Chapter 136: Endless Emptiness

Since they were now so close to the inside of Decorus, the group was once more free to cast spells. Each of the students pointed their wands at their own faces casting the minor illusion spell they were required to learn. Most of them also cast a second spell, defensive in nature.

As for Villin, he cast a wandless 'Reverto' and 'Sheldium'. He also still had the physical defensive spell 'Obiectus Prohibere' but after some testing, he found it was impossible to maintain it for a long period of time. It was because of this he made it one of his saved spells.

Professor Crumb also cast two spells on the group, the first was a standard cleaning spell to get rid of the snow on their green robes, as for the second, it was a spell that would allow them to fall down from the ceiling without breaking their legs. They all knew the ceiling was five meters high in this school and they would be entering from the top.

After this, it was time to strike. As planned, Villin went ahead and took his puppet off of his back, he put the puppet on the ground and prepared to have it jump into the black void, at this point the item could transmit its own vision to Villin, this would make it an ideal scouting tool.

Once the puppet confirmed it wasn't a trap and nobody was waiting for them, professor Crumb would go in, then the rest of the group.

When everyone was inside, the plan would begin regularly, the professor would stay back far enough to make sure he wouldn't be detected while the students would pretend to be from Decorus and kill any groups of students they came across in their area.

Before sending in the puppet, Villin thought about everything he had that would help him survive. He had a decent amount of spells, three of which were saved. He had his puppet, something he hadn't really used in practice since its creation. He had Blue-Mythril armor that should allow him to tank a few hits he normally wouldn't be able to. Specifically those from elemental attacks such as spells using fire or air.

Lastly, he had the reward he got for winning the competition set up by the runemasters. This disk was his trump card. If the group encountered a teacher he believed he could get everyone to safety once using the defensive stance of the disk, this should give enough time for professor Crumb to arrive. If they got into any problems with students he believed the offensive stance of the disk should let them clear up enemies, mixed with the healing and magic regeneration stances they would be able to get on top again and recuperate quickly.

With his mind at ease again, Villin took control of his puppet, without a moment's hesitation, it jumped into the black void.

Villin closed his eyes, seeing through the 'eyes' of the puppet. He could see the puppet was falling slowly, thanks to professor Crumb's spell. It floated down and after about a dozen seconds it arrived on the floor.

The hallways of Decorus were all massive. The ceiling was five meters high and the arched hallways were four meters wide. Even through the black-white vision from the puppet Villin could tell the walls were emitting a familiar shine, it should be entirely enchanted.

Looking around, the hallway it arrived at seemed empty. Just to make sure Villin moved it to look through the closeby corridors but he didn't see any students nearby, after giving the all-clear professor Crumb entered, and then the students did as well.

Now that they were within hostile territory, everyone looked visibly nervous. This was the real reason they had to learn the minor illusion spell that would make it harder to read their expression. Their nervousness was anticipated and expected, as long as it didn't affect their entire posture it should be fine though.

Everyone here was very familiar with the map of Decorus at this point, and so they quickly oriented themselves.

Villin had to admit, the halls were extremely intimidating, the sheer size of the hallways made it clear they were facing a behemoth, the visible shine on the wall further confirmed this feeling. They all knew that they would need to use surprise attacks, if their opponents were allowed to create golems out of the enchanted walls around them, the situation could deteriorate quickly.

As per the plan, the group moved through the hallways in group. Still, occasionally a person would have to split up momentarily to check one of the nearby hallways, making sure they wouldn't miss any Decorus students that could potentially backstab them when the fighting started.

Villin had to correct his group multiple times as they naturally gravitated to form a V formation, something that would cause them to stand out too much.

Still, after walking for ten minutes they had yet to see a soul. Even though they entered in a relatively abandoned area and they still weren't in any place that could be considered a hotspot, at this point they should've at least found a few small groups of stray students.

In a quiet voice, Villin commented "In five minutes we will be entering an area with higher traffic. Even though classes should be canceled due to our main attack we should still expect students to hang out close to the classrooms."

Hearing his voice the others nodded, thus far nobody had lowered their guard.

Yet another five minutes passed and they still hadn't seen anyone. At this point, they arrived at some of the main classrooms. Most notably was the transfiguration class. Normally they weren't supposed to enter these classrooms. Since they were expected to be empty with possibly one or two students max, professor Crumb who moved a few minutes behind them would check the classrooms taking care of anyone inside.

Villin decided to change the plan somewhat, the others who were all very nervous at this point didn't hesitate to agree, they were also beginning to think something was wrong.

The doors to the transfiguration classrooms looked more luxurious compared to the basic doors The Academy used. The doors were made of stone and had engravings on them of various animals ranging from snakes to lions to elementals. Each of them was a small artwork, no doubt created using transfiguration.

Villin pointed his wand at the door, from a few meters away, his puppet was the only thing close to the door. Seeing how empty the halls were he was worried about potential traps and so he took this precaution.

One of his teammates cast a spell at the door first, creating an invisible dome around it. It was then that Villin sent out his own spell.

'Bombardo!'

A streak of light quickly went to the door before exploding, even so, the noise never came, silenced by his teammate's spell. Due to the explosion the door instantly burst open letting the puppet jump through just a moment later.

Villin, who had somewhat expected students to be waiting there in ambush was once more met with more of nothing.

There was nobody there. The room only had a few closets and there were no tables to be found other than the teacher's desk. Overall it was quite similar to The Academy, the only exception was the size of the classroom. It was even larger than the hallways with the ceiling being nearly ten meters above ground, it was comparable to the guild hall The Academy had in that regard.

After seeing there was truly nobody there, Villin and two others cautiously entered, using spells to open the various closets.

They were stunned to find they still had all of their contents. They saw multiple wooden spell blueprints and various academic books talking about transfiguration.

After grabbing them, the group left the room.

"It could be that they were all transported to the Sixth grade when Decorus got wind of our attacks. Perhaps they chose a different tactic than The Academy and they were confident their defenses would at least be able to sense intruders. Either that or the students were all asked to stay in their rooms. Either way, it would mean we have practically free reign over the majority of this school." 

Hearing Villin's deduction most people agreed. There was simply no other explanation anyone could come up with. They all considered the fact that maybe Decorus knew about their group but in that case, they should've already attacked them, easily taking them out.

After a short discussion, the group decided to wait for professor Crumb to talk to him about the situation. At this point, they were less worried about students randomly walking up to them and seeing professor Crumb, also realizing he wasn't a teacher of Decorus. It was a risk they could take at this point.

Three minutes of waiting later, they sighted professor Crumb, seeing the group had stopped and nobody seemed injured the professor approached them.

"What's going on? Why has everyone stopped moving?" he asked carefully.

"Thus far we haven't seen a single Decorus student yet. The classes also seem to be completely empty. I suspect they are either holed up in their rooms or taken to the sixth grade. What should we do?" Villin explained in short.

Professor Crumb was surprised to hear this, he simply thought the group took care of enemies quickly and used the spell they learned to get rid of the corpses, the fact they hadn't met anyone yet was truly strange.

After pausing for a few moments the professor spoke "I'll repair the door, then we can make our way toward one of our other teams. If the situation is the same everywhere we can consider going straight for the treasury."