After the frustrating discovery that not only the Princess’s party was larger and stronger than I expected, but also their willingness to get involved in the chaos that surrounded the school in such a direct manner was much sharped than I expected, I wanted to nothing but a curse.
I was trying to deal with too many agents of carnage with only a few allies, and things were already difficult to handle before adding another layer of chaos to the game, especially since that supposed addition potentially brought a huge mess of possible Royal involvement.
It wouldn’t have been that horrifying if the crown princess wasn’t on the edge of being deposed —which meant I could actually try to ally with her without fear— or she had just come with a few bodyguards to get Oeyne to forge her a weapon and leave —instead of a group that was large enough to classify as a small army, with an unknown number of spies and enemy agents.
An annoying realization started to pickle my mind, that I probably should have pushed for a closer relationship with the headmistress, using Titania as the connection. At least, that way, I could generate a better understanding of her true objectives. The reveal that she possessed the same resource that was preventing me from getting stronger made that annoyance even stronger.
Admittedly, seeing what lay under her robes went a long way to make me revisit my initial decision to keep her at arm's length.
What could I say? I was just a poor man with a slightly overactive libido.
Luckily, I wasn’t too late. The items I had ‘borrowed’ from her room would no doubt help me to get a better understanding of her mind. More importantly, I had the perfect gift to give her.
[-619 Mana]
I pumped some mana to my elemental steed to push myself higher in the air, using an illusion to hide me from the view. I stopped climbing only when I was almost two miles high, giving me a perfect view of the plains that surrounded the school, while being too high to notice the individual monsters even if they weren’t trying to escape.
Luckily, the monster hordes were much easier to detect. Just follow the piles of dust that were struggling to reach the sky. Despite slow encroachment of the night, the plains were still bright enough not to miss such an impressive spectacle —and a pair of sharp eyes, enough to challenge an eagle, helped.
Hitting the first horde was almost trivial, but before I delved into them, I hit a trio of robed figures observing the horde, one of them radiating the same chaotic magic that I had felt many times before about the mana gems.
“I’m going to be rich,” I murmured even as I jumped off my mount, diving directly down, not wanting them to notice the mana fluctuations of my mount. I didn’t want to waste my time, and more importantly, I didn’t want them warning others magically.
And admittedly, with my connection with the element of air was enhanced, falling down the sky with nothing to cut the sensation down, nothing but a sword in my hand, was quite fun. I closed my eye for a moment, enjoying the sensation as the distance between me and the ground —and more importantly, the distance between the people that were directing the horde and my sword— was getting smaller and smaller. Only when there were twenty feet between me and the ground I used magic to cushion my fall.
Draining all that momentum turned out to be an unpleasant sensation.
[-81 HP]
[-64 Mana]
“Fuck, I should have started earlier I murmured even as my feet slammed on the floor, while an expression of shock appeared on the face of the trio. Being ambushed was unpleasant, but being ambushed by someone dropping from the sky was doubtlessly worse. Unfortunately, I couldn’t have asked for a first-hand account, because a slash of my sword, followed by a rain of arcana bolts was enough to evaporate them.
“Weak,” I murmured in disappointment as I pulled my sword. They were barely level ten, maybe even lower, not that I bothered to check their soul spaces carefully. Instead, I quickly went through their possessions to find something unusual, either as a clue or for my own usage —but my findings turned out to be disappointing.
The horde itself wasn’t too challenging as well. A few surges of mana turning into fire and earth was enough to cut through the initial mass of the monster to leave the leading monster alone, and another surge was enough to remove the gem from it.
[-593 Mana]
The horde was weak. Suspiciously so, enough that Cornelia could have handled that alone —though not without exhausting herself to the limit, and certainly not strong enough to breach into a fortified settlement— which made me assume some interesting conjectures about their sudden change of plan.
Maybe, the organization that was supporting the undead horde with the magical items decided to achieve their aims without causing so much civilian death. Technically, it made sense, but after everything, I doubted that they were being held back by that.
Then, I noticed another horde spilling out of a nearby canyon, so I decided to handle that as well before continuing with my assessment. As I got closer, however, I noticed three shadows slipping back to the canyon, no doubt noticed the destruction of the other horde.
Wide-area fire spells weren’t exactly inconspicuous, especially in the red dimness of the dusk.
Fortunately, while my martial expertise was limited to melee, I was more than happy to use magic to handle them, I extended my mana, and three jagged rocks jumped out of the ground, skewering them.
[-310 Mana]
Admittedly, it was a wasteful manner of casting, wasting a nice chunk of mana to kill three people on the range. I needed to develop better-ranged spells that couldn’t be countered easily. A trip to their side netted me another mana gem, then, I started working on the horde.
[-483 Mana]
It turned out to be even weaker than the previous horde, allowing me to cut through them with great ease. Their weakness despite being so close to the towns revealed that it was not just an accident, but a real strategy. The question was, why?
A weird fluctuation from the gems pulled my attention. I turned my gaze at them, and sunk my mana, trying to examine their structure, only for a sudden mana surge to grow. “Fuck,” I murmured as I threw it away, while I ordered my mount to move back as quick as possible. I had no idea why the gem was exploding, but the explosion of a mana gem should be extreme.
Then, it exploded, only to disappoint me. It was not nearly potent as I expected from a mana gem to be. Suspicious, I examined another one, but more carefully, hoping not to trigger the explosion. It eventually did explode, but not before I realized the source of their fragile nature.
They were fake.
Even better, it was impossible to use any of the usual detection magics and wards to actually discover their explosive nature, because, technically, they weren’t explosives. They neither used fire to burn their surroundings, nor they used arcana to twist their surroundings in a way that was deadly to any living —or undead— being. They were simply artificial mana storages, which discharged after their outer layer was breached.
It was not an efficient explosive in terms of mana spent, not even slightly close, but that didn’t matter much when their primary usage was to create monster hordes.
“Motherfucker,” I murmured as I changed my route back to the school. The plan was dangerous in its simplicity, because if they sent those weak hordes to the towns who had just successfully conclude their defense mission, only to discover a mana gem in the leading monster precious enough to make the defenders fight for it.
An explosion at that point would be the perfect device to remove a high-level combatant from the battle.
My lethargy had disappeared as I changed my direction toward the school once more, to have a proper meeting with the headmistress. She was the only one that could send the news about the plan to every defender simultaneously.
And maybe a chance to breach the topic of ‘helping’ the headmistress handle the weight of the divine spark…
[Level: 30 Experience: 447193 / 465000
Strength: 41 Charisma: 53
Precision: 35 Perception: 37
Agility: 35 Manipulation: 40
Speed: 34 Intelligence: 44
Endurance: 34 Wisdom: 46
HP: 5370 / 5370 Mana: 5491 / 6600 ]
SKILLS
Master Melee [100/100]
Master Tantric [100/100]
Master Biomancy [100/100]
Master Elemental [100/100]
Master Arcana [100/100]
Master Subterfuge [97/100]
Expert Speech [70/75]
Advanced Craft [50/50]
PERKS
Mana Regeneration
Skill Share
Empowerment (1/1)
Teleportation
COMPANIONS
[Cornelia - Level 21/25]
[Helga - Level 17/21]
