a small statue of himself standing all heroic like, making it taller than the rock was long at its longest, ate up basically all of his remaining mana. Not enough to give him the mana-starved sickness, but it took enough that he didn’t feel like he could cast anything else without going into that drained state. A minor success in shaping, but a huge failure in obtaining food. He missed school life already, though he’s not sure how long he had been gone he assumed at least a few days. He wanted his bed, his money for winning that duel, and though he only knew her for a few days; he really, really missed Savia. That soul bond was no joke. He felt like he missed a life-long friend, or a family member, a part of himself. He was with her for less than a week, they didn’t even have the time to properly interact that much but... This felt horrible. Well, if nothing else this was just another drive to get back. Realising that he didn’t really consider Petal in this list of things he missed, he did feel some responsibility for her but he has only known her for like two days or something. Sure, he did own her according to the magical contract they made but he really didn’t properly know her. He wanted to wonder about why she chose to become a servant of a human, not even knowing how she was going to be treated. But this was instantly self-answered based on just what he saw when chained up, though he didn’t see that much abuse he did see what kind of life they lived. And just the terrified servant that handed the Gatekeeper the dagger, he looked terrified. No, he had to stop considering this, this was leading him into depression, he had to focus. Slapping his cheeks a bit harder than needed, he needed to get back into it. Though he had ‘cleaned’ his wound he needed to start working on it, so this became his next goal. He couldn’t hunt or fight or whatever while also fighting an infection. Focusing his minimal knowledge about wounds and infection, he focused healing energy on the wound in his side, basically letting it do its thing... Due to the lack of proper knowledge this took quite some time, but afterwards the wound looked proper. A proper scab had formed and it had lost its nasty yellow/white colorations, it also didn’t feel as pressured when poking it. Since he didn’t feel any other effects like a fever or whatnot, he decided that it would have to do for now. Getting up he felt the effects of both the lack of food, but also the lack of mana, this had him slump back down. Chuckling to himself, this felt a bit weak. He needed to find a way back, against a horde of demons looking specifically for him. He didn’t know where he was, he couldn’t teleport, he was out of man, no food... The list of things he needed to do was getting longer and... Waking up he felt like breathing was a problem, much like last time. He must have passed out as he can’t remember going to sleep. Like before he started by swapping out the air, it worked just as nice as last time, the refreshing feeling was very welcome. Another rinse and drink had him realise that he needed to make a latrine of sorts, luckily he could close the hole after using it which made the situation a bit more manageable. The accidents that had happened when he was unconscious was also easily taken care of by shoving it down the hole and cleaning himself. Pondering his situation, he needed food, he also realised that he didn’t have much sympathy for the demons of this world, his treatment, the way they think and how they are attacking ‘his’ world. The exception to this was the servant class, based on Petal’s information they really just wanted out, though there were bound to be some loyal individuals or even those who liked it, he.. Well, he didn’t plan to go killing everything and anyone, but he needed food. For now he considered hunting, the demons here ate something, right? Hopefully they didn’t eat each other and there were some local animals or something to hunt. Readying himself he started making way to the surface, luckily he didn’t have to consider exactly where to come home to as he could just make a new room wherever he wanted. Using the same spell as before he tunnelled upwards at an angle so he could walk at the same time. He quickly found out that this was not the way to go as he clearly had more magical stamina than physical at the moment, casting his flight spell like before amended this, also letting him tunnel straight up for faster result. It took an oddly long time to get back to the surface, he was rushing getting down but he didn’t realise just how far down he had gone. And sure, he was moving slower now as he didn’t want to just eject upwards and perhaps braining himself against something he wasn't ready for, but still; this took quite some time. Finally breaking the surface he immediately realised that he was not alone, popping out of the ground like a cork in water due to upwards momentum he came face to face with one of the smaller flying imps. Panic mode kicked in, the little creature inhaled at the same time as Gilliam pointed his palm towards it, energy built up in Gilliam’s hand until it discharged what for a very brief moment looked like a yellow arrowhead flew from his palm through the imp’s head. The arrowhead crashed into the sand not far from them in a large puff of dust. The imp fell to the ground on the account of it no longer having a head. Gilliam winced a moment at the unexpected gore as he hid under an overhang in a nearby rock. He listened for several minutes before he calmed down. It was good to know that his reactions were proper but... he couldn’t help but react to the amount of gore. He had played games and watched movies before, but this was something very different. At the same time, it didn’t affect him as much as he expected, he did just kill someone, or something, but perhaps the fact that it was so inhuman helped? Since it didn’t really affect him he decided to just ignore it, wouldn’t help to dwell now that he had a goal in mind. He needed to learn how to get out of here, but he needed energy to do so. Though he had a kill in front of him he didn’t really like the idea of eating anything humanoid, he was not that far gone yet. No, he wanted something animal looking, he’d chance that instead. But there was nothing around at the moment, just sand and rock. He needed to go elsewhere and see what he could find. The flight spell was still active, and would be so until he dismissed it, so he might as well use it. He was easily spotted in the sky, but he could easily hide or burrow away, he had escape possibilities for now so he was not too sceptical. Taking to the sky at full speed, trying to get some distance before he potentially got noticed, he found himself quite high up. From his new vantage point he actually learned a lot, He knew there were smaller ‘camps’ of sorts from his escape, he got a better total overview that day, one such camp was not far from where he was now. The camp itself was simple, some rudimentary buildings set up with something looking like leather on poles, some were made of stacked rocks and some were just a tarp on some sticks, the whole thing was placed in a mini-valley of sorts between some rocks. There were also a lot of demons seemingly still looking for him, there were a lot of different variants of creatures scampering around together. He also found that there did seem to be some animals here and there. Still looking quite demonic they at least somewhat looked like animals rather than demonic people, this calmed Gilliam’s mind a lot, he didn’t have to eat ‘people’. There was also a staggering lack of water or any natural fluid in the area, they might get their fluids from alternate sources, but there was nothing properly natural. Not that this affected Gilliam, but it was still something interesting about the people living here. For now, he needed food and stealing felt like the most appropriate way of handling it. Though it seemed that most of the demons enjoyed their lifestyle, based on Petal, the servant class might not so much. So taking too much food might impact the undeserving at the same time as the ones who do deserve it. Before he could make any solid plans he heard the shrieking of a weird flying creature heading his way. It looked like if you took a small dog, gave it bat wings and turned it inside out. It was flying towards him with clear ill intent. Gilliam had time to prepare this time, and since the attack on the imp worked as well as it did, there was no reason to change tactics. This time he used a structured spell makeup, using the runes for Aether, Dart, Speed, Power and Target in a pentagon shape. Aiming at the creature he put only a tiny bit of power into it, the circle absorbed the energy and pulsed its teal colour a split second before collapsing into a more streamlined dart. It exploded forwards at blinding speed, not giving the creature time to react before it had a hole blown through its body. The flapping of its wings stopped and it started free falling. The dart itself hit some rocks in the distance and seemed to make a snapping sound over there. This was not part of his plan, it seemed that he needed to find out a way for his projectiles sto stop so he didn’t do any collateral damage in the future... In this case it became a blessing in disguise, the demons in the camp started mobilising towards where the dart hit, an accidental distraction was created. Taking advantage of this Gilliam flew down as soon as most of the demons started leaving the camp, he flew down a good distance outside of the camp before he started making his way towards it. A flying target is easier to spot, after all. Since there were still some servants, some warrior-like demons and more of the flying dogs he didn’t feel like spending too much time in there, he had seen where the food was prepared as he got closer, still having his flight spell active he planned to just fly in, get the meat and fly off before they could react. Aiming at a decent slab of meat on a table he prepared himself, casting a transparent barrier on himself, augmenting the magic circle to add a Transparent rune to it did wonders. It was still not perfectly clear but was something akin to a glass sphere around him; bending things a little but not enough to become a problem in any way. Flying at max speed towards the slab of meat he passed by several of the dog creatures, he startled them as he continued towards his goal. He noticed that some of the servants saw him but were too confused to react, one of the warriors pulled his sword seemingly made of bone fragments tied together to a solid core of sorts. An alarm was sounded by the time he had made it to the table. He braked as late as he possibly could but this had the unfortunate side effect of making his barrier bump into the table, knocking it over. Everything was sent flying a short distance, extending a telekinetic tendril towards the piece of meat it didn’t even get the chance to land on the sand before it was flung into Gilliam’s hands. Without waiting for any reaction he sped out another way than he came in, several thrown and shot objects hit his barrier, some arrows, a few rocks and a whole bone sword shattered against it before he managed to leave the outer ‘walls’ of the camp. Not waiting for anyone to catch up he repeated what worked so well the other day. Flying off into the distance he found a point behind a large rock where he could break any line of sight, activating his burrowing spell he started flying downwards a bit. The barrier around him made burrowing a bit harder as it extended outwards from his body, this plugged the whole and stopped him moving at one point, so he had to dismiss it entirely. Not burrowing as far as the last time as he didn’t need that much distance, but since the spell also repaired the ground behind him he didn’t need to consider anyone following him. Stopping going downwards after a short while he made a tunnel a few metres (1m ~3ft) sideways before he used a different structured spell to make a larger room like before. The first thing he did was to fix the air quality before he could finally sit down and dismiss the flying spell. His mouth was already watering, he was so hungry that his mind instantly dismissed considering what meat this actually was. It didn’t matter, they ate it so in theory it should be somewhat safe... Ignoring that they might have some racial bonus that made it safe.. He couldn’t cook it raw, he needed to prepare it. The simplest thing is to just grill it, not having any tools he did the simplest of the simple. Using a structured spell to get a small energy blade he cut it into smaller pieces, keeping them in the air with telekinesis. Once the slab of meat was cut into smaller pieces he simply manifested a fireball in his hand, this ball wouldn’t burn him but it was still fire, using it to simply grill the meat over an open fire. Having on purpose cut the meat into smaller pieces they should grill rather fast, letting him get the first bite much faster than if he made a thick steak. Ignoring that they might be overdone, he chose to grill them a bit longer than needed, even getting a slight char. He didn't know what kind of parasites or whatever might live in this meat, so making sure that everything in it was guaranteed dead, but not charring it too much as that had its own dangers. In the end he got his first bite of food in who knows how long. He barely chewed as the stream of meat was brought from the floating pile, into the fire for a few minutes and then into his mouth. The fire did wonders for eating up the available air in this room, so he had to recast the air-cleaning spell several times during all of this. His mana reserves didn’t like the way he was doing things but he absolutely didn’t care, he was getting food and as hunger is the best spice; this tasted and felt amazing! He ate way too much before he managed to calm down, luckily enough he stopped himself before he got to the point where he had to throw up, he had access to water and there was still meat left after he was done eating. For the first time since he got here he felt a little satisfied. Putting out the fire he instead manifested some simple lights. A new latrine was needed but this was hardly a problem. The remaining meat was put on a cleaner spot of dirt, he tried to make it as un-dirty as possible but he was underground without any proper surfaces, deciding that he’d just clean it later he just placed it on the floor for now. Cleaning up and drinking his fill he also went to sleep on his own accord this time, which alone felt rather satisfying. He had food, he had water and he could make shelter wherever. The first three hurdles of survival were covered. The next step was to find a way back, but this was a problem for tomorrow-Gilliam, now he wanted to properly rest, and the built up fatigue was inclined to agree. After a final air-purification he simply found a somewhat soft patch of dirt, seconds after closing his eyes he drifted off. He woke to a sudden strong vibration, casting some lights right away he could see around in his room, though this didn’t let him see what was causing this at least he could see that some ant-like creatures had found the stack of raw meat... Adrenaline snapping him out of his post-sleep drowsiness had him analyse the situation more, the vibrations were strong but stopped a few seconds later, then did so again. Each vibration felt like a nearby explosion or some kind of punch. Just before each pulse there is a buildup of energy, feeling like the same heat at a distance, someone was gathering a lot of mana before each punch. Not wanting to accidentally get crushed he cast the same transparent barrier from before, making sure it was sturdy. The pulses were getting stronger and stronger, it felt like they were getting closer. Suddenly a quarter of the room just disappeared in an explosion, though the barrier took the damage it sent Gilliam into the opposing wall, its spherical shape making a nice concave indentation into the wall. As he cast the flying spell on himself and prepared the burrowing one, he heard shouting through the newformed hole. “I see a room down there.” The voice was small and shriek’y, but it didn’t take more than a second before an imp crashed into the bottom of the void that the explosion had created. Shaking its little head it looked around. “It is he*!” The imps confirmation of Gilliam’s presence was cut short as an Aether dart penetrated its chest, making a deep hole in the compact dirt behind it. Without waiting Gilliam properly manifested his burrowing spell and left the area. Making sure to go at an angle and not ‘away’ from them, as that might be too easy to track. This time he went on for quite some time, he turned a lot to the sides to make sure there was not just a direct line in case they could follow the path. Eventually stopping at whatever distance he had obtained he made another small room and fixed the air. How did they find him? Based on the explosion they clearly had some magic on their side, perhaps someone can track him? Since they didn’t find him the first time he hid, was that because they didn’t know in what area to look, or perhaps the mage was hard to get? Or perhaps it was the extra amount of magic he used when cooking that let them sense him? Gilliam needed to find out how to get off the place faster, he wanted to get off this rock but it might be that the portals are the only way to get back to the world. Before Gilliam could properly formulate a plan, the tremors started again, this time the time between them was shorter. They will be here soon.

“Is... is it supposed to do that?” Gilliam asked Sirzan, becoming a bit uncertain. The one armed demon joined in the uncertainty, not sure what was going on as the runes started illuminating a teal colour, one after another. “The human who had it before, the blade was long and glowing. I... I don’t know the runes.” Gilliam quickly considered things. First, this might be a weird boobytrap thing, perhaps a magical equivalent to the mechanical one that the day walking half vampire in that one franchise back on Earth. If he held on his hand would be blown off. Another thing could be that it’s supposed to do this, glowing blade? Perhaps the blade was magical? If so it would need mana, right? But... Placing it on the floor of their room, the runes stopped charging up, but they also didn’t stop glowing either. Looking towards Sirzan, Gilliam had to know. “Pick it up.” Sirzan immediately looked at him with fear in his eyes and the facial expression of ‘absolutely not’. “You don’t need to hold it long, I just want to see if the runes charge when you hold it.” he further commanded. Sirzan seemed to weigh his options, he hesitated and pondered for a moment before moving towards the sword. He was clearly in pain, something which made a lot of sense, the severed arm was not bleeding but it still looked incredibly painful, he bore this rather well, all things considered. Getting to the blade he inhaled and let out a deep sigh. Finally picking it up. He held it somewhat loose, almost like he was waiting for it to bite him, but... Nothing happened. The runes didn’t increase or decrease, the runes were passive much like when on the floor. This explained a few things to Gilliam. It was charging based on mana, since the demonic race didn’t have natural mana, only stolen skills, that could be why it didn’t work for him now. Extending his open hand towards the sword, Sirzan didn’t hesitate in returning it. Immediately as Gilliam touched it the runes started to slowly charge again. “Hmm... Glowing blade...” He investigated the runes spread across the sword and a lot of them were energy-holding runes. There were many runes dealing with sharpness and cutting, emitting and ‘solid’. The more the thought about things the more it made sense that this should be relatively safe. If it was a trapped item it could not only actually be better to let the enemy get it, though that depended on how it worked. But there should be some runes or magic circles handling that, no? Unless they were hidden on the inside. Placing it on the floor again he actively channelled some energy into it, not too different to how he would create mana crystals, just with the sword as a target more than a single point. The runes continued to charge like before. As this felt like a much safer way to do it, Gilliam kept charging it like this instead. This process didn’t take long, since most of the runes had already started charging already, at the end the sword didn’t take the funnelled energy, like trying to fill a full bucket the overflow just returned to the air. “Pick it up.” Gilliam commanded Sirzan. Though he didn’t want to become the evil villain that has others test out experimental things for him, this was a somewhat... special case. This time Sirzan was even more hesitant, something Gilliam completely sympathised with. “If I do this one more test... can you take me back to the surface?” There was a strong hesitation in his voice. Clearly not wanting to anger the one holding his life in his hands, but still needed to mention it as this was decreasing his life expectancy. If not for the danger, then the stress. Gilliam pondered for a second, though the demons most likely never gave this luxury to their victims, Gilliam didn’t intend to become like them. So he agreed with a nod. “Yeah... You have sort of done your deal here... If you do this last thing, I will not have you test anything else and I’ll bring you up as unharmed as I can.” Gilliam felt that he should explain it properly, though this is an enemy and letting him go will most likely have him do bad things to humans in the future... He wanted his word to mean something. Sirzan was not just hesitant, but legitimately scared. This was now a charged artefact of a human so it was understandable. It was not hard to see that he had to psyche himself up to do this but in the end he grasped the hilt and lifted up the sword. His eyes forced closed and his whole body in a position screaming that he’s expecting the thing to explode and remove his other arm. But in the end, nothing happened. It acted as a normal sword would, just that this one had glowing runes. It didn’t do anything. Gilliam was not good at sensing magic, he could feel the source of magic at times, so though he could sense magic from the sword that was all he could. So if this would explode in his hands or not, he had no idea. Though he could read the runes and everything he had seen hinted that this was just a magical sword, he should be safe. Like before he extended his hand towards the sword, this had Sirzan hand it over at great haste. Though Gilliam was still a bit uncertain he considered that he put the ring on without hesitation... So it was almost strange that he was now this paranoid... Holding it didn’t do anything weird and as it was already full of his mana, giving it more didn’t do much. Like with the ring there was an activation aspect to things, he had linked with it through his mana so perhaps he should just tell it to activ* As soon as he had decided to activate it, it did. Literally in a flash of blue light the broken blade was now whole again, from the broken point of the metal blade extended a long and tapered almost crystal-like blade with a slight translucent shimmer. It was dimly glowing of patterned teal and blue energy. Before this, from pommel to end of the broken blade the whole thing seemed to be around half a metre (0.5m ~19.6nch). But now with the full blade it seemed to be just below 130cm (~51.1inch), this meant that the total blade length was a metre (~39.3inch), where a solid 80cm (~32inch) of it was now magical energy. The crossguard now had more of it present, though the ‘more’ that was there now was of the same teal energy, the ends of them still looking broken somehow. He jolted in reaction, being startled didn’t even cover it. In his startled movement he flailed the sword to the side, letting the blade pass through the stone and dirt wall next to him, this showed that the blade cut through stone on accidental movement. Gilliam had no idea how this thing was this sharp but he expected some magical reason and the collection of sharpness runes. There was also an odd feeling, a tingle of sorts but he was too busy reacting to the glowing blade to properly process this at the moment. Sirzan was just as startled as Gilliam, given that there was a slight blue tint to the light in the room but also that there was now a deadly sword in the human's hands. But at the same time, he looked a bit confused. As Gilliam was moving the sword around, cutting rocks and trying to stab some other, he added a note as he kind of talked to himself. “But, the blade that the human had was bigger.” This had Gilliam react a bit, this was already pretty neat but, bigger? Since the sword activated on his thought before, he didn’t consider much before he mentally tried to send the command to ‘get bigger’. Like he hit the correct button there was another flash of light as the sword seemed to activate a second mode. This time the flash of light was a bit stronger before it settled properly, the blade widened considerably as it lengthened. A second look showed that the slender blade was the core of the whole ordeal, but it almost looked like a greatsword’s edge was attached to the slender edge he already had. It had grown longer, now the whole blade length was just over 130cm (~51 inch) alone, not considering the handle itself. It was almost 15cm (~6inch) at the widest part, tapering out as it went towards the slightly blunt-looking tip. It had the same teal energy and texture to it, and now the crossguard seemed to have fully manifested. Due to the extra length this now extended into the ceiling, cutting around there like there was zero effort. Before with just the slender blade he could cut through rock but it required a bit of effort, not much but a little. Now with this wider greatsword-like edge it just slid through anything like a red-hot knife through butter. This was clearly a devastating weapon, especially if you added that though the sword had its own weight, there was no weight to the energy blades. The tingle that first manifested alongside the slender blade became stronger now, and now that his mind was processing this, he properly realised what it was. Back when he sparred against Kintas, the melee instructor, he felt an incredibly weak tingle he hoped was something interesting at the time, since he failed that fight he assumed it was just adrenaline. But, right now, after he activated the sword the tingle returned, but rather than just being a metaphorical tiny toy bell, it now rang like a massive church bell. Images and feelings, movements and twitches all came rushing into Gilliam’s mind. He saw himself fighting with a sword, but the sword was glowing, he felt that this was the most natural thing ever and it just felt right. Turning away from his prisoner he did a few moves against the wall, imagining it a fight or spar against someone. The few movements he did were incredibly fluid, almost like he had trained the sword since he could barely walk. As the images passed over him and he was back to his proper sense he considered this for a moment. And after a short minute he came to a conclusion that made sense. He had a cheat-level gift of magic, but he couldn’t use it in the fight against Kintas, but this was not a normal but a magical sword. It seems that his gift extended to anything magical. This also explained why he could activate the magical items this easily. It all made sense! This was going to be an incredibly great boon! Not just the knowledge but the two artefacts as well. Though more testing was needed for the ring, right now he could at least keep the handle stored and charged in there. Testing a few mental commands to the sword he found out that he could easily turn it off, activate just the slender or the whole blade at once with just a thought. Likewise once it was turned off he could think the ring to absorb it, and as it just disappeared from his hand the little disk inside the ring’s cylinder started glowing dimly again. This was great! Sirzan looked more terrified at all of this, Gilliam assumed it was not only that he could instantly use the magical tools, but the danger of the sword and how he just used it. Adding to the carpet bomb and how easily Gilliam took out his arm and captured him, it made sense that he felt a bit of terror. Still being naked, save the manacles, Gilliam walked over to Sirzan and patted him on the shoulder. Or rather he wanted to but he was too tall so he ended up patting him on the side of his fully present arm. “Thank you for your help. I’ll stick to my side of the bargain.” Just completing this sentence had Sirzan’s face light up, though being a demon and Gilliam not being entirely used to all their expressions, that looked a bit sinister. Reversing the spells from before, he now did two things. First he burrowed upwards as he flew but he also raised a pillar of earth beneath his prisoner. This took a bit longer than just going down but eventually the darkness broke and the bright light stabbed at their eyes. Dismissing the light spell and stopping the raising of earth, Gilliam stopped for a moment and faced towards Sirzan. “You might want to consider what you do during the invasion.” This was meant both as a warning and a threat. He didn’t give the demon a chance to reply, he just started flying upwards, taking care he didn’t have anyone after him and just kept going until he got very, very high up. With the new information about where to go and what to do he needed to get an overview and idea of where things are. The first thing he’d like to find was the static gate, second is some clothing. He has been naked for what felt like days now, and it was not exactly comfortable in the sandy terrain. Taking a proper gander he could see that the landmass was slightly elongated, almost like an oval. Though not as smooth edges but sort of oval’ish. There was more and more proper construction and things were closer and closer the further you looked towards one of the edges of the mentioned oval. The other side, which was sort of where he was closer to, became more and more barren. It felt logical that they would build and expand from the static gate, as that was their lifeline closer to the central places. If he was correct then he should find the gate over thataway somewhere.... He didn’t feel incredibly sure about this. Not about the expected bloodbath that could come out of this, for some odd reason he didn’t care much about that. No, it was more about if he went there and there was no gate, he could be in danger for nothing. There is also the danger that, if he’s discovered, they might not activate the gate at all. There was also the fact that the Gatekeeper must know that Gilliam has escaped, since the demon had some dislike for him and he planned to have a gate opened to the Heart, it strongly hinted that he planned to present Gilliam to the lord. Now that Gilliam was lost he probably would make sure that the way off the landmass was shut down. Sirzan did explain that you just need to channel enough energy into the gate and it would activate on its own, so that was an option as well. If so it might be worthwhile considering a huge distraction and then just make for the gate and try to open it himself. On that topic, the danger of this place might not be as high as it sounds. If what the demon mage said is to be believed, then there was no other mage as good as he was. There might be in the Hand or further in but, at that point the portal would have to open. So perhaps just go down and hope for the best is the way to g* Before he could complete the sentence a massive ballista bolt impacted the shield. It hit with enough force to take out the secondary barrier Gilliam had going. The barrier just popped as the bolt did zero damage to the second barrier before the mangled mess that was left of it bounced off. That was a terrifying thought, he was high enough up that he shouldn’t even be spottable from the ground, and they hit him with a ballista bolt? If there were some scryers down there, that would explain that part but, how did they get the bolt all the way up here? Not wanting that to happen again he cast two more barriers, a total of three should work out for now. Though this was oddly taxing it was only taxing for a moment as the barriers contained their own mana until used up. This lets him recharge naturally in the meantime. Since Gilliam could in fact not scry, he was left to look around, and at this distance that was impossible. What he could see, though, was what looked like a bunch of flying ants coming his way. Seems like they had sent someone after him. Still being far in the distance he didn’t want them to get close and possibly a danger. Though he had never cast a spell at this distance before it was a good time to test. A simple cast of the Aether dart he had been using would bea good test. He manifested the spell circle, fed it the needed energy and sent a dart flying, target on one of the incoming specs in the distance. It seemed to have fizzled out before it hit anything. So there was a max distance to the spells, this was good info and something he wanted to experiment more on. For now the simplest experimentation was to just recast the spell but this time modifying the spell to have a few distance runes linked into it, this increased the complexity of the circle but he had the time to figure this out at the moment. He cast it again with the new circle, it needed a little more energy which was to be expected. Though it flew at blinding speed it still used a few solid seconds to get down there, but it hit! It was very, very hard to see but there was a puff of red before one of the creatures started falling. The remaining incoming force spread out considerably after that, making Gilliam chuckle a bit; he should have tested with something bigger. Well, they knew he was here, they weren’t all dumb so they might have some ideas of what he could want to do, and might have locked down the gate. This means that the best plan at the moment is to just get down there, cause some chaos and go for the gate. ‘There is no time like the present’ was the thought that passed through Gilliam’s mind as he started flying down towards the area he believed the gate might be located in. On the way down the incoming swarm changed direction to intercept, though most of them didn’t seem to be flying as fast as Gilliam, he preferred to not have them tail him. Making sure they got into range he reused the carpet bombing spell from before, but changed the runes a little to make the collection of spheres explode on impact rather than go through them first. The effect was devastating, not much in the sense of mana cost but as the hail of golf ball spheres sped towards their target they started detonating on impact. This was somewhat gorier than he expected, being in air like this and the fact that the spheres that missed their targets were detonated by the other explosions had this become a rather horrible location to be in. This one spell took out all the demons chasing him in one fell swoop as the corpses, loose limbs, wounded demons and just a collection of innards started falling back to the ground. This would normally have been nausea inducing, but for some odd reason it didn’t really affect him as much as he expected, he has had this thought a few times here in this world. Must be because of the survival aspect and the fact that they are demons. Not delaying any more he made way towards where he expected the static gate to be, he needed to be somewhat certain before he either got too close to the ground or set off a distraction in the distance. In either case it was going to get harder, even with a good distraction there were bound to be guards around the gate. Gilliam decided to consider this once he got closer, he needed more info before he could even consider a plan.

