Ambient Mage

With the day over I headed to the training grounds to hone my mana control.

I needed to grow stronger faster, since who I think is the protagonist isn't growing fast enough.

 At present he's growing slow enough, that if he does need to interfere he will be deadweight.

In game, the tutorial helped you enough that even if you did the bare minimum, without any optimization, you would still at least hold your weight.

On the other hand if you completed the tutorial without mistakes or inefficiencies then, not only could you pull your own weight, in the single critical situation, you can actually create a better outcome than designed for the new player.

Unfortunately, it seemed like for the first time, 'Noah' was going to fail.

I honestly couldn't tell if he was a player, and now I was simply an NPC in another person's game.

To me, however, this was real life, so I would do my best to save Charlotte from those Assassins.

Let's go over them first.

Alyssa, no last name given, a refugee of the last war waged by the empire over 2 decades ago.

The big question is how someone can be a refugee years after a war.

Well, her home was completely obliterated by the war between the two empires.

Leaving her parents dying, and without money or a home, the family struggled until her mother collapsed and died at the Masvis' empire's border.

Only a few years later when she was 12, her father died.

After that, she found a sponsor, which provided for her, but it wasn't actually a sponsorship.

They turned their sponsee into an assassin.

They had their sponsees get 'sick'.

Then they would hide them in cellars for months, while breaking their mind, bodies, and souls.

Afterwards they released not a person, but unwilling slave trapped inside their own body, unaware of their own actions.

Now someone had paid for the assassination of the 4th princess, Charlotte von Masvis.

And naturally the sponsor, known as Rainy Day, took on the request.

I find that Nyx Studios did a great job with not only hiding the assassin guild, but also making it a plot twist in game.

They had the player help Rainy Day as they were supposedly a company that took in children.

They picked up children having a 'rainy day'. But the genius of Nyx Studios shined through when it was discovered by another player that the real reason the name was selected was that funerals are always on rainy days.

This sent the player base into a lore hunt, but that's for another time.

The second person was a another student also known as Kalark.

He isn't well known amongst players since most new players don't interact with non important characters, and the veterans don't meet non important characters, since they aren't efficient.

Nyx also made their text box name 'Greedy Oppurtunist'.

The assassination request for Charlotte was spread around and more than one person accepted the job.

Kalark, being a student, thought that he would have a great chance, and would be able to live comfortably, since he wouldn't be suspected of being an assassin, being a student who attended with Charlotte.

The last one was the professor, or actually a minion sent by Alonso Levorak.

The professor in question actually dies, because the demon sent in kills him and takes his signature.

This allows the demon, 'Oskarog', to infiltrate the school, for a week, biding his time, and impersonating the professor as to not draw suspicion.

I however had a plan.

But for the next few weeks I needed to train.

***

Only a few days had passed in the conceptual mage mentoring class when only I was held back by the vice dean.

"Lucas, stay back, I need to have a word with you."

And so I waited as everyone else exited the room.

"Your cradle has arrived."

"Really?"

"Yes, come with me to pick it up."

With that I left to her office to pick up the heavy dark purple and blue cradle.

It was hefty, but manageable.

I made a mental note to go thank Makarov.

"Thank you, vice dean."

"No need, just let me know how I can assist with your 'work'."

"Alright."

***

-2 and a half weeks later-

The last day of mentoring had finished.

Armen turned to me.

"Well, today is the last day we'll see each other since tomorrow is the evaluation, and after that you get a new mentor."

"You learned and improved a ton in these last few weeks, it's been a blast dude."

He turned to me and stuck his fist out.

I fist bumped him as we left class.

Tomorrow would signal the end of my normal academy life, and a new entrance into the world of demon hunting.

I had already set up many plans.

Nothing would go wrong tomorrow.

I was going to exceed the perfect clear.

***

Morning, nothing would change.

When Charlotte, and Aura split into their respective intermediate class, that's when the plan would go into action.

I had Mark, and Celeste go in ahead of time.

Aura would join them.

Charlotte had no idea of this going on around her.

It was difficult to keep it hidden.

At times I almost broke and told her the truth, but doing so might push her to confront the demon and assassins on he own, jeopardizing her safety.

She wasn't the kind to let others protect her.

So we needed to protect her ourselves.

I had alerted the vice dean to my actions and in turn the dean was also informed.

We kept the total faculty in the know of the plan to 4.

Including the 2 deans.

This event actually starts when the professor who usually teaches gets sick suddenly.

Then the substitute teacher comes in.

That teacher is the demon in hiding.

He locks down the building for 2 hours, in which the main character must prevent the death of Charlotte and one other livewire character Mark Graves.

However this time he wouldn't inflict any harm or death onto the students.

As the class ended at 3, I 'left' for the eval.

Aura, Celeste, Mark, Armoria, and myself were excused from the evaluation, as for Kimoria, she had none, since she was in the knights course.

I walked around scoping the area.

In game the breaking of the barrier took an hour, which is why there was 2 hours in which the students were locked in with a demon.

This time however, the faculty knew ahead of time, and wouldn't have to wait for an unanswered call to the class, to figure something was up.

I began by walking around the building.

I inspected the runes and estimated the power of the building.

The dean was unable to act for reasons the vice dean was unable to tell me, but he gave me his full support.

I had estimated the power necessary to break the runes.

