Chapter 72 - "Noble Hunt"

[Elijah Knight POV]

"Holy SHIT!?! I can't believe someone had the guts to do that!" I thought as I chased after the hooded figure that attacked my friend.

Luz was a little ahead of us, using wind magic on his feet to glide through the corridors, while his hands were covered in flames that propelled him forward. Feyrith was beside me, with a sort of "water mat" under his feet, making him keep up with our speed. As for me, my feet were surrounded by earth mana, which allowed the ground itself to push me forward with every step I took.

The hooded fugitive seemed to turn towards us as it ran and threw a fireball without speaking any incantations. I couldn't see its face properly, but for some reason its eyes were visible, it was determined with those actions.

"Water Serpent!" Feyrith yelled, pointing his wand at the enemy while we all still ran towards it. A summon appeared from his wand and managed to stay ahead of Luz enough to receive the attack and thus defend us.

Luz jumped over Feyrith's summon, still chasing the hooded one, while I went around the side and the elf himself passed his summon's water body, with the water serpent still partially whole and following its caster.

We soon saw the hooded one stopping, but it wasn't a good thing so to speak, as it had grabbed a student who was there in the hallways, she had green hair and wore glasses. "She just keeps getting unlucky, doesn't she?" I thought, seeing Emily being held by the arm like a human shield.

The three of us stopped in a battle stance, watching that hooded figure holding my friend, the person started laughing, and looked deep into our eyes without taking off the hood.

"Looks like they can't attack me now, do you bastards?" Said the hooded figure, revealing to be a woman due to her voice. "You really are stupid scum, what dumber conversation was that you were doing, retard? 'which are preventing Dicathen from evolving to a better path'? No.. YOU ARE THE ONES MAKING THIS!"

"What an annoying bitch, why don't we kill her with a black spike impaling her?" I hear my own voice saying it inside my head.

"What the fuck?" I thought, confused by what I had thought earlier.

"You really are already completely lost in the ideals of these lunatics... Let go of the girl and maybe I'll go easy on you." Luz said, as I witnessed a bizarre black fire covering his left shoulder.

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Seeing that fire made me feel a headache again, having a few flashes of the situation we were in. I saw myself inside a courtyard surrounded by extremely dark walls, Luz was beside me with those dark flames completely covering his arms, while in front of me was a man with gray skin, black clothes and big dark horns.

"Try to get this puppet away from me, you can't let the puppet being hurt, and you can't touch me with your bodies." The man said, holding tight a mannequin in fancy clothes.

"Of course, my High Lord." my otherself said, while the other Luz advanced against the man, creating a circle of dark fire around him, limiting his movement.

I simply created a black spike next to the man, making him dodge and almost instantly, I created another black spike between the man and the dummy, forcing him to release it. In response he just chuckled and clapped his hands slowly.

"Limiting the area I can move in... And then using an attack to force me to choose between letting myself be attacked or releasing the doll... That was pretty simple, but the speed they coordinated their attacks was the icing on the cake... On the lesser level... You're already way ahead." The man said, nonchalant.

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"But why am I seeing this?" I thought, confused, but when I blinked, I saw outside those thoughts again.

In front of me, there was a scene similar to what had occurred in my vision. Emily and the hooded woman were separated from each other by a black spike that I unconsciously cast, while the hooded woman was surrounded by a water spell from Feyrith and Luz was getting near her to have a good fight.

Emily managed to run to me and hugged me, scared of the whole situation, while I saw Luz and that woman in the middle of their fight and Feyrith continued to limit their arena. My green haired friend was shaking.

"A-ah!? W-what's going on, Eli?!" she asked for me while I patted her head.

"Just crazy shit, but I'll explain to you." I said as I watched the fight that was going on.

The woman laughed insanely, while her hands seemed to be showing the veins under her skin, she launched countless fireballs in the direction of my friend. Luz, on the other hand, seemed to take the attacks, with that dark flame appearing everywhere he was hit, as if that stopped the fireballs from doing any real damage to him.

"WHY DON'T YOU DIE, FILTHY COMMONER!" the woman screamed and released a continuous attack of fire from her mouth, Luz remained still, receiving the attack.