He had just cast his first spell. His mind was racing, this is amazing; he can cast magic and it’s so easy. He apparently has the gift and dear lord... This is actually real. All of this went through his mind at the same time, his face went from amazement, curious and intrigue, interested, happy and at the end a certain sense of dread. If this is true then he is indeed in another world. His family, his friends, his goldfish. “What's the matter?” The question snapped him back to.. well.. to reality, apparently. Angela looked at him a bit confused. “You succeeded with your first spell, at an incredible speed as well. You should be happy, why... do you look horrified?” She did look a bit worried at the end. “I... My family and friends, my pet.. Everyone I ever knew... If I really am in a different world then...” his lack of focus on the magic he was controlling had its stability fade and with a flickering flash, almost like a lightbulb burning out, the spell fizzled and faded into nothing. He looked towards it almost insultingly, like the spell dared to fail like this, but this changed back to sadness. “My family was never really that loving but it’s still something losing them... Unless..” His face determined with a question turned back to Angela. “Is there a way for me to go back?” Angela shook her head as she shrugged. “I’m afraid I can’t answer that, I don’t understand magic that well, at least not outside of my own ability. But you can probably talk to someone better than me. Or learn it yourself?” The latter sounded like hard work and effort, not something Gilliam was against but magic was still a very foreign concept to him. He apparently had the gift but from Angela’s earlier explanation there was a possibility that he might have the gift in some other magic, rather than what’s needed to send him home? Talking to someone better didn’t sound like a bad idea. “Let’s do that, can you take me to someone more know*” His sentence was cut short to the sound of his own stomach growling like an angry dog. Forcing him to stare blankly at Angela for a second before chuckling. “I don’t suppose I can trouble you for some food?” The forced smile was awkward but surprisingly honest. Angela chuckled at the scene, determination and goals suddenly interrupted by hunger. “Sure, let’s go have something to eat. I should still have some good meat left.” She smiled honestly as she, for the first time since they met, calmly walked somewhere. Entering the cottage again and heading for the kitchen nook. Gilliam’s mind refocused on the book he was given. Though she opened the page on the very simplest of practice spells, now that this was real and he might have to at least help learn of a way to get home... learning magic didn’t seem like a dumb idea... In fact it sounded like an incredibly interesting idea. Flipping to the next page he found a simple spell that would levitate an object, according to the description the amount of mana you fuel the spell with would dictate how heavy an object you can lift. Or rather, like with muscle power, when you lift something you will need to add more and more until you surpass its weight. The book recommended starting with something soft and light, a feather is a very good start, or something like leaves. Compared to the light spell this spell recommended the use of a Foci, as new students might find that this requires a bit more mana and would be made simpler with a Foci. Since the light spell only took him a minute of reading, Gilliam decided to give this a go as well, even without a Foci.. whatever that was, he could read up on that later. There were plenty of leaves in the jungle so he was not lacking light objects to try with. Continuing to read he realized that he understood how this worked with surprising simplicity, it just made sense; like reading how to use a key in a lock it was surprisingly simple to understand the why’s and how’s of how this worked. Angela did explain that this book was for novices wanting to learn, it seems they have written it with lacking base-knowledge in mind, making everything so much easier to understand. Walking outside he picked up the first leaf he found on the ground and placed it in his palm. The needed movement and mental image was simple as most magic apparently needed affinity with the element in question and a mental picture. Certain spells were things that every mage could do, like the light spell and the simplest of tricks. He did the movements and had the mental image in his mind as the book said, the leaf started levitating on its own right away. Gilliam was ecstatic; this was fun, he was learning actual magic! A simple, gentle, gust of wind flew by and sent his leaf flying. Though still hovering it was not being controlled in all three dimensions, just upwards, so it started flying away from him. Quickly checking the book again he read up on what he needed to do to control direction, it acted something akin to certain haptic games he had tried out, namely VR games. He pointed his hand towards the leaf and made a slow pulling motion, the leaf stopped and now resisted the wind. His smile only grew and for a moment he forgot the situation he was in. A sharp pulling motion followed by opening his hand had the leaf fly into it, pressing itself against his palm. He had now caught the leaf from a longer distance. Adrenaline was powering through his veins and he wondered what else he could lift. The leaf was practically weightless so he couldn’t feel it being a problem. Quickly looking around he found some sticks. Aiming at one of them and repeating the movement and mental image had the stick flying around as well. This had a bit more weight to it, he could feel the momentum being a real force when he tried to change its direciton, but like holding something stronger you just needed to add a tiny bit of extra force. The momentum ceased to be an issue as soon as he did that, which just increased his joy yet again. Stopping to focus on the spell cut the energy feed to it and the stick simply fell to the ground. Immediately he looked around for something heavier, locking his eyes on a melon-sized rock. Repeating the movements and words, feeding the spell with a tiny bit extra energy and the rock started flying as well! “Yes!” he realized after proclaiming his success that he had done a fistpump... With the hand he used to lift the rock.... A burst of energy and a slight spike in the drain had the rock propel itself upwards into the sky. He couldn’t see it anymore and he was getting worried, what if it hits him, the house, breaks something... But a heavy thud not far from where he picked it up had it land safely. He let out a relieved sigh, that could have been worse... What a way to thank the one who is teaching him and now feeding him, by breaking her home or hurting her... Though this was a valuable lesson, he could throw things with this spell as well. Before he continued playing with the spell, he decided to read the rest of the description and information, absorbing it like a sponge. It seems that this magic has two levels of understanding. There is the simple and rather inefficient variant of it. It was simplified in make and effect, but that was a side effect of the spell working for all elements. This spell would work just as fine for a water mage as a fire mage. Though both of those elements had their own variants of spells that allowed them to get the same result with their own way of doing things. If you happened to have an attunement with the Aether element, you could master this spell into a full fledged telekinesis spell, with much higher versatility and power. Reading on the changes to the spell also made sense. How you would be told by a professional to lift with other muscles could increase your effect, this description also made the same kind of sense. This time reading the whole spell and not just enough to make it work, he soon felt ready to give the rock another attempt. Turning back to it he did the upgraded changes to the physical movements, as well as the properly managing the mental component, ending up with his right hand pointed towards the rock in question. The rock had an odd link with his hand, he could move it around in a much more natural way than before. Rather than fueling the spell with energy in all directions like keeping a ball afloat in air currents, this felt more like he was grabbing something with his outstretched arm. The rock moved as he moved his hand. Up, down, to the sides. It was very simple. Back and forth also came with some movements and it was incredibly intuitive. According to the book, if you did this and didn’t have the Aether attunement the spell just wouldn’t work, so this suggested that he at least had the Aether attunement! He moved the rock around like flailing with a paper airplane, it was physically effortless but there was an odd draining effect to it. In the end he retracted his arm and made a punching motion, opening his palm at the end of it. There was a pulse of energy that left his hand and the rock shot away at great speed into the jungle. Several thunks could be heard as it hit some trees, ending in a boulder, exploding into a hundred pieces. The snapping sound of it hitting the boulder sent birds flying away in fear, it silenced the jungle and it had Angela come running out of the cottage, then over to him, looking greatly worried. “What was that, what happened. Are we under attack?” She took a defensive pose ready to find anyone nearby. Gilliam forced a sheepish smile. “I... I tried to magically throw a rock... it worked better than I expected..” Hesitantly he pointed towards where it was thrown. Angela looked in the direction for a few seconds before her eyes widened. She ran over there right after and Gilliam followed. Further inspection showed that the rock penetrated through four trees before it met its match with the boulder. The force of this was close to a cannonball. Angela looked amazed, Gilliam looked a bit horrified at his hands... Is this what a mage is capable of? And he started learning 10 minutes ago... This place must be frightening. “This is incredible!” Angela proclaimed as she turned towards Gilliam. “To be able to do this so soon after casting your first spell. And without a Foci, you must be a natural!” She looked at him with pride and a genuine sense of happiness for him. He was just confused, a natural? He just did what the book said, the book of noob magic. “I... I just did what the book said to do.. I just didn’t expect this power from it...” he was still a bit confused on how the mana aspect actually worked... “Oh.. a Foci.. the book mentioned it vaguely.. What’s a Foci?” The logical question that he should have read up on before playing with magic came to light. Angela thought for a second, collecting her thoughts before answering. “A Foci helps the mage focus their mana, if I remember right from what my father told me, casting spells without a foci is wasteful but possible. You use more mana to achieve the same result. The best explanation is a lit candle, lighting up something on a wall. It works fine with it as it is, but if you put a reflector behind it and focus it properly, you will get a better result with less effort.” Gilliam pondered this for a few seconds, he didn’t know what a Foci was or how it worked per se, but the idea behind it was easy to understand. This would mean that if he had one, the effect of the throw he did now would have been stronger... A frightening thought. “But how are you doing? You look fine, but most mages are exhausted for their first few spells, especially with this much force. It takes them some time getting used to using their mana... It took me weeks of training to just get to the point where I could use my magic normally without feeling bad afterwards.” She looked at him with a slight worry, like if he was going to pass out at any second now. “No.. I feel fine.. Should... Should I sit down or something? Is the effect delayed?” He was looking a bit worried, was the fatigue going to hit him like a brick to the face from nowhere? He started sitting down in case this was going to be sudden and immediate, though he was stopped by Angela. “No, you would feel it almost immediately if that was the case. Casting spells without a Foci and without feeling any side effects on the first day is unusual. Perhaps you just have a large mana pool?” She didn’t seem to be certain either, she did mention earlier that she didn’t really have too much information on the subject, although the little info she did have shed some light on Gilliam’s possible situation. “Well... The book said that this spell wouldn’t work unless I had an attunement for Aether, since it did work I apparently do!” He looked proud, happy and highly enjoying himself. Not that he knew the difference of one element to another at the moment, but he was able to do this and apparently do it well. His emotions calmed down a bit as he realized something. “The book mentioned that there is a test done before you start learning, to see what attunements you have. Some crystal thing that can read it. Do you have one of those?” Angela shook her head. “The Attunement crystals are expensive, the crystals themselves are hard to both come by and make into proper detectors. Only the guilds, schools and some skilled and powerful mages have them.” This deflated Gilliam a bit, but in a sense it was not too problematic. “Though, to find out what other attunements I have, I can just try out some simple spells from the different elements, the ones that won’t work unless you can use it?” Angela nodded but also shook her head in a way hinting to both yes and no. “Most mages wouldn’t do that, as it takes time to learn a spell. And time used to learn a spell you can never use would be looked at as wasteful-” she looked to the sky as she rubbed her chin with her fingers. “-Although you did learn these spells very fast, so as long as you are fine with learning simple spells you can never use, I suppose there isn’t anything against trying?” Her tone of voice had a mixture of this being a good idea, but also that he shouldn’t get his hopes up. “But, the food is ready, so eat first and play with magic later.” she commanded as she stopped him from opening the book again. He nodded in agreement, though a bit deflated as trying out other magic sounded more interesting than food. But his hunger had only incrased and she had a good point. He followed her into her cottage where he found a simple dish prepared. There were two plates on the table, both of which had a small round bread and some dried meat on the side. There was a mug of water between them and two simple cups made out of bamboo. She motioned for him to sit down as she did the same. There were no utensils and the method of eating it seemed simple; she tore off small pieces of the bread and supplemented it with the meat. A simple meal but as Gilliam found out, it tasted surprisingly good. The same concept as whole-grain bread in the modern world. “So, tell me about yourself, about your world. You have strange clothes but from the prophecy you should be from a very different world?” Though there was a large hint of uncertainty in her voice she still nailed it quite perfectly. Gilliam started explaining a bit about himself, which was surprisingly mundane, a student not knowing where to go in life, currently between classes due to summer break and how he was trucked to death. The explanation about his world was more interesting to her. Tall, glass clad buildings, concrete everywhere, cars, technology and other concepts that were very hard to explain to someone without a certain level of knowledge. He did his best but there were many things he could not properly explain. She was amazed, asking about the various things he tried to explain, which just further complicated the explanations. In the end he took out his smartphone to show her. Though there was no signal and little battery left he could still show her some pictures from home, he took her picture and showed her. She had a mixture of thinking this was magic from another world to a bit scared as this little device stole her likeness. Sadly it didn’t take much time before the phone died from low battery, it was suddenly a fancy paperweight... After a while he turned the question to her. Her background and general info. She explained that she is an old, but well known adventurer’s daughter, he is a very powerful healing mage, to the point that his name is well known in the magic community, especially in guilds and adventuring context. This is a problem for her, given her unique apperance it’s often easy to just guess who she is as her father is also an Albino. Even so, she inherited healing magic from him but she can only heal herself, this has still let her surpass human levels of physique as she can heal herself when her muscles, or her body in general, gets damaged. This in turn means that she has double the amount of stamina as anyone else but also that she has taught herself to turn off the human limiter, and since she has been training at this increased level for an extended time she has become somewhat in good shape. She was taught martial arts on the side of this and has become acceptable at it, she was traveling the world to better herself when she got the prophecy. Returning to her father to talk about it and further with a medium gave her visions, which was also how she knew where to build the cabin and wait for Gilliam. “The visions showed us, with a few others, standing victorious after a great.. Event.. . I don’t know who anyone else is but you are supposed to do something great. People will know your name and shout it at the top of their lungs!” she ended up with a cheering fist in the air as she mimicked her explanation. “But... I’m just some guy.. This sounds a bit much.” He was quite taken back, him becoming a hero sounded so... dumb.. He was just a random guy. “No, the prophecy doesn’t lie, you will become a hero.” She countered with determination, as clear as stating a proven fact. “And I will follow you to the end of Lisica to do so.” her determination was only growing. It was clear that this was for her own sake as well as for his. “Besides, the prophecy and my visions had me set up this cottage here, and make the path to where you landed. Did it not?” a cheeky smile grew on her lips, suggesting that she wanted him to prove her wrong. He inhaled to reply but stopped himself as he realized she was absolutely right. But... If the rest of the prophecy is also correct, then... He would wield great power and become a hero? “I... I guess... but.. I still feel that it’s somewhat odd... It just feels weird.” She might have strange magical facts on her side, there was still disbelief in his voice. “Well, let’s do it this way. I’ll follow you around for as long as you want. And I’m either right, or I’m wrong and you get a local to guide you around.” Her smile was filled with a victorious tone, and sadly she did have a point. “But for now, to make things more fun for you, go test out some more magic. Let’s find out what elements you have!” This kickstarted his curiosity and intrigue for the magic again, almost immediately he forgot the whole hero thing and the ordeal about his own world. He grabbed the book and went back outside with the glee of a toddler that just got a new toy.

Gilliam had followed Ghaos through the hallways and staircases, it seems they were indeed under the school, a few floors down from where he did the Familiar ritual. Like the first basement floor there was a guard here as well that they had to go through, the woman guarding it gave Ghaos a nod which he returned. Given that he was the boss battlemage or something they would most likely be colleagues. A battlemage was probably the school’s elite guards or something. The bobbing up the stairs seems to have woken Savia, she didn’t exactly tumble out of Gilliam’s hair as much as she let go and climbed out of it. Him having his hair in a short ponytail gave her plenty of places to sort of hold onto and just ‘get under’. Given her minute size he hardly even knew she was there unless she moved. Petal followed in suit behind Gilliam, she acted like if she was on a field trip, everything she saw was kind of interesting or amazing. She didn’t touch anything but it was clear that she kind of wanted to. Jial followed them all and didn’t say anything, which might as well have been a good thing as Gilliam was in deep thought. His life had changed, and sure like most gamers and avid story readers his situation up to a few days ago was almost like a dream but when the Demon invasion kicked in it... Well, the joy and dream-like state faded a bit. Now there was a danger to his life, he had suddenly ended up with a slave, and people had alreay died horribly around him. This whole last part was not something he liked. However, he didn’t intend to go down without a fight, he wasn't sure if he could kill just like that but the survival instinct is strong, he didn’t want to kill but he absolutely didn’t want to get killed. Suddenly without properly realising it he had found himself at the top of the spiral staircase, in the large central room of the academy. It very much was the hub of the whole place, so passing through here a few times a day seemed pretty normal. As the group exited the spiral staircase and into the room people there hardly batted an eye, it was just some of the school teachers and though Gilliam had gotten a thing going for him he was still not unusual. No, what really had people react was Petal. An actual demon coming out of there had people point, panic and certain students even pulled out their Foci. Even though Gilliam didn’t exactly with proper certainty understand what a Foci was or how it worked, it was oddly easy to confirm if what they pulled out was one or not. But they were angry, the hate practically glowed in their eyes, it was only due to the presence of Jial and Ghaos that halted them from just attacking outright. Ghaos pointed at his forehead then at his neck before he nodded towards Petal, this seemed to hint for the students to actually take a proper look. They calmed down a little after this but still looked at her with extreme hate. For some reason this didn’t affect her in the slightest, she might have been more prepared for this than Gilliam anticipated, or alternatively she was used to something so much worse that this was just nothing. In either case it was sad, though he understood the thoughts from the students side, it's still a sad situation. “Let’s go get something to eat first, can’t train on an empty stomach.” Ghaos said a bit louder than needed, almost as he was announcing it to everyone else. Though, Gilliam had to agree on the food part. He had been unconscious for two days, having no idea how they got nutrition in him during that time as there were no bags of liquid connected to him when he woke. And come to think of it, how was the toilet situation handled during this time... Back home these were fixed by an IV and catheter. He was secretly glad that these were not needed but he still wondered what the process was to handle this. Most likely magic but he still had to wonder. In any case, the important part became food, he had been kept good which is fine but now that it was brought up, his body really wanted some proper food. It was also not hard to see at all that though she tried to keep herself composed, Petal was incredibly excited for this. Though there was also a secondary thought for Gilliam, it was the reactions of the students when she just walks in there and eats their food... He supposed this was where the treatment that Jial mentioned might come into play. Well, he would have to handle that as time came, it felt weird just thinking about it, so it was easier to give that job to Future Gilliam. And this future came sooner rather than later. Having walked through the hallway into Wing 3 they entered the cafeteria. And the reaction here was... as expected. The room was bustling with activity, people talking loudly, trying to talk louder than the other people talking loudly which made everything just louder. Groups around certain tables talking about something interesting, food being eaten and all just normal times. Then they noticed Petal, it took only a few seconds for the whole room to grow completely silent. Given the aggression in their eyes it was not hard to guess that nothing had happened mainly due to the presence of Ghaos and Jial. Perhaps Gilliam’s presence or the slave collar and mark might have done a little of it, but Gilliam felt that it was mainly the security of the Batlemage Capatian and whatever reputation Jial had, that kept them calm. Before entering the room Gilliam was prepared to shield her. Being a bit pre-prepared allowed you to cast spells much faster, and though he hadn’t learned to instantly use the spell circles yet he was decent enough at Unstructured magic to get that going if needed. He just really hoped that there was no need for it. Motioning for Petal to follow him, Ghaos and Jial remained at the door for now. It seems their idea was to observe and keep to the side if possible. Gilliam walked over to the buffet, got a plate for himself and gave her one. He got some food for himself and motioned for her to do the same. Even with enough angry stares at her to burn a hole through stone she remained unaffected. Though now that Gilliam was in high-gear as far as perception goes he did notice some subtle hints of severe unease from her side. Trying to balance keeping an eye on things but also filling his plate with food, he suddenly felt a spike of.. Something coming from the room. It felt like the same ‘heat’ that he felt on the day of the Demon gate opening. Turning around he saw a young student, it was the same boy that asked to become his apprentice, but he had nothing but anger in his eyes. He had a wand in his hand and was doing some movements, a few chairs, tables and a lot of sharp cutlery was being lifted off the floor. So the boy was Telekinetic and this weird heatless-heat feeling that he had, was this the feeling of mana? Gilliam knew what was going to happen, this was exactly what he expected. Gathering the needed energy he channelled it into a shield. He had already done this once down in the basement and since he had pre-prepared for it, making the circle came unnaturally easy for him. As if he had trained for years the correct magic circle appeared in front of his outstretched arm, ate the channelled energy and disappeared at the same moment this energy was converted into the spell. The whole process took a split second and in front of Petal formed a large, perfectly circular disc. It was large enough to protect her entire body with ease, as well as some of Gilliam besides her. It was translucent so barely see through, enough to see the incoming objects and spot things but it was still a bit ‘wavy’ so pinpoint targeting through it was harder. The chairs, tables and cutlery hit the shield, shattering and bending things respectively. The sound this made was a bit odd, it was a weird sparkly thump from the shield, the wood and metal made the sound of hitting a stone wall before it fell to the floor in pieces or just severely warped. Jedark had thrown this with extreme force, this was not a scare tactic and would most likely have killed most people if not protected. The young boy made an unsatisfied click with his tongue and started gathering energy again, more objects started hovering, this time from behind them as well. Gilliam looked to Jial and Ghaos for some aid, but Jial’s face had only one expression: Do it. Fine, if that was what they wanted, this was already a fight, right? Then the kid was going to learn the concept of overwhelming force. Gilliam didn’t want to harm anyone directly, he knew at least some of the thoughts behind his actions, he most likely lost someone in the attack but this was unacceptable. Whatever Gilliam did here and now would set a precedence for the future. If he looked meek or backed down then it could become worse, however if he solidified himself... You know what... Fuck it. Gilliam didn’t intend to hold back when someone of his group, be they friends or otherwise. He protects his own as far as he can. Letting loose his energy, just stopping to consider holding back he spread out his mana across the room. The air became thick, hard to breathe. The less magical resistance you had, the harder it hit. “ENOUGH!” Gilliam was angry, he understood the potential feelings but this is not the way to go about it, blind racism triggered him. He focused his energy on the same objects that Jedark had started planning an attack with, he focused his energy on the chairs and tables around the boy. But he made sure to avoid each and every student, familiar and whatever school supplies they had brought. The lack of restraint of his mana pool wrestled control from the young boy. A powerful thrust downwards crushed and shattered the objects that Jedark originally had control over, the chairs and tables he had connected to in Jedark’s area. He had long since ignored his food, in fact he had to drop the plate to set up the shield around Petal fast enough, oddly enough this made him just the more pissed. Petal was somewhat taken back at this, even though she was still standing behind the shield. Savia was still in his hair, holding on with some odd determination. Walking through the dust in the air, the raining debris in the form of splinters and not caring to avoid stepping on whatever was on the floor, he walked over to Jedark. Who was at this point petrified in fear. Gilliam spoke calmly and oddly politely, but with a force of annoyance behind every word. “If you dare to attack me or mine again, I will not choose to miss the next time. Understood?” This was the most terrifying threat that Gilliam had ever given to someone, although it was somewhat out of character for him he absolutely meant it. He disliked the idea of harming and especially of killing, but he would absolutely break some bones to save his friends. And in a world where healing magic was a thing, he felt that breaking bones or simple damages like that was easier to consider as fine. The young boy nodded rapidly. Gilliam didn’t know how much of this threat actually hit, but considering his show of force, adding that everyone in the school knew that he took down the gate more or less on his own, and the earthquake inducing fireball in the mountains. He had a few reputation points that might have aided the whole event here. “Let me say this right away-” he spoke louder, to the whole room and not just the terrified young boy. “-I understand your thoughts about her-” he vaguely gestured towards Petal. “-But if anyone even attempts anything...” He didn’t complete his sentence and rather walked back to the buffet. The room was dead silent, he dismissed the shield that disintegrated into particles as he picked up his plate from the floor, it didn’t seem to have broken by the virtue of being carried on a wooden plate. The food had bounced everywhere but had also managed to keep itself mostly on the plate. Picking this up he gestured for Petal to bring her own food, and just walked through the door leading outside into the Air field. Petal followed, super confused and unsure what to do, but she was carrying a plate of only meat through the door. As she got out into the sun she had to shield her eyes from its harsh light, but she followed him out of view of the mess hall windows. Only after leaving the view did Gilliam exhale, almost like he had been holding his breath for minutes. His breath was short and fast, this event had terrified him as well as the others. Finding a good spot to sit down he just sank together, calming down a bit. Though he meant every word he said it was still oddly terrifying to draw attention like that and threaten not only one person, but technically everyone... If the standard teenager mind worked like he remembered his own did, he would most likely be challenged in the future by brave individuals wanting to take him down, slay the evil demon and make a name for themselves.... Though, in that case it would often be started through a talk first and would be aimed at him, this was much safer.. He started eating with his hands, it was still good even though it was somewhat barbaric. Petal had sat down beside him, far enough away that another person could squeeze in but close enough that it would be barely an invasion of comfort zone for most. “Thank you.” She smiled at him, not a wide toothy smile but enough that her fangs showed a little. “I think that’s the first time anyone protected me.” She did sound happy about it, but at the same time it seemed like this set things in perspective. “Well, as long as you’re with me I will do my best.” Gilliam didn’t really know what to say, he was still oddly hung up on owning another person, no matter what race, but the more he considered this a companion the easier it was for him. She didn’t respond but instead started eating. As soon as she had taken the first bite her eyes lit up, more than her already glowing eyes did. It was incredibly clear that this was better than she had tasted before, if not by her reaction then by the sheer speed she inhaled the rest of the food. It was speed-eating worthy. She also managed to not spill a single drop, which alone was pretty interesting at this speed, all of this caused Gilliam to slow down from surprise. In the end she completed her plate of food much, much faster than Gilliam, licking her fingers she stopped suddenly as she realised she was being stared at by him. She didn’t exactly know how to react to this, since Gilliam just smiled at her she continued until she was done. A minute or so later Gilliam was also done. During all of this Savia had flown down and landed on Gilliam’s plate, taking a small piece for herself; her stomach was so small that there was no way he’d even notice. It was not until this point they realised that there was plenty of staring, the field was absolutely not without students, as many liked to eat outside when the weather permitted. And suddenly a demon there speed eating did take up a lot of attention. Though nobody seemed bold enough to attack her they either didn’t have the guts or motivation. Jedark clearly had both, strong motivation can overpower guts so... odds are that he lost someone. If nothing else all of this should at least keep Jedark off him, hopefully that could be a thing. It was not hard to guess that there would be some problems from this. Not just the already considered challenges or attacks, but he did break a good few sets of furniture as well as cutlery, he had literally no money so... Perhaps he could try to claim that it could be the payment for him breaking the gate or something... “So, this is where you are.” It was Ghaos’ voice, turning towards it did indeed confirm it was him. “I’d say that your little stunt in there should work in keeping the kids of you.” He looked honestly happy about things, that was good, at least. “Now, let’s get moving.” his smile turned to a grin Gilliam didn’t like the look of. But that was right, there was some training happening. “Just leave the plate, someone will do a cleanup afterwards anyway” He didn’t look or wait for a response, he started walking, waiting with continuing speaking until they caught up. Already knowing how this part worked he stacked the plates together so it was easier for whomever ended up doing the cleanup, picking Savia up he placed her on his shoulder and walked at a faster than normal pace to retake Ghaos as he headed towards the Earth field, through the arch under the fourth Wing. “Since we’re going to have a crash course in training, it’s going to be rough for both of us. Because of that I have set up a little fun thing for you.” His tone of voice was not good. It felt like something horrible was in his near future. Looking oddly satisfied, he led Gilliam and company through the Earth field into the Light field. In the middle of the field was a large dome of sorts set up, it was very clear and slightly ‘whited out’, almost like it just wasn’t completely clean. There were four statues of sorts of heroic men standing with their palms out around the dome, based on how the energies interacted with them; they were the clear anchors of it. “Welcome to your training field!” Ghaos smiled widely, in the creepy ‘you will get hurt’ kind of way. Gilliam patiently waited for him to continue his explanation. “When we go in and activate the field, spells won’t be able to enter it and since we’re in the Light field, attuning it to the field will let us heal when we damage each other. Over and over again.” .... Gilliam could swear that he saw Ghaos grasping his runed metallic staff tighter.... “You can cast spells, as long as you don’t go full doom, you can attack however you want and even stabbing through someone will just heal, losing an arm will regrow in seconds.. You’re not entirely immortal but close enough.” He smiles widely, he clearly knew how this worked and... It’s honestly not a bad idea for the sake of realism and repeatability, but... Gilliam didn’t like what all of this meant. “So.. In short... You’re going to hurt me a lot as I try to learn to fight properly...” Gilliam knew how this was going to go. Hopefully he will learn fast but... Ghaos was a super trained battlemage... This was going to hurt.. “Yep” He smiled, it was clear that he was going to enjoy this. “At least give me some hints before we go in...” Gilliam, like most people, didn’t like getting hurt. He theoretically had a choice in the scenario but... He wanted to, he needed to get good at this. If not for everyone else but for himself. “You made an instant Magic Circle in the Messhall, you’ll be fine. Remember the basics.” He ended with a weird smirk. “But... I never learned the basics.. I have trained for like two days..” Gilliam tried to argue against it. Though he had a very unfair advantage it was true; he really had only been training actively for a few days. “Such a shame.” Ghaos replied in a sadistic tone as he pushed Gilliam towards the dome. Considering this for a few moments, all in all Ghaos would not do this unless it was relatively safe. There are healing mages around, he said that this thing will heal them passively and apparently really strongly. Though Ghaos is without doubt the dangerous one here, he is also skilled enough to handle himself both as a defender and attacker. If Gilliam gets a lucky shot in he can probably limit it and get healed. And he can pull his punches so he doesn’t actually just straight up murder Gilliam. This was going to suck, absolutely, but it was not the worst idea for speed training... Right? Gilliam took Savia off his shoulder where she had just plopped down earlier and gave her to Petal. Since Petal held a hand out to receive the little creature Gilliam just placed her there. “I’m off to get murdered” he smiled at Petal, who in turn looked at him very, very confused. Savia just sat down in Petal’s hands not seeming to react much. Since Savia had tried to protect him before, Gilliam decided to pre-warn her this time so she wouldn’t go insane. “I will go in there and fight the man, there is no need for you to protect me, just... don’t worry, ok?” He really did wonder if she would understand... She seemed smart but a bit instinctual at times. “Savia wait.” She smiled like this was the important bit. But he got some weird content and calm feelings across their shared bond. This was still a bit weird but oddly nice. Psyching himself up he finally took some steps towards the barrier. “Oh, you’re ready?” Ghaos seemed a bit surprised, but without waiting he grabbed Gilliam by the neck and threw him into the barrier dome. Walking in calmly after him, rather sinister with his glee and the calmness. As soon as Ghaos entered the dome turned from its milky white into what looked like solid glass. It was transparent enough to easily look in or out, but it also looked straight up solid. “So, how are we doing th*” Gilliam asked as he got to his feet and turned around to face Ghaos. Though his sentence was interrupted as the battlemage was closer than expected and delivered a solid right hook. He didn’t pull that punch either, the sound of cracking bone could be heard under the sound of fist meeting face. Gilliam fell down in a mixture of sheer disbelief, pain and just surprise. Letting out a shout of pain this shout calmed down after a few seconds as his jaw reset itself where it should be, the wounds healed and the pain went away. “I recommend you fight back.” Ghaos stated as he walked towards Gilliam, who couldn’t do anything but run at the moment. There was a surprising amount of room in the dome, however Ghaos was also surprisingly fast for his stocky build. In the following minute as Gilliam tried to form a spell circle while panicked Ghaos had broken at least five bones in his arms and legs alone. They healed in seconds forcing Gilliam to scamper away. How the fuck was this training, this was just bullying, there was no chance. Stopping, yes, that sounded like a good idea. Prepare a bit more. “I yield, I want out. We can try again later. Please le*” Again Gilliam’s sentence was cut short by Ghaos punting him into the barrier wall, which felt like getting thrown into a stone boulder, just absolutely no give. He broke at least a few ribs there, but as before they just healed in seconds and... Gilliam finally realised what he was in for. This moment made something click, he was absolutely in for a bad time but he needed to control his panic. Dodge once, just once, then take it from there. Ghaos again closed the distance and went for another attack, Gilliam did his best to dodge it but a simple readjustment had him hit anyway. This time it didn’t break anything but it was still horribly painful. Gilliam needed to focus, anything, everything, he could use unstructured magic; but this needed a lot of focus. He could use structured magic, but that needed him remembering the spell circles during all of this. He tried, oh he tried. One circle failed after another, one attempt of Unstructured magic failed after another. As Ghaos saw that Gilliam was trying to adapt, he changed his tactics of just keeping the pain and terror up. When Gilliam stretched out his hand to cast a shield or some spell, Ghaos’ staff would impact and shatter his entire hand. There was blood, there was screaming, there was pain, what felt like close to dying and sheer agony. A crowd had formed around the dome, most looking at the massacre with worried eyes, some looking at it with sadistic glee. But through all of this and another failed attempt of running Gilliam noticed something. Even with the spectacle of him getting owned over and over, there were still those who looked at Petal with... less than nice eyes. Getting beat over and over like this, not only was that undermining the fear that he tried to instil before, it was ruining his reputation. In one way that was not bad as he was not super keen on fame but it was needed. Not for himself but for his allies, for Petal, for Angela. He wanted to repay Angela somehow, and apparently getting famous was going to help her. His thoughts again blacked out as Ghaos brained him with his staff, Gilliam remembered the sound of the staff whooshing in the air and then waking up on the ground. But, this distance was what he needed, flinging his hand in Ghaos’ direction he repeated the motions he did to save Petal. The magic circle flashed into existence and the green barrier formed! “YES!” Gilliam exclaimed as he managed to cast his first spell in what felt like hours of getting broken. “Well done, here’s your reward!” Ghaos smiled as he threw something that was eerily familiar. A mana crystal. He angled it so that it would just hit the ground besides the shield. Gilliam had played enough with telekinesis that this became a reaction, before it hit the ground he sent out a tendril of mana that once connected with the gem he held it in the air. “Well done!” Ghaos complimented as he gave Gilliam a single second to act before he continued. Getting to his feet, the shield still attached to one of his hands, Gilliam used the telekinetic link to throw it back at Ghaos. The battlemage easily dodged it and rolled towards Gilliam, the small explosion hitting somewhere behind him harmlessly. Now having his staff properly in hand he made for Gilliam and his shield!

