“Where is this? Wasn't I just in the middle of class?”
“Huh? Why are you here too?”
The voices of other students echoed around them one after another.
There are other people here?
A sudden light flared in the dim corridor, allowing Ain to see not only the sheer scale of the vast space but also everyone else present.
Ain quickly scanned the surroundings. There were about forty students gathered around. Judging by their youthful, nervous expressions, most of them were lowerclassmen.
The soft glow dispelling the darkness originated from the holy light magic flowing from the tips of several students' wands.
The corridor itself was astonishingly massive; even with all of them gathered together, they occupied less than one percent of the space.
Buzzing whispers soon broke out among the crowd, laced with anxiety and dread.
Ain's gaze swept across their faces, quickly locking onto two familiar figures. They were the very same students who had been whispering about Sevis in the hallway earlier.
“Don't panic, everyone! I am an active officer of the Titan Prosecution Office! Please, everyone quiet down!”
The man's voice was deep and powerful, echoing through the empty, dim corridor and forcefully drowning out the whispers.
It was as if a pause button had been pressed. The students stopped talking in unison, turning their heads toward the source of the voice.
“Senior Roy?”
A student seemed to recognize him. The word "Senior" undoubtedly acted as a reassuring balm to all the lowerclassmen present.
The man nodded, then continued, “It seems everyone ended up here by accident, so don't panic. I have already sent a Magic Letter to report our situation to the Titan Prosecution Office.”
“Don't wander off. Just wait here for rescue.”
Hearing Roy's words, many of the students let out sighs of relief.
“Thank goodness. I thought we wouldn't be able to go back.”
“Good thing Senior Roy is here.”
After a brief, dead silence, the students began whispering again. Suddenly, a blinding flash of fire ripped through the darkness, casting flickering shadows across their faces.
At the same time, a cold female voice rang out.
“Fajro.”
While everyone was still dazed, a massive fireball hurtled toward them.
Roy reacted instantly.
Drawing his wand with a backhand motion, he rapidly chanted an incantation.
Almost the instant he finished speaking, a dazzling shield of light materialized out of thin air, firmly blocking the path of the roaring fireball.
However, the shield shattered almost immediately. With a deafening explosion, a violent shockwave swept through the corridor.
Several students who couldn't dodge in time were violently blown off their feet, slamming hard onto the distant ground, their exposed skin instantly covered in scrapes.
A mysterious hooded woman quietly emerged before them. Her attire resembled the devout habit of a church nun, but the fabric was an eerie, deep black.
Ain stared at her thoughtfully, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
He recognized this attire.
The Nightingale Secret Order.
“Why are there academy students here? Master clearly said we shouldn't kill them...”
“But Master also said to kill everyone who intrudes here...”
Seeing someone in such bizarre attire, Roy grew vigilant and demanded angrily, “Who are you!”
The woman kept talking to herself, completely ignoring him.
“To kill, or not to kill?”
The woman's gaze from beneath her hood locked onto Roy like a venomous snake, a chilling frenzy swirling in the depths of her eyes.
In the next second, the corners of her mouth tore upward at an unnatural angle, stretching all the way to her ears.
“How about I cut them all in half? Kill one half, and send the other half back?”
These hair-raising words were like a bucket of ice water poured over the students, instantly shattering their already fragile mental defenses.
Uncontrollable panic spread through the crowd. Especially those who had been caught in the explosion and were still injured; their faces turned pale from the pain, and they couldn't stop trembling.
Roy's gaze swept over the uniforms of the students behind him, pausing on the crests on their collars and the accessories on their cuffs.
Most of them were lowerclassmen who had just entered the academy and couldn't help at all.
In just a split second, he reached a conclusion.
Then, it's all up to me now!
Some male students comforted the female students nearby, and a voice rang out from the crowd.
“Senior Roy is a third-year Tier 3 Mage!”
These words put many of the students at ease.
A Tier 3 Mage was one of the elites of the academy.
As Tier 1 Mages, they knew very well the weight and power of a Tier 3.
As waves of support echoed around him, Roy took a deep breath and clenched his wand tightly. He stared intently at the woman, a look of determination flashing in his eyes.
“How cute.”
The woman let out a contemptuous chuckle, and a strange, sinister purple light suddenly surged from her wand.
Accompanied by a grating sound of grinding mana, countless pitch-black rocks frantically grew and intertwined like vines from the tip of her wand, ultimately condensing into a dark sword in midair.
Roy rapidly chanted an incantation, several magic circles flashing from his wand.
Several deep-red chains surged toward the woman, but she didn't even try to dodge, charging straight at Roy.
Roy's heart skipped a beat. A powerful sense of danger warned him not to hold back. Gritting his teeth, he frantically poured his mana into his wand like a bursting dam.
Accompanied by a harsh metallic scraping sound, three brand-new chains materialized out of thin air, winding outward like spiritual serpents and heading straight for the target.
A morbid excitement welled up in the woman's eyes. The dark sword in her hand blurred into an afterimage, and with a series of shattering cracks, those tough mana chains were completely shredded before her like rotting wood.
In a mere instant, the woman was right in front of Roy. A flash of sword light gleamed, and blood sprayed from Roy's chest as he was sent flying backward.
The woman frowned and looked at the longsword in her hand, muttering hesitantly, “The feel is a bit off?”
Roy collapsed in the midst of several students. Seeing this, the surrounding students looked on in sheer terror.
“Senior Roy was... defeated so easily...”
“Isn't Senior Roy Tier 3? Is this woman even stronger than a Tier 3?!”
“What do we do? Can the people from the Titan Prosecution Office get here in time?”
“Who cares about that now? Just run!”
Some students had already started running back. A few girls even collapsed to the ground, tears streaming down their faces, but there were also those who raised their wands, preparing to fight back.
“Well, whatever.”
Shrugging, the woman let her longsword revert to its original wand form. After she chanted an incantation, countless earth spikes shot toward Roy and the students around him.
Just as the spikes were about to pierce through them, several icicles suddenly condensed in the air, colliding with the spikes and shattering into countless particles of earth and ice crystals that scattered through the air.
A figure stepped forward from the back at an unhurried pace, standing firmly in front of everyone. Feeling that his entrance wasn't grand enough, he even casually ran a hand through the stray hair on his forehead, a smirk playing on his lips as he struck what he considered an absolutely flawless, dashing pose.
“Audacious fiend! How dare you harm the students of my Golden Branch Academy in broad daylight!”
“Today, I, Sevis, shall sever your monstrous wickedness!”
Feeling that it wasn't quite enough, Ain theatrically raised his wand, pointing it directly at the strange woman.
“If you want to harm them, you'll have to step over my dead body first!”
Rosalind pinched the bridge of her nose, unable to look. She had never expected Ain to pull a stunt like this.
Even my lady doesn't usually talk like that!
Rate on N.U.