But soon he seemed to lose patience, walking slowly towards the woman, even though she was attacking him with a spell that turned her mouth into a flamethrower. Standing now in front of her, he grabbed the woman by the face and then threw her hard against the floor, causing cracks there.

He knelt down, now holding the woman by the hair, pulling the hood off her, she appeared to be one of the school's employees. When he lifted her head by her hair, we could see that she now had a broken nose.

"What did you call me?" Luz asked, the woman tried again to say "Filthy commoner" but was stopped in the first second as my friend threw her face to the floor again.

He lifted her head again, now she was bleeding from her nose and forehead. "What did you call me?"

"C-commoner—" Her head was again pushed hard against the floor.

He kept doing this for like 10 times in a row, each time he did it, he increased the power of the attack using wind mana to push his own arm, until he stopped and asked the same thing. Now her face was badly damaged and smeared with her own blood. I watched her hands to notice that her veins were no longer exposed under her skin.

"Y-you're not a filthy commoner... You beat me..." She said in a weak voice, her eyes were rolled up and her mouth slightly open, leaking a little blood.

"Excellent." He slammed her face against the floor again, making her pass out, after which he looked in my direction. "Elijah, get people out of here. Feyrith, get nurses to take her to the hospital wing. I'll let Cynthia know what happened."

When he said that, I noticed that there were some students seeing the whole scene, they seem to have walked past the student council staff and witnessed the end of the whole situation. They all seemed to look scared at the vice captain, who only glanced at them.

Luz got up and walked towards the direction where there weren't that many students, with each step, more lightning appeared around him, until he was already gone by using one of his mobility spells. Meanwhile, Feyrith deactivated the water walls and started running toward the hospital wing.

As he ordered, I activated an earth wall around the woman, thus preventing other people from seeing or approaching the situation. Emily was still with me, shaking a little as she watched me.

"Can you explain to me now what's going on?" She asked.

"You weren't in the auditorium at the time... But we announced that... A group of humans apparently want to cause chaos here at the school because of the union between the three races." I spoke in the simplest way the situation.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" I saw her determined look, even though she was still shaking from what had happened.

"Sure, we'll talk to President Tessia and Captain Claire later to see about this..." I replied, thinking how troubled this early morning was.

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Since the day we announced the existence of a racist group at school, our work has intensified. If there were complaints from possible members of this group, we went to the dorms of these people and made a personal investigation, while other people were part of the investigation based on the data that Cynthia has access to.

Fortunately, many of these students were not in this group, however, 50% of them appeared to be possible candidates to be recruited by these racist nobles. This caused them to be put on a sort of blacklist, where these people would be put into detention for any rule-breaking they did involving the slightest act of rebellion.

Once a week, the disciplinary committee and student council met to talk primarily about student safety and the reports each group found for itself. Of course, as extra subjects, we discussed more basic things as possible more cosmetic ideas.

In the last meeting we decided that we would support more the journalism club that existed in Xyrus Academy, after all, it was good that the students had more ways to know about the happenings here, without needing gossip or going to the auditorium. Another club that we decided to support at this meeting was the fight club, it was a group whose main objective was to let students have an arena for them to train combat using the medallion/pocketwatch fighting system.

Luz had come up with an idea that even Claire and Tessia were excited about, was to make these clubs be extensions of the council and committee, that way we would show the students our full interest in their development, as well as keeping an eye out and preventing possible rebels from being participating in them. In order for this deal to be accepted, Luz and Tessia will need to go on an interview after the winter break, while Claire, Theodore and Arthur will need to give hand-to-hand fighting tips, this during the first weekend after the winter break.

At the moment Emily and I were together inside the artificers club, she was reviewing the things I created, while I tried to make an analyzer artifact, the purpose was to identify how many living beings there are around and which among them are mana beasts. This idea was theoretically possible, as the cores of mana beasts were quite different from the cores of elves, dwarves, and humans.

"Hm... I think we would need a lot of energy for that... What do you think?" I said, moving the artifact, it had the appearance of a simple cube of light blue color, with semi-transparent surfaces, allowing to see an interface that would only appear when it was turned on.

