Chapter 50: Life signs

As dawn approached, Spira city’s sky was dyed in an orange hue. The sun coming up from the horizon reflected against two broad airships up in the city’s airspace. Both airships slowly descended, until they touched ground.

There were as many as fifty armored soldiers on the deck of each airship. The aura radiating from each of them was leagues above what any of us students could produce.

But their own aura was also nowhere near the aura of the middle aged man that was floating off one of the airships, and towards us. He looked dignified, like nothing could faze him.

I gulped. This man must be at the Delta rank at the very least. Even the rest of the main cast sharpened.

“Greetings, your highness.” The man’s back bent into a bow as he landed before Delilah.

“Greetings your highness.” The rest of the soldiers on the deck also chorused with a bow.

“Arise.” Delilah motioned. The man and the soldiers all rose from their bowing position.

“As per his majesty’s orders, we are to secure the criminal, and take control of the city for the foreseeable future.” The middle aged man got straight to the point without wasting any time.

About two hours ago, after I made Anastasia admit we were working together, Alistair, Rose, Fabian, and Anastasia went to free the kids from the heretics’ base, while the rest of us stayed behind to look for some of the survivors buried in debris. Though not many, we did manage to unearth a few corpses, and a few wounded individuals who still had luck on their sides.

But before that, Delilah made contact with the resident empire, explaining everything that happened.

“You may proceed.” Delilah replied.

As soon as she said that, the man motioned for the soldiers to come down. After that, some soldiers took both the city lord, and his guards into one of the airships for interrogation, while the rest of them rushed into rescue.

“We’ll need full details of what happened from the rest of you.” The middle aged man turned to the rest of us. “Though, preferably after you’ve had some rest.” he said, before dismissing us.

Though he might have seemed kind of rude given that we had princes and princesses in the group, that was actually not the case. One, he was far stronger than we were, and two, as a soldier of the Whetstone empire, he was under no obligation whatsoever to bow to us. Plus, we were in the territory of the Whetstone empire.

As Dion and I walked away, looking around, I caught a glimpse of the civilians. Many were crying. Some in joy of having their children returned to them, and some in grief that the people they had been with just the day before, were either gravely wounded, or were already corpses.

It was somewhat saddening…

I looked at myself and thought; ’What if I hadn’t gone to black sands island to change my fate?’ Would I have been part of the corpses laying here today?

The answer I got was pretty simple. If I still had a kappa ranked physique, I never would have come here in the first place.

I also glanced at the rest of our classmates, they also seemed haggard, with a few injuries here and there. The only ones who seemed relatively uninjured were Alistair, Anastasia, and surprisingly, me.

Alistair being fine didn’t surprise me, his ability made him a walking cheat code, so that was to be expected. As for Anastasia, I was sure the bitch didn’t fight anyone, and even if she did, I doubt she could be touched. To be honest, at this point I didn’t know who was stronger between both she and Alistair. But I’d place my bet on Alistair though.

Anyway, the surprising one, was that I was also fine. Granted, I achieved that because the only fight I got into with my main body was when I helped Fabian, and then Delilah, but it was still an achievement nonetheless.

The rest of the students meanwhile, had varying degrees of injuries. First was Delilah, she had a long cut on her forearm, though, it was already healing. Same case for Fabian who had a gash tearing across his back, then the white haired bitch who looked pale as a sheet.

And then there was Rose. Most of the cloth she wore was singed, and her body also had some blisters here and there. Make no mistake, while Rose was highly resistant to her own flames, she wasn’t by any chance immune, at least not yet. So yes, even though to a much lesser degree, her flames still burned her.

Soon Dion and I reached out lodge. As we entered, the receptionist looked at us in fear. She was a mundane human after all, and what went down a few hundred meters away would definitely make her wary of us.

But as soon as we climbed up to our supposed rooms, “Shit! I kinda forgot about this.” I muttered.

“Me too.” Dion chuckled.

Both the doors to our rooms were broken beyond repair. It was a given, after all I ploughed through both.

“Aiiiiish.”

—————-

A few hours ago.

Back at the Astral Mystic Institute, in a large room, sitting leisurely around a large broad table on which an unfurled scroll lay were some of the Astral Mystic Institute’s Instructors. The scroll was projecting the hologram of a map of the human domain. Though, only a few of them were actually looking at the map, the rest were lost in their own worlds.

Some were debating on how many of the students would be able to complete the mission they took, while some were simply apathetic.

Though, the map wasn’t the only thing the scroll was projecting. On certain places on the map, were numerous red dots. But then suddenly, one of the red dots at the northern edge of the Kamar continent suddenly blinked, before disappearing.

“What the…?!” One of the instructors who was watching the dots around that area particularly because there were more than ten dots closely cluster together suddenly exclaimed.

“What happened?” A woman asked as the other instructors snapped towards him.

“A life sign around here just disappeared.” he motioned to the spot. Each of the bands on every student’s wrist, were able to show their status. A life sign disappearing showed that, the student whom it belonged to was dead.

“So what?” a familiar moustached man asked. It was a normal occurrence, at least every week, a student or two died during missions, it was nothing new.

But just as he said that, another one of the red dots flickered, and disappeared, then followed by another, and another.

“What?!…” Instructor Black who had dissed the other instructor was at a loss for words. Sure students dying on missions were regular, but not so abruptly, and definitely not at the same time.

“They might have encountered someone or something far above their league.” Instructor Summers furrowed her brows.

“No kidding.” One of the instructors muttered grimly.

They stared intently at the remaining eight red dots on the hologram. Only after a minute had passed without any other dot disappearing, did they relax.

“What now?” Someone voiced.

“It seems they’ve managed to overcome whatever, or whoever it was.” Instructor Black said. “But I’ll continue monitoring the area, the moment another life sign disappears from there, I’ll head there myself.”

Fortunately, a few hours passed, and none of the red dots in the northern edge of the Kamar continent disappeared.

————-

Turns out, the broken door wasn’t the only thing I had forgotten about. I literally forgot there was a corpse in the room. I shoved the corpse out the window, then followed Dion’s example, and rested the door to my room in the place it was supposed to be, in an awkward angle.

After that, I hit the showers, changed into fresh clothes, and then fell into my bed. I wasn’t feeling sleepy by any means, I was just tired. I was being particularly assaulted by mental fatigue.

Though, the fatigue wasn’t the only thing I was feeling. I could especially feel that I was extremely close to breaking the barrier that was preventing me from entering the Eta rank.

“I should be able to, in a day or two.” I mused. It had long been proven that the higher your potential, the faster you’re able to break the barriers. In my own case, I hadn’t broken any barrier by myself, and this was the first time I was going to do it.

In the novel it was described as phenomenal. One would feel every cell in their body evolving to greater heights, and whatnot. But one was also most vulnerable during these moments. Which was why, even though I could attempt breaking through right here, I decided to wait until I reached the academy.

Two hours later, we were called to come and give details of our own perspectives. I didn’t know how the soldier even realized where we were. Surely it had nothing to do with the corpse of the heretic I threw out the window.

Led by the soldier, we soon reached the towering airships. There was just one problem in giving my own statement though. How the hell do I make Anastasia and my story match when I had already clearly stated that we worked together?

**********

Here’s today’s Chapter. Thanks for the support.

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