Chapter 81 - Midlight Village

LOCATION:SOMEWHERE IN ALFHEIM - MIDLIGHT VILLAGE 

3RD PERSON POV:-

In a village with roughly 7 to 8 houses and few occupational buildings and farms, monsters are roaming freely. They are roughly of low to high grade with a single monster being a little stronger than others among the high grades. 

The village is in between a dense forest and has turned into a monster den. The monsters have the features of a tiger's body and an eagle-like bird's head. Two other things to notice were that they were bipedal and had spikes on their head instead of hair. 

A small distance away, a group of travellers with luxurious clothes are travelling toward that village. There are elves, humans, dwarves, and a few other races in the group. The group has approximately 14 children between the age of 12 to 18 and two male adults who look like they are in their early 40s.

The children have excitement on their faces, while the adults are expressionless. The adults are observing the children once in every while.

After reaching closer to the Village, one of the adults moves forward and looks at the monsters before looking at the children.

"Listen carefully. This expedition is meant for you guys to get some experience in the wild with monsters. Visca isn't forgiving. Everything in this world wants to kill you, you must always be prepared to fight. One second it will be all relaxing, the other second it will become a life and death situation. Even in your sleep, you should be alert. You are the Mages from the Royal Academy. I expect you to wipe out those monsters with no help from us instructors.It will be your first exercise here. Now, purge those vile creatures that ruin this world," he gives a long speech in a monotone. The children, however, seem more pumped than they were a few moments ago. Their eyes were filled with excitement.

After the adults signal, the children walk towards the village. Other than being excited, slight nervousness and fear are also visible on their faces. Slowly and carefully approaching the monsters, they look at each other and nod as they channel mana into their bodies..

0.00001s

The archers take out their bows and arrows and take aim. The mages position their staff at those monsters and begin their chants. The aura mages take out their weapons and position themselves in a fighting stance. 

0.00002s

The archers begin first. Wind, Water, Fire and Dark Arrows reach the monsters in an instant.

-Boom

The monsters which were hit are pushed back, 2 weaker ones killed in an instant. The other monsters all look at the ones who are pushed back, then at the kids. Looking at the source of attack, all the monsters run in their attackers' direction. 

0.00003s

Mages complete their chant and shoot out fire and water magic in the air, creating a vapour wall. The monsters who passed through the vapours fell down as their body twitched and fell in pain. Other monsters who didn't get caught up in the vapour wall flapped their wings and flew over the vapor.

0.00004s

The archers once again shot out arrows, but this time all the arrows were dodged skillfully by the monsters.

0.00005s

The monsters attacked the archers first, but a few swordsmen came in between and cut down their numbers. An axe wielder jumped at those monsters in the air. He started killing the monsters, jumping from one monster to the other. 

0.00006s

The Mages backed the sword monsters and axe wielders. A few monsters fired a wind blade at those students.

0.00007s

The blades hit one of the mages. One of the healers cast an instant chant and healed the guy in an instant. Another one of the mages in the back finally completed her chant and buffed up all the combat mages, increasing the fighting capability overall.

0.00008s

The last monster, which is the strongest among the monsters, suddenly started running away. The girl in the back who was standing idle through the ordeal takes a deep breath as she looks at the monster running. She then takes a stance and chants something.

0.00009s

She appears behind the monster in an instant, slashing it down in an instant. The monster falls down in an instant. She puts back her sword in its sheath. 

0.00010s

The other students then kill the other monsters displaying an excellent team play.

…

After the fray was over, all of them collected together to talk about what they felt and other things. Excitement is clearly visible on their faces. The Adult instructors smiled at their performance before returning to their usual expressionless attitude.

"Katherine, that was awesome. God, you are strong. Can we ever reach your level?" One of the Elf girls asked with stars glittering in her eyes as she looked at that girl, the swords woman, who slashed the monster. 

Katherine had black hair with blue eyes. She was the youngest among the people in this expedition, but because of her exceptional performance she was too included in this expedition. 

"It's nothing, Daphne, you can do it too. All you need is just slight polishing of your skills and you will outperform me in no time," Katherine answers with a smile on her face. She clearly was enjoying all the attention, as the smile never left her face whenever her friends gave her that attention. 

