”Do you have any idea why we are having the class in the arena?” Elidyr asked though he seemed to have guessed Lucifer had something to do with this.
”You will see”
While they were on their way to the arena, the students looked up at the sky to see flocks of various magical beasts descending towards them.
Not all the magical beasts were able to fly as there were several magical beasts running towards them too. One of the familiars among the familiars in the sky was Nightmare.
Due to Wilkas’s poor status, he did not have a familiar. Only a few students lacked families when they reached Mazeroth. Even among countless students, Nightmare located Michael and landed on his shoulder.
”How was your training Nightmare?” asked Michael pretending he didn’t see Nightmare earlier.
He kept his face straight,
”Anything special happened Nightmare?” he asked Nightmare. Even Elidyr who was several thousand years old did not notice the cold intent in his eyes,
”No” Nightmare lied. For a moment Michael felt extremely annoyed and aggravated by the lie but when he saw the eyes of Nightmare, he calmed down. He understood why the dragon was lying to him.
Nightmare would rather face his own problems than adding them on top of Michael’s.
Gaya was standing in the center of the arena sharpening the long sword in her hand. She and Nightmare bickered and fought almost every day but both of them loved the other dearly. Hence, when Gaya heard about Nightmare being bullied by a bunch of humans, she was royally pissed.
If it wasn’t for Michael who convinced her to stay put, she would have kicked the life out of the bullies in the name of punishment.
”Line up!” her shout sent chills through their spines. They quickly formed a line,
Gaya flicked her wrist as a stack of silver coins materialized beside her. With another flick of her wrist, she sent a coin towards a student and their familiar.
The students gawked at the floating coins in front of them with bewildered faces.
”What the fuck are you looking at? Take them”
The students and the familiars grabbed the coins,
”At the end of this class, whoever has the most coins will get this ” a silver parchment appeared in her hand,
”A Rare level spell” She threw the parchment on the ground,
”That’s it?” a cocky human student from House Warriors snickered,
”You can rob, attack, do whatever you want. And House Warriors” she looked at the students who were in warrior house robes,
”If you get your asses kicked, don’t even bother coming back. Now shu” She gestured at them to go away but not before taking a long look at where Michael was looking at the bullies.
The students immediately scattered in all directions. Most of them chose the black forest as their destination. The black forest would provide them with much-needed cover for them to safeguard their coins. Many who were not warriors knew they would be decimated if they went against the warriors or runemasters. Hence, hiding was their only choice.
Victoria dashed in the direction of the black forest. She wasn’t running but chasing her prey.
”I thought you don’t care about stuff like this” Edith asked while running behind Victoria,
”I don’t but I’m not gonna be bested by a bunch of clowns either”
She said, targeting a dwarf who was running as though his life was depending on the coin.
Boom!
The dwarf was extremely unlucky as he was targeted by Victoria. Like a cheetah that pounces on its prey, Victoria leaped at the dwarf. The dwarf barely looked up when he felt a sharp pain on the back of his head.
Victoria took the coin off of the dwarf she just knocked down. On her way to the black forest, she collected several more coins.
Edith might not be fighting like Victoria while running but once she reached the black forest, she was confident that she could trap the students with her runic traps and collect more coins.
A forest like the black forest was a natural playground for a runemaster like her. She was a 4-star Runemaster and according to her big sister, Lailah Alden, she was just a few years training away from reaching a 5-star level.
It took the duo fifteen minutes to reach the border of the black forest.
They entered the woods cautiously. Edith touched the trees as she followed behind Victoria. Every time, she placed her hand on a tree, a palm sized chakra appeared on them and disappeared into the tree.
”Shh” Suddenly Victoria stopped on her path,
”There’s someone ahead and he was getting surrounded by five” Victoria sent waves of Cosmic energy to scan her surroundings.
She cautiously moved in the direction of the six students. With a swift leap, she landed on a nearby tree branch to get a good view of the scene. Edith bent her hips drawing a symbol on the ground beneath her feet. Then when she jumped, the symbol glowed, boosting her leap.
When she landed beside her friend Victoria, she saw a familiar face standing in the middle of the forest. A crimson scaled forest dragon was resting atop his shoulder.
”That’s our train neighbor”
”My my, what do we have here?” all of a sudden a cocky voice reverberated in the forest.