The rain was still pelting down on the shield above the academy, it still looked surreal not unlike someone spraying water at a window with you on the other side. Just from below. It was kind of hard to describe. A lot of water was running down the sides, Gilliam assumed there was something to collect it all down there so it doesn’t flood the outside of the walls. Gilliam really wanted to experiment with the sword, as well as a few other spell concepts but he didn’t want to do either within the Academy walls, and with this rain he was not super keen on going outside either. Students were about and training or testing their own things, the ones that noticed the group did react. Some waved, some shunned them and tried all too hard to ignore them, but Gilliam was happy realising that the majority of them just kept up with whatever they were doing before. Through some distractions there was nothing that stopped the group from getting back to the Dome. And Gilliam started finding it slightly interesting and odd. At the same time as he started hating it. But, as a training tool it was nothing short of amazing. You could go in there, have a duel or fight with someone and just go nuts without danger. Though his clothing still had some cuts and stabs through them... He should get that changed, but the construction was just miraculous. Though, as Gilliam pondered this problem he might have stumbled on the problem. The pain is not only ‘like real’, it straight up is proper real. Sure it gets healed but it still happens. Perhaps that is the main reason it’s not used that much? Which in turn might be why Ghaos and Kintas used it with Gilliam, as an adult he could process it slightly differently? Not that he was amazing at handling pain but... His logical side could perhaps process it better? He didn’t get any good answers through his pondering until they got back to the Dome. Gilliam can’t remember anyone turning it off but it was currently not activated. Perhaps it had a timer function after people left or perhaps someone just turned it off after they were done. In any case it seemed there was still plenty left of the crystal he made, as Angela just took a peek into the container and seemed satisfied before turning it on. Gilliam turned to Petal “Do you need any weapons? Remember; you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.” He wanted to be somewhat supportive, she was her own person, after all. She turned to him with a surprisingly odd and determined face, replying in demonic. “No, I think I want to do this. For... For the first time I think I have a goal. When you were gone I had a lot of time to think and look around. Get used to the night thing. And when you asked me for a goal.. There aren’t that many who dare speak of a life different than the lords make for us but... If it’s possible to start something here, in this world. I want to save them like you saved me.” It was clear she had a lot on her mind, her uncertain body language confirmed that she was not used to this determination. Gilliam didn’t consider it much, he had been on the receiving end of a slight personality shift not long ago, it feels weird, especially when you think back on things. “And for that I need to fight.” There was a look of pure determination, no hesitation in that part. At least it was easy to know where to start. “Then we’ll find out how you can fight.” He smiled, and almost as if on queue the dome started growing its field as Angela let out a satisfied “There we go.” “In case it’s needed, I give you permission to fight Angela honestly inside this dome when she is fine with it.” He felt a bit dirty having to word it like that but... He had to be careful about certain things. His earlier order about allowing her to defend herself would most likely work inside there but... Since there was no actual danger of bodily harm he thought it best to just make sure there were no restrictions in this specific instance. The dim mark on her forehead pulsed once, signalling the acceptance of the order. Petal modded as a response as well. Gilliam let the girls handle this for now, since she didn’t answer about any weapons she either just missed the question, or is fine without. Given her lifestyle she had probably never fought with anything besides claws and teeth before. It’s as good a place as any to start. Angela came over and grabbed Petal’s hand, dragging her into the field as it grew up from the ground towards the top. Angela started explaining things, Gilliam could only properly hear her mentioning how damage worked in there, something she was very aware of from seeing Gilliam getting murdered for hours. As the dome completed and most sound was problematic to make out the still talked a little back and forth, it was interesting seeing things from this side. Though sounds were muffled, like they were on the other side of a thick piece of glass, vision was a bit different. He could see them fine, but there was a slight haze to it, not distorting much but a little bit. It was actually harder to look out from the inside than from outside inwards. Gilliam just found a place to stand close to the dome and let them handle this. As expected, they used a bit of time to talk and discuss, even to the point that Angela stretched out her arm, letting Petal claw at it and draw blood, almost to confirm that it was fine and that it was working as intended. This was also the first time that he actually considered that Petal had claws. Gilliam expected something similar to himself happen, she might need to get over the hesitation of hurting someone. Since she had been subservient her whole life. They spoke a few more seconds before Petal nodded, seemingly replying to something Angela said. Suddenly they both moved, it was a ‘blink and miss it’ moment where both had attacked at the same time. Angela who was clearly the most trained of the two had landed the first attack, she had crouched down a little bit, had her left hand pulled back to her side and her right fist landed hard in Petal’s chest. Petal’s larger sweeping attempt to claw at Angela had missed by a lot, she found herself lifted off her hooves for a brief moment. In the brief moment she was in the air, Petal had attempted to kick Angela in the face, though missed as her sparring partner had taken a step to the side. Angela attempted to follow this up with a blow to Petal’s knee, seemingly to instantly realise this, Petal pulled her leg back enough for the blow to hit the hoof instead. This seemed to do zero damage but the momentum from the punch sent Petal spinning around, something she took advantage of and slapped Angela in the face with her tail hard enough to leave an imprint of the arrow-head shape at the end of her tail, on Angela's cheek. As Petal landed she took a step backwards, Angela having already taken a short jump to gain distance at the time of getting tail slapped. Gilliam was amazed at this, he knew that Angela was well trained so everything so far was within what he could have guessed but Petal. Where the hell did she learn to fight like this? She had potentially been fighting for food in the Fractured Lands but... did she get this kind of training there as well? Or was it that... she was just a natural? Gilliam had no idea how to process this, it all happened so fast. He could follow it but it was not super easy. They didn’t wait apart for long, both stepped into range and the fight continued. Petal went for another attempt at landing her claws, but this was easily deflected by the trained Angela, causing Petal to get off balance which let her land an incredibly hard punch in Petal’s gut. Gilliam could almost feel the punch from outside the dome, it gave her a solid second of pause, no doubt to let the healing magic do its work. Angela didn’t wait for anything and with a swift movement she had stepped to Petal’s side and lifted her leg with her own, as she lost balance completely and started falling forwards she delivered a powerful slam in her back. There was no way that didn’t break something as she slammed into the ground much harder than she should. Petal remained on the ground for several seconds before she got back up. Angela had made some distance between them at this moment and it seemed that it all eased up a bit. They talked about something for a few seconds before they both got ready again. This process repeated itself a few times. Petal got in some good attacks here and there, but the monk had the training on her side and got the majority of good hits. Gilliam felt a bit jealous... Petal won more often against Angela, than Gilliam did against Ghaos and Kintas together. He wasn’t sure if Angela was going easy on Petal or not, but she was doing quite well. But a few things he did notice was that Petal was deceptively strong. This might be because of her demon blood or that her old ‘job’ was to haul people from A to B. There is a good reason why the people working for moving companies tended to be strong as shit. He was also surprised at her speed, she’s rather petite so that was always an option but he was still surprised just at how well she did. Standing outside the dome originally sounded boring, but time passed surprisingly fast. With his untrained eye it seemed like Petal was doing better and better, but Angela was not letting up too much. Slowly but surely Petal was getting in more good hits, a feint that allowed for a followup here, a strong kick to something vital there, some claws across a jugular and such. They all seemed almost random but they were landing a bit more often than before. This was also the first he saw of his pale friend fighting, he had seen her jump really high and do serious damage to a tree with a punch... But that was about it. So though this was definitely more educational for the two of them, he also learned a lot about them by just looking. To pass the time Gilliam had started condensing mana into Crystals, aiming for the same fist size as before. He had been thinking how practical they are to have laying around, so there was no reason for him to not use some downtime here and there to make a few. Carrying too many sounds dangerous when you consider their fragile nature, but the ring handled that nicely. Their duel lasted a surprisingly long time which matched Gilliam’s own perspective in the dome. Since you didn’t get tired and wounds didn’t stick, you entered a sort of ‘no time exists’ kind of mentality where you just keep going. When they decided to end the training, Gilliam had created four of the mana crystals, and he was getting better at it passively. Not focusing on them properly had them take longer to make, but since this was using passive downtime anyway it didn’t change anything. Angela and Petal came out of the dome discussing something, Gilliam could not properly hear them until after they had come through the dome walls. Angela was mid sentence as they came out. “-real talent. If you train some more and find a way of fighting for you I think you can really do well”. Petal was in deep thought until they got to where Gilliam was before she talked to him in Demonic, seemingly ignoring Angela. “I am faster and stronger than I used to.” She seemed a little worried about this. “I... Isn’t that a good thing?” Gilliam replied hesitantly, why was this a bad thing? Angela just looked at them confused, Gilliam was potentially one of the very few in this world capable of speaking to the demons, after all. “If I had this strength and speed when I attacked that human, I would have killed him. I think it might be because I bit him and ate his arm.” Her subtlety was nonexistent, however she might be onto something. “Since your people get stronger by eating other species, it doesn’t really feel that weird, does it?” Gilliam did realise that he was not even reacting to this subject, nor reacting to the memories of feeding a chained up demon a human arm. “You... Don’t seem to react to this as I thought you would.” Petal seemed to have worried about Gilliam. And to be honest, given how careful he had been around things when he came to this world and even after she got enslaved to him, he couldn’t fault her. She was correct in worrying, in a sense. He knew himself well enough that he knew without a doubt how he would have reacted about those things before. Odds are very high that he would have gotten severely nauseous, perhaps even throwing up and shuddering at the very thought. Considering the last week or so, in his mind, the trip through the demon realm seemed to have changed him. In fact it might have started with the training with Ghaos, learning to not fear hurting others... The battle for sheer survival in the Fractured Lands probably did most of it. Since everything was demons it was easier to just ignore what he was doing, but it seemed that he had gotten used to it enough that he was getting jaded about other things. Seeing enough gore will have you not flinching at gore kind of thing, no matter the source. He would probably have been a psych student’s favourite subject right now. “I spent five days.. I think.. Fighting your people for my life. I have no idea the actual number but I possibly killed hundreds.” It was a bit of an overstatement. His guesstimate was potentially a hundred or something. The groups were clustered and.. All over the place afterwards, so it was hard to use an exact number. But in this case he overdid the number a little to check her reaction. “Then they should not have gone against My Lord, then.” There was a slight hint of pride and a suppressed smile on her. This was a bit weird for Gilliam. He was glad that she was getting more independent and whatnot but she was acting a bit weird. Or was it that she was just extra careful before, not wanting to insult her master lest he casts her aside or something? She did mention that her life with him was scores better than what she could have gotten in the Fractured Lands, and from what he saw; that was correct. He fought some men of her subrace there, they were the lowest of the fighters, not far from the dog-like ones. At least that’s how it felt when he fought them. Given that they are servants, odds are very high that they are kept there or given a bit of ‘good food’ to become warriors, and just become fodder. This also had her little shift make sense. She was now seeing that her body could progress, having the first little taste; the metaphorical first chip of the bowl of power. However, Gilliam didn’t see this as a bad thing, he saw this as a potentially good thing. “Petal, I wonder. Your people could gain power by eating your own, right?” She didn’t even seem to worry about that question and just nodded. “Yes, the other demons did that all the time to rise in ranks or to just become more powerful after a duel.” This was said with a completely normal tone. Given her lack of reaction it was probably very normal. Evnen ancient human society had that thing where they ate the heart or liver of some animal or enemy to gain their strength. The demons seemed to just have something like it literally. “From what I remember before, you said that the stronger someone is the more of a boost they had. So if a servant ate a gatekeeper they would rise a lot, right?” She nodded. “Do... you have problems with the thought of eating other demons?” Gilliam eyed her extremely carefully, though she was under orders to never lie or withhold information from him, he still instinctively tried to pay extra attention. “Not really. Most of our food was other demons.” Gilliam felt extra sad for her, he partly knew it but.. This also had him feel sad for himself, he most likely ate demon meat in the demon realm... He was a bit glad that he still felt sickened by some things, that he hadn’t gone completely jaded. “Hey, what are you talking about?!” Angela broke into their discussion about things. She seemed annoyed, probably from being left on the sidelines during a talk like this. “We’re talking about eating demon meat.” Gilliam responded without hesitation. Causing Angela to react a bit with a slight ‘eww’ response. She was there during the briefing thing, she knew he ate some mystery meat and that the odds were high of it being from a demon. “Well... Stop it. Rather than that disgusting thing-” she looked at Petal. “-No offence..-” Looking back at Gilliam her tone ramped up a bit. “Let’s talk about how good she is! She did very well in there. We need to train her to fight!” She seemed eager and very interested in this. Gilliam briefly wondered what kind of things Angela had seen since she seemed to be eager on Petal’s behalf, very friend-like behaviour, for not only a demon but one she saw eat a human arm not long ago. He wanted to talk to Petal more to find out what had happened and how she had changed that much when he was gone, but he could do that later. Angela was absolutely right, Petal seemed to have a good foundation to train on, but there was one thing. Turning to face them both he had to explain something about that topic. “I agree that we should get her trained but... Many of the demons in the demon realm use weapons. Can either of you block bladed or heavy weapons with your hands?” He asked this as a curiosity thing more than a berating thing. “I... Can not. If I find out how to harness my inner energy like my father, I could but I haven’t learned how to yet.” Angela looked at her hands and was a bit sad about this. Petal just shook her head. Given that she might not have seen much combat, odds were also low that she had any resilience against weapons that could have built up over years of training. “Then we need to find out what to do about that. Now I don’t know if it’s possible for you-” He turned to Angela with an uncertain expression. “-but.. Gauntlets?” As Angela thought for a second, but before she replied, he turned to Petal. “And this was just a test, we can test you with weapons, perhaps some armour and other things. You are good at this but we might find something you are even better at.” He smiled, this was interesting to him as well as a companion. She seemed to perk up and get a bit interested in this as well! “Well, I think we know what the rest of today will be.” Gilliam mused with a smile to both of them. “Yes, we’re going to spend it on Petal.” Angela added with her own musing thought. “I imagine we’ll use the dome a lot today.” Petal, having now experienced the dome properly, didn’t seem distressed by this, she was rather very interested! The rest of the day went for testing various weapons and armour, courtesy of the Academy training armoury.

The day had been long and the sun was setting, they had been at it for quite some time. Having eaten when needed and taken rests when they wanted to, they currently found themselves sitting around the table in Gilliam’s room. They had tried hammers, swords, ropes with weights on them, flails and any other normal weapon you could imagine. As well as some dumb ideas that they all had. With the amount of damage the dome had to heal, there was the need to recharge it during the day, this was easily handled by a few minutes of mana condensation, something that Gilliam had been using even more downtime on making some magic crystals. Make one, store it and do other things until he feels refreshed again, then repeat. This had allowed him to store more of the crystals in his ring, but to make sure that he didn’t overdo it when time came, he made sure to have a bunch in there of various sizes. He had made four new fist sized, fifteen small marble sized and ten he defined as fragment sized, they would most likely be used for testing later on. Needless to say, he had spent a considerable amount of mana today. On the other side, they had figured out that Petal didn’t really do that well with weaponry. The standing theory was that she had never really held a weapon for combat before, but she had fought a few times for scraps of food and just self protection in her old life. “Though, I wonder-” Gilliam started as they were talking about the day’s results. “-You seem to use your tail as a weapon, but it’s not strong enough to pull people around or hurt them when whipping. We could try to strengthen it? Or attach a blade to it?” Gilliam had clearly seen too many movies, but it would make sense, she can hit with relative reliability, it got some decent speed when whipped around but it’s not damaging, it doesn’t hit hard enough to draw blood from a human let alone a demon. If there was a way to strengthen it with magic or training, she could use the tail to grab or redirect things, or if it’s armed somehow then rather than slapping targets she could cut or impale them? Angela seemed to muse on this for a moment, but Petal had some info on the subject. “There are warriors in my land that have iron balls fastened to their tail. Some have other things like blades or axes. But they are always male.” She didn’t seem sad, more like she wanted to share some information. Gilliam raised an eyebrow, but as he was about to ask about details he remembered the ones that he fought with. The male demons of her variant seemed to have a straight up more physical build. Petal’s tail was long and slender, tapering down all the way from her back to the end, the point at the back was a bit wider but it was not amazingly so. The men had more lizard-like tails where there were clearly more muscle mass that supported their tails, realistically speaking it was like they were more made for combat than the females. “What if we get a small and light, but magically enchanted blade attached? There wouldn't be a weight problem, it would just let you do some damage when hitting with it.” As soon as he completed the idea he denied himself. “Nah.. that would need recharging all the time and could be its own problem..:” They pondered for a moment until Angela had an idea. “I don’t know if this will work, but if you train like I did, and if you manage to learn to use your Inner Energy, you should be able to do amazing things. A friend of my father could cut anything with anything, he once cut a sword with a wooden stick. He was a master but just training under horr* special circumstances can help.” She clearly forced a smile as she interrupted herself. “Petal can’t heal herself, so that’s not going to work.” Gilliam explained. “Oh, but it is!” Angela seemed to have a horrible idea. “I could do it whenever I wanted because I could heal myself, we just need a magical item that always heals or someone else to heal her.” She had a point, but that sounded like torture.. “That method of training sounds a lot like torture... Not fond of that idea, what else is there?” Though he said that, he had seen the results it had. But there was another way. “We could have her train normally but feed her a bit different...” The way he toned the feeding part strongly hinted that he didn’t mean normal food. “Yeah... about that. I have some questions about the arm...” Angela didn’t seem happy about what happened. Gilliam decided to just explain his side of things before she got too deep into questioning. “It is simple. I felt he deserved to die, horribly, for doing that to Savia. You talked me out of my rage and I decided to only take his arm.-” Shrugging like he’s explaining why he wears shoes outside, a completely normal event. “-I don’t know if healers can regrow it, but I decided to take the arm with me so it couldn’t be reattached. I didn’t want the punishment to only be a bit of pain.” He absolutely realised how sadistic and evil this sounded, vengeance without due process is usually very passionate and evil, after all. Sighing a bit, he moved on to the most likely main topic. “I didn’t intend to feed it to Petal, but based on how she reacted and how feral she was... I tried a way of training angry dogs where I come from.-” Looking at Petal with an apology in his eyes. “I don’t consider you an animal, but it felt similar at the time and.. I’m glad it worked.” Petal shook her head. “It worked, and I’m very grateful.” Seeming to ponder for a few seconds she looked at her hands. “I have something I have been wanting to mention to you-” She hinted towards Gilliam. “I noticed that I felt... strange.. Not starved but like I had less energy and felt weaker when you were gone. Now that I’m with you I feel energised and fine.” Both Gilliam and Angela were a bit confused at that. The demon physiology was a bit strange, they looked humanoid enough, the men a bit less than the women but both were still human-like in their weakest forms. As they grew stronger this changed but... How did that actually work? Why did it work? Gilliam broke the awkward silence first with a questioning tone and expression. “Do you know how the growing stronger when you eat thing works?” She had explained it a bit before, but Gilliam couldn’t remember the details, or if he had asked directly like this before. “I don’t know-” She started, having Gilliam display a dissatisfied expression for a moment. “We eat and if we’re lucky we grow stronger. When we invade other worlds and bring back people, the growth is stronger with some of them than others. I know that Lord Vozellath preferred mages and the heroic kinds. If we found one of those we...-” She hesitated a bit, her eyes bouncing between Gilliam and Angela before they went back to Gilliam, almost as if she was uncertain for Angela’s sake. “-break or remove their hands, and get them to him as fast as possible.” This had Gilliam think, this kind of made sense. If there was a chance to inherit some powers or magic, but not all of them could work, it made a little sense that they were absorbing magic. The only non-physical strength or skill based powers he saw were magic spells. Perhaps it is that their bodies are absorbing the magic from their victims along with other nutrients. He really didn’t know, the demon's ability was still a mystery to him. But that raises a question, if the demons don’t have magical ability unless they inherit them from their food, do they produce their own mana? Or is this something they also need to inherit? Gilliam took out one of the tiny fragments of mana crystals that he made, it was no larger than a fingernail, handing it to Petal. “Can you do anything with this?” She took the fragment and held it in her hand, picked it up in her fingers and seemed to just inspect it. “I.. don’t feel any different.” She handed it back to him once he held his hand out for it. Putting the fragment back in the ring, he took out a fist sized crystal and handed that to Petal. This caused some unrest with Angela, Gilliam assumed it was because of the same reaction as Ghaos had, with the explosive nature of them. Gilliam could feel the mana from these gems himself, so he knew they were potent. Petal was a little hesitant before taking it, but did the same, handled it carefully and tried to... do.. anything, with it. But to no avail. In the end she handed it back to Gilliam. “It feels like I’m just holding a rock, there is nothing.” Gilliam put it back in the ring which seemed to also calm Angela down a bit. “In that case my theory is that you are magic vampires... That sounds weird but, since you gain power by eating, you can get more powerful that way but it might be that the mana cannot be used or changed, you might need the raw mana from a creature?” This kind of made sense, it’s like converting electrical energy into heat and trying to power your computer with it. It won’t work as it’s not adapted to this kind of energy. But in the electrical form it works perfectly. “What about this, then.” Gilliam started ejecting mana from his hand in her general direction, almost like a humidifier of mana. Not long after she started breathing it she seemed to react a little. “I... feel something... It’s like a pleasant warmth, something like back in the desert.” Gilliam increased the power without saying anything about it, but she didn’t really seem to react differently. Attempting to raise it a tiny bit more also didn’t change anything at all. She was just looking about in the room trying to see more of it and only reacted a short moment after Gilliam stopped. “Oh. It disappeared.” “Ok... So... My theory is that you can absorb a tiny bit by just being around mana, but no matter how much I used now there was no difference. So I guess that you can only absorb a little bit that way, you might have to eat it and have it absorbed through your digestive system like other food giving you nutrients.” He sat back in the chair and looked over his demon companion. “If what I’m guessing is correct, we can’t use this. You need to eat something or someone magical... Something I doubt anyone is going to be willing to help with.” Angela seemed almost a bit relieved at this. “It seems that training is your best way of getting better. But don’t worry, I’ll train you!” Angela seemed to really enjoy that thought, Petal didn’t seem to dislike it either. “Then I think we have a plan tomorrow, you guys train and I go test a few things in the mountains. There are a few spell ideas I want to try out, I also need to ask Jial or Ghaos a few things. I’ll join you in training afterwards.” Gilliam had a few more things he needed to do than just train. And on a second note he needed to find out a bit more about Savia, she would most likely want to come with no matter where he went in the future, which could get dangerous. They all agreed and after a few more details planned Angela left their room for the night. Shortly after Angela left, Gilliam turned to face Petal. “I would like to know a bit more about what happened when I was gone. I’m very happy that you seem to have come out of your shell, somehow, you seem more mentally free. I really do like that but I just want to know everything that lead up to... the things that happened.” He didn’t make it sound like this was a bad thing, he was just curious, which was very true. He was very happy that she was having more personal thoughts and goals, when she shared a life goal with him before it made him incredibly glad on her behalf. But this kind of change was a lot without context. The explanation she gave was surprisingly lacking anything new and interesting. The first few days went on without anything happening, she went and ate when she felt like she needed it, she used the showers and toilets like Gilliam had shown her, though it was a bit boring it was still comfortable and safe. This also let her see and hear how the other people interacted and played about with each other, it gave her an insight she had never had before. Though she spent a lot of time with Savia trying to keep her calm in the start as she was a bit panicky. She bit a lot but her venom was not enough to do anything lasting. In the first few days she was actually rather free. As time went on and Gilliam didn’t return, there were more and more looks at her, people assumed that he was dead and she was then just ‘some demon’ that walked around. She confined herself more and more to her room, letting Savia fly out the window to not be coped up as much. She had a lot of time to think, listen to people walking back and forth, looking out the window and process her new place in the world, this much time to herself without any form of danger slowly changed her mind. It was a bit of a boring reasoning but she had never been safe and had time for herself, to decide things for herself before. This did something to her mentally. Garend had managed to catch Savia one one of her flights. It took a while before she was able to find out why Savia didn’t return, and when she confronted him the attack happened and... The rest he knows. Gilliam couldn’t feel anything but sadness and empathy for Petal. Though he could still understand the people who had lost others in the first Gate incident, Petal was not at fault in this case. Yes, she helped the demons but it was not due to choice, it was under the threat of her own death. It’s still not a good thing but... It’s a weird grey zone mixed with racism and ‘part of the enemy’ thoughts. In the end he didn’t really get a good explanation for any good events that explained her change, it was more of a collection of things that slowly did their own part. She had explained that she felt a bit different, slightly changed after eating the arm and Gilliam knew this as well. When she came out of her feral state at the end of that feedingtraining thing, her asking for the rest of the arm was the first proper request she had come with after she was bound to him. So it might be part of it. She was changed mentally as well as physically, there might be more to the whole demon eating thing. They talked a bit more about the different events but in the end the night dragged on and they headed to bed. The next morning they were woken by the bells once again, which like before sent him almost into a heart attack. It seems this also affected Savia and Petal, the hair gremlin had grabbed onto where she was sleeping and held on tight, it was uncomfortable but not painful for Gilliam, plenty to notice it though. Petal jumped out of the bed but seemed to process what was going on as she landed on the floor. Letting out a deep sigh, Gilliam waited a moment for his heart to calm down a little before he started getting out of bed as well. He didn’t know that they were going to resume school or the usage of that infernal bell. Not that he planned to follow the normal classes, he had more important things to handle. Though all that considered, it was probably not a bad idea to just get up, breakfast was available and it wasn't like they would be able to sleep long with the bells tolling anyway. Getting dressed and ready they headed down to the mess hall before the second bell rang, no need to really wait. On the way there they talked about Angela between themselves, though kept their talk in Demonic. Petal was plenty good at V’idan, but she felt more comfortable speaking Demonic when that was possible. The talk was mostly about the training and how they would handle things, Gilliam changed the non-combat order so it allowed for training, just in case it was going to become a problem, and before long they found themselves in the mess hall. Most of the students tried their best, perhaps a bit too hard, to not look at Gilliam and Petal. Others chose to try and steal glances or just look at them through the corner of their eyes. Gilliam had probably gotten some more interesting reputations or rumours after openily, and without regret, taking a student's arm. Both in the conceptual and literal sense. This was doing wonders for his hero image... Good times. Though parts of him really did care for the reputation he had been building up, other parts of him realised that it didn’t really care that much. Ignoring all of this he walked over to get some food, Petal followed and they soon found themselves sitting at one of the available tables. More students came walking in shortly after the second bell rang, and their reactions on noticing the demon and her human master mirrored the students that were there before. It didn’t take too long before Angela came in the side door, scanned the room and came over once she saw them. This was a welcome change to the current situation, though he didn’t really care for the staring and whatnot, it wasn’t exactly fun. Gilliam smiled a bit as she came over. “Mornin’. Didn’t expect to see you here so soon.” He didn’t have many friends so he treasured the few he had. She nodded in return to the greeting and seemed to get straight on topic. “I have been thinking a little. I think that for today, it’s better if you spend your time with Nolis and we train in the dome.” This sounded a lot like a command more than a request. Though Gilliam didn’t really have a problem with her statement, he did wonder who Nolis was. “I’m fine with the two of your training for today, but who is Nolis?” He did have plans already today, but she seemed to have some plans of her own. She looked around the room and turned back after finding someone. She pointed to a table with two people at. One was Aeris, the young teleporter girl, the other was a white haired man who looked entirely mentally vacant as he had a plate before him with only meat, enough to feed three men which he was eating slowly but steadily. “There, the white haired man, that’s Nolis.” Gilliam raised an eyebrow. “And... I should spend time with him because...?” The tone of the question was more hinting that he needed to know and was unsure about this man, than he was doubting her choices too hard. “Nolis is the only darkness mage at the Academy, he’s also very knowledgeable about those kinds of spells.” She put heavy emphasis on the word ‘very’ and ‘those’, the latter hinting to something that Gilliam didn’t quite get. However, that was not a bad idea. If he was willing to share knowledge it sounded like a very good idea. Gilliam had cast a single kind of darkness spell, and though it was super effective it did seem vastly different than the other elements. How Light, or healing, kind of only had one spell but was dependent on your knowledge of healing, he did wonder how Darkness was different as this was also one of the odd elements. “Well, that sounds nice, I’m fine with that but I have something I need to do before that.” Gilliam stated honestly, he really did want to learn more about Darkness magic but he needed to find out what was going on with the young student that stabbed him. “That’s fine, but go talk to him before breakfast is over, plan where to meet or something, he’s not often outside of the academy basement.” Angela was halfway nudging him to go talk to him right away but stopped herself as she realised something. “Oh, by the way, we’re going to need one of those insane mana crystals of yours, to power the dome.” She spoke with confidence and clear facts but her face seemed almost a bit guilty stating this. Gilliam pondered her expression for only a moment, but given Ghaos’ reaction before and apparently how pure or powerful this thing was, it might be that they were just very expensive. No hassle for him to make but realistically speaking, if what the different teachers had told him was true, one of those large crystals might house more mana than the full Boundary of most mages. “Yeah, no problem.” Opening his hand to an empty palm one of the gems suddenly and instantly appeared in his hand. He handed that over to Angela. In addition to the caution she displayed when she received the crystal, she also had an almost flabbergasted look on her. Which could make sense for several reasons, she might never have held a gem as large as this before, but it might also be how nonchalant he handed over this potentially valuable object with. Perhaps he’ll try to sell them at some point, if he could make several of them easily enough, it could become a nice income if he needed the money. “Thank you.” She smiled at him, still looking a bit hesitant, as she got up from the table and motioned for Petal to follow her. Since food was done they split the group up here and continued with their plans. Angela seemed very eager at this as they disappeared through the side door, Gilliam walked over to the table with his possible upcoming teacher. “Excuse me-” He got their attention as he came within acceptable conversation distance. Both of them looked at him, and though he gave a smile and a nod to the young Aeris he focused back on the man. Getting a better look on the young man, he looked like he was in his early twenties and was covered in scars, he was wearing a black robe and his pin had only the black triangle and had a golden disk. “Angela said that you could teach me Darkness magic?” The man looked back with glazed eyes hinting that he was either still sleeping or just not all there. He slowly nodded as he took another bite of the pile of meat on his plate. Aeris broke in. “Hold on, he’s like this every morning.” She had a smile to Gilliam but at the same time she had a fed-up tone to it. Walking to Nolis’ side she straight up slapped him. The light in his eyes returned and he seemed to be mentally present as he looked down on Aeris. “... Yes?” He had a questioning tone and reacted much like someone would if you just poked their shoulder. Aeris pointed at Gilliam, and as Nolis followed her finger he took a few long seconds to look him over. “Ah, so you’re the fancymage. I see you have used darkness magic before, to considerable effect.” He had a weird smile grow on his lips as he noticed whatever he noticed. “Y.. Yes... How could you tell?” Though he knew that some mages were super adept at sensing things, this was days ago in another world. “Ah, that makes sense. Had you known what you actually did you would know.” He smiled in a weirdly sinister way. Until Aeris slapped him again. “Stop scaring him.” Nolis placed his hand on Aeris’ forehead and pushed her away until she was out of reach, before he sat back up in his chair. She huffed about it but there was a slight smile on her lips. “But yeah, I can teach you. Come down to the basement level four, just tell the guard that you’re there to see me and we’ll get started.” Without waiting for any response his eyes glazed over and he seemed to mentally vacate again. Gilliam was... confused, no idea how to handle this situation or this man. He looked at Aeris with a look asking for help. She just shrugged. “He’s always like this in the mornings. He’ll be better when you see him later.” She sounded almost annoyed as she climbed up on her own chair. “Just let him eat for now.” Her smile grew more honest at this later sentence. Gilliam nodded and thanked her, he felt that thanking Nolis would hit deaf ears anyway, so he just left to start his own plans, the first step was to find either Ghaos or Jial. Ghaos seemed to perhaps be the correct person to check with but Gilliam had no idea where to find him, so the reception was probably the best place to start.