It would take the three faculty 30 minutes to break the dome that locked us in with the demon.

However, unlike the last time with the 3rd stage demon I came prepared with artifacts both disposable and not to use against him.

In the end, this wasn't a struggle for survival against a demon, this was my way of capturing one.

I held many artifacts on my person today, on top of which I wore my living armor.

I had my full knight's harness on, along with my knight gear to disguise myself in the knights course, since the demon didn't know everyone in the course, and the shock of the teacher being sick without notice would be too shocking for people to even see my face properly.

I would stay out of sight of Charlotte during this class.

Mark and Celeste would take on the first assassin, which should be simple for the duo.

Armoria and Kimoria had a similar advantage in their teamwork, and would make short work of the opportunist.

Aura and I would handle the demon, but we wouldn't be able to capture him, at least not with his power.

Oskarog is a 5th stage demon empowered by a demon prince.

Unfortunately his magic power is too strong to overwhelm.

And with his cautious behavior, if I had sent a faculty member to 'oversee' him, there was a chance he wouldn't enact his plan to get Charlotte, and I would lose all three assassins.

Originally vice dean Rachelle made the plan that I would have at least one other faculty member.

But with Oskarog's nature, we would either not get an assassination attempt, or the faculty would be the first casualty.

She argued for a stronger faculty member then, to which I responded that he would run away, for fear of being uncovered.

After that, she went along with my plan, as long as I explained to her why my plan had to go the way it did.

Naturally it raised some suspicion amongst the faculty present, but I didn't have the evidence to prove my innocence.

Who could show off their transmigration to another world?

So with that in mind I let the faculty know of the runes and the estimated power.

I got a response from the vice dean and her outside helper, Opal.

They told me they could work on sealing the runes already, but to cut off the power would take 30 minutes.

That's fine I could hold off for that long, and the two assassins would be captured in 15 minutes anyways.

As 3:58 showed up on my watch, I walked into the classroom.

I stayed quiet amongst nearly 200 Knight captain individuals.

I didn't stand out at all.

In fact, Mark, Celeste and Aura who had never trained in swords looked the most awkward here.

*Slam*

Everyone turned to look at the man who had walked through the door.

"Hello class, I am professor Ramos."

"Many of you may know me from the 'Intro to combat' class."

"Your original instructor, Ms. Vorpal, has fallen sick."

A few gasps and 'how?'s rang out in the room.

"With that introduction out of the way, lets begin."

A sinister smile spread across his face.

Here we go.

He released a terrible pressure that everyone aside from the few 5 star knights, the anti demon crew, and the other assassins could not handle.

Many were forced to their knees.

Charlotte was the first to speak up.

"Why are you doing this sir?"

"Oh, are you Charlotte?"

She winced under the pain of the mana pressure.

"Yes."

"Perfect. Now die."

Before he could even move, I yelled to others.

"Now!"

We all sprung into action.

Celeste and Mark in the left side of the hall lunged towards the girl, while the twins tied up the boy.

I dashed up to Oskarog with sword in hand.

"So I was revealed in the end."

Oskarog stated as my sword pierced his heart.

Demons, are beings who can regenerate at inhuman paces, although to different degrees.

He was a 5th tier demon, bordering on the 6th.

All he had to do was look at me as he started to regenerate and I was unable to move, the pressure simply too much for the artifact to bear.

Blood started to come out of my mouth.

Then Aura stabbed his heart again through the back with a mana spear.

"There was another?"

"To think I was plotted against so thoroughly."

"A shame your teachers won't come to save you."

I smirked.

"When did we become kids in need of saving?"

"We are students of Atrevior Academy."

"Stick your monologue back up your ass, because no one wants to hear it."

Seriously I was tired of hearing his overly repeated voicelines.

"You are but mere children."

He grabbed me and threw me off of him.

Isla came with me.

Aura was pushed back as waves of mana came pouring out of him.

He began to demonize.

A little earlier than planned, but not unaccounted for.

I pulled out my aura sword, and slashed towards him.

Of course he caught the slash.

"What a weak sword slash, did you really intend to do damage with that?"

"Well, why should I use a strong slash on a cockroach?"

This made him visibly angry.

"You insolent bastard, you will die, but I will watch you squirm on the ground limbless begging for death."

Funny, that was exactly what I was going to do to him.

Aura and I took turns stalling Oskarog for a few more minutes as the other 4 finished up their battles.

"We're done."

"We are too."

Both groups shouted.

"Then move onto phase 2!"

I shouted back.

Phase 2 comprised of 2 things. One of them was grouping up the other kids and keeping them away from the artifacts I was about to use.

The second was Aura leaving me behind to protect Charlotte in case of any other unforseen attacks or last ditch efforts from the other 2 assassins.

I was going to tear two scrolls and activate another artifact on top of that.

The first scroll was a scroll of bounding.

It held me and Oskarog in a certain distance and kept us from leaving the location where the artifact was used.

The second scroll was an anti-magic barrier.

Naturally, demons bodies were far more resilient than human bodies, but they also required mana.

He would get weaker, become slower and eventually stop regenerating, whereas I would only lose stamina.

My body was already superhuman, and losing mana wouldn't change that.

Therefore this was the best course of action.

The final artifact is a cursed item.

It binds the user to the target and prevents either from escaping the dimension.

I was betting everything on the speed of the vice dean and other professors.