"I think I can figure out a way for us to use little mana to keep it on for long periods of time, Luz said that he and Gideon designed an object called...AMC... That would allow us to store a lot of mana, we could use that. What do you think?" Emily answered me and asked trying to copy my voice in a cute and silly way, she was standing behind me, but soon hugged me, with her arms around my neck as we watched the prototype I made.

"Of course Emi. Can you ask Gideon to bring this 'AMC'?" I asked and she nodded, leaving our club room.

I sighed and stood there waiting for Emily as I continued to study my artifact on the table. My head started to hurt as it always does, I was used to suffering from it, but my situation is still very irritating.

"This Nico guy really is a headache.." I said to myself, giving an agonized laugh at my own joke.

Those memories were all out of context and clearly too many others were missing for me to understand anything. Luckily, they stopped trying to interfere with my new life when Emily returned.

She looked at me, worried and holding a small bag in hand. "W-what happened to you?" She was approaching me.

"What are you talking about?" I asked confused, taking the bag and seeing a small glass cube, which easily fit in my hand, being the possible "AMC" she mentioned.

"You're bleeding..." She said still worried and went to get a cloth nearby. I continued confused, until I looked in the mirror we had there at the club and saw that there was some blood coming out of my eyes.

"I didn't even realize this happened..." I answered her as she wiped my face with a napkin.

"Don't make me worried like that... Understand? And you didn't really notice it? Didn't you feel pain or anything?" she asked and I just shook my head.

After that little problem, I injected my mana into the AMC and then connected it to my artifact in an improvised way to see if it worked. The interface started to glow and soon a 3D projection appeared inside the artifact, there were two white dots blinking in the center of it.

"Haha! Apparently it worked!" I said excitedly, after all, those two dots represented me and Emily, and the fact that they were right in the center of the cube was because we were both pretty close to it.

"Amazing, what's the range of that?" she asked excitedly too.

"I think at least 50 mete—" I stopped talking when I noticed a purple glow and a yellow glow appearing on my artifact, they were slowly approaching, and from their distance from us, they were on the same floor.

"Eh?! What are these two new points?" She looked a little scared.

"Well... I thought I had set red to be mana beasts... So... why... yellow and purple?" I kept an eyebrow raised, trying to understand, until we heard a knock on our door.

"I am going!" Emily was heading towards the door while I continued to observe those colors that shouldn't even be there, extremely confused.

"Yooo! How's my favorite nerd couple doing?" I heard a voice and turned to the door, realizing it was Luz, and he had Art's Bond on his shoulder.

"H-hey! Don't say that!" Emi said all blushing as the vice captain walked into the club room.

"Eh? What's up, bro? Is there a problem?" I got up from the chair.

"No big deal, I just came here to warn you, I met with Tess and Lily this afternoon, and by the looks of it, it's confirmed that the Winter Party is going to happen, even with the problem of racist nobles, as we haven't met many of them and because Cynthia managed to hire some guards who will be helping us in case something happens." When he answered me, Emi jumped up hugging me.

"Yey! I'll finally be able to wear that dress you bought me!" She said looking straight into my eyes, smiling, but then her face turned red as a tomato as she remembered that Luz was here too.

"Oh... did the four-eyes buy his girlfriend a dress? Be careful not to spoil her too much~" Luz said teasing us and soon we pulled away from each other, coughing in embarrassment.

"Hehehe. Anyway, what were you doing?" he asked as Sylvie jumped from his shoulder to the table where I was working.

"We were testing an artifact I created, it's a sort of mana radar. The idea is that it can discern mana beast cores with mage cores. But... It's weird, I set it to glow white for mages and glow red for mana beasts, but out of nowhere came two colors that I don't even know what they mean." I said taking the artifact and showing it.

"Apparently you asked Gideon for one of the extra AMCs I gave him. Good to know I'm helping you indirectly... But how does that radar map?"