Gilliam plunged the sword through the door to the sound of a muffled shriek inside, sure cutting the hinges could have been easier but he didn’t think that far. A simple half oval that starts and ends at the floor was simple enough, pulling the sword along the wood was surprisingly easy compared to stone, and it slid easily through stone as well. Two simple movements later and the door had a new door through it, a simple stomp had that fall inwards. During this ordeal there were a lot of different reactions, Angela did her best to try and persuade Gilliam to stop and think about this. The students had a mix of fear, ‘get the teachers’ and just morbid interest going on, not everyone liked Garend after all. However all of it fell on deaf ears, Savia was in here and he was going to liberate her at any cost. As the smaller door hit the stone floor inside the room Gilliam saw two things, or rather the lack of two things. The window was open, there was no Savia and there was no Garend. Running to the window he looked outside, it was not hard to see Garend running with what looked like a bird cage under his arm. Gilliam needed to stop him, and the first thing that came to mind was not flying over, getting someone to help or anything simple, but rather the fastest and simplest solution; Aether arrow. Forming the spell circle he was to the point where he was going to channel energy into it when Angela finally got his attention, and the way she did was the mother of all bitchslaps. It lifted him off his feet and sent him flying into the bed, breaking some of the maddress supports when he landed and cutting off the corner as the sword had not been dismissed. Standing between Gilliam and the window, with her hands on her hips she looked very satisfied with herself as Gilliam’s face had changed from murderous intent to confusion. “The fuck was that?!” Gilliam shouted out at his albino friend. “Oh, so you can actually hear me, that’s very good to find out.” Though she smiled it had a heavy undertone of worry. “This is no way for a hero to act, aiming whatever spells at young kids.” Her words cut deeper than he expected, she was right off course but he didn’t want to admit it. The little bastard had Savia in a birdcage, but potentially accidentally hit him with poor aim from his current unstable mind could be bad. “He needs to be punished for what he has done.” Gilliam stated, still angry he had at least snapped out of his pure rage. He got out of the bed and walked up to the one blocking him from the window. She stepped aside with a smile. “Of course he does, but not with the mindset you were in, you would probably eat him or something.” It was clearly a slight joke to lift the mood, though Gilliam had snapped out of his blind rage he was in no mood for laughs at the moment. However, as she had stepped aside he walked to the window. Garend had gotten more distance but the little idiot was running towards the main gate in the Fire field. This was not a problem to take over. Leaving the slender blade active, but dismissing the wide cutting blade, Gilliam cast his flight spell. As he made a casual wave that manifested the complex spell circle before it attached itself to Gilliam once it got its energy had the other students react, he didn’t pay them any attention before he took flight towards the little shit that had Savia. He barely saw Angela jumping out of the window, landing on the ground without a hint of effort, this shouldn’t be weird as it was ‘only’ the second floor, she jumped about that height when he met her in the jungle the first day. She started running to overtake them, though she was incredibly fast she was still slower than his flight. As he neared he cast a single barrier on himself, just in case his soon to be opponent decided to get smart. Catching up with Garend he simply landed in front of him, glowing sword in his hand he now stood between the young noble and the exit, the very fact that he was standing here proof that there was no running. The boy stopped almost like he was on ice, stumbling about to keep balance until he fell on his ass, this let Gilliam take a good look at Savia. It... it sent a chill down his spine and almost set fire to his very soul. The monster that calls himself a noble had hurt her, he had pulled out feathers, burned her and some of her remaining feathers. She was in horrible shape. Gilliam struggled, oh how he struggled to not just erase the shit stain from existence, parts of him wanted to cut him and keep cutting until there was nothing but mist left. He wanted to tie a rope to a leg and fly across the gravel with him scraping along it. He. Was. Angry. “Tell me, Garend.” Gilliam’s voice was loud and forceful, the word furious didn’t even come close to begin to describe his current state. The fact that he was talking at all was the sole hint that he still managed to keep his humanity. “What the actual fuck have you been doing with my familiar?!” He put extreme emphasis on the word ‘fuck’ and ‘my’. The boy was crying, trying to speak between sniffles and tears, placing Savia’s cage on the ground between them and crawling a few metres (1m ~3.2ft) away from it. Gilliam crouched down and opened the cage before putting his left hand in for Savia to climb into... She had to climb into his hand... No hopping and no flying. Gilliam was incredibly happy, a few tears escaping the corners of his eyes, they were together again and she was alive! But his tears were not from happiness, they were from a mixture of sadness and utter rage. “How are you doing?” He asked his little friend, managing to sound cheerful to a certain degree. She sat down in his hand and hugged his thumb before she forced a smile at him. “Welcome back, Master!” Gilliam snapped, getting to his feet he walked towards Garend and without properly thinking he stomped on his hand, ignoring the many sounds of cracking and breaking. As the kid lifted his head to yell out in pain he kicked him in the face, breaking his nose and sending him tumbling back a few metres. “I asked you a question. What have you been doing with Savia?” His tone was back to his murderous self and he was soo close to just having the kid bite onto the sword before he manifested its wide blade. The blade was flickering ever so slightly, like the power fueled to it was getting a tiny bit unstable, its clean edge was getting jagged and electrified, its pattern was moving and getting erratic. It was clearly responding. Garend tried to answer, but between his tears, snot, broken nose, broken hand and whatever he succumbed to when rolling backwards was making it problematic for him. “SPEAK UP!” Gilliam commanded at the top of his voice. “If I want crying and sniveling I’d go back to the fucking demon world I spent a week in. Now answer me.” This was absolutely a threat, his body full of scars, he came back with a weird magic sword and acted so differently; this should explain well enough the danger he was in. At least that was the intent behind the bit of information. Garend took his time to speak, doing his best to enunciate the words, it was not easy but it was at least audible. “I... hated... you... you died. I... Revenge on... it.” He had to speak between waves of pain and just everything else going on with him. Lifting Savia up to his face, she smiled honestly at him again though didn’t say anything. “...It....” he muttered to himself but aimed at Garend. He knew that a lot of mages didn’t want to consider gender for their familiar or things like demons, as that kind of humanised and raised their value. To Gilliam it was an insult not to, especially when sentient. Having a proper look at her now he could see that her scales had lost their lustre and her skin looks damaged as well. He had just gone to town with a collection of things. “And what about Petal? I heard you attacked her?” His voice was not at the same level of hate regarding that one. Realistically speaking she was a demon and it made more sense to go that way. Though she was allowed to defend herself which Jial confirmed had happened. He still wanted to hear it from him. At this point he was just sniffling, mentioning something about demons and attacking. Though parts of Gilliam could sympathise with this, she was still his property and this was an attack on his name. Angela had caught up with them a short while ago and was sort of just monitoring. She didn’t seem too worried but that might also be due to her being there in case something goes bad. Gilliam sighed, he wanted this to be over, there needed to be a punishment and at this point he didn't care anymore. He wasn’t going to kill him but... Walking closer to him, standing within both sword and kicking distance the boy started bowing his head into the grass pleading for his life. “Remember, Garend-” Gilliam gave pause to make sure that he lifted his head and looked him in his eyes. “You still owe me money.” With a swift movement of the sword the boy’s right arm fell to the ground, a few spurts of blood followed. The kid’s eyes widened as he looked to his side, seeing his arm on the grass sent him straight into shock, he went silent and just froze before falling over. Gilliam didn’t want them to just reattach the arm, the healing magic of the Academy seemed pretty amazing so it would be too easy if he could just reattach it. Dismissing the sword's blade he returned that to the ring, picking up Garend’s arm and did the same, musing a split second at the fact that this worked as the young boy’s arm in Gilliam’s hand had just disappeared into nothing. “Someone might want to heal this!” he shouted at the crowd that was gathering, he would still live but the blood was leaving his body at a frightening rate. Some people with the correct badges stepped forward and started doing their best, stopping the bleeding relatively fast before someone carried him away while someone else continued healing. Angela looked a mix of horrified and confused, but as she saw the healers taking control she followed Gilliam. Inhaling to speak with him she stopped herself as she saw his face now being in extreme sorrow as he looked at the little critter in his hand. Gilliam smiled at Savia, who smiled back, he covered her in healing energy. Having no idea how her body was different from the normal human one, he could at least focus on pain relief and general healing speed improvement. He had general knowledge that painkillers messed with the pain receptors and that the body healed itself through having the immune defence do its thing and a general cell replication... Or at least he thought this was how it worked, the important thing was that he could feel nothing but content and happiness over their bond and some of her superficial wounds were healing already, so it was working. He continued this as he walked towards the central building, he had someone else to get out. After a short minute of walking Angela finally found a moment to break in, she was hesitant, looked uncertain and seemed to try to find a way to word things without triggering anything too much. “You... Don’t you think that was a bit much?” She commented but seemed to realise something she said as soon as she was done, having an ‘oh no’ expression for a moment. Gilliam was luckily calm, he was too focused on healing Savia to care about tones and accidental wording. “He deserved death, taking his arm is mercy.” His own tone was cold towards Garend, not cruel just cold. “But... Why did you take his arm and... How...?” She had a weird satisfaction in the end of that question, almost like the question had been bottled up a short while and she finally got it asked. “If I left the arm there the healers could probably reattach it, I want the punishment to be permanent.” The honest coldness from Gilliam didn’t seem to sit well with Angela. Though before she could comment he answered her second question. “In the Fractured lands I ‘found’ this neat ring, it’s a subspace storage device or whatever you call it. A ring of holding.” He didn’t move his hand to show her or anything, he was busy covering his little friend in healing energy. Due to his lack of knowledge in the field he might be overdoing it with the mana spent versus the healing done, but that was hardly something to care about. “You do know that this will most likely have his family come for you, right? The Silverhawks are a powerful and respected family.” She sounded like she knew of them very well, still focusing on that topic instead of the ring or the mention of Fractured Lands. “I hardly care.” There was no hint of consideration in his voice, he clearly absolutely didn’t care. “You maimed their son, they will without doubt have you expelled and do their best to sully your name, If worst comes to worst they might even send people for your life.” She seemed worried and seemed like she knew a little of what she was talking about. Which made sense, she was a mage even though she might be considered as the lower side due to how her magic worked. “And they will most likely fail.” His voice was not filled with arrogance nor any better than thou tones. It sounded like he just started a simple fact. “Realistically speaking, they will most likely try. But, expelling me from the academy might actually work but I doubt it. For the same reason that sullying my name might be problematic. I am a Heptagon Mage, I closed the portal to hell that opened, I closed the second one before it opened and I am the only survivor having spent time in their world. I know this makes me sound arrogant and... I really don’t want to sound like this but it’s all true.” He did seem to dislike the self praise in mentioning this. Though factually he is correct about it all but it clearly didn’t seem right to toot his own horn like this. Their talk continued as they entered the central building of the Academy, now being in a much better mental state he walked up to the reception. A middle aged man was sitting behind the desk, hair starting to grey on the sides, some wrinkles starting to form in his forehead, but all in all looking like a nice man. He was a bit taken back at Gilliam when he walked up to the reception desk, eyeing Gilliam’s lack of clothing, the albino standing beside him and the fact that he was actively casting a spell in his hand. “Good day, how can I help you?” His voice was calm and practised. “I want my slave back. It’s the demon that is being held in the basement somewhere.” There was no tact or beating around with the statement, he wanted her back and free... At least as free as possible. The man was very taken back at many things here, freezing up a second in his speech. But before he could respond Angela forcefully turned Gilliam around. “Wait, you have a demon slave? H- how.. Why?” Gilliam was confused for half a second before he remembered that she wasn’t here during the two invasions, especially the one where Aeris was taken into the portal and brought Petal back. So she wouldn’t know about any of that. So it all made sense. “I’ll explain later, in short she’s a magically bound slave, or whatever that thing was called.” Turning back to the receptionist as Angela seemed to want to respond, cutting her off Gilliam decided to be a bit nice and help the receptionist out a little. “It might be easier for you to get hold of Jial or Ghaos, they know what this is about.” The man recomposed himself and started checking some papers and books. “I see that Ghaos should be in his office, I will go check with him. Can you wait here while I do?” It was clear that this was not a request and just a polite command, if Gilliam wanted the help he would have to wait. He was not unaccustomed to waiting, so he just nodded and kept healing Savia for now. Angela took this moment to get some questions in, stepping forward with a perplexed expression. “So... I’m gone for a few weeks and you have a familiar and a slave now?” The tone was not judging or anything like that, it was more like a kind of ‘please explain’ statement. “When did you get back?” Gilliam asked her to know where to start. “A few days ago.” She seemed a little calmer that Gilliam seemed fine with responding but she was still looking somewhat uncertain about things. “Well, in short. Detia, my teacher in unstructured magic suggested I get a familiar, in her words it was to have someone do the menial tasks for me so I could lazy about, but I got a friend in stead.” He smiled softly as he looked at the little creature in his hand. Continuing a second later “A while after you left a portal to some demon world opened outside of the Academy. Demons attacked and lots of people died or got hurt. Aeris, the teleporting girl, was one of them. Though she came to and managed to panic teleport back to us, bringing the one carrying her at the time with her. That demon was punched unconscious and put in a secure cell. Aeris is fine physically. I manage to conjure some superspell or something to destroy the gate. Now, since I have some weird gift of understanding every language or something, I was brought in by Jial and Ghaos to talk to her, she was surprisingly open and started sharing details, not knowing if they were true or not the idea, from herself no less, was to put her under the mind-slave-thingy, so she could not lie to us. They put that responsibility on me due to my reputation as the Heptagon Mage, claiming it could keep her safer. It kind of worked for a while but I think it was mainly for them to not bother with it. We got some information from her and once that was done she was still my slave... so... Here we are.” He smiled, clearly stopping the story before the second gate. Angela blinked vacantly for a few seconds as she processed everything. “But... wait.. No... Hold on. You can understand all languages?” She looked like she had many, many other questions but she had to start somewhere. This had Gilliam chuckle a bit. “I like that from everything I just said, that’s the part that caught you.” Turning to her properly for the conversation to continue. “Yes, I don’t always know I’m doing it, but if I hear or see a language I can understand, read and speak it without problems. Not always able to control it as it all sounds the same for me. That’s also why I’m so good at magic, I know the magic runes like any language. I think I almost gave Jial a stroke when he found that out.” He smiled a bit sheepishly. He was extremely happy and proud of this, not that he had worked hard for it but it was still something he could do. Angela paused again, this time looking more in thought. “So... does this mean that...” Not waiting for her to complete his sentence Gilliam decided to just give her more info. “I can make up or change any spell on the fly based on what I want at the time? Yes.” He knew that this was where most of his power lied. Sure, his absurdly massive mana pool let him take advantage of this, but it seems that knowing the magical language properly allowed him access to powers that most mages only dreamt of. Her mind looked like it was about to have a stroke, something Gilliam chuckled at. “Jial had the same face, even broke his speech pattern for a moment.” “No.. Wait... You can.. You can read magic?” She was still struggling with this, it was unheard of. Gilliam could only sympathise with her reaction, based on the information he had from before, the research into the magic runes is often a lifelong one. Sure, the school shares some to get the students started and help them research a few, but usually they leave the school with a handful of runes, and even then they might only know one or two of their meanings. Gilliam knew the language by heart, he knew it properly. Meaning that he already had several lifetimes worth of research in his mind for free. Any mage would react to that. “Yes.” He answered simply, though he failed to contain a satisfied smirk. Before Angela could continue the conversation the receptionist came back. “Mr. Gibson, Ghaos explained who you are, if you go down the stairs he will be waiting for you.” He forced a smile that almost hinted that he might get slapped. “Thank you.” Gilliam smiled, giving the receptionist a nod bow before he headed towards the stairs with Angela in tow. “Wait, hold on. None of this explains what happened to you just now. You just showed up in the Light field, the other students say that you came through a tiny gate, killed two demons and passed out.” She sounded almost rushed as she seemed to want to get an answer on this before they got to Ghaos. Having started walking down the central spiral staircase at this point Gilliam thought for a moment. “I think it’s better to wait with that explanation, it’s long and... It’s long. I’ll make sure you’re there when I explain it later, Jial and Ledels will most likely be present as well.” He didn’t really say much more as they walked down, just tended to Savia. Eventually they happened upon a short, stocky and heavily tattooed man. “Mr. Gibson.” It was clear he wanted to say more things but parts of him tried to be tactful and didn’t continue. “Come with me.” He entered the door he was waiting for them at, and like before they went through a small room first with a guard inside, the woman in here looked fancy in her guard uniform but it was not just for show. Following Ghaos down the hallways it was not hard to see that Angela was very uncomfortable, probably hadn’t been down here before. It did have a very different feel than the rest of the academy, rather than nice wood furnishing and fancy walls, this was more like a claustrophobic stone dungeon. They went around a few corners and ended up in the same room that Petal was originally captured in. Or rather, they stopped in the room before the actual holding room, there was nobody here this time, just a desk. There was yelling and angry noises coming from the holding room, Gilliam didn’t like where this was going. “Now, before you go in there...” Ghaos stopped him before he went through the last door with a heavy expression. “We don’t know what happened but she went very feral after the incident with Mr. Silverhawk. He attacked her first and she defended herself but something seemed to have snapped in her... Perhaps you can do something about it.” There was not a hopeful tone in his voice, but Gilliam was very aware that Ghaos knew about the slave brand, so worst come to worst that should work. Not wanting to risk anything, Gilliam handed the still wounded Savia to Angela. “Do you mind holding on to her?” Angela didn’t seem to really know what to do in the situation, so she almost looked relieved when she was given a purpose. “Of course.” She nodded. She cupped her hands together and let Gilliam place the little creature in her hands, causing her to open her eyes wide for several reasons. Gilliam nodded to Ghaos who opened the last door and entered first. Gilliam followed. Rounding the doorframe and looking into the holding area, he saw a rabid Petal, she was chained up on all limbs, including her tail and neck, even some chains to her horns. Her eyes were glowing much stronger than before, to the point of them just being glow; no irises or anything. She was yelling, snarling and seeming to try to attack her way out of the chains, the wounds on where the manacles made contact with her hinted that she had tried this for a while. Gilliam’s expression saddened. “Oh... Petal... What happened to you...”

