The Beginning After The End

"Kathlyn Glayder. I must say that it is an honor to have your presence in my humble class." Professor Geist gave a deep, exaggerated bow. "Please do not hold whatever the results may be in this ’demonstration’ against me," he continued, putting on a pitiful face.

Her cold expression unwavering, Kathlyn just nodded, drawing her staff out from the dimension ring on her pinky.

"Very good! Let us proceed!" The Professor clapped, fire igniting from between his palms.

Without a word, she lifted her sky blue staff. Before Professor Geist had a chance to unleash his fireball, two javelins of ice formed around Kathlyn.

"Shoot." I heard my fellow disciplinary committee officer mutter before the javelins fired towards our professor.

So she decided to go the offensive route to keep Professor Geist from attacking her.

A faint smirk crept up on our professor’s face as he lifted his hands that were still aflame, ready to block the ice spears.

As soon as the ice javelins touched the fire on his palms, they instantly melt, disappearing slowly as a sharp hiss resounded.

"Ice Javelin," she muttered again, and this time, instead of two, five spinning javelins formed near Kathlyn.

"Shoot." Her expression remained icy, like a coiled serpent ready to spring.

"Haha! Impressive! As expected of our princess!" Professor Geist grinned, the class leaning forward to get a better view of this intense battle. Since most of the students were first-years, they weren’t at the level where they’d be able to conjure something like this, let alone almost instantly.

Our professor concentrated as the five spears shooting toward him, ready to pierce through if not countered.

"Ember Wisps!" The spell he prepared finished in time as Professor Geist jumped back, releasing small, floating orbs of blue flames.

Wasn’t this the spell Lucas used during his rank examination?

"Break," Kathlyn muttered, and she willed her five ice javelins to shatter into an uncountable amount of small, sharp shards of ice.

"Fire!" Professor Geist, his face not nearly so smug as before, willed his orbs of blue fire to shoot at his opponent. Kathlyn, on the other hand, was so focused on finishing her final spell that she ignored the incoming streams of blue fire about to hit her.

"Ice Tornado!" Her voice filled with a faint panic as she realized upon finishing her spell that she was about to receive the brunt of Geist’s attack.

PROFESSOR GEIST’S POV:

That idiot! Why didn’t she defend herself instead of trying to finish the last spell?

As the tornado of ice shards began to whirl around me, I became nervous. I wasn’t scared of this fancy spell; I was scared that she might be gravely injured from my attack.

Wasn’t it common sense for a conjurer to have a layer of defense in battles? I chose a relatively easy spell to counter and the fact that she was a deviant specializing in ice made it all the more easy for her. Did she want to win so much that she chose to forego that?

I cancelled the spell but only the ember wisps disappeared. The streams of blue fire that they shot at the stupid princess was still heading her way.

Damn it. I’m screwed.

Scorch Field.

I willed a layer of heat around my body to melt the shards of ice circling me. I was left with some light scratches but I didn’t care. What happened to the princess? I didn’t hear any screams from the other students. Maybe she was okay?

Damn... I should’ve stopped after making a fool of the elf.

After the layer of ice shards that were blocking my view melted, I immediately tried to find the princess but instead, I found the last member of the three DC officers in my class, Arthur Leywin, in front of Kathlyn, who was still covering her face with her arms in panic. His palm was out in front of him while his other arm wrapped protectively around the princess.

His eyes... I couldn’t help but involuntarily tremble from the baleful glare that pierced through me. It felt even sharper than those ice spears that the princess threw at me.

"I think this little game of yours has gone on long enough, don’t you think?" His expression stayed icy, the innocent façade that I now knew he usually kept nowhere in sight as his domineering gaze looked at me without remorse. Was this his true face?

"While I am thankful for your concern over the princess, it was unnecessary, as I had it all under control." No way was I going to lose face right here, on the first day, in front of all of my students.

"Under control?" Arthur’s brow slightly twitched and I could sense his annoyance. Was I the only one feeling this pressure? This wasn’t normal. AA class mana beasts didn’t even exude this much pressure.

"Yes. Do you think that I, a professor at this esteemed academy, would actually put one of my students in harm’s way?" I said calmly. There was no proof! Today was all just a little mistake.

ARTHUR LEYWIN’S POV:

This ingrate really planned on insisting that he had this all under control. I already knew from watching Lucas that once the remote spell from the wisps were shot, they couldn’t be cancelled. Then again, there was no proof since I’d blocked it.

"I see... then in that case, allow me to take the place of my colleague in this ’demonstration.’"

"Haha...well, if you insist. I seem to have scared the princess a little too much with my last spell. I should’ve cancelled it earlier if I knew you were going to interrupt. Now, some of my students may misunderstand that I was trying to actually hurt her."

Even now, this pathetic excuse of an instructor was trying to defend his position. I could already tell from the various murmurs around the class that most of the students already believed what he was saying.

I turned back to Kathlyn. "You’re okay. Do you think you can make it back to your seat on your own?" I gently stirred her from her stupor.

"Y-Yes... I’m really sorry." For the first time, I saw a change in Kathlyn’s expression. She looked really embarrassed, her porcelain white skin flushing a light red as she turned away to go back to her seat.

"Then please guide me well." I turned back to Professor Geist and drew Dawn’s Ballad. The translucent teal blade triggered gasps and mutters of amazement as even Geist looked at my sword, wide-eyed in wanting.

"Quite the nice weapon you got there. Since you are an augmenter, I suppose it would be fair to let you choose which method you would like for me to fight with." He shrugged his shoulders helplessly as he walked towards his sword, which was embedded into the ground.