"Well, I made it in cubic format, because then it would be a radar in 3 dimensions: horizontal, vertical and perpendicular distance between the two. The center is the closest to the cube, and it doesn't have an up and down orientation, it's always relative—" I noticed that the yellow and purple dots were now in the center area.

"Hmm.....?" Emily noticed this too, she gently picked up Sylvie and led her to the far end of the room, this made the yellow glow move away from the center of the cube.

"Wait.. Luz, can you go with Emi?" I asked, already understanding the situation, so he didnt need to go there.

"Oh.. I think I get it, the unusual dots represent me and Sylvie... But why? Shouldn't I have a white glow and Sylvie a red glow?" He leaned closer and I handed him the cube.

"Yeah, that was supposed to be the case, then I'll be walking around to test it out... Unless..." I stared at him for a few seconds and he nodded in agreement.

"The yellow glow could be related to Sylvie being a dragon, but..why am I purple on this radar?" he whispered.

"Eh.. I don't know..." I said putting the artifact back on the table and watched Emily playing with Sylvie there in the corner, but right after that the "white fox" jumped very high and landed on the vice captain's shoulder.

"Hm... Hold on, Luz, who are you going to the winter party with?" I asked curiously after remembering that he actually has two 'girlfriends', Lilia and Kathyln.

{A/N: Poor guy, he doesn't know that Claire is also in the middle ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) }

"I'll ask them about it. Taking them with me could cause unwanted looks from other people. So it would be more logical for me to go with one of them and the other to go with a friend of theirs so I'm not 100% alone all the time."

"But as far as I know, Lilia even has several friends who would go with her just to keep her company, but Kathyln..." I said scratching the back of my neck and giving an embarrassing cough.

"Yeah I know, obviously she's going to try to force me to stay with her and won't let go of my arm as usual..... Oh! And Emily! Don't forget that thing!" He spoke loudly to get her attention.

"Of course, I wouldn't forget that! It's going to be amazing!" She spoke excitedly, making me confused.

"Eh...? What are you guys talking about?" I asked, wanting to understand this.

"It's just that the winter party will take place next week, but in the middle of winter break, I'm going to go on a trip with some students from my two classes into dungeons that have already been completed, but that have remnants of ancient mages runes. They weren't taken from there because if they were, they could be damaged, and the explorers who went there already made notes of them. I asked Emily to come with me, she will be my helper."

"Woah?! Wait a minute, a dungeon excursion? Wouldn't that be... dangerous? Mainly because your classes focus more on theoretical things, not battles." I exclaimed.

"Well, there will also be some adventurers that 'my father' knows, they are reliable enough to protect the tour group. Also, the advanced class students are all competent Battle Mages, so in theory these hired adventurers will be protecting my basic class." when he mentioned Uncle Reynolds, I was pretty sure it was either the Twin Horns, or it was actually adventurers he'd met while living as Adventurer Diamond.

"I see... Anyway, why didn't you tell me about it, Emi?" I looked at her, and she was just whistling and not looking at my face.

"She seems to have forgotten or thought she already talked to you about it." Luz answered for her and yawned. "I still have to teach tonight... It's going to be hell..."

"Eh? Why? The upperclass people have been giving you too much hell to... You say crazier things?" I asked with a laugh.

"You could say so... And anyway, like I said, this school trip will take place during the winter break starting next week, after the party, so today is the last day of school I'll give them before I have to get the forms to see if they have their parents' permission to come with me to Beast Gladers."

"Huh?! But it's after next week, what do you mean you're not going to teach?" I was confused by what he meant.

"Both the morning and afternoon classes are well ahead of the subjects I planned for before the winter break, so I'll let them have some rest time. That way they can enjoy the week before the holidays a little more... they'll have the school trip and stuff... you understand." I agreed with what he was saying as Art's bond stared into his eyes.

"Hm...? What is it, Sylv?" he gave it a slight headpat, the dragon disguised as a fox was making several "Kyu"s, happy for the caresses and soon Luz left the club room.

"How about we have a conversation about this trip you haven't told me about before? I thought you said that this winter break we all would be near the other." I turned back to Emily as she was trying to flee the room through the other entrance, but she failed completely.