Swearing repeatedly internally, Gilliam didn’t exactly know what to do. He needed to get off this rock and back to Lisica. However he had no knowledge about teleportation, portals or any kind of spatial voodoo. He might need to look into this when... if.. if he gets back. The demons could clearly open portals, and teleported him from Lisica to this place, so there was someone with that skill here. The Gatekeeper also wanted a gate opened to the Heart. Whatever that meant it sounded like it went elsewhere at least. For now there is more pressing matters, the explosions are getting closer, he needed some way to either attack, or a way to escape. Since they were tracking him it felt likely that hiding was not happening. His mana Boundary as well as Mana Core had apparently made some progress as of late, he had been using the flight spell a lot lately, but he never really felt that it drained or affected him that much, in gaming terms it felt that his mana regen was more than the upkeep for it. And sure, anything that uses mana will make regeneration slower than if he didn’t have it running at all, but this fact was still very, very convenient for him. But, it didn’t directly help him with the incoming danger, it did aid him with movement but... He had a few things he could do. Going up there and attacking, waiting for them to come down; but this could have them just drop something super explosive down and take out him and his shield. He could keep running but that became a war of attrition. Trying to plan the perfect way out he remembered a quote; No plan survives first contact with the enemy. This doesn't mean you should just charge in blindly, but rather that you shouldn’t overplan and expect things to turn out that way. His barrier was very, very strong. Based on when he was flung into the wall before it took almost no damage, though not at 100% after it was close enough for this comparison. Digging straight up would normally be dangerous in case he hit a rock or something, but that just happened now without a problem. So he could just tunnel straight up and get some distance above them, that could let him escape however he wanted afterwards... right? Or.. would they just use some homing magic and take him down? They did have a powerful mage, after all, digging down with explos*... Hold on, if they kept casting explosions like this, did they not have better spells to use? Petal did explain that they could get powers from eating someone who had powers of their own, they weren’t born with too much save some physical boons. This could either work in his favour, or blow up in his face. The fact that he wasn’t killed before, and since the Gatekeeper wanted a gate opened to the Heart, perhaps the Heart was some homebase and he planned to bring the human that took out the portals to his boss. That seemed likely given how their hierarchy worked, if he planned to eat Gilliam for himself, he wouldn’t start any portals before after? This seemed plausible. And even if it didn’t, should he just keep being chased until he gets worn out? Endurance hunting was a thing, after all, and he refused to be the prey. No, screw that. He wanted his life back, all this shit happening just because of some invaders wanting to eat them. Strengthening his barrier by casting a second one outside of it, though there were now two layers of barriers around him, the second was cast a bit weaker to make sure that the bending of the glass-like apperance didn’t screw with sight. He then cast a simple earth move spell, ignoring the reconstruction of it this time, saving a bit of energy but also letting it work faster. Aiming straight up he flew as fast as the tunnelling spell allowed, mentally preparing to wreak havoc when he got up he had some spells mentally prepared, he just needed to get up to see them. The tremors stopped as he was on the way up, odds were that the mage sensed that something was happening, but even if they were prepared, Gilliam wanted to show them how underestimated he was. Finally breaching the last bit of dirt, he now saw nothing but red and gore as he felt an impact on his shield. He had enough speed to literally break through the demon standing there as he tore the poor creature on his way into the air. The shield seemed to let it all slide off like some hydrophobic demo-reel and he again had perfectly clean barriers in less than a second. Having gotten some air he only had a moment to take in what was going on. There were a lot of demons around, at a glance it looked like 50+, all kinds but almost all of them were armed in some way, most of them humanoid but a few four legged abominations as well. There were a lot of imps fluttering around and everyone seemed to be revolving around a larger orc-like demon who was blinged up something fierce. He had a staff in one hand, made of bone and some more bone, looking almost like some weird creature’s head and spine made into a staff with a lot of dangly bits. He had several rings, a fancy robe mainly black colored but with some streaks of red and gold. Well, that was without a doubt their mage. Not wasting time he needed to use the few seconds where the element of surprise had any meaning. Aiming at the possible mage, Gilliam waved his hands as he created one of the spell circles he had envisioned on the way up. It was an Aether sphere, much like a fireball, the runes used were naturally Aether, Orb and Explosion, but he also added a multiply rune, a cone-shape rune as well as several variations of Power runes. Charging the circle took a second, this allowed the mage to set up some protections, several of the warriors shot some arrows at Gilliam, some tried to throw things at him. The arrows bounced off his double-barrier and the few thrown objects that even reached up would barely have wounded him without the barriers. As the spell was charged the magic circle collapsed into a bright yellow sphere in his hand, which erupted into a cone of smaller spheres that carpet bombed the area beneath him with enough force to change the topology of the area. The spheres had dug deep into the ground and exploded with the force of a small bomb. This had caused the whole area to become rubble and craters. A good chunk of the demon force had been torn apart by the wall of explosive orbs, many had taken severe damage or simply died from the underground explosions themselves or the shrapnel they created. Many more had taken damage from the sudden uneven terrain or secondary effects. Except the mage there was no undamaged demon. The mage seemed to have cast his own barrier, but he looked weak, worn and exhausted. This had probably eaten up a lot of his mana, this was very good for Gilliam. Not waiting for the mage to retaliate, Gilliam made a single gesture and his Aether arrow magic circle blinked into existence and faded just as fast once it had gotten the energy it needed, collapsing into the dart it shot out at blinding speed towards the mage. It penetrated the barrier around the mage, shattering a small hole in the sphere around him before it blasted through his right lower arm. This had enough force to dismember him completely, even through the shield. His staff fell to the ground with the hand holding onto it following limply. The mage let out a roar of pain and seemed to do his best to heal, Gilliam knew from experience that healing yourself when wounded is hard, given the situation the mage didn’t seem to be in the best of mental states either. Though it did seem that he managed to halt the bleeding if nothing else. Gilliam realised that not only was he underestimated, but he overestimated them. Ghaos was a much bigger threat than these people were. Floating down to the lot he got the reaction he expected, the survivors of the bombardment did their best to get out of his way, scampering behind rocks and just out of his immediate area. There were no more attacks against him as he came down as the naked angel of death he was becoming, only wearing four manacles. The mage aimed his remaining arm against Gilliam, he used two solid seconds to charge the spell up, this gave Gilliam enough time to decipher the runes. A Fire rune as well as an Orb and explosion rune. This was the simplest of newbie fireballs. It had no power enhancers of anything fancy. Ignoring the spell completely he let the mage cast it to the glee and large smile of the demon mage. The spell formed into the fireball as expected and it was physically thrown as a ball at Gilliam. As it impacted his barrier it exploded into a fiery inferno. Had it not been for his barriers the fire would be hot enough to have easily severely damaged him, it scorched some of the corpses around him as well as further wounding some of the already wounded. As the fire faded and the mage saw Gilliam unchanged, the barrier had barely lost any integrity at all. Gilliam briefly realised that being trained like he was by Ghaos, he had ended up with a very skewed view on what a normal mage was. Ghaos was a professional battlemage at the top of his game, part of Gilliam mentally expected this to be the norm, but no; he just had raised the bar too high. It is good to never underestimate your enemy, but this was a bit weird. The mage’s smile faded as he saw the lack of effect of his fireball, based on the damage around him it was clear that the spell worked as it should but the floating human was unaffected. This had the mage recoil, trying to get some distance between them but tripped over the shattered terrain he ended up on his ass, pleading instead. “No, stop, don’t.” Gilliam wondered what he should do at this point, he wanted to just kill him but at the same time this was an excellent chance to question someone local. Gilliam smirked as he had already kind of decided what to do next. “What’s in it for me if I stop?” He replied, knowing that his languagething would handle him talking in the correct language. The demonic mage’s eyes widened a bit, seemingly not only because his pleas worked but also because this human was speaking the demonic language. He couldn’t reply either, taken back that this seemingly worked it seemed like he ended up in a variant of that he didn’t expect this to work. Gilliam didn’t feel like waiting and giving the demons around him a chance to react properly, he wanted to grab the mage and fly up but he absolutely didn’t feel strong enough for this. Though only a mage, the demonic caster was still large and buff, Gilliam hadn’t figured out body enhancement yet so... Down it was. Using a variant of the tunnelling spell he used before he aimed it underneath the mage causing him to just fall down, it didn’t go fast enough to send him into freefall but it was enough to make it problematic to stand. Gilliam made sure to ‘repair’ the ground above him as he followed the mage into the tunnel he was making. The area of effect was large enough that the mage’s staff and hand came along with them, as well as a corpse or two, and due to how it closed after them it would seem like the earth just ate them up. He created some light orbs to follow them down the hole, mainly to make sure the mage didn’t try anything. After having gone down a bit, he angled to the side and moved them away from this specific area until they got far enough down that Gilliam felt relatively safe. At this point he made a room for them and fixed the air right away. The demon mage became more and more terrified, seemingly knowing he has no chance and now being captured this far underground. Gilliam theorised that if he had to use explosions to dig down, he was not used to moving earth and this was probably very claustrophobic for him. “So, I have some questions for you.” Gilliam calmly stated as he kept the room illuminated, his flight spell active and the barriers up. The barriers were active until deactivated or ran out of energy, there was no active upkeep as they had been given a static amount of mana on creation, so there was really no need to do anything with them. The demon nodded terrified and didn’t seem to want to put up any fight. “Good, now. First, how did you find me?” Though he had some ideas he wanted to make sure. The mage replied instantly without hesitation. “I could sense your magic.” He seemed scared enough that this would probably be a rather easy interrogation. This was pretty much what Gilliam expected. “Are there others as good at magic as you?” He didn’t make this sound concedendig, it was more of a metric to have a point of comparison. “N... No... I mean... Yes.. but not out here on the fingers.” He seemed to be honest enough that he even corrected himself, this was good. The interrogation continued for quite some time. Originally Gilliam only wanted to know what he was against and how to get off this rock, but many answers spurred followup questions. And this mage was actually quite forthcoming and replied to everything he asked, adding any relevant details. It really seemed that he wanted to come out of this alive. Gilliam learned a lot. The floating island they were on now was one of many. The network of islands that made up their world was the remnants of their old shattered world. Petal didn’t know this as she was just a servant on this landmass so she had never known any other place. The shattered world was named just that, the Fractured World. Each landmass of any substantial size was named after a body part or organ, seeming that the larger chunks were closer to the center and they got smaller the further out you got. The innermost and largest landmass, their capitol of sorts, was named the Heart. From there it spread out with lungs, chest, ribs, arms... and so on. The outskirts were the Fingers and more outskirts were the nails. They were currently on one such finger. The invasion was done from the fingers in case of reverse invasion from wherever they were invading, or if some massive weapon managed to come back through the portal only a finger was lost and it didn’t damage their capital, for example. The demon he was speaking to, who identified himself as Sirzan, kept answering and explained that to get off this floating island they needed to teleport or use the landmass's static gate. Flying would not work as eventually you would just fall to exhaustion, and nobody that went far enough down ever came back, but in theory if you had enough mana you could fly between the landmasses, but it would take literal days, and that’s if you know where they are. Aimlessly going in a random direction might work but... Due to the sandy mist between them, looking into the distance and seeing another landmass will only work if it’s very, very close. Their invasion to other places are two-fold, first to find and eat to gain power, second to get resources if not just move into a new world. This had happened several times before, though this Fractured world is their home base now it originally wasn’t. They took over a world and through how their race consumes energy and don’t take care of their world in the slightest; it destabilised and shattered. Somehow still ending up breathable and liveable. None of the demons have the magical knowledge to even begin to understand why, since their powers are ‘inherited’ they don’t actually know how things work. Sometimes they capture mages or people with magical gear, this is how they end up with magical gear as nobody has learned how to make them yet. In short, for Gilliam to get back, as expected he would need a gate back to the world... This was a problem. According to Sirzan, to make a gate they needed a group of people to cast the spell together, as it needed too much energy for a single person. It was also tied into some simple scrying magic to be able to know where to land it, their scrying works better towards places of high magical concentration, which also explained why they landed at the academy. “So, you can’t teach me the gate spell, can you?” Gilliam hoped. If what was told to him in Lisica he had an absurd amount of mana, so he might be able to get something working. Alternatively with enough prepared mana crystals he could perhaps make something working. “No. Only the Gatekeeper and the Openers know the ritual.” Sirzan looked a bit sad about that, not because he was sad for Gilliam’s sake, but more that he was most likely under the belief that him having information was the only reason he was alive. “So. I need to get hold of the Gatekeeper, who hates me, or one of these Openers.” He expected this to be the case but it was still a bit disheartening finding out this was indeed the case. “Wait, how did the teleport thing that brought me here work? There was this runed dagger I was stabbed with.” Gilliam was a bit distressed and confused at this part. His captive pondered for a moment. “I think that was a teleport beacon, it is something that our Warlocks can have weak minded targets create and use. Once activated the Openers can call on the thing, or victim, this is stabbed in.” He didn’t seem to like calling Gilliam a victim, but since it was the truth it was hard to avoid. “So, that cannot send me back.” Gilliam stated more than asked. “So the best bet I have is getting someone to open a portal back, and enter that... But to make sure it’s not somewhere random I need to make sure... Ok...” Gilliam was thinking of ideas, the best idea started to sound more and more like this being the only way. “There... I mean... I might have a way but...” Sirzan started carefully, clearly wanting to barter for this information. “If there is a proper way for me to get back, I’ll let you live, if that’s what you mean.” Gilliam preemptively blurted it out, he didn't exactly want to kill them, but he had figured out that he had absolutely no reservations doing it if needed. The demon calmed down considerably, he had apparently been wondering about his chances for a while now. “On the Hand, the next landmass inwards, there is an artefact that can let you open a gate once. It’s an emergency item, we don’t have many of them but... if you get there and activate that you can go anywhere you know of.” Gilliam’s eyes widened, this was his ticket! “So, if I use the static gate to the hand, I can get this item and go back?” Though he toned this as a question it was more like a loaded statement. “Yes.” Sirzan finally looked a bit interested, perhaps now with his life not about to end he was finally able to relax and see the light at the end. “Since it is an emergency item, it is guarded but not hard to get. You need to go to the Blue Tower, at the top there you can find a crystal sphere. Shatter it while you think of where you want to go and that’s it. The portal opens instantly but only lasts for a few moments.” He finally got to his feet now that his life was not in direct danger. “To open the static gate you just need to channel energy into it, it only goes to one place. Or you can just wait, they open it to check that everything is fine every now and then.” “That is very informative. Thank you Sirzan” Gilliam smiled, if a bit evilly as he started hovering upwards towards the ceiling. “... so... Master Human, when... when.. Will you take me to the surface?” There was a very, very hesitant tone in his voice as he realised this was never a part of the agreement. The agreement was his life and he hoped that Gilliam didn’t intend to be that literal about it. “Oh, why would I do that? Unless you have something more of interest for me?” Gilliam made sure to use the coldest tone he could. He did intend to bring him back to the surface anyway, this was just an attempt to squeeze some more good info out of him, in case he was trying to hide something. “No, er.. I mean.. I told you everything... I.. Oh. Oh!” He proceeded to take his ring off by putting his finger in his mouth and biting the ring, pulling it off. It was a wide ring made of three strands, two silver and one gold, that was braided together into a flat braid going around. On the top was a tiny glass cylinder instead of a gem, it was oriented the same way that the finger would go through it. The braids ended up touching, actually holding the cylinder in place, so all three bands started and ended against the cylinder. The center band, seen from the cylinder, was the gold. Inside the cylinder there appeared to be a slightly glowing purple disk, there seemed to be room for a total of 10 disks based on the slightly silver rings inside the cylinder seemingly acting as spacers. “What... is this ring?” Gilliam asked, not about to take anything possible cursed. Although it seemed very unlikely that he would curse him as he could clearly not dig out of here. Especially not with one arm. “I... Don’t know. A human brought back from another world had it. He had a magic sword with him that disappeared when he activated the ring. I don’t know how he did that but... Perhaps you can figure it out? I will trade it for you to bring me, unharmed, back up.” Gilliam smiled widely, not only because he was amused at the extra detail to be brought up, but also because his bluff actually worked! He was given a neat magic ring, by the sound of it, based on his knowledge of games and modern world fantasy, this sounded like either a spell storing ring or some holding space ring. Taking it he put it on, based on the description that the sword just disappeared did explain a bit more that this was a storage ring. Wanting to test this he was a bit uncertain how magic items actually worked. How do you activate them? Games often had code-words, if so that’s gonna be a problem. But what if it’s just channelling some energy into it to sort of trigger it? From how he had learned magic in Lisica it seemed to be more based on mental imagery and mana. Having a slight educated gamble he connected to the ring and funnelled it a tiny bit of mana. Instantly his mind got a return answer! It was almost like a list formed, he ‘asked’ the ring what was stored there, and the ring ‘answered’ with a list, in this case the list only contained one item; a sword. Ok, this was definitely a worthwhile ‘gift’ from Sirzan. Without properly considering, Gilliam mentally requested to take out the sword, as the link had already been established the ring seemed to comply, and in a blink he now held a sword in his hand! The sword was broken, the dual-edged blade not more than 30cm or so (~a foot), it was clearly broken based on how it ended in an uneven and jagged end. The center of the blade bore a lot of runes. Likewise the crossguard was broken, both sides of it seemed to miss the actual crossguard, and all that was left was a vaguely bow tie shape of metal, it still extended a bit past the metal blade so it was functional, although not properly. The handle was like a rectangular cylinder that was wider on the center than the sides, not too unlike a square’ish oval. The pommel looked like a flattened out droplet shape with the thicker side connected to the handle. The blade was not the only surface with runes, the crossguard had two large runes on either side, and the pommel was covered in them. He could read the runes as they were the same ones he used in Structured magic. Though they weren’t properly connected in circles or forms, they just looked almost randomly placed around the surfaces. Just holding the handle of this sword had two things happening. First his demonic friend’s eyes widened, he looked both interested and annoyed. Potentially from Gilliam figuring out the ring instantly. The second was a bit more ominous, the runes started lighting up.

It seemed that they were on guard as the gate opened suddenly, perhaps they had some scheduled system or were always on-guard. Luckily enough it didn’t seem like they had expected this to happen so there weren’t many guards between himself and the blue tower. Though to Gilliam’s dismay he had to jinx it, he suddenly heard a loud horn being blown from the static gate he came through. Damnit.. He should have killed the guards there to stop this from happening. Well... It was clearly too late now as it only took a few solid seconds for a second horn to sound in the city, then other places. The whole place was now aware of something happening... Not wanting to be suddenly caught off guard he used the time to cast two new layers of barriers, ending up with three again. At this point he realised that the second and third layer draws more energy than when he just casts one. Trying to make a mental note about this for later he flew as fast as he could towards the top of the blue tower, if he was lucky he might be able to reach it before they could mobil* His train of thought was instantly interrupted by seeing a massive stone coming flying his way, he couldn’t dodge it at this speed and... this was going to hurt... Unless. Trying his best to time it properly he made a wide vertical swing with his sword at the boulder once it got closer, the blade passed through it without effort, though there was nothing that actually moved the boulder pieces to the sides so they still crashed into his barrier. Due to the boulder having been cut in two, the hit to the barrier was lessened a little, moving to the sides along the curved surface let a little of the energy be redirected rather than landing full force into it. This still took out most of the energy in the third barrier but it left it still existing. This was good news for Gilliam but, he didn’t have time to celebrate now, he was getting closer to the tower, this might still be doable! He flew over the guards on the ground without effort, and the flying force was easily taken out with either some well placed sword swings or just a variant of the multi Aether sphere spell. Making sure to spread the cast out to maximise the explosive potential of it did wonders, opening up the sky for him to keep flying ever closer! More of the flying rocks came his way, now that he was nearing the city he could easily see that they were using some catapults and trebuchets to send them his way, with expert aim. Since Gilliam was somewhat aware of it this round it was easier to dodge, and in some cases an Aether sphere with a burrowing quality added to it could easily penetrate the rock and explode inside, taking out the major danger which could let his shield handle the rest. On the fly trying something, Gilliam realised that he could take advantage of a concept of how magic worked, since a large part of it was the mental idea when cast, he could wildcard and generalise the magic circle as long as it was specific enough. Manifesting a circle he started filling it with runes; Aether, sphere, multiply, exploding, guarding, homing, seeking(demon). His mental image was a swarm of spheres that hovered around him, guarding him and attacking demons in a certain range. Keeping the magic circle to fly with him at this speed was oddly problematic, but with some concentration he was able. This spell took a substantial amount of mana to cast, but it was worth the effort as it worked exactly as planned. After the teal circle had been fed with the needed mana it imploded into itself as a glowing sphere, this glowing sphere then split up into a bunch of smaller spheres that did indeed start hovering around Gilliam like he was now an atom and they were his electrons! The next step was to see if they worked as intended, a test he only had to wait a few seconds for as a weird long-necked demon with an oversized head and two pairs of wings came flying his way. Two of the spheres ejected from their circular path around Gilliam and darted towards the flying creature. Naturally it did its best to dodge but they corrected their path mid flight and connected with the enemy, one hit the chest and the other only managed to hit the shoulder. At the moment of impact they both exploded with the force of a small grenade, not enough to bring down a building but they were literally in contact with the creature. This blew solid chunks of its body before its lifeless corpse fell towards the ground. Success! This spell was amazing, costly but very good for protection. A quick note, something nobody had explained to him before but it seemed that a spell ate up much more mana the more runes he put into it. Sort of making sense but not something he had considered before... Or did he realise this before and just forget? He had no idea at the moment, this required thinking he didn’t have time to consider at the moment. Having done his best to dodge incoming projectiles, most of them he managed but some came in too fast and even with his weird sword skills he couldn’t hit them all. He had to re-cast the second and third barrier a few times before he got in range of the tower, likewise he had decided to attack some of the incoming demons himself so he didn’t consume all the auto-orbs around him. They would be very nice to have later. Suddenly magic erupted from the ground near the tower, as well as from the tower itself. An ice-spear came from the tower and three irregularly flying orbs of fire came flying from the ground towards him. Their speed meant that he had no way to dodge at all. The orbs impacted with the third barrier, breaking it instantly. The ice spear came right after and handled the two other barriers. Luckily for Gilliam the last barrier had enough strength to handle the remainder of the spear which shattered into snow, instantly melting in the hot air. This left Gilliam defenceless, something he didn’t want to risk, instantly casting another barrier, but this time modifying the barrier magic circle to include a subcircle that multiplied it with three, this ate up a dramatic amount of energy but worked as intended. He instantly ended up with a triple barrier as intended, but he didn’t have enough energy for another one of those left. Had he only saved some of the mana crystals he could consume those but that was not possible. Instead he would have to commit another war crime and use the draining magic again. There was a problem mixing it with his defence spell that was currently keeping things away, but there were only a few orbs left of that now. Casting the inky black spell again he manifested the circle as before, activating it to... no avail. As it was about to activate it sort of violently shook itself apart like it refused to be cast. Gilliam didn’t know why this was, but his best guess was that since this didn’t cost anything to cast, it seemed to consume the needed energy from its victims, since nothing was close enough to drain it couldn’t ignite, so to speak. He currently had three barriers again, so as long as he wasn’t hit by that combo again he should be good. Almost like on que, the spells had been cast again and the orbs of fire were heading his way again, the ice spear coming not far behind. He couldn’t dodge, but also didn't want the barriers to be destroyed again, he didn’t have the needed mana to restructure them. A twitch in his arm gave him a good idea, he could do his best to attack them like he did the boulder, hitting them properly should destabilise the spell, however the sword had a weird weight to its weightless blade. When moving it around it’s almost like it has a momentum to work over which helps its cutting power. However the blade doesn’t have this in the slender form. Dismissing the wide blade, keeping only the long and slender blade Gilliam readied himself for the split second as the spells came in range. First the irregular flying spheres came flying in range, he swung after them but could only hit one, the sphere disintegrated into particles that bounced off the barrier, however the remaining two impacted and instantly destroyed the third barrier. The ice spear was still on its way in, doing his best to ignore the popping of a third of his life line he aimed for the longer and more predictable arc of the spear. Swinging towards the head of the spear he managed to barely hit it, the mana in the blade and the mana in the spear collided, disintegrating the spear into snow. Gilliam considered the thought that if this was a real spear he would still have been hit. He was running out of energy, and with only three of his guardian spheres left he had to make a choice to regenerate energy in the thick of it, or just make his way towards the orb. Not having the luxury of them maybe moving the orb so that took priority. Flying up towards it he still had two hurdles left, one was the still incoming barrage of things, luckily most missing but some contacting, eating up valuable energy from his barriers. The other was that he didn’t know who or what waited for him in the tower, but as it was closing in he would have to cross that when he got there. Another barrage of the small spheres of fire came in, as well as the ice spear, knowing how things worked now he aimed for them again, missing all the fire orbs but hitting the spear again. The orbs removed another layer of the barrier, easily, their erratic movement made hitting them incredibly difficult. Around him more flying demons were closing in, below him the streets were practically flowing with demons and the gore of their fallen allies. The remaining three of his orbs flew out and contacting with their respective targets, taking them out of the air if not outright killing them. This was his make or break moment, he was nearing the tower but there weren’t any good windows he could just fly through, manifesting a magic circle for an Aether sphere to just open up a hole on the wall was little effort, giving it the needed energy to manifest was possible but much harder. The magic circle collapsed into a sphere that instantly sped towards the wall and exploded as soon as it contacted, tearing open a hole and ejecting the debris both inside and outside the room. Inside he could see the demon mage sending out the ice spears, he looked similar to Sirzan so was probably the same sub-race of demon. He was clearly more powerful as that spear could easily take out his shield. Having been knocked over from the explosion the demon mage got to his feet, he started channelling the spell, at the same time Gilliam could feel the mana from below, the irregular fireballs had started making their way again. Luckily the debris on the way down hit all the fireballs, their irregular flight-path actually sent them into some rocks, detonating them down there instead of on Gilliam’s shield. He was not as lucky as the demon mage managed to send his spear flying straight at Gilliam. Though this time he was ready, the sword came down with practised timing but he had misjudged the range. The spear was allowed to impact into the last shield at the same time as the sword contacted it, though the spear disintegrated it was not until it was able to take out the last barrier. Gilliam was defenceless. An arrow hit him in the right arm, yanking that out instantly he had no other choice than to ignore all the shit in the air and aim straight for the demon mage in the tower. Yanking out the arrow and applying healing magic was the best he could do as he was on the way towards his target, taking another arrow in his left calf and one in the side of his torso. Not having time to handle them he pulled his sword back as the demon mage was channelling the spell circle for his ice spear yet again. Bringing his sword through the magic circle he destabilised it to the point of spell failure, at the same time the sword cut through most of his chest and came out of his back, almost bisecting him as Gilliam crashed onto the floor and due to being absolutely covered in all kinds of gore, slid into a rudimentary bookcase. He absolutely broke something, both the thin stone bookcase as well as in himself, but didn’t have time to react. Forcing himself to his feet, groaning out in severe pain from everything affecting him at the moment he took a quick look around. Ignoring the sounds of a door into this room being torn down he saw a single pedestal in the center of the room, an ornate box on top of it. Limping towards it he almost fell over twice on the way, he sent the sword back into the ring before he ended up almost falling a third time, but this time grabbing onto the pedestal for enough support. Opening the box he saw a crystal orb inside! Thank you Sirzan! The door splintered and an arrow came in, landing in his left thigh as he picked up the orb. “You better be right about this!” he yelled out to Sirzan as he shattered the orb on the floor, thinking of the academy grounds. The orb shattered against the smooth and bloodied stone floor, letting out a massive burst of energy in the form of smoke and particles. It all flew around for a split second before it collected into a half oval in front of him. Not taking any more chances he limped his way through the portal as soon as it looked stable. To a familiar white light. Though he couldn’t see, he could feel grass as he fell on his face, landing on and pushing one of the arrows through his side all the way. Letting out a pained yell his vision was starting to improve. Turning towards the gate he came through he called his sword in hand, he was nearing out of mana completely, the familiar feeling of mana starvation was just around the corner. Not more than a second or two later a male demon from Petal’s sub-race came through, instantly manifesting the wide blade Gilliam cut him in two, getting even more covered in blood and gore. A second later another demon came through, this one was four legged and looked like a weird hybrid of a tiger, a lobster with the skin of a lizard. Another swing of the blade also cut this in two before the gate closed behind them, letting him see the academy grounds properly. Gilliam let out a loud laughter filled with triumph and all kinds of emotions lasting for two seconds as he put the sword back in the ring before he instantly passed out. Gilliam woke up, narrowing his eyes to the light in the room and groaning something about food. He felt a weird dire feeling of distress, but at the same time some weird incredible happiness. This only made weirder as he had no reason to feel anything but calm and satisfied at having gotten back. “Oh, you’re finally awake!” a familiar voice suddenly reacted at his side. Tilting his head he saw something slightly uncomfortable, there were windows with the sun coming through, hitting an Angela who was as pale and white as you could get it, turning everything into an almost white blur as his eyes teared up from the stinging brightness. “Angela?” Gilliam muttered in a questioning tone. “I’m glad you still remember me.” She replied in a joking manner. “You gave us all a solid scare when you disappeared.” She added. “Ah yes... The teleportationdaggerthing.” Stating half of the sentence as a single word had a strong hint of him not knowing the item in question that well. Though, a moment later a confused expression grew on Gilliam’s face as he had managed to place the distress and happiness feelings; they were not his own. “Where is Savia, and Petal?” Angela tilted her head as her face turned to her own confused expression. “Savia? Petal? Who is that?” Her questioning tone sounded honest, and from the time he had spent with her he was very certain that she would not joke about this. Gilliam’s expression changed, no longer confused and more angry, forcing himself to a sitting position before Angela managed to walk over and stop him. He looked at her with a mix of emotions. “Can you go find me Jial or Ghaos?” The tone was absolutely not a question, it was just the remainder of his politeness shining through. Jial and Ghaos were the ones of the academy that Gilliam had gotten the closest with, not that they were close but comparatively so. Angela looked a bit worried, but nodded before she pushed him back down in the bed. “You rest in the meantime, I’ll go find one of them.” That also didn’t sound like a request, she left the room, closing the door behind her. Gilliam’s mind was spinning, there were a lot of questions. How long was he gone, how long was he out of it after returning but most distressingly; where is Savia and Petal? Some thoughts of him ending up in an alternate universe came to mind, but he brushed that aside, he had seen too many movies. But something must have happened, Petal can be argued that she might be elsewhere but odds were very small that Savia wouldn’t stay glued to his face. Being lost in thought for quite some time he suddenly snapped out of it to the sound of the door opening. Looking towards the door almost offended, Angela entered with Jial following her. Good, this should be able to shed some light on things. “Ah. Mr. Gibson. We thought you di*” Clearly wanting to start with some pleasantries and perhaps update him, Gilliam interrupted him before he was able to complete the first greeting. “Where are they? Savia and Petal, where are they?” His voice was uncertain but very commanding. His expression soured as the topic changed suddenly and seemingly to a bad topic. Sitting down on one of the chairs next to the bed he sighed deep. “You were gone for two weeks. Everything looked like you were killed by the student that stabbed you. Any attempts to scry on you came up blank. It all confirmed that you were dead. Your familiar and slave had nowhere to go. Without a master they could not stay here too long. We took care of them on your behalf for a while but a few days ago Garend came with a document. The document had some old rules about slaves and familiars not belonging to anyone. Allowing him to take ownership over them. Petal resisted. She got hurt. She hurt him. We were able to use this as an excuse to put her in the Academy holding cells. But your familiar was not as lucky.” It was not hard for Angela to piece this together, especially since Jial defined what they were to Gilliam. Gilliam himself was getting more and more furious. “She is alive, I can feel that much. Where is she?” Suppressing the wish to raise his voice and shout, he did his utmost best to be relatively civil as he spoke through gritted teeth. “Academy rules stop me from sharing any student information if I have any belief that anything negative might happen-” Jial had an odd tone to him as he explained the academy rules. “-But I can admit that I speculate that she’s still on the academy grounds. Without specifics there is only really one place one would store personal items.” Gilliam made a mental note to make sure to make this up to Jial in the future, he was a clever man and through ‘totally not saying’ he bent the rules almost to their breaking points. Turning to Jial with the most forced smile and suppressed anger Gilliam had ever sported. “My dear Jial, could you tell me what the number of Garend’s room is? I really do wish to pay him a visit.” “Well, if it’s just to pay him a visit. I’m sure it will be fine. His room is 1-2-28” Jial was his normal self, still speaking with weird pauses in sentences. And even though he was hiding it well, it was clear that he didn’t like Garend much, or he would not have told Gilliam like this. Angela was very taken back at this, but seemed to accept things a little since a teacher was helping.. Of sorts. It was several times she wanted to break in but held herself back, not understanding the situation properly. She didn’t want to make it worse. Getting out of bed immediately, ignoring the fact that he was only dressed in underwear and pants, or the fact that he never put those on himself. He arrived back here completely naked. His body was filled with scars, each of his massive wounds back in the demon world was healed, some by himself and some by others after he arrived; for example he didn’t have arrows in his body anymore. However though he was completely healed the wounds had left scars, the first time seeing his body like this had Angela react a bit, or it might have been the way he was acting. As Gilliam was on his way through the door, Angela following him, Jial raised his voice. “Don’t kill him.” This was toned as an order, something that Gilliam didn’t reply to as he kept walking. Barefoot and bare chested, only wearing pants and his ring, Gilliam walked from the monitoring room he woke up in towards wing 1. Heading towards the main hall first. He passed by several students and some of the people working in the healing area, he got plenty of uncertain or not scared looks, not caring for any of them. “Sooo... I get it that you might have.. Had it hard..” Angela tried to be careful but didn’t know how to approach this. “But... I think it might be better to approach this with a levelheaded mind. Try to calm do*” the end of her sentence was interrupted by Gilliam’s raised voice as he suddenly stopped walking. “You want me to calm down? No, Petal trusted me, Savia. Savia trusted me-” he put heavy, heavy emphasis on Savia’s name. “I can feel her, the dread, the pain. She is in a horrible situation and you want me to calm down?” There was nothing she could reply with, the look on her face stated that she didn’t agree, but understood. “At least... Don’t kill him...” she repeated Jial’s orders as a request. Gilliam didn’t respond, just continued walking down the hallway. Entering through the central hall he continued to get looks, first most likely for his attire, a simple cloth pants and nothing else. This was almost sacrilege to the nobles and posh people of the Academy. Others might be because of his expression, he didn’t notice any of them. Jedark had noticed him and stepped in, seeming to want to say something with a smug looking face, but he immediately changed his mind as he got closer. It ended up with the students giving him the right of way, but as soon as he had walked up the stairs to the second level and entered the Northern Wing, most of them flocked after him wondering what was going to happen. Angela was still properly mentally present, she overheard a lot of statements, most of it being speculation but she did hear some mentioning something about Savia, ‘the demon’ and ‘the slave’. She looked a bit confused at the moment but Gilliam powered on. Ignoring any attempts to talk to him he soon found himself in front of the 28th door on the second floor. And he knocked. It took a good solid few seconds before Garend’s voice, sounding as better than thou as always asked. “Who’s there?” His tone was normal, seeming to not think much that someone knocked on his door. “I want Savia back.” Gilliam simply replied. Behind the door there was a gasp followed by complete silence, the emotional link to Savia pulsed with extreme happiness as soon as Gilliam spoke, she was definitely in there. “I don’t know any Savia, if that’s your slave she’s not here.” His voice broke a moment but he managed to recompose himself. This sounded like the trained lie that one would say to technically not be lying. Gilliam grabbed the door handle, but it was obviously locked. “Open the door, Garend.” Gilliam ordered. “She better be unharmed.” The threat had Garend behind the door vocally swallow loudly. “No.” He was uncertain, but at the same time it seemed that he possibly felt safe behind his thick door. “Open the door or I will.” Gilliam threatened. “Hah, if you damage Academy property willingly, you’ll be expelled!” he clearly had him now, the voice of Garend stated that he had already won. Angela placed a hand on Gilliam’s shoulder, shaking her head as soon as Gilliam looked at her. “He’s right, you don’t want to get expelled, let’s go get a teacher to settle this.” Gilliam, while looking her straight in her eyes, called the sword from his ring. People reacted and murmured about some subspace concept, others commented on what he was going to do with a broken sword. Turning back to the door Gilliam suggested the sword to manifest the wide blade, which it eagerly did. From a sword with a broken guard and blade, teal runes along its blade, guard and pommel, in the flash of an eye now stood the long wide blade he had used to stay alive in the demon world. People around took many steps away, most startled by the sudden blade manifesting, Angela included. “Fine, I’ll come in then.” Gilliam stated to Garend through the door. Behind the door was just silence.

