R-S Chapter 08

I was learning at a much faster rate than before. The removal of all the high-ranking noble students meant that the teacher had more time to teach each individual student. Mr. Rights had mostly ignored me and let me learn on my own until the mass exodus from class but like a light switch flipping, he began to teach me more than most of the other students.

Even with the sudden burst of help which led me to learning all the spells I was trying to and even no longer passing out when I did so, I could feel the tension in the air. Like flies moving away from a pile of shit before someone stepped in it, we were just waiting for the boot to drop. It was two weeks when some of the tension was broken by an alchemical accident one of the students had.

A third-year student was attempting to make the alchemical silver for his own personal magical focus, something that wasn’t really taught in school but as the number of focus creators dwindled more students attempted it with the school's equipment. The man had effectively crippled himself forever by the magical explosion. Still wounded from his attempt, he was kicked out of the school’s hospital wing when they realized the equipment was also destroyed in the process.

One of the teachers said that even with all that he got lucky that he wasn’t made a slave to help pay off some of the damages that occurred. It was nearing the end of the third month since I joined the school and I had started to loosen the restrictions I made on myself now that the chances of me being removed were reduced. I started hanging around outside of my room or the classrooms and Brutus showed me around the school.

The cafeteria was new, mages could get food delivered and that is what I did for most of my meals. Sometimes I would skip them. There were also several recreation fields and practice fields for the magic warriors and other classes that weren’t mages. I had let my physical training fall to the side for now but I was going to pick it back up again.

The last thing he showed me was the point shop we could use. As a mage, I received one point a day and hadn’t spent any so far. I was just a few points shy of an extra bottle of Ambrosia. A hundred points was something extremely expensive but with me only getting one bottle, this will increase it to a little over four bottles a year to improve myself.

After begging Brutus for the last bit of points(you can bet/trade points) I bought the bottle and drank it down. The one drop Ambrosia didn’t burn that much in comparison to the two drop. I wouldn’t even need more than a week to recover. I still couldn't absorb more than one bottle a month without having side effects. It was a week later before we had the first quarter ball to interact with our peers. We could meet future teachers or older students at the party and that was its purpose, it mattered more to me because I might find a suitable family to ally myself with.

It was clear the teacher wanted me to fall under the royal family but that just wasn’t going to happen. I could see the writing on the wall, with the disappearance of the princess and the sudden removal of most of the high nobles, the coup was going to happen soon. Most likely in the next few years after more pieces fall into place for the nobles, but by then there would be no hope for anyone who allied themselves with the king.

I just decided to go in my mage robes as I didn’t have any formal clothes. The party was… Underwhelming, but that was because more than half of all the mages who should have been here weren’t. There weren’t many high-ranking nobles and the ones that were still here were clearly on the king's side. If someone so outside the political spectrum could see what was coming, there was no chance both sides wouldn’t see the writing on the wall either.

With a clinking glass of wine to settle the crowd down, the principal went onto the stage and began speaking. “I would just like to make an announcement. We may have lost some of our students, but the school still goes on, no matter what. Come hell or high water, the school will always exist. Now, let us stop the gloom and doom talk from everyone, the worst hasn’t happened yet. So let’s party the night away!”

The party went on for another fifteen minutes before the vents started pouring out gas vapors. I saw people slamming against the doors but they were locked from the outside and even had a barrier protecting them from being destroyed. People began coughing as I held my breath knowing that breathing in was most likely a death sentence.

The principal cast a large-scale magic shattering the roof but the poison gas had already done most of the work on everyone else. Even I couldn’t hold my breath long enough and began to breath it in. The poison directly affected my ability to cast spells. I felt completely weak as I began coughing up blood as well. Most people were on the floor already, most likely dead. They might have been saved if they got help first but dozens of men wearing masks jumped through the massive hole in the roof.

They began fighting with the surviving students, teachers, and principal. I watched for as long as I could before I began to black out, the single attempt at magic backfiring and tearing my insides apart even faster…

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I somehow wasn’t dead. At the very least I could still think, even though I knew I had lost my other senses, at the very least I could think. I floated in the black abyss for a few moments before my mind was suddenly filled with new images. Images of someone I didn’t recognize. The man wasn’t human, more froglike than anything else. He waited for me to absorb his appearance before he began to speak. His body moving more like pictures in my mind than the fluid movement of real life.

“Hello there. Yes, you have died, but good news! You were chosen to go back and fix this problem.” I tried to speak to him but I could tell this was more a recorded message than anything. He waited for me to absorb what he said before continuing. 

“You may not remember me but my name is Magnus Ambrosias. I was the wizard that helped take down the demon king… Except we didn’t. We couldn’t kill him, I’m not sure he can be killed. So we sealed him in a vessel and I hid him under the school I started. The school was made solely to safeguard the sealed vessel, it appears enough time has passed that people may have forgotten the original purpose. Hell, someone might have tried to unseal the demon king on purpose for some reason, who knows… All I knew is you must not let that happen.”

I go to talk again, hoping he can hear me and answer a few questions before the world collapses around me. The scene I came back to was one I remembered slightly. It was the day I applied for the school. I was mid-thought when my body re-entered my consciousness, shattering my past soul to replace it with my current one.

Today was the day. I was finally going to the Adventurer Academy to test and see if I could become a mage. I’ve been saving up for years to pay the tuition but if I could have it waved by placing high then I would rather do that… I take in a deep breath as my soul regains control over my body as I can’t help but think… Fuck, that hurt.