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[Kai Crestless POV]

I was walking the streets of Downtown Academy, enjoying my period before the class I was going to have tonight. Heading towards where my group would be at the moment, it was the cheapest but also least frequented restaurant in the area.

There I just met with Alexyo and Letty, they seemed to be talking in a simple way while having an afternoon tea. I approached them with a slight wave and then Letty pulled the chair next to her so I could sit with them.

"How are the preparations?" I asked while looking at the place's menu, called a waiter and ordered a cup of tea along with a slice of citrus cake.

"It's going well, I managed to gain permission from my parents after I told them the advantages we would have if we went on this school trip with Lord Leywin." Alexyo commented and then I gave a sigh making a symbology with my hand and she kept her head down.

"Alex, did you forget that he said never to mention him like that? We can only do it indoors and with just us and him as witnesses." Letty spoke in a low voice as she ate a vanilla cake.

"I'm sorry, it's just that... You know... He's so amazing and compassionate for allowing us to live after our unenlightened decisions... That sometimes I can't talk about him in a normal way, he deserves all the respect of the world." Alexyo whispered and I nodded.

"And you, Letty?" I asked her, but before she answered, my order had arrived, as this place had very few customers, some of the employees already knew about our coming here at that time, so things were ready quickly.

She resumed whispering when the waiter walked away. "As you know, my mom is the head of my family and she's been a huge part of the 'stupid and unenlightened' group that we were in before, so she was a little apprehensive as the news of Professor Luz was hunting 'the extremist students' , were spread widely among students and guardians. I had to come up with an excuse like... 'He will never suspect me, if I'm his favorite student, and to be that, going on this school trip will be necessary'."

"Good to know, my father accepted right away, because if there was a chance to end up with Luz, this would be the best. But he also said that it wouldn't be a problem if our Professor got out alive, because, as there are two classes on this trip, I would have to attack when he was absolutely sure that no one will witness." I smirked as I whispered, little my dad knew I had already left this disgusting plan our continent wanted so badly.

We continued to eat our afternoon snack, until my time artifact beeped, signaling that it was almost time for class with our true lord. I was sincerely excited about it, he said that today would be the last official meeting before the "school trip" and that he was going to give us some great stuff to use.

We got up, Alexyo paid the bill and we headed towards the building where we had our classes as usual. On the way there we ended up running into Denver, Battione and Burkit, they also looked excited for today's "class".

Entering the laboratory was him, our lord and the one we should follow to be enlightened with the truth and the truth only. He was sitting on top of his desk, drinking a mug of coffee while holding a book in one hand, this book had a slightly burnt cover, so if there was a title on it, it wouldn't be possible to identify it. All inside and with the door closed, we all bowed to his presence.

"Good afternoon, my dear students... You can lift your faces... Today is going to be a great day for you." He ordered and we obeyed, we sat in the chairs that were in the front row, to listen attentively to his words.

"As you know, during winter break, which starts on Sunday next week, we will have an amazing trip on Beast Gladers... And what's our goal there?" He asked.

"For we managed to destroy a possible alacryan camp that we've recently become aware of, sir!" Denver responded, standing up and with his right hand over where his heart is.

"Correct... Thanks to the fact that Kai is the person most within the plans of this invading group, we discovered that there is a possible alacryan camp that is developing potions, which serve to prevent corrupted mana beasts from attacking those who drink them. And that they are developing these potions inside the dungeons, so that it is not necessary to receive them through tempus warps connected with Alacrya. Now, tell me... How do we attack?~"

As Denver returned to his seat, Battione was the one to speak now, doing the same as before. "We will attack in a way that looks like a natural disaster, or that uncontrolled mana beasts inflict damage on the dungeon structure, destroying their production and killing most enemy alacryans in the process!"

"Correct... And... How do we do that?~"

Now it was Letty's turn to speak. "We will use the school tour to our advantage. While the underclass students will be restricted to floors 1 and 2. We will go deeper than that to attack them. When destruction occurs, we will purposely injure ourselves and run back to the tour floor, so rumors that there has been a natural disaster and that we are affected will be spread and will be less likely to be thought of as a landslide caused by us."

