Chapter 18: Reward

[Quest Complete. Achieve total victory in round one of the Academy War.]

[Reward: Lesser Artifact Upgrade.]

Sen’s heart skipped a beat. The first upgrade he’d received, and he already knew just the artifact to use it on. With this…

“Great job out there,” Anonymous Student said, floating over to him.

Sen looked up at the blue-haired boy leaning on his pillow. “You too. Thanks for helping everyone. Saved me the trouble.”

The boy shrugged. “Meh, if I don’t do enough, teach would just threaten to kick me out again. I don’t think she ever will, but…well, the beds are really comfy back home. I don’t wanna lose out, ya know?”

Sen laughed. He rose and offered a hand. “I’m Sen.”

“I’m Anonymous Student. You can call me Ano. I’m not trying to be mysterious or anything. Just don’t have a name. It feels lame to pick one for myself, so I make everyone address me as such. Nice to meet you, Sen.” He eyed him for a moment. “They must be desperate to put you on the team.”

Sen raised a brow. “Because I’m a first-year?” he asked.

“Because you’re powerful. Surprised they’d risk you getting recruited by someone else or seriously injured this early on,” Ano said.

Sen laughed. “I don’t think Calabari cares very much if I’m injured. So, you and Fire Kite had an agreement, I’m guessing?” he asked. Ano seemed friendly enough, but he hadn’t had any problems teaming up with Fire Kite against them.

Ano shrugged. “The Dean of Fire Kite told us they’d throw round one to us if we wanted. I think they just want Brightsail to come in last. I don’t care too much for this kind of thing, so I thought, why not? At least teach won’t yell at me for throwing the match this way. Lotta good it did me.” He smiled. “I don’t like to try too hard in these things.”

A woman suddenly appeared behind him. She had long black hair and matching eyes. A thin sword hung at her side.

Ano’s eyes widened. “If you’ll excuse me, Sen, I’m going to float about a hundred feet upwards and sleep out of reach. Just wanted to introduce myself!” he blurted.

He floated upward about a foot before the woman grabbed his foot and yanked him back to earth. She casually swept his feet with a leg and he fell backward. His pillow shot underneath him and floated with him atop it. The woman leaned down and looked into his face from behind. “What was that about not trying too hard?” she asked.

“High Professor Laurette, I think you heard me wrong. What I said was…I try not to not try too hard. So, really, I’m trying super hard. Heh…” She grabbed him by the ear and stormed off with him in tow.

Ano held his hands out toward Sen. “I’ll never forget you, old friend.”

Laurette tugged his ear again. “Ow!”

Sen pursed his lips. “Good luck, Ano.”

Sen dusted himself off and headed for the rest of his team. Aside from Ano, the members of Green Book were mostly unharmed, but still collecting themselves. The members of Fire Kite surrounded their captain, Alari. Snake had hit her pretty hard. She still wasn’t awake.

He approached and peeked over their shoulders. She was breathing, which was good. But Snake had done a number on her. He sighed and continued walking toward his group. But not before tossing a full restoration spell in her general direction.

Alari shot up like a flame in a house full of kindling. “I’ll kill that—” She paused, looking around. “Where am I? Did we win?”

Dasai sighed.

Sen chuckled at that.

The announcer quickly took over after an inappropriately long silence. If Sen had to guess, they weren’t sure what to do about the fact that one team now had all three spheres. As he regrouped with his teammates, they found out.

“Well! It seems Bright Sail Academy has outdone themselves this year. It’s been attempted before, but never has it been successful. One Academy took all three spheres. The judges needed some time to deliberate. Initially, we were going to assign second place based on how long each of the other academies lasted before Brightsail. But in the interests of fairness, we’re assigning them a tie for third place. Neither school will receive any points in the first round. Brightsail will receive the points for both first and second place, making Academy War History!”

That was satisfying, and he’d actually found himself impressed by the other students. Slipping past his defenses and altering his mind without him realizing, forcing him to use his new maximizer and multiple spells. It was…it was exhilarating to be honest. He’d had fun. Fun. It was almost too hard to believe.

Joseia hurried over to him. He spoke as if he’d enhanced the speed of his mouth. “That was incredible! Those vines? Being invisible! Oh, and you made a freaking clone of me! How the heck did you do that! I didn’t even realize what was going on until I saw myself running next to me! It was creepy as hell! It was awesome!”

Susanna nodded. “It was a skillful display of magic, Sen. I had reservations about allowing first-years on the team this year, but you proved me wrong.” She bowed, and somehow her long blonde hair didn’t fall all over the place.

Snake sighed. “Focus. That was just stage one. It’s not enough that we crush them here. We need to win all three rounds. Starve them of points. Embarrass them so they can’t even look their families in the eye.”

Girch stood there with crossed arms. “Still not over last year?” he asked, his voice a grumble.

Snake turned on him and glared.

Girch held his hands up. He didn’t seem afraid, just apathetic.

The announcer promised details of the next round would come soon and sent the competitors back to their waiting areas. Milim fell behind to walk with Sen. “I’m sure you’ve noticed by now.”

Sen glanced at her. “I have. We’ll talk about it later. In private.” He wasn’t sure how she could tap into his ability, but he’d allowed her to this time, and she’d made it count. He needed to investigate, but not where people could overhear them.

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Milim nodded. “We embarrassed the other schools. They’ll be more prepared in the next round. Especially Alari. Fire Kite is favored to win this year because of her. She’s dangerous, Sen. Her father is a Warlord.”

The ranking system was interesting; there were words for people who reached their peaks at various levels. At lord, one could become a warlord but never progress, instead developing greater mastery over the skills already in their possession. But a Warlord in today’s time had several hundred more stat points than a god in Sen’s time. He needed to be careful about making enemies that powerful this early. If he drew too much attention, the other students might be in danger. He could handle himself, but he didn’t want innocents being drawn into the fight.

“So, what happened last year? Snake took part?” he asked.

Milim looked ahead at their teammates. She lowered her voice. “Yeah, I heard about it from Joseia. Our school got really close to winning, apparently, and Snake almost achieved victory for us. But the team captain, a fourth-year at the time, wanted the glory. He forced Snake to stand down and…failed. That’s why Snake’s in charge this year, I think. Professor Calabari knows how hungry he is for it, and Brightsail really needs the win.”