“No, you can’t,” the dean said. “And that’s why I put off everything else I have to do to come here. You’re going to live at my house. I’ll be moving to another residence the provost already took care of, and you’ll be taking over where I’ve been living. There’s clothing there, so turn your outfits into student robes. We don’t want you sticking out like a pair of sore thumbs.”
Access received to the magic card department dean’s house.
Access level: resident.
“The servants are already carrying out my things, so you can make yourselves at home at my home. Huh, that’s a funny way of putting it. But with that said, it’s the last good news you’re getting. Because you’re leaving the academy in two days.”
“What?” Tailyn and Valia exclaimed simultaneously. “We’re getting kicked out?”
“I’d say you’re more having your access temporarily limited. That trick you pulled did a number on the imperial viceroy’s standing, and he pulled all the strings he could to get you out of the academy. Of course, the provost is independent, though even he can’t completely ignore the powers that be. You aren’t getting kicked out. But you can’t stay here, either, so you and your mentor are being sent off to the Gray Lands to hunt crystal fences. It’s time to thin their ranks, and it’ll be good practice for you, too. The academy will provide everything you need. To be frank, I’d send you off today, but you need to figure out healing and how to make cards first. Forget about sleep. For the next three days, you won’t be getting any of it.”
“What about Valanil? Is she coming with us?”
“Someone has to train you,” Forian replied. “She’s already been informed. Questions?”
“Is this for long?”
“That depends on how quickly we handle the job. Our target is the Berad Gor gang, one you’ve already had the pleasure of coming across. We need to find them, interrogate them, and destroy them. If we get that done in a day, we’ll head straight back. If we fail... Well, I don’t want to think about that. The longest it’ll be is three months. If we can’t find the gang in that time, we’ll come back, putting you here in time for group battles in the arena. Head out into the hallway and wait for the healers there. You’ll learn the general idea today, and Valanil will teach you the rest on the road.”
The kids left the office stunned — the news had been unexpected and contrary to everything they might have suspected going in. Meanwhile, the hallway was packed. It was the middle of a break, and regardless of the aura of mystery and grandeur surrounding the academy, children were still children. Some were running; others were standing against a wall with their nose in a book. Everyone was busy, and none of them had the least bit of time to spare for a pair of first-year students. At least, none of them but one.
“Tailyn, Valia, could I have a minute?” someone called. Turning, the pair saw an unfamiliar third-year student from the herbalist department. His name was Shorty Barits. He walked hunched over as if carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, he wobbled from side to side, there were bags under his eyes, and his face was so puffy it looked like he’d just gotten off a week-long bender. But the worst part was his eyes. They were unnatural, dead, glassy. Grabbing Valia by the hand, Tailyn took a few steps backward. He didn’t like the herbalist in the least.
“We need to talk. It’s about Forian Tarn!” Shorty yelled when he saw Tailyn’s reaction. “I need to give you something!”
“Valia, let’s go.” Tailyn lost his nerve when Shorty picked up his pace. The herbalist was barreling straight ahead, nothing on either side capable of grabbing his interest. When a few second-year students got in his way, he just shoved them away, their indignant shouts falling on deaf ears. His eyes were fixed on Tailyn.
“Run!” Tailyn shouted, but that was when Shorty leaped and threw his arms forward. Both of them turned out to be holding flasks full of a red liquid that turned Tailyn’s blood cold. He knew what they were. He knew because he’d used them, too. Shorty was holding two grenades with the corks already pulled.
Time slowed down. The boy knew they didn’t have a shot at getting out of the very center of the explosion, and while it hit him that quite a few students were going to be hit hard, he quickly brushed that thought away. Valia didn’t have Vargot or its impulse absorption system.
His body reacted faster than he could think. Grabbing Valia, Tailyn clutched her close and turned away from Shorty. A second later, the academy was bathed in an unpleasant red light. The shock wave picked Tailyn up and hurled him against the wall, where Valia squeaked and went limp. Stone came piling down on top of them. Screams of pain, dust, and fear filled the hallway. The surviving students ran like cockroaches to get away.
Throwing the stones off his back, Tailyn got up. For whatever reason, his right side hurt, and he couldn’t feel one of his legs, but none of that mattered. Nothing mattered — Valia was all he cared about. The girl was unconscious, both arms were broken, and half her right leg was missing. Tailyn pulled back her face guard and growled when he saw the bloody pulp her face had been turned into. Really, it was just a miracle she was still breathing.
“Hold on, I’ll be right back. Just don’t die,” Tailyn mumbled, unable to concentrate on the workshop as his nerves got the better of him. Where was the calm he always felt in critical situations? The one they were in couldn’t have been worse, and he couldn’t get a grip on himself. Finally, the button stopped jumping around in front of him, and he pressed it in relief. Two elixirs were going to be enough.
You can’t use the workshop in the main academy building.
It was only when the boy hit the button for the third time that the phrase sank in. The workshop was blocked.
“Somebody help! She needs help!” Tailyn yelled. Panic surged through the boy. The way he usually saved people without regeneration wasn’t working, and he didn’t have a backup.