Gilliam had considered something small, an Imp in his mind. He did his best to visualise it before he activated the magic circle. As he sent the magical pulse to the circle to activate it opened a small gash on his lower arm from where a stream of red mist was consumed by the circle. Since it was done as slowly as this, Gilliam could see that the black circle got a very, very vague red glow to it as it was nearing the charge it needed. Once it was done it stopped draining from Gilliam and imploded into the same electric thump and a weirdly dim flash. As the implosion was complete it pulsed outwards and started taking the form of an imp; two elongated horns in a slender S shape, large ears, pupil less blue glowing eyes, large wings on it’s back, a long slender tail, clawed fingers and a rough texture on its red-hued skin. It would be somewhat intimidating had it not been for its 1 metre (~3.2ft) in height. There is a puff of smoke as it properly manifests, flapping its wings twice to land gracefully on the floor. “YOU HAVE SUMMONED THE MIGHTY TELLASTRO!” It shouted at the top of its lungs in a high pitched shrieking voice reserved for munchkins or something of the sort. Nolis looked at it with a weird mix of intense confusion but also a weird underlying sense of knowing what was actually going on. Gilliam was just a large question mark in human form. “BOW DOWN, PITIFUL CREATURES. BOW DOWN TO THE MIGHT THAT TELLASTRO COMMANDS!” Looking around for a second it identified Gilliam and pointed at him. “PREPARE TO FACE THE POWER OF TELLASTRO, COWER IN FEAR PETTY MORTAL!” Tellastro spawned a small golf-ball sized fireball in his hand. The little imp was getting ready to fight, Nolis cracked up into hard laughter to the point that he had problems standing, forcing him to support himself against his chair before sitting down. Between laughing fits he managed to state an explanation. “Sometimes if you don’t consider their personality, this... this can happen. The best is to show him who’s boss. Fight him!” Nolis gestured roughly towards the mighty Tellastro. Gilliam was a bit unsure... He did aim to summon something small and weak.. and he got.. this thing... Not being ready had Gilliam almost being hit by the fireball that the small Imp threw his way. He threw it, like if it was a rock, there was no magical flying in his fireball; just a lobbed orb of fire. As it hit the wooden door behind him it puffed into fire but not enough to ignite anything. The dodging was clumsy but luckily enough to not get singed, however it had him off balance a second which the Imp planned to take advantage of. The little creature charged forwards with an almost ear piercing shriek. Gilliam was surprisingly unsure what to do, his instincts wanted him to just cast an Aether dart at him or call on the sword, but... it was a small imp... right? As the creature jumped towards Gilliam, claws out and ready to shred its target. Gilliam reacted by punting Tellastro, the simple kick landed hard and well sending him tumbling back further into the hallway, there was more than one bone breaking sound before the tumbling stopped. Tellastro forced himself to his legs as Gilliam stood there confused, Nolis was a bit more interested at this point but he still had the tail-end of his laughing fit. The Imp finally steadied itself and looked at Gilliam with a strange expression. “MIGHTY MORTAL, YOU HAVE BESTED THE AMAZING TELLASTRO! YOU MUST BE A GREAT WARRIOR OF YOUR PEOPLE! THE MIGHTY TELLASTRO BOWS!” The Imp made a deep bow. Nolis broke down in another laughing fit, it got to the point that it brought him to tears. Gilliam couldn’t do anything but facepalm, it figures that the first thing he summons is this. He wanted to summon something weak, as it was his first attempt, but in the back of his head he probably wanted it to be powerful... This conflict summoned an imp that simply thought itself strong... “Well... if nothing else, if I summon the Mighty Tellastro in the future... I’ll have his personality down, I guess.” Forcing himself to see the silver lining here felt like the best way of handling everything. He noticed that summoning spells, or rather creation spells as Nolis originally defined them as, follow the same logic as the shield. You allocate the energy and feed it but once it has taken what it needs it just exists on its own until it is dismissed or fails. The same kind of mental link to the spell exists and almost to prove it to himself, as he cut the link to the creation spell Tellastro disappeared in a puff of smoke and an echoing shriek. Shaking his head for a moment, Gilliam processed the events that just happened. Though the Creation magic was interesting, he could create sentient beings with it, he just needed to really get better at imagining what he was after, especially personality wise. “If the magic circle has a control part, why didn't the Mighty Tellastro listen?” Gilliam had a taunting tone on the ‘Mighty Tellastro’ words. Nolis had stopped laughing, but was still smiling widely as he replied. “That is partly your fault, since you imagined a random Imp, your imagination forced the spell circle to not work as intended. Since there is a mental link in the creation aspect it can override the next part. It can probably be improved but that’s how I got it working.” Holding out his hand at the edge of this desk, the little caterpillar he created before came crawling out of its shadow into his hand. “With some practice you can get interesting and weird creatures into the world. They won’t last forever, unless you feed them every now and then. And if you want them to actually eat something you need to consider their internal organs and digestive system... Often it’s just easier to feed them energy like when you created them.” This made a lot of sense to Gilliam, if you created something living it would burn energy, but if it’s created without the needed organs for consumption then it cannot eat on its own and would have to be recharged like a spell. “Well, that’s the basics of creation, but how does the bastardization thing work?” Gilliam didn’t think this was the real word for it, but it was the word Nolis used when explaining things. “The bastardization, or the Anima as it’s actually called, is to inject a mind or soul into something. This is different from what Aether or Telekinesis can do, as those spells only manipulate something without autonomy, Anima magic gives it a mind of its own. However it doesn’t always let it move. If you give a mind to a pen, a chair, a door, it will have ways to think and plan and such, but a mind doesn't give you the power to move. However if you merge Aether’s movement and Darkness’ Anima, you can create sentient objects that can move around and.. act.” Nolis explained this as he moved his finger through the slender string-like tentacles of his little creation. “Because of this corpses are very commonly used for it, as they used to have life they can be reanimated by darkness magic. Just as Aether can make a skeleton move through direct interaction, giving a skeleton enough darkness magic can allow it to move its bones like muscles were there. The past presence of life is the only reason this works, and it’s why people consider this an unholy bastardization of life.” Nolis didn’t seem to have a problem with this, which kind of made sense. Gilliam pondered this for a moment, and it somewhat made sense. He didn’t like the idea of the corpses of his loved ones being animated through necromancy, so he saw the reason for the stigma. And it sort of made sense to how it could be animated at all, if Darkness magic used life energy it could instil some life energy into things that once held life... Or something. It made a bit of sense but was somewhat hard to understand. “How does that kind of magic work?” Nolis explained the concept of that magic as well, which was surprisingly similar to creation magic, just rather than creating something physical the spell was sort of attached to something, not entirely different to the flight spell. He couldn’t give exact and super detailed explanations of the raising of undead nor of the curse-like spells, he had general concepts and understanding but his speciality lay in the Creation type spells, in which he gave Gilliam some more insight. The extra information focused around the mindset of things and how combat can make that problematic. The optimal solution is to have a magic circle for each creature that uses a predefined set of explanations so there won’t be a need to try and remember all details during combat. Though it will complicate the magic circle considerably, Gilliam might be one of the few that can do this due to his understanding of the runes. Gilliam took highly detailed notes about the runes and spell circles he was shown, since they were much more complicated than he was used to doing he didn’t trust himself to remember them properly. Nolis didn’t seem to mind but he did explain that if those went public it would mean a lot of problems for him. After a few more hours of discussion and talks, examples, tests and the like, Gilliam left Nolis to his research. The strangest thing was almost that Savia managed to sleep through the whole ordeal, she was healing and would probably sleep a lot in the future as well. Knowing that the girls were fighting in the dome he considered going over to them but instead decided to retire to his room, he had a few ideas that he needed to test. Until now he had been using very simple magic circles, but even so it took a second or two to create them, especially the ones with more runes. Though it was true that he could think of the runes just as easily as words or letters in English, he still had to think about it and in a life or death situation this could really make things problematic. His idea was macros, coming from a heavy computing and coding background has helped him understand the logic in which the spells are set up, they were basically programming and codes following their own language and rules. But it still took time setting up even the simplest of spells. Things like the light spell which could be done with two runes didn’t take that long, about half a second. Same with things like the Aether dart, which took a bit over that. Those only really worked if he had the mental capacity to think of them. He could train and train and train to get the mastery of this, but before he put in that time he wondered if the process could be simplified. Finding himself in his room fast enough he wanted to first test the idea, could a structured concept of an unstructured spell work as a ‘macro button’ to create the correct spell circle? Since you could have spells do things based on concept, could spells be created to ‘remember’ spell circles? The first thing he did was to make a test magic circle, this was using the light spell, many multiply runes as well as the Orb and Weak runes, the idea was that it created a bunch of tiny weak glowing orbs. It wouldn’t work well for illumination but that was not the point, it was supposed to be as complicated and safe as possible. The weak nature was also to allow repeatability without eating his mana reserves. This didn’t take long, he even wrote it down to make sure he didn't have to keep it in mind, timing himself, because of the overcomplicated choice of runes and lines it took four seconds to get it right. Now started the testing, how do you make a spell that projects a complete picture without you also remembering it clearly? He tried a lot of things: having it reference a piece of paper and pointing towards it, failure. Having it based on just concepts like him wanting this spell to be cast, failure. He tried naming it and using the name as a concept, also a failure. He was able to have the whole magic circle projected at once but this needed such a clear mental image that he actually used much longer to prepare his mind before he was ready to project it. However, he was able to instantly project it so the possibility was there. Though still failing he felt he was on the road to success. Considering for a moment to play with merging minds or altering his own was immediately ignored, someone as new to things like that as he was could render him braindead or worse... He didn’t want to even consider gambling on that. There was a knock on his door, this broke him out of his concentration and testing, the room was incredibly bright with a large collection of the dimly glowing spots at the moment. Dismissing the active spell fixed that as he walked over to the door and opened it. Outside stood Angela and Petal. Ohshit, he had kind of forgotten them... “Err... Hi.” He forced a smile. “There you are.” Angela stated somewhat disappointed. “I thought you were going to come find us after you were done talking to Nolis.” She walked into the room without asking for permission, Petal followed only a short distance after her. Their clothing was tattered and worn, no doubt from their fighting. It seemed that the Dome worked wonders on healing you and... stopping you from dying, but it didn’t do much for your attire. “I had a lot to think of, and something to test afterwards.” Angela stopped in her tracks for a moment. “You didn’t create something... slimy... did you?” She looked around in the room for a few seconds seemingly trying to find the slimy creature he had potentially created. “No, I didn’t create anything, I mainly had some ideas about Macros, ways to instantly project an entire magic circle. It won’t do much for the smaller things but for the larger ones it should be good. I haven’t had much success yet, though.” He sounded deflated at the end, but he still had hope. He will find a way to do this! He just needed to figure it out first. Angela sighed. “You’re not the first one who thought of that idea. Speak to Jial, he teaches Speed casting classes.” Gilliam felt stupid, the second she mentioned that he remembered seeing that Jial’s magic circles just flashed into existence for a split second before disappearing. And that was for semi complicated ones with several rules as well. He’s been so focused the whole time on learning this that he didn’t even consider the fact that he was absolutely not the first mage who wanted to cast faster... “I... feel a bit dumb now...” He couldn’t do anything but admit it, he needed to learn to stop and think, perhaps ask someone who knows more about things that he does. Sure, he might be the Heptagon Mage and know the magical runes like a language, but the people here are still mages with god knows how many decades of experience and experimentation. “Aaaaaanyway-” Angela took control over the conversation, snapping Gilliam out of his little bubble of thought. “-Petal is making tremendous progress!” Angela looked both happy and proud. “Oh? That’s great!” Gilliam exclaimed, forgetting himself for a moment. This was indeed very good news! “She learns perhaps a bit too fast.” Angela’s expression soured a little, this felt like a form of envy which made a lot of sense. Gilliam remembered this kind of thinking back at school in the modern world, when he helped a fellow student about something he found simple, only for said student to apparently have a super knack for it and surpass him in no time at all. It’s always good, but there is some envy involved. “I only learn this fast because I have a good teacher.” Petal replied. Gilliam couldn’t remember Petal giving compliments before, this felt very good, she was really... to use the pun, blossoming into a proper person. Her personality was a bit flat when she first came here, which made a lot of sense given her past life and the fact that everything was new. It seems that whatever metamorphosis she went through when he was gone had really done her good. “That’s good to hear.” Gilliam decided to not speak further of the fact of abandoning them to their training and getting lost in his. This was also a good hint that he needed to read more... “Though, I wonder. I don’t know how this works but how will your hand to hand work against larger demons? Petal might be strong but the warriors of her people...” He didn’t want to call her weak, but realistically speaking she might still be? He didn’t know but he wanted to paint a nasty picture. “I think we might be fine, I learned some new things with my father the last few weeks, and I’ll teach Petal:” She smiled widely. Given that she was a bit sad not being able to punch through a tree the first time they met, this felt very different. “Oh, so you don’t have problems cutting down trees anymore?” Gilliam joked, wanting to start a bullshit discussion for amusement. “Not at all.” She smirked back, not only ruining Gilliam’s joke but also hinting at the level of improvement. “Oh, well that’s great! It should increase our chances quite a lot.” He was happy for this, not only for survival and the start of a demon slaying party, but also just for his friends starting to become part of this. Though he hadn’t been entirely alone up until now, there were people helping out in the first gate event, but he had been alone through his demon realm kidnapping. Not being alone would aid quite a lot. “I suppose I need to get into Jial’s class tomorrow, and do some testing later on.” “And you need to join us for training, if we’re going to fight side by side, we need to at least get a rough feel for things.” Angela added as a command. “Yes, yes. I’ll join you getting beat up.” He had a fake whining tone and amused smile. Savia was still sleeping. She seemed to be resting quite a lot lately, since healing magic as people here knew it couldn’t regrow her feathers or complete her perfectly it seemed that she was compensating through sleeping. The rest of the evening went to talking and planning. They ended up planning that Gilliam was ‘allowed’ to avoid training with them as long as he was training elsewhere, but when he went out to test spells they wanted to come with him. Though they wouldn’t be as protected as in the magic dome, Gilliam could heal, Angela could heal herself and they could always just take it a bit easy. As Angela was getting ready to leave, she mentioned that they had already spoken to the reception about some more clothing for Petal, there should be some outside the door tomorrow morning. This was great news, Petal absolutely needed more clothes, perhaps they should go shopping at some point once this whole invasion thing was done, for now they were tired and turned in. Tomorrow was going to be a full day, trying to learn speed-casting and training. He hoped that he could get some magical training in tomorrow as there were a few spell ideas he had been considering, but he didn’t want to test them outside of the quarry; they would be somewhat dangerous. There was also the sword, finding out how that acted with other elements, tomorrow could be a cool day!

Gilliam had sat down a short while ago, but was nearly done with his food. Since he didn’t know exactly how long the girls were going to talk he didn’t feel it made sense for him to wait to eat. Savia was woken up and had eaten her share, interestingly enough she was already looking better, only after a few days. The magical and soul-based connection might be aiding her recovery more than he expected, in the end Gilliam realised that he didn’t really care much for why she was getting better and rather focused on her getting better at all. Like normal he had gotten a lot of looks, though they seemed to be a bit different than normal. Before they were like looking at some weird tiger through some solid steel bars, now they were a bit more interested. Gilliam had expected people to try to get on his good side a long time ago, given how much social power a strong mage got in these lands it would just make sense for many to get in his good graces. Especially since a lot of the kids here were nobles in some form or shape. Not that Gilliam really wanted much to do with the political dance of bullshit, he just wanted to do his own thing once all of this was done. The helping words from Rotia that calmed the crowd hinted that there were some strict rules surrounding the Circle recruitment thing, things he didn’t know. Parts of him did like it a little, absolutely, most people enjoy feeling sought after, but at the same time; he really, really disliked the political aspect of things. Eventually the girls came in through the door from the Air Field, they went and got their own food before sitting down. Gilliam looked at the two, halfway expecting some update or something. “I assume you got it worked out?” He hoped that would start a conversation that would let him in on what they were talking about. Though he was fine with them having things between themselves, he was also somewhat curious. “We did.” Angela replied as she started eating. “Regarding tomorrow-” She changed the topic without even trying to be subtle. Apparently whatever they spoke about was going to be secret. “-I think it can be a good idea for you to attend the Circle recruitment.” Gilliam raised an eyebrow, he didn’t plan to start a circle, it sounded like too much work. “Subtle, but how come? Won’t that need effort and resources I don’t have?” Gilliam had to comment on the topic change, but he mostly wondered about the Circle thing. He understood that it was a clan or group of followers of sorts. But the little he had read and the extra info leaflet from the receptionist, made it seem like he would have to care for someone. And he already had two individuals that fell into this group; Petal and Savia. Savia was super easy to feed but it was still something to consider. “That depends on the contract, before I graduated I signed a contract with some smaller shops, they got to use my name for advertisement and I get a tiny cut of their profits. It’s not huge but it gives me enough to live modestly if I wanted to. And I don’t have to do anything, just check up on them at times to make sure they don’t do anything weird with my name and.. Well... It’s basically free money.” She shrugged like this was absolutely normal and almost weird of him to comment on. “The leaflet from the receptionist hinted at something similar, but it seemed like a best case scenario. The most common seemed to be bodyguards or servants, not sure I could afford that.” Gilliam joked at the end. Though he didn’t know how prices or monetary value worked here yet, he at least knew the reaction of people. Odds were high that he could sell Mana crystals without issue if he needed money. And if in dire need, his ring and sword would fetch a lot, though he refused to even consider those as sellable. Odds were higher that he’d sell crystals or just his healing services. “Just sell the mana crystals if you need money. From what I’ve seen you can make them fast and... they are more powerful than you think.” Angela seemed to have the same idea about the crystals. Also seems that he underestimated things yet again. The rest of the afternoon and evening went to talk, Gilliam gave Petal specific orders to allow her to keep some personal things personal. Unless he specifically asks about things or it would be important to share she could keep things to herself. It might come back to bite him later but he felt that it was too important to let her have a personality and some growth. And to be honest any information she had about the demons and their world was already shared, given his time in the demon world he might actually know more about it than her. Stereotypically you didn’t tend to tell your servants more than needed so she had probably never left the Finger where she ‘lived’ before. During the rest of the talks there were several students around them that seemed like they wanted to say something, but none seemed to really dare, Gilliam didn’t know if it was due to the Circle thing or that he took the arm of Garend not long ago, but he ignored it and enjoyed the pseudo privacy. Angela and Petal seemed to have hit it off well, something that made Gilliam very happy, Petal was getting a friend in this world. The rest of their talks focused around things he should look for in the circle recruitment, he needed to be careful and not go for the first and best, given that he is a Heptagon Mage and had not only closed two Gates but also survived the one-man-war he had in there. He was going to be popular. So there would be no lack of attention to him. Though this could be a very good thing as well, he could end up with some good people wanting to follow him or just get some passive funding. Though he should keep Petal close. Given that she is a demon, people might react a bit to finding out these rumours are true. Gilliam both found enjoyment but also a weird feeling of uncomfortableness considering that he was interesting enough that he had rumours and potential world-spread information about him. Another weird thing that he hadn’t thought about before was the weird muscle soreness from the training. The dome healed you instantly and you felt fine inside it but there seemed to be some weird after effects that he didn’t remember from before, it felt like the normal soreness you had a day or so after working out. It wasn’t bad, it just sounded odd. In the end, after their chat lasted into the evening, they went to their separate rooms. Falling asleep was not a problem in the slightest, though the dome kept you healthy and energised it didn’t do much once you left it. Fatigue didn’t slam into you with a vengeance but you didn’t exactly feel peppy. Petal was in the same boat and frankly she had been training more than Gilliam today, so it made sense that she’d crash as well. Savia just kept sleeping most of the day like it had become her norm, Gilliam was really looking forward to when she was better, she seemed to enjoy just flying about and now that she could talk he hoped that she could get a life of sorts as well. The positive thing was that he could sense content feelings through their bond, so it was not bad at least. These were parts of the thoughts that rummaged about in his mind as he drifted off. * GONG, GONG * Waking to the fucking heartattack was becoming it’s own norm, he hated it but what could you do. At some point he might get used to it but that required exposure, he didn’t really want that if he could avoid it. At least it gave him the adrenaline kick needed to not go back to sleep. Though it was definitely shortening his life. Going through the normal morning process, getting dressed and somewhat acceptable looking, toilet trips and washing up. They headed down to the breakfast hall like normal. Today it was packed right away, normally people didn’t start funnelling in properly until the second bell, but today the hallway was packed with people and the mess hall filled up fast with both people and the sound of a group of people talking over each other. It was a problem finding a place to sit and eat, to the point that they ended up having to wait a little before finding a place both of them could sit at the same time. People were still reacting to him weirdly but they seemed to be too focused on their own things. It didn’t take too long before Angela came in through the Field door, and since Petal somewhat stands out it seemed that she found them easily enough, sitting down after getting her own food. “It’s busy today.” Angela smiled, not trying to hide that she’s a bit excited as well. “It was like this the other years as well.” she smiled widely. Gilliam didn’t really have much to add, he was a bit excited as well, it wasn’t hard to see, but at the same time he was a bit uncertain about it all. It just felt so weird. “You going to look for people this round as well?” He couldn’t remember seeing any rules about how that part worked but there were apparently a lot of things he didn’t know. “I might, if I find someone with a good deal. You can always use more money, though due to me being on almost the lowest point of mages it’s hard to get someone who is willing to give something good in return. Though tiny percentages of revenue do add up over time.” She smiled, clearly not against the concept of free money as long as they can use her name for things. “How do those deals of yours actually work, I mean; what’s in the contracts?” Gilliam had to finally ask, he had wondered this for a while now but it just felt a bit odd that people would give percentages of their revenue just like that. “My contracts are simple, they can use my name and likeness for advertising. In a few cases I have eaten some cakes and other products and given my reviews... perhaps a bit more flowery written than I would normally do. And as a graduated mage this gives very solid advertisement as this little bakery is now sort of validated by a mage. It might sound weird to you but in V’ida that means a lot. More since it became normal, I think some clever mages had some good ideas here-” She sat down in her chair and wagged her finger in a matter-of-factly manner. “-Some influential mages started this, and since that became a thing more and more wants this as the boost in sales is apparently rather substantial. Though, since I am a low-tier mage I usually only get smaller people contracting with me, I’m not influential or powerful enough to be given gifts or anything as grand as land or slaves. But what I do have is a bunch of smaller businesses giving me a tiny, tiny percentage. Which piles up to an acceptable sum in a bank.” She smiled at the end. Angela suddenly leaned back to the table and pointed a small carrot at Gilliam. “Oh, and before you wonder, as you’ll end up in that situation. The Academy can take care of the contracts for a small yearly fee, keeps everything in order and it helps having the Academy’s stamp of validity if something were to happen.” She sighed a bit afterwards. “Though, you being the Heptagon Mage-” she made a fake-mocking tone to the title. “-They would probably handle that fee for you, the PR and reputation they get from you is worth most things here, really...” This explained a lot of things, really. First banks were a thing, which sounded very logical in an economical society. But the concept of advertisement, tying faces and brands together is not unlike the modern world. Although a bit different in how small it goes the base concept was pretty much the same. If a famous person leaves a good food review at some burger place, it’s going to see more income through that. Though Angela was a Dot-class mage that could only cast on herself, she was still a recognised mage. That was enough in a lot of cases. It also re-confirmed what Gilliam somewhat already knew, that his title earned them enough in advertisement that they could waive most things. Like the language training for Petal, or the entire cost for going to the academy they spoke about on the first day. It just dawned on Gilliam that this was going to become a long, long day. The Heptagon Mage was probably a very sought after person, given the rarity of his existence and the extra reputation with the gates and Petal... He was probably going to get swarmed. Eventually the Third bell tolled, signalling that breakfast was done. The students that had classes had to start moving towards that, but based on the people flooding towards the Field door it hinted that there might be some school-wide rule that allowed some exceptions on days like these. The room was almost empty in only a few minutes, which was impressive given the amount of people that were there. Waiting until most of them had funnelled out, Gilliam's group left their table. Having waited in line for only a few seconds before they got into the Air Field the whole area had changed dramatically. There were a bunch of desks with chairs set up throughout the field, it seems this was going to be an outdoor activity. Walking past several of the desks on the way to the Main Hall, there seemed to be a numbering system for the desks, and a namecard on each of them. Given that the other students were flooding towards the main hall as well there was most likely some list in there. Following the stream of kids into the main hall, waiting to get inside for a few minutes Angela took the moment to explain. “There is a large board with all mages who are available, the students use the same board to see where they are sitting. Most of the time the students are placed in the field of their element, if there is room, if not they are placed in the field of their second element, and so on. I’m going to guess you’ll be in the Light or Dark field, as those are usually the least active one.” This made sense, having some sense of system makes things a bit easier for the Circle joiners as well. If you know you want to join a specific kind of mage it might be easier to find them on a list as well. As they were getting closer to entry they started getting a bit more elbow room, partly this was due to Petal, perhaps the weirdness of the Albino Angela or just Gilliam being what he is and having done things lately. He didn’t really question it and rather took the bonus room without complaint. Finally getting inside he saw that the place was outright packed, had it not been for the passive elbow room they got, they would be packed like sardines. Pickpockets would probably have a field day here as everyone was shoulder to shoulder. Mentally considering just flying over everyone he didn’t want to draw even more attention to himself, besides that would just make getting out of the doors harder. Petal grabbed hold of Gilliam’s arm to not lose him, something he found both adorable and interesting. It wasn’t like he wanted to lose her in the crowd so he didn’t comment on it. Getting close enough to read the boards it seemed that Angela was spot on. She was in the Light Field and Gilliam was in the Dark. Made sense since there were probably not many in the Dark field so there was most likely plenty of room. Loudly wishing each other good luck they split parts, braving the torrent of people to get to the closest exit door. The closer they got to the doors into the Light and Dark field the more the people loosened up, which made a lot of sense as well. Petal didn’t let go of Gilliam’s arm until they made it through the door into the Dark field. As they exited the door Gilliam made note of a few things. First there were only two desks there. Nolis sat at one of them and was speaking to a few people that had formed around it. He had his derp-smile on, so Gilliam wondered if they got anything proper out of him. The other desk had no student at it, which was most likely his, but there was a sizable collection of people that had queued up near it. Yeah... this was going to become a long day. Several people looked his way as they exited the main hall, there were plenty of talks to the point of it being near impossible to make out single words from any distance, but it was clear they realised who he was. Walking to the desk he passed a very varied group of people. Some felt like farmers, some like mercenaries, others were more like businessmen or people with enough oil under their nails to hint to crafters. The collection of races and people here would be a wet dream for all inclusive-ists back in the modern world. The desk did indeed have his name on it, as well as a few very simple pieces of information on some papers. Sitting down he started checking them out briefly, Petal simply stood behind him at the moment. The information was mainly that you had to make sure to be specific, make sure to get it all in writing; never use a so-called gentlemen's agreement. Take your time and don’t rush it, if in doubt you could rent someone in the academy to help. All of this made sense and having worked with employee contracts in the modern world he had some ideas of contracts, also being a computer specialist he had some ideas about lists and explaining things. The last piece of information was more about the process, which was simple. Shout next when you're ready for the next individual, they should have already queued up so just have fun with it. Not long after Gilliam had read this he looked at the queue again, the first person seemed to be a young bird-looking half-beast, more man than animal but there were some bird features like larger eyes and feathery arms, he had a collar but seemed in good health. However, before Gilliam could say anything a small goblin man in a perfect pin-striped suit came in. The goblin’s suit had to be tailor-made, it was either new or very well made, had a slight sheen to it and a small napkin folded in the jacket pocket. He spoke with the birdman and they swapped spots, having the birdman leave with a bow. Seems like he had someone wait for him. Well, might as well get started. “Next!” The goblin walked up and climbed up on the chair opposite of the desk and in a deep, pleasantly suave voice, akin to a radio host or narrator, introduced himself. “My name is Al-Yan.” He slid a nice looking velvet-black business card with golden letters on it, his name was written Alleyan, he was the owner of some merchant company named Mazewares, their logo was a very simple maze, not unlike what you’d find in newspapers or on cereal boxes in the modern world. “You can call me Yan if that’s easier.” He continued as he made a polite bow from his chair. Gilliam didn’t want to milk this to the last drop, but at the same time he had to be somewhat cold or stoic of sorts, he didn’t want to go in with a terrible poker face and end up in some weird situation. Leaning forward, placing his elbows on the desk as he interlocked his fingers, resting his chin against the thumbs. “So, Yan-” taking the easier to say name felt appropriate, though he wanted to sound in charge or something, there was nothing against a few pleasantries. “-Let’s just get straight to it; What are you offering and what do you want back in return?” “Oh, fear not, I’m sure you will find this deal quite beneficial.” The little goblin man had a strange smile on his lips, the best explanation Gilliam had was a professional smirk. Where he was already sure of himself that the deal was done. Waving to someone to his side he beaconed for this someone to come over, one who showed himself to be a complete beefcake of a man, if there was a muscle that could be trained, this man had reached perfection in it. He had long hair in a low ponytail, a red and golden robe with a golden Mazewares logo over its heart and the man had a weird feeling of taking very well care of himself but also being able to punt people into low orbit. The man was carrying a business suitcase sized box of black-lacquered wood with the wooden pattern barely showing through. It had golden handles and a red string tying the halves together, acting as a simple lock. As the man came over to Yan he placed the box on the desk. Yan continued in his self-certain voice without a hint of sarcasm, irony or joke’y tones. “Today I bring you quite the deal, at a suspiciously low price.”