Edith and Victoria turned their gazes away from the alchemist to see five students of house warriors step out of the shadows one by one. They flanked him in all directions.
”Hey look at that, it’s our toy” the red wavy haired youngster pointed the stick in his hand at Nightmare,
”An Alchemist? This is pathetic” Edith saw a pale skinned girl lick the tip of her blade,
”I think we should let the dragon see its master getting the end of our boots” another youngster coldly said,
”How low can they stoop?” Seeing five warriors surrounding an alchemist put a frown on Edith’s face.
”I’m going to help him” Edith took a step forward only to be stopped by Victoria,
”That’s not our business. If he can’t save himself, he should have been at least good at hiding”
”I can’t stay here doing nothing when someone’s being bullied in front of my eyes” Edith’s whisper turned colder,
”As expected” Just as she was about to jump down, they heard the alchemist calmly speak,
Nightmare who was resting atop Michael’s shoulder began to shiver. He was struck by nervousness. When they began to bully him, he could have simply told either Gaya or Michael and they would have dealt with them. But he restrained himself from doing that to avoid causing them an extra problem as Nightmare knew they were dealing with enough problems as it is.
However, sensing the cold intent in Michael’s voice, Nightmare realized that he might know everything.
”Bullies stick together huh” Michael cracked his knuckles one by one,
”If there is a forest” Edith heard him and was surprised by his calmness despite the tricky situation he was in.
”Lion, tiger, dragon will prowl to hunt for their prey. The prey will run for its life” Victoria looked him in the eyes and saw no fear, not at all.
”But if the sun sets and darkness descended by then, the animal which will survive to watch a new dawn would be decided only by the nature” he rolled up his sleeves gradually as he spoke,
”But in this jungle, when the darkness falls, when, where, and who will watch the daybreak won’t be decided by nature”
Finally, Michael cracked his neck. This time, the murderous intent in his eyes was visible to everyone including Edith. The aura he radiated rendered the warriors speechless.
”It’s ME”
Victoria was surprised at the speed of his dash toward the red haired youngster. The warrior barely had time to move a muscle when he received a punch that sent him flying onto the tree behind him.
The rest of the warriors were stupefied by his speed. Before they could react, Michael had once again dashed at the red haired student. He was growling on the ground,
”ARRHHHHHHHHHH” suddenly his growl turned into a scream of agony because Michael mercilessly stomped on the bully’s kneecap, shattering it into pieces.
While the youngster was screaming, crying, and growling beneath his feet, Michael turned back. The other four warriors were dashing at him put a sudden brake when they saw his cold gaze landing on them. An unexplainable fear clutched their hearts.
They were warriors and they shouldn’t have felt afraid in front of an alchemist but they did feel afraid. He made only a few moves but they were enough to reveal his battle prowess to Victoria. He didn’t seem like a normal Alchemist to her. For the first time in her life, she slightly felt curious about a guy.
”ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” the red haired youngster screamed yet again as this time, Michael stomped on his other kneecap. Although the student could be healed with a healing potion, the pain he was feeling right now would be ingrained into his brain forever. If he felt an urge to bully again, this pain would kill that urge.
”What have you done?”
”YOU!”
The girl stood closer to Michael, shivering. Their leader was just crushed in a few mere moments. If they could use spells, they would fight fearlessly. Since that was not the case, they all started to tremble and the red haired youngster’s cries didn’t give them any courage.
Regardless of her gender, Michael picked her as his next target.
Plap!
Edith closed her eyes the very next second after he slapped the girl with enough force to create a mini shock wave. Unlike the red haired youngster, she immediately lost consciousness as well as a few teeth.
Nightmare supposed that he should feel pity for them but he felt nothing for these bullies.
Michael tilted his head, grinning at the three remaining students,
”I thought bullying the weak got you off”
Victoria was looking at the alchemist beating the crap out of the three warriors with mild interest. The trio ganged up on him still they could not even lay a finger on him. Each of his moves was precise, deadly, and straightforward.
Except for the girl, he broke several bones of the others.
”Hrgh”
The girl forced open her eyes gradually at the wrong possible time.
”Arms or legs, you can only pick two bitch”
Nightmare wanted to stop but looking at the murderous look in his eyes, he knew it was too late to stop him.
He was just a few meters away from the girl when Edith landed right between the girl and Michael.
”It’s enough” Edith stomped the ground.