"It's great to know that everyone here is aware of this situation... After all, we're just students.... We shouldn't know about these things~" He smiled admiring the plan he had. "I'm still surprised how the school trip Vanesy also is planning will be closer to the dungeon we're going to invade, that way we'll have less suspicion about why we chose the dungeon."

"Yes, Lord Leywin, you were indeed very clever to manipulate Professor Vanesy into choosing a nearby dungeon." Burkit spoke, but our lord only took a deep breath.

"Honestly Burkit I love how you think I act in the shadows, but I didn't manipulate her at all, she had organized this tour before the school year started. This was all a lucky situation... It is like.. Fate itself wanted this to happen~" he said with a laugh after that. "Anyway, do you all have the tour permit forms?"

We all nodded and handed him the forms. They were very simple and made it so that, officially, we could go there and he was responsible for our well being, even the students of the basic class had to deliver these things to him, otherwise there could be legal problems.

"Very well, now... I will deliver some things that you will need. The period of a week without having to come to this room, is so that you can train what I will give you." He said as he grabbed a large bag from behind his desk, set it on top of the table and opened it.

There seemed to be equipment that we would have to use during our dungeon attack. He started handing everyone a dark brown colored robe and masks. These masks were very simple, completely white, but with a thick line that separated the right and left sides, the colors of that line differentiated between each of us.

"For a very intense precaution, when we part ways with the underclass students, you'll have to dress like this, okay?" he spoke and we agreed. "Also I noticed that some of you don't have weapons, so I prepared some... But first, I have to confirm, Burkit, Denver and Kai, you are the only ones who already have weapons, right?"

"Yes, I have my big hammer." Burkit replied.

"And I have a sword." Denver replied too.

"It's not really a weapon, but it's metal bars that I carry with me." I answered more specifically.

"I understand, in this case, Burkit and Denver will not need to receive new items. As for the rest..." He said as he handed me a necklace. "In there, Kai, it's a dimensional compartment, it's small, but it's enough to store several metal darts that you can control and even unite them using your spellrune to create rods or things of that level."

He then went to Alexyo, handing her two small scythes that were linked together by a chain. "You already have a long-distance spellrune and another one that allows you to create a shield. Then get this item, it can be used as climbing equipment, in addition to medium-distance physical attacks or even chaining enemies." After that, he went to a closet that was in the laboratory and opened it, revealing other weapons, he was handing each one to the respective owner.

He gave Letty a staff with space to have 4 extra magic stones, that was a little longer than her arm and contained a figure of a mana beast with an open mouth at the top, in that mouth, there was an Earth Stone. To Battione, he gave two gauntlets, they seemed to be made of heavy metal, but inside they were padded with a very dark leather, in the palm of the gauntlets, there was room to put a magic stone in each.

"Letty, this staff may look like metal, but it's just the outside of it, inside it's made of a magical wood that is usually found in Elenoir's forests, usually staffs that use the branches of these trees are made for plant mages. However, Plant mages are actually Earth and Water elf mages, that is, it will be very useful for you. Battione, these gauntlets may seem simple, but I ordered them in a personalized way just for you, their shape along with the compartment for water stones, were made this way after I analyzed the way you fight. You're the type that ends up throwing punches that damage your own hands, so the leather interior serves to cushion that damage."

He took a long breath and sat back down at the table. "For Burkit and Denver, I made an extra sledgehammer and sword, I won't hand it over yet as there is no need. You will receive these items if you deserve it or if your current weapons are severely damaged. Does everyone here understand what I gave you?"

We bow. "Yes, Lord Leywin!"

"Great.. Ah... And warning you, if I see one of you at the party that will take place next week... In my perception, that person will be there because it has already trained a lot... That is... you only can go there if you're completely confident about our school trip. Understood?" he commented and we all nodded, bowing again.

I looked towards our lord, he had a simple smile on his face, and I was smiling too, if he was satisfied then I knew all my work was worth it. I hope that all my compatriots can see the truth that our lord wants to show, that Alacrya leaves the clutches of these false Vritras and becomes submissive to the true leader that we should always have had.