Gilliam, Savia and Petal had left their room and were currently making their way to the Light Field. He couldn’t help wondering a few things, why did Kintas want this fight so bad, was it just not having fought anyone really good as of late or... Was there something else? How did he know about a sword that was from another world? Or... was it that the sword was actually from this world and he knew of it... He also had some ideas about Gilliam’s gift... This man apparently knew so much.. How and why? He mused at this line of thoughts and questions until he found that he had entered the Light Field without really realising, he had walked down the long hallway, down stairs and through the central hall, all without considering anything. Damn autopilot brain. However, he was a bit surprised at not getting pelted with water, the rain sounded relatively heavy when he woke up, didn’t really look outside but he could hear it. Now that he was outside he could see that everything was as dry as ever, there was apparently a large rain shield over the whole of the school, making it look like it was inside a bubble. It was an odd thing, why would they dedicate this much mana to just keeping the rain away... Walking towards the dome in the light field, he found that it was not active. It seemed the construction and circle on the ground was present but the dome itself didn’t seem turned on? Parts of Gilliam hoped that it was currently out of order, so he didn’t have to go through with it. Though, the very, very little he knew about Kintas’ personality hinted that; no fight, no info.... Around the dome there was a huge crowd, Gilliam hoped this would not be a huge event but Kintas did seem like the obnoxious type at times so... Getting closer he saw that Kintas was talking to a short girl with super long black hair and glasses. As he got closer she said something to him and scampered off into the crowd, he turned to Gilliam with a super wide smile, seeming legitly happy to see him. He was wearing the same green attire that he seemed to always use, and though he had the same sword in a scabbard on his hip as he had seen before, Gilliam decided to take a better look at it this round. The short sword looked very flat and wide, it was like someone had just flattened the normal sword, handle and all. The pommel was a hexagon shaped ring showing signs of tear along its internal edges. The crossguard was a curved piece of metal that ended in a cross sticking out on each side, the handle itself seemed to be wrapped by some cord rope thing, it actually looked like some paracord. The whole thing was dark grey, metal as well as the cord, the only colour was the crossguard that looked like brass or some golden coloured thing. “Gilliam!-” He shouted well after he was within normal talking distance. “-I’m very glad you decided to show up.” In his defence he did look it. “I’m mainly here for the info, Kintas.” The reply was dry and bored of sorts. Gilliam was interested in the info, very much so, but he didn’t want to go through all that pain and agony again... The fight against Ghaos was hard enough and... Ghaos admitted that he himself had no chance against Kintas... This was going to be bad. “Ah, don’t be like that. But, on that topic, I would like you to make one of those fancyass mana crystals of yours. Like the one that Ghaos got.” He smiled, seeming to know more about Gilliam than he really expected. “.... Why?” There was a brief pause before his question. On one side he didn’t mind but on the other, this was basically giving him a live grenade to do with what he wanted... “The thing here-” Kintas started his answer by pointing at the dome over his shoulder like it was nothing special. “-runs on mana. It has a compartment for mana crystals. It will let us know before it runs out of energy so we don’t actually kill each other, but the better the crystal we put in here the better it will work. And since we plan to fight, and not spar, I thought it would be best with some automatic healing. I could always get Morgan to heal us as we fight but I’d rather not have her in that dome... Besides, I expect that you’ll be throwing some powerful magic in there, let’s not kill the students.” The explanation was actually pretty interesting, he referenced a name that Gilliam had not heard before, probably a friend who could heal. And the joke at the end, though it was toned as a joke, Gilliam could not help but take the warning within it. But, there was one thing. “Wait... You’re allowing me to use magic in the fight?” He was a bit surprised, Kintas was a swordsman, right? Wouldn’t it be a bit cheating or too much for someone like that to fight... well.. Someone like Gilliam? “Oh, are you wondering about the possible powergap? Nah, don’t worry about that, you go nuts in there. If you manage to get some spells off they might help you but...-” Kintas smile faded a tiny bit and he, for the first time since he saw him all that time ago, looked a tiny bit serious. “-Let me warn you. I am quite skilled in fighting mages.” The pressure on ‘quite’ and something about how he said it sent a small chill down Gilliam’s spine. Just... What was this man? Remembering back to the first Gate, Jial shouted for Kintas to stall the Gatekeeper... He had a vague memory of the Gatekeeper successfully being stalled. That seemed a bit odd. Good, yes, but a bit strange. Gilliam sort of wanted to know now, this man was apparently incredibly skilled, and he was skilled in fighting mages... “So, Kintas, as I make the crystal, mind explaining to me why you are so good at fighting mages?” Trying to goad him into sharing information with the promise of the fight he so desperately wanted. To keep his side of the bargain he started condensing mana into a single point, aiming to make one of the orb-shaped crystals he used in the Fractured Lands. “Oh, that’s no secret. Ask around and you’ll hear a lot of rumours and information. Some are just dumb, but others are correct. I just realised that this means nothing... Well. In short, I have considerable training and experience ki*Fighting mages.” Kintas smiled as he explained, realising that half his explanation literally meant nothing. But that second half was a bit scary... He looked like he was in his late thirties at the most, and his failed attempt to cover the word Kill with Fighting just had Gilliam wonder even more. “So, you’re not really sharing any information, are you...?” Though Gilliam was focused on controlling the channelling he could easily keep a normal conversation on the side. And the shit that Kintas spewed, there was no good info in there. “Right you are!” Kintas pointed at Gilliam with a double finger-gun point like he had just unravelled a complex question. “If you manage to win against me I’ll let you know, if not you’ll just have to live never knowing!” Gilliam sighed and focused on the gem a bit more. “Well, you promised me to at least explain why you know about the sword.” Some information was better than none, even though he was being an ass about it. “Oh, you will know that as soon as we get the dome up and running, I don’t want to share my secrets with everybody.” Though it sounded like a joke, he did have a point, it’s rarely a good idea to overshare information like that. Not long after the gem was done. Like the ones he made before this fist-sized crystal held a considerable amount of energy. If what Kintas said about the dome’s function, this should hopefully be a good battery. He handed it to Kintas who grabbed it with one hand like it was an apple, inspecting it with odd interest. “This shit is incredibly pure. You could make a living selling these alone.” He smiled, but turned around and started moving towards the dome control box. Gilliam lifted his hand to the little creature that always lived in his hair, Savia climbed into his hand and was handed over to Petal. This was not the first time she had been the Savia carrier so there was no real need to explain what to do here. Following Kintas as he was a bit interested in the dome controls, but he quickly found out that it was surprisingly simple. There was a drawer of sorts for the gem, in which Kintas placed the crystal that Gilliam made. There were a few leavers on it but one of them was just marked with ‘ON’, this was the one he pulled. A lot of energy was pumped out of the little control panel that went into the plethora of magic circles and runes surrounding the dome. The dome itself started growing a few minutes after everything else was done charging up, and once it had begun Kintas walked into it. The crowd around started getting amped, their murmuring started getting louder and more shouty to talk over each other. The black haired girl Kintas was talking to before just stood there without much interest in the others, not even a tiny bit worried. Shrugging for himself he walked into the dome as well, taking out the sword from the ring and hoped that the man would keep his word. “Now!-” Kintas started as soon as the dome completed its construction. “-Now that we’re alone in here, and the dome is ever so nicely blocking most sounds and the possibility to properly make out tiny details, about your sword.” Gilliam looked at his broken sword, currently completely charged with the teal glowing runes. “What about it?” Kintas smiled as he pulled out his own sword. Now that Gilliam got a good look at it he could see its dimensions better, as before he just saw the handle side of things. The whole sword was not more than 60cm long (~26.6inch), where the blade part was about 42cm (16.5inch). The blade itself had a part above the crossguard that widened out a bit, like a droplet with the thinnest part dragged out into a sword. The blade was long and narrow, the first 1/4th or 1/5th of the blade, the droplet shape, was not sharpened, but the rest was. The half of the blade closest to the handle was a fuller, but rather than just being a groove it went all the way through the blade. An odd part was the tip of it, though the whole blade tapered towards it, as it got to the tip it sharply angled into a suddenly angled tip, almost like someone had just taken some shears to it and cut it like that. Though, the most interesting parts of it, were teal glowing runes exactly like the sword that Gilliam has along the blade, this gave him a moment of pause. “So... You know about this sword because you have something similar?” Gilliam wanted to confirm it more than actually wondering. “Well, I also got my sword from the creators of them, so I might have some more knowledge than just having a similar sword.” He smiled even wider now, deepening the mystery of who or what he was. “But I promised some info. Now, let me demonstrate something fun.” He proceeded to take out some hexagon shaped gems from a pouch he had. “I have a little magic, though very, very different from yours so I can’t channel it into the sword like you can, so I substitute it with these. Now-” He slotted one of the gems, a white one. The teal runes changed into pure white runes. “Now comes the fun question; what changed? And how does this apply to you?” He smiled, not really answering his own questions. Gilliam looked at the broken sword in his hand. He had just been channelling energy into it, not considering elements or methods. Taking Kintas’ explanation to heart he carefully tried to channel fire-elemented energy into it. And as expected, over the course of a few seconds the teal runes changed into fiery orange ones. An incredibly surprised look on Gilliam’s face had him look to Kintas, and back to the sword, repeating this a few times before spawning the slender blade. Before it was blue, the same teal colour as the runes, the blade looked very crystalline and glowing a bit. Now the blade had the same shape and pattern, but it was burning with an angry fire. “This... is interesting.” The statement was very, very underwhelming. “But, what does this do with the cutting power of the blade?” Kintas shrugged. “Have no idea, not my sword. Mine acts based on how it works for me. I know that doesn’t mean much but it will mean more once you understand it better. You were probably never taught to commune with it, so you will have to just try and see.” He explained this like it was the most logical thing ever, but one thing stood out. “Commune... with the sword?” Gilliam looked back at the burning blade he was holding, almost with a look where he was questioning if the sword was home. Kintas faked a surprised expression. “Oops, said too much~” Swapping the gems, a teal gem was back in the pommel, swapping the rune colour to the same teal colour, he put the other gems in pouches. “Now, let’s fight. I’ll let you know more if you do good in our fight. If you fail, then this is as much as you get from me.” He had a mischievous smile as he took a stance. It was not as much as a stance as him widening the distance between his feet and bending his knees ever so slightly. “I’ll let you start, but remember; treat this as an actual fight. I will, and you. Will. Die.” His smile was very, very much present and as shit-eating as ever, but his tone was... Oddly terrifying. Just standing there he waited for Gilliam to make a move. Gilliam had been in the dome before, but parts of him wanted to just make sure, he didn’t want to accidentally kill Kintas, or potentially more likely; getting killed by him. Dismissing the blade, Gilliam first channelled untyped energy into the blade which brought them back to teal. He also used the broken metal blade to cut himself ever so slightly. The barely bleeding wound instantly healed to perfect condition. Good, the healing was properly working. Taking advantage of the moment where he was resetting his sword and testing the healing, Gilliam wanted to try and catch Kintas off guard. Using a spell he was getting rather used to using, he prepared for an Aether dart. Waving his hand towards Kintas he formed the magic circle and channelled the energy at the same time, it was completed in record time and collapsed into the speeding dart as expected. Kintas almost looked like he barely twitched but in reality ended up standing a bit different with his sword higher up. The dart that moved at breakneck speed was swatted out of the air by him. The dart had disintegrated and Kintas was unphased. “I assume you haven’t learned to enhance your body yet, have you?” Kintas asked, seeming honest in wondering. “... no... I have been meaning to learn that but... No.” Gilliam could have lied or something but he quickly realised that Kintas would find out fast enough if this was true, and since this was not a proper life and death thing it could be educational to just be honest. “Ah, that’s fair then. I’ll start without my own enhancements then.” Kintas seemed to be a surprisingly fair person, perhaps this was not going to be so bad after a* Gilliam’s thought was instantly, as in instantly-instantly put to shame as he barely blinked and Kintas was standing next to him with his short sword in Gilliam’s chest. Not even being able to take advantage of the moment where Kintas’ blade was stuck in his chest, Kintas pulled his blade out and in one fluid move had spun around behind Gilliam and stomped him in the back. This had the now bleeding and basically dead Gilliam fall forwards, face planting on the ground. The healing circle did as it should and Gilliam was back on his feet in a few seconds. “You lying piece of shit!” Gilliam shouted at Kintas, absolutely not being happy about this. “You said you wouldn’t use your self enhancement!” Kintas looked at him with a slightly confused look. “But, I didn’t activate anything yet. I did, however, take advantage of your blinking and inexperienced brain.” This had Gilliam both confused and annoyed, though he was correct in stating Gilliam’s inexperience, this felt like he was also told that he was dumb. “Explain...” “Oh, it’s simple. You were focused on our discussion, this slows the combat side of your brain just a tad as you were processing things. In short; your eyes were paying attention but your brain wasn’t. And when you blinked this gave me enough time to close up on you.” This sort of computation but... Didn’t feel right to Gilliam. “Even so.. Closing that distance that fast?” Even with that lapse of reaction he was way faster than he should be. “Oh, yeah. That makes sense. I’m still not used to properly fighting against people not knowing what I am. I only said I wouldn’t activate any enhancements, even without them I am... Well.. Let’s call me special.” He smiled as he pseudo hinted that he might not be a normal human. Which felt cheat’y but.. Wanting to hit him with anything, Gilliam decided for something wider, he went for the same spell that finally took out Ghaos, the ground spikes over a large area. Forming the spell circle and runes, he started channelling the energy into the spell cir*... Before it had properly started taking in any energy it had vanished and there was yet again a sharp pain in Gilliam’s chest. Looking down he saw Kintas’ sword lodged deep in his chest, the pommel had no gems in it but rather a small carabiner-like hook attached to a thin wire, the wire went from the hook to Kintas. The fucker threw his sword... When did he swap the gem for the wire? Perhaps when he was behind Gilliam before? Faster than Gilliam could react to try and cut the wire or grab the sword, Kintas had yanked at it which had the sword fly back into his hand. Though he didn’t fall over this time, he still counted as dead before the dome healed him back to perfect health. This was going to be... problematic.. If he couldn’t cast structured spells, perhaps Unstructured was the way to go! Spawning his slender blade he banked on the increased combat sense aiding his movements against the smug cunt in the dome with him. Trying to close the distance as he planned to mess with his footing; forcing the earth beneath him to make a pit. It didn’t need to be deep, just a small change to get him off his balance. Kintas didn’t move before the spell was complete, removing a chunk of dirt underneath him, success! Gilliam went in for a proper cut with his sword as Kintas was off bala* His train of thought ended with the weird sound of his energy blade hitting something hard, it sounded like energy hitting energy... somehow, as Kintas had easily parried Gilliam’s blade with his own. The vibrating teal blade from Gilliam’s sword doing its best against Kintas’ much shorter sword. “Nice try.” Kintas smiled as he delivered the worst punch Gilliam had gotten in his life. It connected to his gut, he could feel his organs rupturing inside as he was lifted off his feet a considerable distance before landing on his side a few metres (1m ~3.2ft) away. This almost hurt more than being stabbed in the chest, and though not instantly fatal he would not survive long with this. He knew that abdomen damages were incredibly bad. The dome did its job and he was fine a few seconds later. Taking a quick check it seems that Kintas was indeed standing in the little hole he had made, about ankle deep, did he see it coming? Well, It didn’t matter now as Kintas stepped out of the little dip. “That was a good attempt to be honest. But I think I know what the problem is. You might never have learned to sense mana properly, so you might forget that others can.” He didn’t sound like he was berating him or talking down to him, he was actually explaining something! “I am an exception in many things, but most mages learn to sense mana within themselves and their surroundings very early. I think your magic boost thing might have been so fast that you never learned this. Sounds about right?” Gilliam couldn’t do anything but nod. “I thought so. That’s the problem, though you have very good ideas, which could work against many people, since you don’t have a sense for mana you use too much power on your spells. Though this makes them incredibly powerful it also makes them easier to sense.” Teacher-mode Kintas was actually a good person! And he had a very, very good point. Gilliam had really banked on just using his overwhelming power, but as the fights in the Demon world had shown him; he could run out of energy far too fast. “And I suggest you learn more about your sword before you start using the other elements. We can do that later, so for fairness I’ll also just use the same energy as you. It won’t change things much besides making sure that our blades don't take damage as well as allowing us to attack magic.” His explanation made sense, he had taken out the Aether dart with a simple swing, and Gilliam had used this himself against the demon mages before. It was also surprisingly nice of him to not use the other elements for now... The fight continued and like with Ghaos, Gilliam had no chance at all of winning. In this case it was not any fears or uncertainties, but more that Kintas’ skill was just at a different level. Even with the weird cheaty magic skill bonus thing that helped him win against armies, he couldn’t land a hit on the Academy swordsman. Was there any chance of winning? Kintas said that he wasn’t even using his self empowerment things but he was still dummy fast and strong. Assuming he was some weird mutant, experiment or whatever, Gilliam tried to not look at him as a human or ally. Considering this allowed Gilliam to surrender more to the automatic battlesense, there was still a slight hint of holding back in the back of his head and once this was turned off he started doing better. Not good enough, but better. Gilliam died again and again, hands were cut, legs were cut, his head taken off a few times. The pain he was oddly used to from his fight against Ghaos, but the speed was harder to do anything about. This was the power of experience, and whatever cheats that Kintas had for himself. “Now, this feels like a good time-” Kintas stopped the fight a little. “-Let me quickly explain how self empowerment works.” Kintas explained how to enchant yourself, referencing Ghaos’ tattoos and how though he cannot cast magic, like any other spell they can be activated with magic crystals or channelling energy into them. The spells worked surprisingly similar to Gilliam’s flight spell, attaching the spell to a person could empower them that way as the spell is constructed with ‘the attached’ as the target. Meaning whatever the spell is, it will affect the target it's stuck on. This is a good debuff as well for some but in this case it would then empower the target. The runes should focus on a measurable concept, like stronger or faster muscles both affect the muscles but make you stronger or faster respectively. “With that in mind, try to boost your speed and we’ll see how that changes things.” Kintas seemed to actually allow Gilliam to do this, potentially to get a better fight for himself. Deciding not to argue the gift, Gilliam took a moment to construct a test. In the dome was the best place to test these things since if he accidentally tore himself apart it would fix him. He also decided to overdo it a little for the sake of the experiment and perhaps get the jump on Kintas. Setting up a circle that targets the attached target’s muscles, he filled it with the Aether rune as a base and connected several speed, reaction time and physical power runes. It ended up becoming oddly complex as he wanted to be faster, stronger and react easier. Upon activation it consumed a tremendous amount of energy, having Kintas nod in approval as the circle ate the mana before it was attached to Gilliam’s chest. The rush he got once it connected, it was like warm electrified water running over him. He felt like he was filled with adrenaline, caffeine and all the energy drinks in the world at the same time. Not wanting to wait too long, as he had no idea how long this would last, he darted for Kintas, who stepped to the side and just had his foot out. Gilliam couldn’t control the increased speed and was successfully tripped, planting his face so hard in the ground that he not only broke his nose but also tore up a decent gash in the ground. The healing handled his body fine, Gilliam couldn’t do much but laugh at himself, this made a lot of sense. A few more attempts were needed before he could reliably handle it, oddly enough it didn’t take long to get used to it, just a few first times until the body realised what it could do. At this point, due to the overpowering nature of the enhancement spell that Gilliam used he almost got to the point that he could hit Kintas now. Kintas’ smile grew wider and wider, he seemed honestly more and more happy. “Yes! Finally! Keep at it, this is where the fun begins!” There was no magic circle or buildup of energy, Kintas just spoke something that Gilliam couldn’t hear, but immediately afterwards his speed had increased something fierce. The gap between them suddenly grew again but after each death, Gilliam got just a tiny bit closer. Trying smarter and smarter ways to cast his spells, he found out that against Kintas any spell circle was instantly taken out. Either from his blade, a thrown pebble that destabilised it or just a weird snap of the fingers towards Gilliam that just popped the magic out of existence. Like before, this continued for a while, though Kintas was the victor in every round, Gilliam felt that he was getting closer. If this was just wishful thinking or not wasn’t that important. The sudden usage of the wider blade that also gave a bit of extra range caught him off guard, it was not enough to land a proper hit but he drew blood for the first time! It was barely a flesh wound and it wouldn’t have stopped most people, but Gilliam was incredibly happy! This was followed up by Kintas’ blade finding its way through Gilliam’s side, marking another loss. Gilliam didn’t really know what to do here. He was not fond of the idea of dying over and over again with no progress. Kintas seemed to enjoy himself which was good in one way but... No. He just had no chance. He needed an edge, he needed something that could help him with this. If he tried to cast Structured spells, Kintas would just destabilise the circle. If he tried to use unstructured magic his skilled mana sense would just let him find out what was going on. And in pure sword combat there was no chance, even with his enhanced speed. He even tried overwhelming force with an explosion that would cover everything in the dome, but Kintas did something weird that just destabilised the gathering energy, failing the spell... Magic was useless against him in a duel, he couldn’t cast it, sword combat was possible but what could he do against a god-like professional like him? Gilliam tried to ponder this as he was killed over and over again, he did his best with ideas but the more he tried the more he failed. But, with all of this came a weird idea. A smirk finally grew on his lips, there was one thing he could do, and if he succeeded it would easily work! He darted towards Kintas, who did what Kintas did and avoided everything he threw after him. A swing of the broken sword didn’t do anything as Kintas just swatted it to the side without any effort. Dropping the sword and grabbing it with his left hand, Gilliam made another desperate swing for Kintas, who like before redirected the force without much effort. This opened him up for a brief moment, and Gilliam reached out with his right hand towards Kintas. Gilliam’s hand was stopped by Kintas’ sword stabbing through its palm, Kintas smiling in a ‘no you won’t’ manner. Gilliam still grinned, giving Kintas a very, very brief moment of hesitation. Gilliam proceeded with the next step of his plan!