But nobody was in any hurry to help Valia. With so many wounded and screaming students around, Tailyn’s shout was lost in the commotion. The dean’s voice boomed off behind the boy in an effort to restore order. Presumably, the academy’s best healers were about to run up and save everyone, but would they be in time to save Valia? Blood trickled from her mouth. Her breathing was becoming weaker.
“Please, don’t die,” Tailyn whispered, groaning in frustration. Why hadn’t he stocked up on potions? Why didn’t he carry a few around just in case? Why was he always so useless?
“What do we have here?” asked a weary voice from next to the boy. “Oh, Tailyn, how are you still conscious? It’s okay — I’ll get you straightened out.”
“Not me; her! Please, save her!” the boy rattled off when he saw an older woman wearing white clothing. “I’ll be fine — I have regeneration. Save Valia!”
“She’s too far gone, Tailyn,” the healer said, her voice filled with pain. “There’s too much damage. She’s just about dead, and we need to help the living.”
“No, you’re wrong. She’s breathing! Her heart is still beating!”
“That’s just the pain. Healing won’t help her — I’m sorry. Stay here, and I’ll send some people to take you where you need to go. I need to get to work on the ones we can still save.”
“Don’t give up on her!” Tailyn screamed. But his eyes widened in horror when he saw the woman stand up and go over to the other bodies littering the ground. “What do I need to heal her? An attribute, a skill? What is it?!”
The woman’s hands lit up as she grew even more haggard, her light given to the wounded.
“You don’t need anything, Tailyn. Just the desire and the gift. Concentration. Mana. Healers turn their mana into life force and transfer it to the sick and wounded. Most importantly, it’s the desire. And mana... Lots of mana...”
A few students ran over to the healer and grabbed her by the arms. As had once happened with Valanil, she was bleeding from the nose, and it clearly wasn’t just mana and overexertion. Still, Tailyn was no longer paying attention. Concentrat
ion. A desire. The gift. He had all of that. Waving away the other healers trying to drag him away, the boy placed his palms on Valia’s shoulders and closed his eyes.
He had to make it happen. His girl couldn’t die.
Mana and healing. For whatever reason, Tailyn thought back to the stone at the potential procedure, the one that had been warm and pleasant. He concentrated on that feeling and imagined his hands feeling that same warmth. Nothing happened. Something was missing. The desire? No, he definitely had that. But there wasn't heat, and he couldn’t create something out of nothing. It apparently took mana to create warmth, only the boy had no idea how to use it. Did you scoop it? Perhaps, there was more than the warmth; there was a pool of mana. No, he needed a blast furnace, the kind blacksmiths had, and his mana would be the bellows. It would fan the flames and give off heat.
Without opening his eyes, Tailyn adjusted the image in his head, changing it to a blast furnace set among rugged, snow-bound cliffs. The world around him seemed secondary, like a range of lifeless mountains. For whatever reason, Valia appeared as a statue made of metal. The only thing was that the material was damaged — scratched, dented, blemished. And Tailyn could see every imperfection. Somewhere in the background, someone screamed and moaned, though the boy paid no attention as all he could see was thousands of kilometers of emptiness. He carefully placed Valia’s statue in the fire and turned up the heat. To get in looking new again, he was going to need it hot enough for the metal to melt and fill in all the damaged spots.
That did it. The fire flared up with such intensity that the eternal ice around the workshop melted under its onslaught. The statue turned red, though the internal damage refused to go away without a hammer to bang the walls together. But even with nothing of the sort in the smithy, Tailyn wasn’t going to be stopped. He could somehow sense that his hand was the hammer. Turning up the heat even further to make the statue softer, the boy picked the largest internal cavity and landed a blow. It felt like an electric shock ran up his arm. Still, there was a bang, and the cavity disappeared, though an ugly dent took its place on the outside. Tailyn froze. Somehow, he knew he just needed to run his hand over the spot for the dent to evaporate, but was that his main concern? There were too many internal cavities to get distracted by the shell. Deciding that Valia’s insides were more important, the boy went back to work taking care of the cavities. His head was spinning ten blows later — the world around him was swirling, and he had to grip the workbench just to stay upright. With only half the cavities gone, there was plenty of work left to do, but Tailyn was running out of energy. Suddenly, a timer began ticking off 120 seconds. What was it for? Was that how much time he needed to recover or how much time he had left to finish restoring the statue’s innards? Presumably, it wasn’t the former — Tailyn wasn’t about to expect a gift that generous from the god. And that meant he had to hurry. Turning up the fire yet again, he got rid of another cavity. And another. And another.
The last thing Tailyn remembered before losing consciousness was realizing that the job was done. The statue was whole and intact, its cavities and blemishes gone. Sure, there were lots of dents, but he knew he could come back to them later. They didn’t matter so much.
Darkness fell.
“When is he going to wake up?” Forian’s voice eased its way through the nothingness.
“He already has,” the old healer woman Tailyn had already spoken with replied. “He’s listening to you now.”
“Student, open your eyes.”
