Emery exited through the door and arrived at what seemed to be a living room. There wasn't much to see since it was empty, so he headed toward another door, which seemed to be the actual exit to this place. As he pushed open the door, The first thing that greeted him was a great set of stones that had overarching structure, heading toward a plaza where several people had already gathered.
He looked to his left and right and saw several his house situated on cliffs and on the curvature of the hills; similar to his, they also had mighty looking stone bridges, all converging to the central plaza and connecting to the other houses.
On the side of the bridges, there seemed to be countless waterfalls running through some of the hills themselves. Funnily enough however, it wasn't loud despite the thick current unlike some of the river falls he had been too.
He stepped on the stone bridge and made his way to the central plaza. Deciding to look back for a moment, he was mystified by the wondrous curved mountain that served as the background of his house. Again, the falling water on the hills, the humongous mountain filled with great greenery, the scene gave a mysterious and wondrous aura. Everything looked magical.
Emery stared wide-eyed for a moment and when he turned his gaze to his surroundings, there were already several other acolytes walking past him, enjoying the scenery too, sitting on benches, gathering in groups and talking to each other. Arriving at the central plaza, he scanned the surrounding until he found a young man with dark hair, tied to a bun. With just one glance, Emery knew who this tall young man was without even seeing his face.
"Chumo!" Emery called out.
The young man turned his head toward Emery and walked over. He greeted Emery by doing his half-fist salute and bow before saying, "Emery, good to see you."
"How are you? I hardly recognized you," remarked Emery, surprised a bit now that Chumo was before him. The boyish charm and aura Chumo had before had been replaced with a more mature aura based on his rougher appearance. It looked like Chumo had gone through a lot of challenges too in the year they hadn't seen each other. But Emery guessed he could say the same about himself. He asked, "By the way, any idea where we and the others are?"
Chumo gave a slight nod and said, "I haven't seen the others yet. But I did recognize some faces. With the number of houses, I'm guessing this is a place of residence dedicated for the acolytes in class 77."
"I see… Do you know what we should do now? I don't see any information," asked Emery.
"I think—"
Chumo closed his mouth all of a sudden. His eyes appeared to be in a bit of panic as he stared frozen behind Emery. There was only one person Emery believed who could make Chumo this way. Emery then heard running footsteps behind him and when he was about to face toward the direction. The footsteps changed into a jump as two arms wrapped around Emery's neck and he felt something soft pressing against his back.
His presumption was right as the sweet, melodic voice said, "There's my two favorite people. How are you two handsomes doing?"
"Klea!" Emery exclaimed, Chumo still unable to say anything.
"Emery! You're a man now! I can feel your muscle now is growing nicely," excitedly said Klea while touching all over him. Emery honestly thought her touch to be relaxing, but he felt it was inappropriate.
Emery took Klea's hand from his shoulder, breaking free, and turned around to face her. She had become more beautiful than before as well. Her hair reached her shoulder now and her unparrarel excotic beauty couldn't be compared to any woman he knew. He said, "How are you, Klea? I'm glad to see you too."
Klea, after seeing Emery's matured face, blushed for a moment before quickly turning back her usual self. "Hmpf, you're no fun to tease anymore. Tell me did something good happen to your girlfriend back home? What was her name again? Gwen, was it?"
"No, nothing happened…" Emery said. His mood dipped again at the mention of a girl. Not Gwen, but Morgana in fact. Her image of being in that cage and his desperate attempt to save her. It was coming back at him again.
Klea looked at Chumo for help, understanding she had asked she shouldn't have. However, Chumo shrugged, so she coughed and tried to change the subject. "Well, well, well, Emery! You know, I can tell when you're not telling me the whole truth. However, remember you can always tell me anything, okay?"
Emery gave half a smile but then a commotion happened. All three twisted their necks at the gathering of senior acolytes. They made their way over and overheard a fight was about to happen.
As they neared, the clashing of metals entered their ears. Pushing their way through, they found two young men fighting. One was using a spear while the other was using a sword.
The rough voice sounded familiar as it said, "Taste this! You roman dog!"
"So now I'm a dog? Hah! I guess better than being called a pig by a crazy barbarian!" retorted the other person with brownish hair.
Clank! The young man holding a short sword made the spear heading toward him slid to the side. He then stepped in and countered with a stab, however, the burly man used his huge round shield to block the attack and then bashed the attacker back with his shield.
Seeing the young men battling it out, Klea placed a hand on the face and said with a sigh, "At least those two haven't changed."
Thrax charged, following up on his shield bash, and to everyone's surprise, instead of attacking, he threw away his spear and reached out with his hand. He said, "That is a well-timed counter, Roman!"
Julian smiled and grabbed his hand. "You're getting much stronger, barbarian! But of course, not enough!"
"Wanna go at it again?" challenged Thrax, holding out his spear again, pointed at Julian.
Julian waved his hand as he answered with a smile, "Hahaha, no, no, our beautiful lady has arrived with our friends." Gesturing with his head toward Klea, Emery and Chumo.
Klea charmingly put her hands on her waist and said, "What happened to you guys?"
"Heh, apparently, we're in an alliance with the Thracians," answered Julian, placing the sword into his storage ring.
Thrax did the same and nodded at Emery and Chumo with a stern expression. "The Romans aren't as bad as I thought. I've spent months fighting together with them."
"Yeah, they're our recruits," said Julian, giving a smirk.
"Who're you calling a recruit huh, dog! We're Roman auxiliaries!" snapped Thrax, giving a fierce look at Lulian.
"Well, like I said, recruit," repeated Julian with a grin, making Thrax's face even more angry.
Klea gave a great big sigh with a smile as she stood between them. She told both of them to stop arguing and quickly shot at them by saying, "So, I can see both of you are now good friend, aren't you?"
Thrax immediately said, "With this pig? No!" Julian followed up, "Something we both agree then."
Despite the tense argument and opposing words, it was clear that these two had indeed become closer than before. Because of this, Emery's mood had somewhat recuperated. His four friends from the same world who were given a chance to be in this Magus Academy to become a magus had met again after a year.
Julian proposed to celebrate this reunion of people; the others quickly agreed, Emery didn't answer for he wasn't in a celebratory mood at the moment, but luckily no one had noticed. Still, even though he had half the heart to join them, he went anyway with thoughts of appreciation inside him, being with them somehow alleviated his once again increasing worries regarding Morgana's condition.
His friends' voices seemed to drown that away, especially Thrax's. He was proudly bragged about the battles he had fought in, how many people he had defeated and how he had missed death by a narrow margin multiple times. The others chimed in from time to time, the returnees of the magus world. Surely a lot of interesting things had happened to the others too.
But before they had the time to walk away and sit on one of the benches, a woman dressed in green landed from the sky right in the middle of the courtyard. The acolytes then all gathered to see and they all recognize the woman who had just arrived as their class guide.
"Welcome back, Class 77. Now, let's talk about exciting things waiting for you lot for the next three months," said Minerva.
When they had gathered, it was only then that Emery realized the number of acolytes seemed to be less than what he had thought. Some were missing. For example, that white haired girl with the snake-like eyes named Silva was nowhere to be found.
Check out Author's other novel: Doomsday Pillars.