* GONG, GONG * The bell tolled twice like most mornings, the heart attack and panic was no smaller than yesterday, nor was the swearing. The morning routine was almost the same as normal, get up, get dressed, get ready and go to eat some breakfast. The main two difference was that there was a stack of clothing in the hallway right outside Gilliam’s door, a stack of servants' clothing for Petal. They looked nice on her even though they didn’t look as nice as the student or teachers attire, it was still plenty and saved her from walking around half naked or in ragged clothing. The other difference was that Gilliam made another one of the fist-sized mana crystals before they set off. Savia was the same as normal, she woke up on his face but was put in his hair for now. Even though it had not been long it seemed that her healing was coming along nicely, she was eating and sleeping more than normal so her body was definitely doing something. Gilliam was just looking forward to the time where she could fly again, he felt that she had similar feelings. Both the walk to the mess hall and breakfast passed by as normal, weird looks and talking as they came along, some people trying to get chummy with him but mostly people reacting weirdly to him with his demon in tow. He still couldn’t blame them for their thoughts, he did really mess with the social order of things when attacking Garend, at the same time as he had one of ‘the enemy’ enslaved to him, it really was a unique situation. The main difference from the norm was that Rotia came over again, she seemed like she wanted to sit down but clearly changed direction as soon as she got close, it seemed like she had some conflicting ideas. Gilliam decided to not consider it, if she wanted something she could speak up. He also had to wake Savia up. The poor thing was drained of all energy, but she still ate like she was paid for it so there was nothing wrong with her appetite. Gilliam wanted to just channel healing energy into her all the time but even the healers said that without the specific knowledge about feather growth, that won’t work. Once they had eaten, part of yesterday’s plans with Angela was that Petal should meet her at the dome with another one of the Mana Crystals, that was the one he made earlier today which was given to her once they were ready. Gilliam should go find Jial and see if he could either sign up to his speed-casting classes or if he could get some special tutorship. They left together out into the Air field and walked together through the 4th Wing into the Earth field. On their little walk they saw that there were considerably more people here than yesterday, more tents and just more activity than before. Based on the information about the Circle recruitment these were most likely people wanting to be recruited. He was a bit unsure why they didn’t swarm him as he came walking, he assumed that they would know who he is, if nothing else based on his companion who was pretty unique all things considered. Not that he minded, he was fine not getting swarmed but it just felt off with all the eyes on him without anything happening. In the end nothing came out of it so he decided to ignore it for now, he and Petal parted in the Earth field, she headed to the Dome in the Light field and Gilliam headed into the main building to speak to the reception. The activity level in the main building, in fact most places, were much higher than normal. Most of the increased activity was due to the extra amount of servants running around. Some carried notepads, some carried weapons and others had food. It seemed they were doing various tasks based on the extra people outside. Which made sense, Gilliam assumed that they charged for food and services so this was probably a decent income for the Academy. Dodging the people running back and forth, and making sure he was not in the way more than needed, he found himself at the reception soon enough. Behind the desk is the same middle aged man as last time. “Good morning-” Gilliam started to get his attention, as the receptionist didn’t seem to have noticed him walking up to the desk. “-I wonder if it’s possible to know where Jial is at the moment.” “Certainly:” The man commented as he started looking up some notes in his big book. “Can I ask what it is about?” The question came as he was flipping a few pages back and forth. Gilliam just assumed this was to make sure that time isn’t completely wasting anyone's time. “Sure, I have some questions about his speed-casting class.” The man didn’t react to the explanation but he didn’t seem to deny the reasoning either, so it was probably accepted. “Here we go, he is teaching that very class now in 4-1-1.” The man smiled and seemed just all around nice. “Thank you.” Gilliam smiled back as he headed for Wing 4. Navigating through the people heading in seemingly random directions he entered the door to Wing 4, after that the room was literally the first door to his left! Considering if he should knock or just barge in like a ruffian, it was clear what the correct response would be. He knocked on the door a few times and entered only after he heard a raised voice respond. Hearing a questioning ‘yes’ he opened the door and stepped in. This was the same classroom he had his very first class in, with the same teacher even. It felt strangely interesting to just consider the fact that it was not even that long ago, he hadn’t been in this world for a month yet and all of this had happened. As he entered he saw Jial sitting behind the desk, and not even a single student was present. Jial didn’t look bored and was more working on his own thing with some notebooks and papers spread across his desk. “Slow day?” Gilliam joked at the stern looking man. “I was supposed to have a student today. But I don’t think he will be coming.” There was a strange accusing tone to the statement forcing Gilliam’s curiosity. “Oh, how come?” There shouldn’t be any remnant problems from the gate incident, that was a while ago. “He lost an arm a few days ago.” Jial replied dryly, not even putting his books aside for the conversation. “He claimed that he was ready to resume studies but that didn’t seem to have happened.” Gilliam didn’t even feel the slightest of guilt at the statement, if anything he was more miffed at being reminded that the little shitstain still existed. “I suppose that means you have a slot open?” Without a hint of subtlety Gilliam attempted to just take the slot. Jial seemed to consider a few things for a good solid few seconds. “I suppose you’re right. I do have an available slot and extra time.” The statement was as Jial normally spoke, to the point and oddly commanding. Gilliam was smiling widely as he pulled up a chair behind the desk closest to Jial. “So, how does this work?” Almost as if he was expecting a simple yes or no answer to a question he blurted out a simple question for what he expected to be a complicated subject. Jial looked at him with no change of emotion or any reaction at all. “Name and image association.” It didn’t seem like he was going to have Gilliam register, pay or anything, he simply started explaining. “Much like how if I say the name of someone you know. You will know exactly who it is as well as imagine their face to a staggering level of detail. You need to name your spells and make the circle again and again until the name instils the image of the magic circle and effect.” Gilliam was a bit shocked. This was not too different from one of his tested ideas but... It seems the main problem was that he wanted a result immediately, instead of being willing to repeat it over and over until he just associated it properly. “If the answer is that simple... Why is this a class at all? Can’t this just be told in passing normally?” He didn’t mean this insulting, he just felt it was a bit weird that you needed anything more than this explanation and time. “It already is. This is not a mandatory class but more a deeper aid if the student feels they need it. It usually only lasts for one class per student. The student usually fails at this for a short while so I give individual pointers and information.” Jial’s dry and weird way of pausing felt like he was berating Gilliam for doing bad things and was listing it all up. “The main problem is that you haven’t had enough classes to be told this. And your ability to make up spells on the fly makes this counterintuitive as it will not affect new spells. Only spells you want to be able to repeatedly cast.” Jial’s tone was almost like he was talking down to him for not even realising this. That last part made a lot of sense... Gilliam was trying to find a way to instantly ‘store’ a new spell for immediate casting, however since he can make up a spell at any time he’s more focused on that side than on actually mastering single spells. Normally mages would not have access to the whole alphabet and use considerable time to research or obtain new runes. In that format it made much more sense to master casting a fewer number of spells until you learn how to expand. Gilliam’s mindset was damaged from having too many options, so he didn’t even consider specific mastery of a few spells since he could just ‘make up whatever on the fly’. “That...-” He wanted to defend his position and comment but... No matter how hard he thought it made too much sense. “-Actually makes a lot of sense... So I just name a spell and make the spell circle over and over again, and it’ll eventually go faster?” Jial shrugged. “That is about it. Though for many it helps to draw it over and over. Whatever works best for you. The goal is to project the whole circle with the runes in an instance. Not draw the circle and fill in the runes as one starts learning.” During his explanation he returned to his notes and books, almost like he felt done with the class already. But, this made a lot of sense. Since most mages learn to project the circle with the needed shape and circles in a go, there shouldn't be a problem to just add the runes to that same construction. He just had to get used to the spells enough that the image is clear enough, and like most other things repetition and drawing it over and over will make this automatic eventually. It was actually frustrating how simple this was, but like Jial stated it just didn’t occur to him due to a weird habit having already formed. However, the good thing was that now that he knew the secret, he just needed to decide on a few spells and start drawing them over and over and over again. This also meant that the class was over not more than 10 minutes after it started. “Well. I suppose we’re done here, then. You’re a good teacher.” Gilliam complimented as he got up from his chair. “I know.” Jial dryly replied as he properly went back to focusing on whatever he was doing. Though Gilliam could see a slight smirk on his lips, compliments get you far in a lot of cases. Leaving the room, Gilliam felt that this was almost too fast, it was a pit-stop experience but he left with exactly what he needed. He would have to thank Jial later, though it could be argued that it is his job, he really has taught and explained a lot of things that have helped tremendously over time. But that would have to be another time, now he had to go over and see how the girls were doing. Gilliam had left the classroom, walked in through the central hall and was aiming for the door leading into the Light Field. On the way through the hall he randomly considered that there had been so much happening lately, that he really hadn’t gotten to know anyone properly in the world yet. He did consider both Angela and Petal his friends and companions, but it still felt a bit odd that he didn’t know much about them. Petal had an excuse given how she grew up but, once things calmed down he made a mental note to try to get to know them more. Exiting through the door into the Light Field to find that there was a decent crowd around the Dome, which made a lot of sense but it was still interesting to see the amount of people that would get drawn to this kind of thing. Walking over he had to force himself through the students and people that were watching, the students didn’t seem to say or try to keep their spot and let him go through once they saw who it was. The outsiders were a bit harder to handle, though oddly subtle he did get a slight insight in how the students viewed him compared to outsiders considering him just another dude. Getting to the dome he could see what was going on, as expected Angela and Petal were fighting and they were nothing short of amazing. Both of them were acrobatic, movements were surprisingly fluid, punches, kicks, throws and all other kinds of attacks and defences. Angela landed many more attacks and were much more consistent with dodging and parrying than Petal, though this made a lot of sense given their training time so far. However, Petal had seemingly improved a lot in this short time, already feeling like she would be a hassle to fight, which in this cast was a very good thing. Standing there and looking at them for a short while he was halfway waiting for the moment they took a break before butting in, but it took a few more moments than he’d like to admit for him to realise that they wouldn’t get tired due to the dome... Deciding to not wait until nightfall, he stepped into the dome. “Think that should work, I mean he*” Angela was saying something between sparring and suddenly stopped as he seemed to have interrupted. “Did... I interrupt something?” Gilliam asked somewhat confused. He knew he interrupted their training but at the same time the way the sentence stopped made it seem a bit... Weird. “No, don’t worry about it. How did it go with Jial?” Angela changed the subject with zero subtlety at all. But that was fine, if they didn’t want to share that was their business. It was at least good seeing them be friends. “The answer was easier than expected, I just need to train on it a bit, test and get used to it.” Gilliam sounded happy about this, he was on the road to improvement, so now he just needed to do some testing. Luckily this could be done at any time as he only needed to manifest the spell circle, there was no need to activate it. He had a mental list over spells he wanted to git gud with as soon as possible. “Well, in that case, why don’t we train together a bit? Get used to things?” Angela suggested, which was not a bad idea. He needed training and they might need some variation from each other. “That sounds like a good idea, but there is three of us, how should we do th-” his sentence was brought to an abrupt end as Angela’s foot landed in his chest, the force was more than enough to not only take out several ribs, but also slam the air out of him as he hit the dome’s shield. He felt certain this broke something in his back as well. He needed a few healing seconds to be able to speak, let alone breathe properly. He briefly saw a moment where Petal tried to attack as well but was weirdly stopped, which made sense as it was most likely due to her slave brand. “Very well.” Gilliam replied sounding somewhat annoyed, he was getting his revenge. “Petal, for this specific training, as long as we’re inside the dome and it’s active, until you’re told to stop or we leave you're allowed to attack me.” He had to give her somewhat specific instructions, it was not that he didn’t really trust her but he felt it might be more for being on the safe side as well as any people listening. As he gave the order he had walked over to the control unit and placed Savia on it, if they were going to be fighting it wouldn’t be fun for her in her weakened state to be flung around. He also took the broken sword out of storage and manifested the slender blade on the way back to them. “That’s cheating!” Angela complained. “Oh, this isn’t cheating, I intend to use magic as well, so come at me properly!” He smiled a bit. He knew they were skilled, Angela more so than Petal, but there was an odd feeling not fighting against a master. Not waiting for a confirmation, Gilliam opened with an attack against Angela, just in case Petal would have some problems with the order or otherwise. Sending out an Aether dart he aimed at Angela’s core. The magic circle used a short moment to be created and as it collapsed into the dart it appears that Angela was ready. Even though there was a targeted factor involved in the circle she still managed to dodge it. It seemed that the dart tried to curve to perhaps still hit its target but there was not enough space and it slammed into the ground, digging a deep hole and dissipating shortly after. Angela took this moment to run towards Gilliam, she launched a feint with her right arm that successfully camouflaged a left kick, trying to parry the incoming punch Gilliam fell victim to the kick. It landed in his side and though it didn’t move him as much as her last kick it absolutely broke something. Pushing through the pain he made a halfhearted swing at her with the sword, this was more to gain some distance but also all he could do until the healing took care of his wound. If single target spells don't work, he had another one that might, repeating a weaker form of the carpet bombing spell he used in the demon world, he removed a few of the power runes as that power was not needed at the moment. Aether, Orb, Small, Speed and Multiply was enough for now. Angela seemed to assume she could dodge this one as well, potentially because it looked similar to the dart with the same five rune setup, but as the circle collapsed into its spell the cone of marble-ball sized orbs peppered the field, absolutely tearing both Angela and Petal apart. On purpose Gilliam aimed so Petal wouldn’t get the brunt of it, this was more an incentive to actually fight. Both of them did their best to dodge but seemed to not expect this, had it not been for the healing dome they would be full of enough holes to die in seconds. After healing up it seemed that Petal had found her motivation, they both made for him at the same time, Gilliam went on the offensive and aimed a hard horizontal slash at the both of them. They had to dodge, but where Gilliam hoped they both would jump and become vulnerable in the air; only Angela did so. Petal crouched down and slid along the ground. Trying his best to gain a little distance only further had him fail everything in its entirety. He managed to deflect the incoming kick from Angela by slicing at her as it was more telegraphed, but the low-angled stomp-kick from Petal landed in his gut. Though he split Angela’s leg in two it didn’t affect Petal’s attack in the slightest, it felt like what he assumed being kicked by a horse would be. Both Angela and Gilliam needed a few seconds to get healed up before they continued, Petal was still fine. Taking advantage of the moment she kept up her attack during Gilliam’s healing. She started a flurry of punches, claw attacks and kicks, Gilliam managed to dodge and parry a few of them after his healing was done but before the healing properly kicked in she landed a few, only extending his healing time needed. By the time Angela was again good to go, Gilliam had landed a solid cut in Petal’s thigh, forcing her to step back for a moment. Though some distance was created there was no moment of pause before Angela came running in. She was stopped for a second by the manifestation of a shield in her path of running; having her run into a wall, quite literally. Stabbing through the wall as it was dismissed was enough cover and brought Angela to her knees. This back and forth lasted for quite a while, Gilliam would win most of the trades when magic was involved, in a few cases they were fast enough to destabilise the magic circle, but most of the time he was either fast enough or used Unstructured to work around this. In the cases where he tried to just fight with the sword or hand-to-hand; the girls would come out on top in almost all cases. When activating the Wide blade the cuts slowed down but the extended range caught them off guard, though since that level of cutting power was not needed he ended up using the slender blade’s increased speed and dexterity much more. He also quickly found out that Angela was holding back when sparring with Petal, as she was quite devastating and hard to properly land attacks on, not as bad as Kintas but she was out there. In the end there was a weird alarm coming from the device that had the Dome created, it also flickered the dome in various colours, clearly a warning that was literally impossible to ignore. Angela stopped the active fight at the time. “It seems the dome will collapse in a few minutes. The alarm will tell you that you should stop what you’re doing.” She smiled as she seemed to calm herself down a bit. This logic made sense, if it just shut off it could happen mid-attack and people would die. Rather having a buffer of several minutes means that if you’re in the middle of something and somehow don’t notice, you’ll still be fine as the Dome will still last. This was really a marvel of magical logic. “I could just put in another crystal if you want. I got like eight more of those large ones.” Gilliam didn’t like losing the fights but he really enjoyed the experience and training, it helped him not only cast better, think faster and improve as a mage, but it gives him valuable experience as a swordsman and in close combat. And this was on top of getting a bit used to what they were capable of. “Since it’s slowly getting dark, I think we should call it for today.” Angela had a good point, before she mentioned that he hadn’t even taken a look around. Through the haze that was the dome he could see that the sun was setting and there was a large group of both students and other people gathering around. He could see discussing and exchanging pouches back and forth, it seems like they were betted on again. “I suppose that’s a good idea. Let’s get some food and discuss what to do tomorrow.” Gilliam smiled as he deactivated the sword and stored it back in the Ring. “Actually. My Lord, could you go ahead... I need to speak to Angela about something...” Petal requested. Gilliam felt that this was a bit odd and wondered what this was about, however at the same time he was extremely happy that she was coming with requests for her own sake, seeming to develop fine in that aspect. It didn’t look forced and more reserved, so he just saw this as a talk between friends. “Sure, I’ll go to the Mess hall in Wing 3.” He had an oddly satisfied smile, not knowing what this actually was about he felt it wasn’t that important. Leaving the dome caused other problems, there was a torrent of students and.. non-students that flooded him asking about a lot of things at the same time. He heard something about his Circle, about wanting to learn, wanting to... there were so many requests in there that he couldn’t even follow along. It made the walk to pick up Savia somewhat problematic, let alone leaving the area entirely. As he was about to shout for the group to stop, a young student spoke up with enough volume to overpower the volume of the crowd. “Circle recruitment is not until tomorrow!” This calmed them all down considerably, Gilliam knew that it was indeed tomorrow but... was there any rules on this? Deciding to complain about the help, he made his way through the crowd and towards the Mess hall. Passing by the student that yelled he saw that it was Rotia, giving her a thumbs up and a thanks he left them all behind, if he stopped and talked to her it would most likely just have others break in anyway. Being curious about what the girls were speaking about in the dome before it collapsed, he gave them their privacy and left the Light Field.

Petal didn’t react differently to Gilliam being in there or not, she was mentally gone and replaced with rage, it seemed. “What happened to her?” Gilliam asked the room but clearly aimed at Ghaos. Ghaos’s brow furrowed as he rubbed the bridge of his nose for a second. “We’re not sure but we have a theory. For a week or so after you disappeared we could care for her in your room under the logic of you returning soon, but-” Ghaos turned towards Gilliam and looked a bit worried. “-you didn’t return. In the second week Garend had found some weird documents that basically validated your slave and familiar to not be considered under protection since you were dead. Since the scryers couldn’t find you or and came up as you not existing anymore you were classified as dead...” Gilliam wanted to comment, but sadly this kind of made sense. He had been gone for over a week and if scrying worked like he thought it did, not landing a hit but rather not having something to lock on could define a person as dead. Since he was in another world or plane of existence... however this worked, it would make sense. Ghaos continued after a few seconds pause. “So, with her not under your protection she was now just ‘some demon’.” He put heavy pressure on the latter part, you could almost hear the air quotes in his voice. “So he took the opportunity to attack her, sending an Earth dart through her arm. She reacted with violence and jumped on him, punching him to the ground. However she stopped herself before it got too bad and climbed off him once she had won that scuffle.” He let out a deep sigh, foreshadowing this being the turning point. “The boy wouldn’t have it... He got to his feet and attacked again, I’m told she bit him at that point and that’s when she.. Well... turned into this-” He waved his hand, vaguely referenced to the feral Petal in chains. “My theory is that the blood she ingested during that bite did something to her. If they can gain power from eating people like she said, the young boy might be... well.. But he is still a decent mage for his age.” Gilliam pondered on Ghaos’ explanation and theory, she had followed his orders perfectly, only fighting to protect herself and stopping before it went too bad. The bite felt like a natural reaction for someone who might not have used many weapons. He only had her explanation for how the demon consumption thing worked, so whatever she said to them was the extent of her knowledge, though factually true she might not have understood things properly.. Or something... There was a lot of speculation here. “When the second gate was opening, I told her that she could defend herself, but she was to try her best to not kill non-demons. So her actions are based on my orders.” Gilliam decided to clear up her actions and clear her from what happened the best he could. Though she might be dead now had she not been allowed to defend herself, so although he’s very glad he did this, the actions still sort of fell to him if he understood how the laws on this worked. “Not sure it’s smart to say that outside-” Ghaos commented. “-Though it was in self defence, attacking a student, the young Silverhawk specifically will cause you problems.” Gilliam chuckled, barely audible over Petal’s rage in the narrow room. “I doubt that’s going to matter, since I probably broke his face before I cut his arm off.” There was not a hint of regret in that statement, in his mind all he could see was the damaged Savia. Ghaos visibly seemed like he wanted to comment on this but stopped himself and instead changed the subject. “Well... I suppose that is for later, not sure what we can do with her like this-” the ‘her’ in this case was Petal, further solidified as Ghaos turned back to facing her. “-But if she continues acting like this I don’t see a good future for her.” Gilliam didn’t properly listen and rather walked closer to the chained up demon. He needed to snap her out of this but if this was indeed related to some consumed blood and related to her demon growth thing. Perhaps it’s just that her first ‘meal’ of the kind was too pure? Like an overdose on some drug? Walking closer to her, within reach had she not been restrained Gilliam could see the place that the Earth dart had pierced her arm, it was healing nicely and was probably due to the increased natural healing the demons had. “Petal, can you hear me?” The only reaction he got was that she somewhat faced him more as she tried to get loose, it looked like she was going to attack him if she managed to slip the bonds. “Petal. Calm down.” He tried to activate the command link, but it didn’t react at all. Gilliam turned to Ghaos standing a few solid steps away at the moment. “Ghaos, isn’t the slave mark absolute? Shouldn’t she calm down if I order her to?” Ghaos nodded and made a hand gesture best described as ‘but however’. “If she understands the orders you give her, they are absolute and I haven’t heard any marked slave not doing as told if it’s physically possible. However she might not be able to, if you as a slave to fly if they have no way of doing so; how can they follow the order?” Gilliam turned back to Petal, he had a good point. There seems to be two main possibilities at the moment. Either she cannot understand his orders in her rabid rage, or she hears it but is unable to. Either case was problematic to confirm, so the next step was also hard to decide on. Not turning away from her, Gilliam spoke loud enough that Ghaos could easily hear him. “How was she captured?” “At the time she had bit Garend, the fight had lasted long enough that some of my colleagues had gotten to them. A demon was attacking a student, after all, so they acted accordingly. Though this time she was not knocked out, they managed to just restrain her and teleport down here.” Garend’s people were good, Gilliam was glad that they managed to get her down here with minimal effort, at least nobody was more hurt than needed. “That’s good.” He somewhat spoke to himself in response to Garend. He needed a way to snap her out of it. If their theory is correct and what she said was all there was to it regarding demon physiology, then this was a physical or mental response to the mages blood. It really was some drug-like reaction, however since a demon gets permanently empowered by that thing, going cold-turkey would most likely not have her come out of it as... Well, this could be permanent. Had this been just narcotics then keeping her healed and waiting could work, but it’s been days, if that was the case then shouldn’t it already have worked? This was a complicated subject, he didn’t know enough about their biology to even approach this. Thinking back to his time in the demon world, was there anything that could help him? He only really spent any time with Sirzan but he was both a mage and already in his proper senses. The other demons after him were blindly charging him and... only stopping when they got surprised or overwhelmed. That might be it? She’s in a very, very feral state right now, so speak to her feral emotions. The most basic state that people have, or rather humans have is the Fight or Flight response. Many choose to Fight but if the enemy is scary or overwhelming enough, could he be able to trigger her Flight, or rather her fear response? This sounded like a good idea but the more he thought about it the less he was comfortable with trying it. It would require him to hurt her, potentially bad, or give an aura of overwhelming pressure... Though this might work the more he considered it the more he thought it could just backfire. If she is lost in rage this might just put both of them in danger. This was a problem since he didn’t properly know her, they spent like two days together and during that time he only figured out that she didn’t really have much of a life outside of servitude or being eaten or thrown away. She just wanted a better life which is why she suggested the slave ritual so easily. Though... If this was biological, perhaps he had to consider the demon side of things and handle it as such? If he imagined this in a realistic scenario, if this had happened in the Fractured Lands and she found someone that triggered this side of her, she would most likely continue to attack in rage until she had eaten her fill. If you imagine a rabidly hungry person, give them a taste of food and then take it away. Is... is this just part of the evolution process that she was just interrupted in? Even dogs go mental in cases like that, perhaps this is some weird instinctive food defence mechanism that she’s not used to handling since it’s potentially her first time? Though Gilliam would love to just let her eat Garend and find out, that was not exactly an option. However, he did have his arm.... “I want to try something... But it will probably be... a bit wrong...” His idea was simple: feed her Garend’s arm and see if that made things better. The fact that he’s feeding her might also get some reaction deep in her subconscious as well. “It might work, or it might make it worse.” He added at the end as he really didn’t know what was going to happen. If she drew more strength from it she could perhaps break loose or just go into the much deeper end. However, perhaps it was the best they had? “I’m not letting her go until she talks to me, test what you want without releasing her.” Ghaos allowed and commanded. It was clear that he was doing his job properly, the Battlemage commander was no pushover if it came to it. Gilliam took this as all the validation he needed lifting his hand as he requested the ring to manifest the arm he had stored in there, from behind him it seemed like he just suddenly had a human arm in his hand that he pulled from nowhere. He could hear the gasps of both Angela and Ghaos being horrified once they realised what was going on; Angela knew but Ghaos had to piece together about the arm he pulled out of nowhere. Taking off the remaining clothing on the arm, he started wafting it in front of Petal like he was hinting to a dog that he had a treat. It didn't even take a moment for her to react. First she was aggressively trying to get to the arm but when Gilliam used dog-training logic in her this seemed to change. Each time she aggressively growled towards the arm he brought it further away as he shook his head and told her a firm “No.” When she calmed down a tiny bit he brought it closer as he ordered her “Calmly now.” This took a few minutes back and forth but afterwards it seemed to somewhat work. She calmed down considerably, her eyes were still just a glow and she was clearly still feral, but she behaved a tiny bit more like the angry demon dog she currently acted as. To Angela’s nausea he allowed Petal to take a bite, it was a solid chunk gone in a single swift movement, or at least as much movement as the restraint allowed her to do. Once that was consumed he continued the process, pseudo training her like a dog to behave, things he had done to family pets before so he had a rough idea. Though deep inside he felt conflicted. Not only was he treating her like a pet that was possessive of food or snacks, but he was currently feeding a demon the arm he cut off a human child not half an hour ago. The conflicted part was not that he was doing it, but oddly enough he was more conflicted about the fact that he didn’t feel weird doing this at all. Deciding that this was just some weird aftereffect of the time he spent in the demon realm, that fighting for his life as he spread demons all over the place had jaded him. For now he decided to focus on Petal and handle his own issues later. This took some time, he swapped over to speaking to her in her demonic tone without properly realising, this seemed to have a greater effect and after most of the arm was nothing more than skin and bone, with only the wrist and hand left he started talking to her. Just small sentences, mentioning her name and asking her to keep calm. Luckily this worked, she was calming down, her eyes didn’t change but her demeanour did. With only most of the palm and a few fingers left, she had eaten the others with some sickening crunching sounds, he tried to speak to her properly. “Petal, are you back with us?” She seemed to react to her name, but she still didn’t respond. Taking a step away to trigger the fear of losing her food response he tried again. “Petal, if you want this you need to speak with me.” He kept to the demon language still as it seemed to have the better response. “I... food... want...” Though she managed to respond, it was words forced with great effort. Stepping closer and rewarding her with a tiny nibble he repeated the process. “Good.” Deciding that he was running out of treats, as macabre it was to call it that, he needed to hit harder. There were just two fingers and a little of the palm left. Stepping in, crouching to get even closer he grabbed her chin and tilted her head towards his face as close as he could, he looked at her with as much of a commanding aura that he could. “If you want the rest, properly come back to us. I have no use for a servant that’s just an animal.” He made this sound like a threat on purpose, a part of him hated doing this but he had to act the part to get the effect he thought was needed. She started squirming and tried to tilt her face towards the rest of the snacks, but Gilliam forced her face back to look at him, he lifted his eyebrows in an expression rudely expecting a response. She seemed to struggle for several long seconds as Gilliam had gotten more and more aggressive in tilting her face back to his instead of towards the food. “Last chance. What do you want to happen?” He hoped that one final push was needed. She struggled for another few seconds, like before she wanted to face the snacks that had her this motivated but suddenly the glow in her eyes faded to the normal, still oddly glowing, eyes. The look on her face was still a bit feral and wanting food, but the look in her eyes changed. “I... I want the rest of the arm...” She was calm and looked more like her old self, perhaps a bit more desperate than completely normal, at least she was speaking properly and looking more normal if nothing else. This caught Gilliam off guard, when asking what she wanted he meant more if she wanted to be cast away or not, instead she did as told and replied, but about the food instead. Lifting the remainder of the hand into her view he felt like he had to confirm once more before giving in. “Am I right in assuming that you’re back to your proper self?” He had let up the dominating presence a lot and was talking to her like a normal person instead. “Y... Yes... I think so.. M.. My Lord. But I still would very much like the rest of the hand.” She seemed very, very hesitant, like she was weighing what to say and do to both prove that she was indeed mentally back, but at the same time trying her best to not let that stop her from getting the rest of the hand. “Then, I suppose you can prove it, right?” The question was more toned as a challenge and order. Getting to his feet properly he turned to Ghaos. “Can you release her now?” It was not until now Gilliam properly saw the faces of the people behind him. He was holding the skeleton arm of a young human, which he had been feeding to a chained up demon for the last few minutes to the point where just bone, sinew and two fingers remained. Neither the floor nor Petal herself could be considered clean as the fresh arm had bled over both. Ghaos grimaced, though through the grimace Gilliam was certain he could read that they were absolutely going to talk about this later. Though he did hesitantly nod as he placed his hand on one of the many magical circles on the wall, he did something that disabled a few of the circles directly around Petal. He then proceeded with the rest of the releasing process which was just as elaborate as the first time. Eventually Petal was back standing on her hooves, still being a good solid head shorter than Gilliam she was almost shyly fiddling with her fingers as she faced Gilliam and, in the demonic language. “Can... I have the rest of that hand... My Lord?” She really, really wanted it, but did her best to prove that she was in control again. And it really did seem like she was. Gilliam, not really having a plan for the arm at all before now, he just didn’t want Garend to have it reattached, gave her the treat she so much wanted. She happily received it and was about to bite into it, noticing the face of both Angela and Ghaos, decided to turn around and eat it while facing away from them. Internally this had Gilliam chuckle, she was definitely back to her old self and she was doing her best to not inconvenience people... All things considered. It didn’t take long before the rest of the hand was taken care of. She looked like she wanted to place the remaining bone somewhere. Gilliam just extended a hand towards her and was given the bone arm, missing three of its five fingers. As soon as he held it he activated the ring which in turn had the bone arm just disappear, surprising everyone in the room though surprising Petal the most. “Good-” Gilliam started to break the awkward silence in the room as he turned to Ghaos. “-I have a lot of things to share from my time in the Demon world, so... Could we get Petal cleaned up and gather some people?” This was said somewhat casually almost as he just explained the weather. “You what?” Ghaos looked at him confused. “I know you were gone for a while but... what?” His expression was more confused than anything. “Yep. I assume you probably want someone specific to be part of this, and I want Petal to be part of it, so unless you want her to have student blood on her face I think it might be worthwhile cleaning her up first.” That last bit of info seemed to make it click properly for Ghaos. Gilliam did explain that he cut Garend’s arm off before so this might have put things into perspective. Sighing deeply as he dipped his head forwards. “You turned into a commanding ass, you know that?” Ghaos didn’t sound happy about this but there was a very weak humorous undertone to it. “You’ll understand why, now get.” This was in a clear humorous tone to further the douchebaggery a bit more. Though an ass about it he did have a good point. He had a lot of good information about the enemy. “Fine, stay here and I’ll get someone to.. Do things.” He sighed once again, this seemed like it was going to become a tedious day. As Ghaos left the room, closing the door after himself, Gilliam walked over to Angela and picked up Savia again. The room was incredibly awkwardly silent for a good solid half minute before Angela broke out in a yelling question about what the hell that was! “What do you mean?” Gilliam wondered. Though he had a wondering tone he knew what she was referring to, but he wondered which part of the ordeal as there were many different factors here. “What do you mean, what do I mean?! You fed your demon pet the arm of an Academy student?!” She was flustered to say the least. And rightfully so. “Yes. That sounds about right.” He couldn't really do much but confirm it. She really did sum it up rather well. “Oh!-” Forcefully changing the subject with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face he lifted Savia up to present her. She was already looking a bit better but it would take both time and more healing magic to get her completely healed. “-This is Savia, my familiar.” The still wounded and in very bad shape creature gives her an honest smile. “Who is white human, Master? Is it a friend?” She seemed happy and cheerful even in her condition. “Yes, this is Angela, she’s a friend.” Gilliam replied without considering that he was speaking in whatever language that Savia speaks in. Turning towards Petal, wanting to introduce her as well he... decided not to. Looking at the demon with human blood around her mouth and down her throat, staining her torn dress was not the best image. “And...” Turning back to Angela with a forced smile. “That is Petal... Although I would like to have introduced her differently... For better or worse she’s my slave. She knows V’idan so you can talk to her, but this one doesn’t” Referring to Petal when he mentioned knowing V’idan, and giving Savia a little pet like the sparrow she kind of was in his palm when referring to the one who didn’t. Angela was somewhat taken off guard with all of this, she was in the middle of asking Gilliam the hell was going on and now there is a sudden introduction. Stuttering as she tried to figure out what sentence to start with, Gilliam was saved by the bell of sorts as Ghaos entered the room. He nodded out through the door in a hint to follow him as he left, leaving the door open. Gilliam followed him without question and came into the office-like room outside of the holding room, there stood Jial as well as a man in his thirties, short brown hair and the physique of a greek god. He wore some very shiny and polished leather armour with what looked like metal plates in small pouches here and there. At his side was a sword and across his chest was a bandoleer of various vials of coloured liquid. Ghaos started talking as he referred to the armoured man. “This is Ardan, he’s going to be following you around for a while. Though mainly for show he’s also to protect both you and others should that be needed.” Gilliam just nodded, knowing that with what has happened lately this was probably a good thing, if nothing else it could give people some peace of mind that a guard is following him. Jial had not waited for any que, he had cast a spell on Petal as soon as they came in range, and during Ardan’s introduction Petal was cleaned up nicely. Though as soon as Ghaos was done introducing the guard he added his own statement. “Ledels is informed. A room is prepared for you to explain everything.” Handing Gilliam some clothes at the end of his explanation. Gilliam wanted to explain all of this anyway, so that was hardly an issue. He changed his clothing to get out of the bloodied pants that had some splatter from Petal’s ‘snack’ was probably a good idea, pure white pants with blood splatters didn’t exactly look nice. Following Jial out of the basement Angela walked up beside Gilliam and warned him that she had many, many questions he had to answer later. Chuckling he said that he would do his best after the lecture he was going to have from his last few days. The entourage got a lot of different looks, which was not hard to guess why. Gilliam had done a few things today that would warrant its share of looks, the actual demon that was in a fight with a student, flanked by not just Jial and Ghaos, but another guard and some white woman. The group seemed to ignore it for now and rather continued to follow Jial through the main hall and into the 5th Wing, on floor one they went down the hallway and entered a door into a pretty large meeting room. It was rectangular, had a large table in the center of the room with the same shape with a bunch of chairs around. Several windows with heavy curtains currently drawn away and the same fancy wooden walls as most other rooms in the Academy. In this room there were a lot of people, the only one except his current group that Gilliam recognized was Ledels. The others were people who looked like other teachers, based on their badge, some people dressed in nice robes but without any badges and one man who really, really stood out. He looked a bit steampunky, wearing a vest over a shirt, a somewhat long coat, some goggles with several interchangeable lenses, a bandoleer of some potions and something looking like a simplistic pistol at his hip. He had ash-grey hair with most of it being actual black, hinting that he’s ageing a bit, it was oiled backwards. Catching himself staring at Mr. Steampunk he shook his head a bit and went back to focusing on Ledels. After the group had entered Ghaos closed the door behind them and Ledels took the word. “We have gathered some people here to listen to what you went through. So please, go ahead in as much detail as you can.” He sounded curious and very, very uncertain. “Ok, yeah. But first.” Gilliam turned to Jial. “You said I was gone for two weeks since I was stabbed, right?” Jial nodded. “Kind of. You were gone for 10 days. I rounded up at the time.” He had his normal stern expression making Gilliam wonder why he added four days, but ignoring that for now. “Ok. Since I have my companion with me here, I’ll start with things from the first portal opened....” Gilliam had all eyes locked on him in great interest as he started explaining, starting with the feeling he had when the red orb formed for the first gate.