It took an incredible effort for Tailyn to follow that order. The smithy and mountains were gone, and he found himself in a small room filled with cots. Almost all of them were occupied, many of the bodies unconscious, many missing limbs. The old woman who had left Valia to die looked like she’d aged two hundred years — that was how haggard and wrinkled she was. Next to Forian, three mages were standing there with serious expressions on their faces and eyes so sharp that everything inside Tailyn turned cold. He didn’t know them, though he was already afraid of them.
“How is Valia?” Tailyn asked. He tried to leap to his feet only to have the healer’s firm hand hold him down.
“We’ll get to your questions later. In the meantime, I need your logs from the moment you left the office,” the boy’s mentor said, and it didn’t even occur to Tailyn to reply that Forian was asking for confidential information. A few moments later, a large packet of information had been sent over. Forian changed a few settings, forwarding it on to the head of internal security, Magistrate Sadil, and two of his deputies. The trio were the best investigators the academy had to offer. And that meant they were the best in the world.
“Why did you start to run? Did you know him?” one of the nameless deputies asked. For the first time, Tailyn saw someone who had even their name hidden. His perception gave him nothing. Not a name, not an age, not a level.
“The eyes,” the boy explained. “They were...lifeless. I don’t know how to explain it. I mean, when I look at you, I want to dive under my bed and cry. When I looked at him, it was like I was frozen. His eyes were two dark pieces of glass. And it was the first time I’d ever seen him. I don’t know why he came at me with two grenades — I swear by the game! How is Valia?”
A cloud of light appeared around the boy as the System confirmed he was telling the truth. Sadil nodded, turning back to the boy after one of his deputies left.
“You’re able to make lesser regeneration potions. Why did you heal Valia the normal way instead of just feeding her a couple of them?”
“I wanted to — you can check my logs right after the explosion. Only I didn’t know you can’t use personal workshops inside the academy, and I didn’t have any with me. Nobody told me you could get attacked here.”
“Nobody expected it,” Sadil said. He turned to Forian. “I’m done with him. He’s clean.”
The mages left, and Tailyn had the good sense not to yell after them about the girl. The healer was right there. He could get all the information he needed from her.
“She’s alive.” It was like the old woman could read minds. “She’s in a separate room. You know, Tailyn, we teach healers to find their calm place and look for a way to transfer mana that makes sure it’s actually mana they’re transferring rather than life force. What you did was amazing, and it saved Valia’s life. But if you keep doing that, your body will give out on you. Even the regeneration that helped you this time has its limits. And most importantly, remember that you could have used the strength you spent on Valia to save lots of other students who died tonight. Is the life of one person worth five or six others? Sure, I could have helped Valia, but far more children would have died. You’re a future healer, boy, and you need to learn how to make the right decisions. It doesn’t matter how hard they are for you. Think about that.”
The old woman left, leaving Tailyn to pull himself heavily to his feet. Despite the fact that his body was completely healthy, he felt drained. A weakness gripped him. All he wanted to do was lie back down. But he didn’t give up — he had to get to wherever Valia was and make sure everything was all right with her. Step by step, he made his way forward until he was next to the closed door. The nearby investigator said nothing, and Tailyn opened the door only to freeze, his heart pounding.
Valia was nowhere to be found. Bound hand and foot, and with a gag in his mouth, however, was the very same herbalist who’d detonated the grenades. He was alive and well.
Chapter 5
“EASY DOES IT, boy.” The guard’s hand fell on Tailyn’s shoulder, the boy standing there stock-still. “He has to see the court.”
“Oh, I’m not...” the boy started to answer, though his voice faltered when he saw his wave of fire card in front of him. He himself didn’t remember activating it. “Where’s Valia?”
“In the next room over — you got the wrong door. Okay, you need to leave. There’s no reason for you to be here.”
“But how did he survive? Two grenades should have turned h
im into...” The boy couldn’t find the right word, so the investigator helped him out.
“Mush? That’s what he was, but you’re going to have to ask Forian about that. You need to leave.”
But Tailyn didn’t make it to Valia. As soon as he stepped back out into the hallway, the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Forian Tarn was running in his direction. And he wasn’t just running; he was sprinting, yelling at curious students to get out of the way. They’d gathered there to see what news they could pick up. And anyone who wasn’t fast enough got hurled against the wall by Forian. As far as Tailyn was concerned, a mage running that quickly was the last thing he wanted to see, and so he pressed himself against the wall and hoped Forian wasn’t looking for him.
He was, however. A few meters away from the boy, Forian slowed to a brisk walk, grabbing Tailyn without slowing down and stepping into Valia’s room. The girl was in bad shape. Bandaged from head to toe, she was lying there unconscious, and Tailyn shivered. His betrothed was one big bruise, her nose was broken, there were gashes everywhere, and the worst part was that she was so dried up she looked like a mummy. Skin clutched at bones to turn the once-lovely girl into a horrifying monster. Apparently, if the healers had done anything at all, they’d left the job half-done, skipping out on restoring the girl’s natural beauty. Tailyn reflexively tried to create a regeneration potion only to have the System tell him he couldn’t.
Tears of Alron (The Alchemist Book #3): LitRPG Series Page 6