"It doesn’t matter," I responded simply.

I could see a vein popping in annoyance from our professor as he looked back at me.

"I Insist," he retorted.

"Then please go with what you’re more confident in." I took a couple steps forward, my face still peering deep into him, studying his every movement and action.

Scum or not, this professor was still a light yellow class veteran augmenter. The fact that he had the insight to use blue fire meant he was pretty capable.

I saw the once grinning professor scowl as his face turned a bit red. I could tell he really wanted to leave an amazing impression on his class, and so far, I wasn’t giving him much face.

"Very well then. I’ll be sure to go easy on you." The upper portion of his face betrayed his lighthearted smile.

Pulling out his sword with ease, Geist made his way towards me as well, his blade dancing around him gracefully as he handled it with little effort.

He blinked towards me without warning, swinging his blade down with a force that wasn’t exactly ’easy.’

His sword was imbued in a layer of blue fire, the heat that radiated from it making deadly. After parrying his initial surprise attack, I used wind attribute mana to keep the trail of fire away from me.

Since I was only able to use wind and earth mana, I had to really think about how to best utilize my assets to overcome a stronger opponent. While it would’ve been easy to use blue fire myself, I didn’t have that option right now.

His bombardment continued, the force of each swing and stab getting faster and stronger, as if trying to test the limit I could handle. Every time I parried or dodged his attack with ease, his next attacks would be kicked up a notch.

I wasn’t using any spells to receive his attacks, just mana strengthening and pure sword technique, which seemed to frustrate our professor even more.

"I’m sure the disciplinary committee aren’t only made of rats who keep dodging and running away," he said loudly, putting on a joking face.

"Is there really a need for me to attack when our esteemed professor can’t even land one on a first-year student?" I countered, putting on an innocent face.

He didn’t answer, his lips contorted in anger instead. By this time, a couple of the students had already caught on that this wasn’t just a simple demonstration, some whispering if they should call the director or the student council over.

Professor Geist’s attacks became fiercer as he started implementing several spells along with his attacks.

"Flame Pillar." A stream of blue fire shot up from the ground beneath me as I instantly sidestepped to avoid it, countering him with a concise strike to his neck.

Catching him by surprise, he jumped back a lot further than he had to, in order to dodge my blade, a bead of sweat forming on his brow.

"Even rats become deadly when cornered, Professor." I shot him a snide grin as I immediately closed the distance between the two of us.

Appearing right next to him, I willed wind mana around the blade of my sword as I prepared a spell. Each swing I took formed a still path of wind, confusing Professor Geist who was still able to block my blows. Every swipe, every lunge, and every swing I took created an almost transparent path of air in its trajectory.

Professor Geist wasn’t trying to put on an act of confidence anymore, concentration was etched on his face as he tried to block my flurry of attacks.

He was reaching the edge of the arena as each blow from me forced him to take a step back, the flames on his sword flickering helplessly upon receiving each attack.

It was about time to end this.

I willed the surface of the ground where he was about to take his next step to concave in, making him slightly lose his balance. As expected of a veteran augmenter, he stumbled for a split second but was able to soon regain his balance. However, that split second was all that I needed.

[Tempest]

The dozens of trails of wind that were produced from each of my mana-instilled blade suddenly glowed and shot out. My assault reached its climax as the speed of my attacks increased, my blade becoming barely visible. All the while, the spell I had just activated, Tempest, followed behind each of my attacks, making my barrage a chain of both sword and sharp blades of wind.

"AHHH!" Overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of attacks that he couldn’t hope to block completely, he stumbled onto his butt and rolled out of the arena.

The protective barrier that blocked all spells from going through flickered and cracked as my tempest spell bombarded against it until finally, the barrier broke with a sharp sound. It had been strong enough to block all but one last blade of wind from my spell, which grazed my professor’s neck, producing a trickle of blood.

Fortunately, the Professor’s mana-imbued body was strong enough so that my deadly blades of wind only grazed him, but he still sat flat on his back, his face pale in fright and knees shaking as I buried my blade in the ground right next to his carotid artery.

Pulling out my sword and putting it back into my dimension ring, I look down at our professor. "Thank you for your guidance."

As if on cue, the bell rang, and I walked out of the room, leaving the entire class’s eyes wide and jaws slack.

"...A-Arthur." I heard a soft voice from behind me. It was Kathlyn running towards me with Feyrith following behind.

"I have to admit, you were impressive back there, Arthur. As expected of my rival." Feyrith crossed his arms, but his face looked a little disheartened.

Putting an arm on the elf’s shoulder, I said to him, "You did good out there, Feyrith. If you knew the type of spell that the professor was using, I know you would’ve prepared more preventive measures."

"O-Of course! If I knew that the specific spell he would use was a lot stronger than I anticipated, I’m sure I would’ve come out as the victor in the end," he said, but the faint smile on his face showed that he appreciated my faith.

I turned to Kathlyn, who was still a bit shaken up. "Are you an idiot?" I said to her, flicking her lightly on the forehead.

She looked at me in utter shock, and even Feyrith looked a bit panicked.

"If you chose to defend yourself instead of focusing so much on beating the guy, you wouldn’t have put yourself at risk like that. Don’t be so stubborn and think things through more carefully. You know... you’re awfully emotional for someone whose face never changes." I gave her a playful smirk before walking to my next class, leaving the princess in a daze while Feyrith panicked, thinking of ways to console her.

"Kyuu!" ’Ah~ I’m full! How was class, Papa?’ Sylvie scurried on top of my head and settled in, messing up my hair.

’Meh, it was okay.’ I simply think, patting my precious bond.