Everyone started discussing their weak and strong points that they found in this exchange. Well, not everyone as one of the kids was sitting in a corner all by himself. He was practising magic on his own. The others had completely ignored him, as if it were normal. Katherine, looking at that senior of hers, got curious about him. She looked at him for a few moments before turning to Daphne.

"Who is he? And why is he still practising?" She asked, as she found it odd.

A helpless smile forms on Daphne's and other's faces as they look at that kid before looking at Katherine as they start to speak.

"He is Max. He is the weakest among all of us here. His magic…is complicated, to say the least. The only reason he was included in this expedition was because he is a training maniac. If he doesn't train even once, his power starts decreasing."

Shocked, Katherine once again looks at that kid before looking at Daphne. She slowly once again begins to ask, but Daphnie just nods before she could ask anything.

"Truly…odd. I mean, I have my cousin, Anna. She is a training maniac and I respect her for that. But to lose your power if you don't train? Honestly, it sounds absurd to me," Katherine speaks as her interest metre reaches its peak.

"Well, he says that every time we ask. Though we have never confirmed about it even once, the headmaster has vouched for this so we have to believe it," Daphne speaks as she shrugs while shaking her head.

"HEADMASTER??!! The same head master?" Katherine asks, as she can't help but be shocked by this fact. The headmaster isn't someone whom you meet every day, now is it?

"Yeah," Daphne and the others nod at it.

"Of our academy?" Katherine asks again and Daphne nods again.

Katherine then sighs again as she looks at Max again. Her eyes were filled with thousands of questions at this point. But she wasn't the only one. Almost everyone has the same question when they hear about his situation. Max was quite bullied before too for the same reason, but that led to the Headmaster taking action directly. That act from the Headmaster, silenced all the students and teachers. From that point, everyone looked at Max as someone equal to them, but because of his habit of practising all the time, he was pretty much isolated from everyone all the time.

…

MAX'S POV:-

I heard someone shouting 'Headmaster' while I was practising a new magic formula. Having been born with the strange disease of losing mana over time, I must train all the time if I want to be worthy of being in this academy. The Headmaster says that I am special, but he never told me why. After pestering him over and over again, he finally said, "I don't know in what way you are special, but you are special."

Honestly, I wanted to punch him really bad at that time.

'Sigh…this is so demotivating…but I have to do it…'

After completing another circle, I open my eyes for a moment to look around. All the other kids were talking and laughing with each other. Looking at the instructors, they seem to be observi-

[Zliwsn diwfn aresut]

"Listen carefully. This expedition is meant for you guys to get some experience in the wild with monsters. Visca isn't forgiving. Everything in this world wants to kill you, you must always be prepared to fight. One second it will be all relaxing, the other second it will become a life and death situati-

'Wha…What is this….?'

Looking around, I found myself standing at the back of all the children outside the village. The instructor was making a speech. Listening carefully, it was the same speech they had done before…

Then..we fought the monster again…we defeated the monsters. This time, being confused, I looked around to understand what was happening? Did I just dream about something?

"Hey? Wanna join us?" I hear a voice of a girl, Katherine, calling me from the group. I look at her for a few seconds.

'This didn't happen before…' thinking that I nodded, I moved towards her. The others were shocked at my actions.

I sat beside her and observed her carefully, thinking if she was the one who was responsible for this,

"Hello, why were you standing there while doing nothing? Doesn't the expedition excite you? Don't waste time being all alone, okay?" She speaks as she looks at me, trying to understand me. 

My head was quite confused right now. 'Was that really a dream?' I asked that question again and again. Raising my hand, I tried touching Katherine, but she kicked me away.

"What are you doing, you pervert?" She seems to be really furious and creeped out as she looks at me.

Snapping out of my thoughts I realise what I was trying to do. I couldn't help but be embarrassed at what I was going to do. Everyone was looking at us curiously.

"I can expl-

[Zliwsn diwfn aresut]

"Listen carefully. This expedition is meant for you guys to get some experience in the wild with monsters. Visca isn't forgiving. Everything in this world wants to kill you, you must always be prepared to fight. One second…

"What the…"