Chapter 4: Chapter 04: Academy (1)

I tried to whistle on the way to the Academy, however, I failed miserably to make up any tune. Defeated, I chose to enjoy the view of the great city.

Well, technically, it's not an official great city, but the greatest of the union, under the leadership of the academy and the Tower of Preservation.

Buildings stretched on the vast plain, not so clinging to one another like my old world. Still, they were in close proximity.

It was morning, so the vendors had cleared the path, as more of the horse carriages throttled the way. I decided against taking a carriage all the way to the academy.

Of course, money was not an issue, but I wanted to have a better view of the city.

It was quite cosy here, with the right temperature and humidity. Well, a little on the colder side, but the glorious sun casting its light over the vast plane makes it damn marvellous.

I would have enjoyed more of it, but I didn't have much time. Checking my wristwatch, I found there was only about a quarter of an hour left for me to reach the Academy.

Well, I could get to the academy any time I wanted, except when it was closed, but today was a rare occasion. Something Ian did, and for that, the head of the Academy called for an audience with me.

It wouldn't be a good idea to miss it, or even delay after what the old owner of this body did.

I crept along the sidewalk and shot for the academy in the centre of the city. Well, I was close by, only about half a kilometre away. I had enough time in his hand.

In about two minutes, I could see the top spire of the academy building. In a few minutes more, the whole magnificent palace came into view. The entire thing was spread across a dozen acres of land. After all, this is not just an academy.

A dozen feet of tall walls encompassed the facility and before the gate stood two stout-looking guards. Verifying my identity took a couple more minutes as there were many more presents, probably freshmen arriving here for the first time.

Walking inside, I strode towards the second tallest tower of the facilities. The tallest was just behind it, looming in like a proud spear sticking against the earth. I literally had to look up to see the entire thing. Tall pillars with runes engraved in them surrounded the Tower of Preservation as it stood like a singular perpendicularity of the world. Except that it's not. The original Tower of Preservation was destroyed five thousand years ago. It was just a pale shadow of the original thing, what's left out of it, preserved after the catastrophic war.

You know the irony, the Tower of Preservation in itself couldn't preserve itself. Still, many of its functions are still intact. Knights and Magus could go there and take trials to gain strength, though most of the practitioners had no clue that it was just a pale shadow of the original thing.

As far as I'm concerned, only a handful of people. Maybe eight so far in the timeline now know about the secret of the tower, and I'm going to meet one of them.

The other tower was the training ground for the magi and also the home of one of the defenders of the realm.

I should be on the waiting list, so I wouldn't have to wait long like the dozen others sitting in the lobby on the ground floor.

As my name came, the staff helped me along the way. I took the lift, which took about another minute, and then there was a long corridor. I ran what I was going to say and will probably hear from the headmistress. If all goes well, I might only be under a limited watch-over.

As I walked, I found a figure coming out. A tall young woman with black ebony hair spread on her back. I halted the moment our eyes met. There was a silent conflict that passed through our exchange. Shit! what are the odds?!

"Good morning," I greeted, trying to smile, but you know it's terribly hard to do that in front of your sworn enemy, "Aria."

Aria frowned and looked at me for a couple more seconds, as if trying to find what was wrong with me. I knew what was wrong. I greeted her instead of shooting at her with my sword. Well, I don't have my sword with me, nor do I have any intention of continuing the meaningless blood feud.

"What are you playing this time?" the fair maiden asked, walking a couple more steps. Her dark eyes stared at me as if trying to pierce through whatever falsehood I was presenting to her. Her right arm was held in bandages hung on her chest. Furthermore, her face was pale from the injuries she was recovering from.

"Nothing," I said, "just greeting. Let's just put everything behind us and look forward to what is before us."

"Wow, that's rich coming from you," she said, not getting any closer. "Did I hit you too hard to make you stupid or something?"

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"Oh no, quite the opposite exactly," I said, brimming with my most radiant smile. I'm not half bad at acting. "You have opened my eyes, and for that, I'm eternally grateful to you. I so badly wanted to give you a hug right now." I widened my arms, grinning.

"Don't come any closer," said the girl, who has almost as much emotion as a dry log. She actually withdrew a couple of steps, even though she had the strength to freeze me to death if she wanted. Well, it wouldn't work here for all that matters.

There was quite a history between Ian and Aria. Unfortunately, it was not a good one. Ian was just one angry kid who blames others for his parents' death and whatever. Aria came from the great family Ravenar, who was the main culprit behind sabotaging almost all of House Locksmith's assets. Also, Ian thought they were somehow related to his parent's death and the attack on their house. Well, to be fair, many parties were related to the attack and that included Ravenar as far as I'm concerned.

However, this kid was not at fault. She's barely sixteen or seventeen to anything about it. Unfortunately, that's too hard for an angry teenage kid to understand. As I was inside Ian's body, I kind of understand how he felt. He felt alone and angry, and that's quite the recipe for disaster when the lines between good and evil were quite thin in the world.

"Anyway, it's good to be alive," I said. "Thanks for not killing me."

Aria frowned. "You tried to throw me off the cliff," she said in a chilling tone.

Oh, by the way, the reason behind their broken arm of hers was probably Ian as well. Well, she had a hand in killing me, so there was that.

"That makes us even then," I said. No, it didn't. Ian tried to kill this kid first.

Aria just gave me a chilling look.

"I think you're quite natural at that," I said.

The coldness in her gaze rose. "Ian Locksmith," she said in a slow, stern tone. "I may consider what you did as just an accident, but get this straight, if you ever, ever try anything again. You won't be as fortunate to stand before me with that smiling face."

"Boy, oh boy, the girl got some intimidation," I muttered. "I'm literally shaking." I snorted and drew closer while she took a step back. It's not what you might think, it's just that Aria is a big germophobic, so getting even a couple of metres closer to anyone makes her uncomfortable. "So, a truce," I said. "I'm down for it. Should we hug now?"

This girl really got a quirk at intimidation. Perhaps the lack of emotion on her face.

"No hugs?" I gave a rueful look. "Let's shake hands and put down whatever we have between us, then."

Aria looked at me carefully and tried to draw her right hand, but couldn't with it being broken and all. She drew her other arm—which was gloved all 24.7—and we shook hands. I sighed in relief, at least solving a problem that might shove me in the ass someday. If anything, Aria was not a liar. She literally couldn't lie, and she would honour her words as far as I'm down to it. However, what Aria told me chilled my heart, though I showed nothing outside.

"I don't know what you're intending, but if I suffer any more for your misdeed, you wouldn't like to know what the consequences of that will be."

"Sure thing," I said, acting cool. "Let's just stay away from each other's business."

She gave me one last glare and departed. I sighed. This chick was good, but had some problems in her head. I tried so hard to keep her alive in the game all the time, yet she was probably in the top 2, whom I failed to save most of the time.

Well, most of the time, it's Anneliese who kills her, but I can stop that now. Can't have a hero die for no reason, can we?

Giving her one last look, I knocked on the door as a simple "come in" sounded out. Now it's time to meet a Defender of the Realm.

I know one might expect one wise-ass old wizard inside the room, someone like Gandalf or Dumbledore, but the one here didn't look old at all. Well, she might be older than two hundred years, but she looked ageless as one can be.

Ariane Lianar, the head of the Academy, walked barefoot in her office, holding a few documents in her hand. "Sit down," she told me, still busy reading.

I followed, sitting down on the seat before her desk, still watching her in the corner of her eyes.

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