Chapter 84

“Wow, that was exciting,” I murmured even as I hugged Titania on top of the strongest air elemental I had created on the cost of wasting quite a bit of mana, getting away from the underground base as fast as possible, which seemed like an excellent idea after I had triggered the trap with the four death knights at the epicenter, angering their owner. And based on the sheer strength and resistance those Death Knights displayed even before their owner buffed them to their maximum capacity, I managed to anger a mysterious corpse that was best left undisturbed.

For some reason, I had a feeling that after destroying five of his eight Death Knights which were strong enough to tank a full-powered strike from Titania, that mysterious lich might feel a smudge of grudge toward me.

Luckily, the two factors that ensured renown of the liches were their capacity for boundless mercy as well as their ability to take accidental setbacks in good humor!

Meanwhile, Titania was breathing wildly as she tried to process what had happened, the impact of the deadly situation hitting harder than she was used to without the protection of the emotional dampener, her breathing out of control. “Calm down,” I whispered into her ear even as I caressed her hair. “Whatever it was, we’re already moving too fast for it to catch up,” I murmured.

“What if it has a faster mount,” Titania gasped in shock. “Even his Death Knights was able to take my full-powered attack. How can an undead resist the destructive powers of the light? It’s impossible.”

It was clearly not impossible, but putting that out directly wouldn’t have helped Titania to calm down. So, rather than trying to explain, I hugged her tighter even as I used to cast a healing spell on her, to suppress her adrenaline and relax her out-of-control breathing for a while.

[-19 Mana]

“I’m sure that they had some special protections against light magic,” I murmured after she calmed down a bit more, trying to calm her down about her inability to take down Death Knights with one burst attack despite depleting her mana. “After all, you’re one of the biggest challenges for them. It makes sense for them to prepare specifically against you.” It didn’t exactly make sense, as while Titania was strong, the lich we faced shouldn’t need to work that much to take Titania down.

“You’re right,” she mumbled sleepily as she let herself relax against my chest, her eyes closed as we traveled, her tension draining without a follow-up assault. The exhaustion and the aftermath of the combat had caught up with her, and she didn’t have a monstrous Endurance to blunt the impact. “They definitely have some counters against the light magic. Otherwise, they could never take down the headmistress...”

“Right,” I said even as I caressed her hair, letting her fell asleep. I was glad that she closed her eyes, because she missed the expression of shock that doubtlessly covered my face as a reaction to the secret she had slipped from her mouth.

She was confirming that the headmistress using light magic! I barely kept myself from gasping in shock. Neither my research, nor anything I had felt during my visit indicated anything about her using light magic —other than the dubious sensation I had felt from her probe. Titania’s confirmation didn’t simplify things. Rather, it made it even more complicated considering the aura of darkness in her room being so thick that I would have suspected her being in cohorts with the undead if it wasn’t for her position invalidating such a need.

Titania’s careless reveal about her true abilities put a rather interesting spin on things. Most importantly, it removed the possibility that the sensation of lightness was a unique trait of her probing, and elevated it into one of her core abilities. So, she was either like me, with a wide range of abilities, and hiding some of those as secondary secrets, or all the darkness was there to conceal her true abilities.

How interesting...

Since I had wasted an excessive amount of mana on the air elemental, we managed to arrive at the school in several minutes, including a small break I took to cure us.

[-74 Mana]

[-559 Mana]

[+1465 HP]

Still, the journey was not nearly enough to process all implications of the headmistress’s surprise ability. Pity that the presence of that lich was too important to delay reporting, so I took Titania with a bridal hold before sneaking inside. Only when we were in an empty corner not too far away from the headmistress’s office, I woke her up with a kiss on the cheek.

[+50 Experience]

She murmured gently like a particularly cute cat before she cracked her eyes to look around, only to realize we were on the feet of the headmistress’s tower. “Good morning,” I said mockingly.

“Shut up,” she murmured as she jumped up her feet, conjuring a mirror to check her face. Then, after making sure everything was in order, she grabbed my hand and tried to drag me toward the headmistress’s tower, only for me to stay still. “What are you waiting for, we need to talk with her and explain everything,” she said panickedly. “That lich is too dangerous.”

“I know, that’s why I brought you here,” I murmured, still trying to decide whether to go with her or not. Going with her, I risked revealing my secrets, but still, I was considering it. It wasn’t all negative, by being there, I could run interference between her and Titania, at least until Titania got a better handle of her new emotional state. Not to mention, I didn’t want to let Titania go for too long. The emergence of such a dangerous creature was a warning for me to get stronger even further. While the most critical part of it was the new weapons I was going to forge with Oeyne, more levels wouldn’t hurt, especially if I could use them to bring my capabilities even further.

Still, while I finally made the decision to accompany her, I still needed to give her an excuse for why I was hesitating. “Sorry, I was just thinking...” I murmured, faking indecisiveness.

“Thinking what,” she said. “Whatever it is, it can’t be as important as that scary undead. Let’s go.”

I still didn’t move, and when she looked at me angrily, I smirked at her. “I was thinking what to say if she asks how you regenerated your mana that quickly to go for a raid, and how you regenerated it further during the raid,” I explained.

“W-what!” she stammered, her earlier bravado evaporating instant. “What are you talking about?!” she said, slapping my shoulder just to underline it further.

I shrugged lazily. “It’s a valid question, but I can just answer her questions directly if you think it’s a pointless concern.”

“No!” she exclaimed. “You can’t tell her that! It’s... It’s... indecent,” she finished after a couple of attempts, her voice barely a whisper by the last word.

“Okay, then you should explain it.”

“No need,” Titania cut it off. “If she asks, I strained myself too much, and need a couple of days to recover.” Then, she looked at me threateningly while pinched my hand. “Nothing else, understood.”

Unfortunately, there were too many possibilities for me to deduce, so, when Titania’s explanation finally reached the Death Knights —which distracted the headmistress significantly— I finally had the courage to extend a tendril of mana toward her, just a lingering touch, nothing more. Risky, but no risk, no reward. And even if she detected my intrusion, what she was going to do, kill me on the eve of a dangerous assault, where I might prove critical to save her school.

The tendril of mana tried to slip underneath her robe, however, only to be absorbed immediately, giving me just a glimpse before disappearing. But even that glimpse was confusing enough, because I received two different sensations at the same time. The first felt like an endless sea of light, reminding me of Titania’s Acolyte core, but only purer, and spread around rather than collected as a core, therefore less intense.

The second was a raging piece of darkness, strong and pulsating, for some reason, giving me a sensation of a rabid animal, locked behind iron doors, but slamming repeatedly in search of freedom. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good news, so much that I was glad my intrusion went unnoticed.

She was not a creature of darkness, with some interesting selection of lighter magic. No, on the opposite, she was a creature of light, but for reason, carried a mark of darkness. The question, whether that mark was intentional, or something that she was forced to carry.

As a result, I looked at the hunched figure of the headmistress, hidden under her magically-insulating cloak, with even more questions. She was even more mysterious than the rare stories about her implied —though the fact that the stories about her were rare in the first place while she led one of the most premier institutions in the world kind of reinforced the point. I was starting to believe that the whole point of having that ward was to hide her presence. Of course, that raised two more questions.

Why she was trying to hide?

And more importantly, who, or what, she was trying to hide from?

[Level: 30 Experience: 441000 / 465000

Strength: 36 Charisma: 51

Precision: 33 Perception: 35

Agility: 33 Manipulation: 38

Speed: 32 Intelligence: 42

Endurance: 30 Wisdom: 44

HP: 4920 / 4920 Mana: 6300 / 6300 ]

SKILLS

Master Melee [100/100]

Master Tantric [100/100]

Master Biomancy [100/100]

Master Elemental [100/100]

Master Subterfuge [97/100]

Master Arcana [90/100]

Expert Speech [66/75]

Advanced Craft [31/50]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (1/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Cornelia - Level 17/25]

[Helga - Level 13/17]