Peter of Dwarven Stone (War of Contractia Book 4)

by Tj Dixon

  “You’ll just be a bother.” Sakura says and now I’m really worried.

  “Perhaps I should go now.”

  “Don’t you think that would worry Rin? Coming back and finding you gone?”

  “Well, after lunch.”

  “At least wait until after your lessons.” Sakura says with a sigh.

  “Fine, but after lessons I’m going to see Lucy.” I tell her firmly.

  “Dairon said you could read auras, but can you see mine even whilst I’m hidden?” Sakura asks.

  “No.” I admit, seeing no reason to hide it. Sakura drops her invisibility and appears in front of my face. She’s cute, though a little weird when seen so close up.

  “Lucy will be back at the academy with you in a few days. It would be better for her if you didn’t go to visit her. There’s nothing seriously wrong, but she overused her magic when she opened the portal here. When you got pulled out of the portal’s corridor it extended her power even more. So she needs rest and you will disturb her rest.” Sakura tells me seriously and from her aura I can tell she is being completely honest.

  “Ok. I’ll wait until Lucy returns to the academy. How did I get pulled out of this corridor, anyway?”

  “That was most peculiar. A demon summoning appeared to intersect with the portal corridor and you got caught up as a demon was summoned, but the odds of such an event are as close to zero that they may as well be zero. The odds of a demon summoning intersecting with a portal corridor and then a demon crossing the corridor at exactly the same moment and point as you is like imbuing a grain of sand with lifesaving magic and dropping it in the desert. Then a hundred years later, when you need that magic to save your life, just happening to find that grain of sand in a completely different desert when you pick a random grain of sand out of your eye.”

  “So I got ridiculously unlucky?”

  “Or lucky, depending how you look at it. If you hadn’t been pulled along by the demon, who knows how it would have turned out here.”

  “How what would have turned out?” Rin asks having ported in just in front of me and caught Sakura’s last few words. Rin is carrying a tray with four dishes and one large plate filled with bread rolls.

  “The demons.” Sakura says as she becomes invisible.

  “How comes she doesn’t mind you seeing her, but goes invisible the moment I come back?” Rin asks, clearly annoyed.

  “Sakura only became visible so I could tell she wasn’t lying.” I explain.

  “So what did she need to convince you of?” Rin asks suspiciously.

  “That Lucy is ok. Now let’s get that tray on the table before you drop anything. Are the other dishes for Asuna and Hermes?”

  “Yes, they’ll be here in a… Well, now actually.” Rin says as Hermes and Asuna have just ported in on the other side of the table. Rin places the tray on the table and puts the dishes in place. Two on the other side and then two on our side. “Well, sit down everyone.”

  “Did Yu Kii, Emma and Charlotte not want to join us?” I ask, as they had been eating with us before I left the academy.

  “Yu Kii always eats with her sister back in her room. With training and lessons poor Haru Kii is on her own most of the time. Emma and Charlotte didn’t want to intrude. Now start eating before the food gets cold.” Rin tells me.

  “Ok.” I say and take a spoonful. It is delicious. I smile. “It tastes lovely. I can taste the meat and the vegetables, and they don’t try to eat my tongue or break my teeth.”

  “What have you been eating?” Rin asks with a laugh. It is the second time she has asked but I don’t want to put anyone off their food.

  “Ask me when we’re not eating.” I tell her and she laughs.

  “I will do.” Rin says and then we eat in silence. I’m so hungry that I appreciate the chance to eat peacefully like this. We can talk afterwards.

  I take a roll and dip it into my soul. It tastes even nicer like this. Did I really eat like this every day? More importantly am I going to eat like this every day again? Well, for the rest of this academy year anyway.

  “I think you may have taken a few too many rolls.” I say as we finish our soup and there are about ten rolls still on the plate.

  “They’ll keep, and it’s not like they were expensive.” Rin says with a shrug.

  “I’m glad to be back.” I say contently.

  “Hopefully you’ll stay back for the rest of our time at the academy. That’s less than two years now, and then you can be sure we’ll be sent into the deepest, darkest depths of hell.” Rin warns me. Two years…

  “I want everyone in our club ready to fight in the war by the end of this year.” I tell her and Rin looks at me in shock.

  “Why?” Rin asks. I’m not meant to tell anyone, but I didn’t sign a contract or anything.

  “This stays in this room. You can’t discuss this with anyone who isn’t here right now.” I tell her and look to Asuna and Hermes as well. “Consider it an order from the queen.”

  “If I wasn’t worried before, I would be now.” Rin says quietly.

  “Do you agree to what I’ve asked you?” I ask her.

  “Yes, of course.” Rin answers a bit annoyed now.

  “And you?” I ask both Hermes and Asuna, who both nod. “Everyone at the academy, students and teachers, will be dragged into the war at the end of the year. Not just this academy either.”

  “They’re going to make children fight? Even Year 3 girls?” Rin asks angrily.

  “The weaker students will probably be in supporting roles, but yes.”

  “That’s insane.” Rin snarls.

  “I didn’t decide it. It doesn’t sound like the war is going too well though.” I tell her.

  “Even so…” Rin sighs. “I suppose it isn’t your fault, but damn that stupid little queen. If we had a better leader I’m sure the war would have gone better.”

  “She’s responsible for a lot of good too. She didn’t choose to be queen either.” I remind Rin. I don’t agree with the decision either, but I owe Queen Emily a lot. Most importantly, my freedom.

  “Well, there’s no point getting angry at you. We should just do the best we can to prepare everyone. Will you be recruiting the girls you beat in the tournament?”

  “Yes. We need all the help we can get and they entered the tournament knowing the risks. I’m amazed so many students in the top class did enter considering the risk of slavery.”

  “They only entered because they thought they would win. Most have had some sort of dirty trick or previously hidden power. Powers and tricks they didn’t use last year. Of course the ones who didn’t seem to are the ones who got beaten before they had a chance to reveal whatever secret they were counting on.” Rin warns me.

  “How many were left now? Including Sor and Ash.”

  “Four. Ash and Sor of course, but you’ll also need to fight Pippa and Sasha.” Rin tells me.

  “That’s not too bad. The only one who really worries me is Sor.”

  “Weren’t you listening just now? They will have some sort of dirty trick or hidden power. Pippa is powerful even without that, so she’ll be an especially dangerous opponent.”

  “Ok, Rin, but I’m still more worried about Sor. I’m just glad my first opponent is Ash.”

  “She controls demons. She’s not going to be easy.”

  “She’s not going to be a problem. I can deal with demons easily enough.” I assure Rin.

  “Well don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Rin tells me.

  “We should eat here more often. It’s private for conversations and more comfortable too.” I quickly change the subject.

  “The rest of the club will be disappointed. You got back yesterday and they still haven’t seen you.” Rin reminds me.

  “I’ll see them after classes. Perhaps we should invite them here to celebrate after the next fights. It must be cold outside.” I suggest.

  “I know it’s big in here, but you’d still only get ten people on this table. Th
ere’s enough room to add a couple more tables like this, but do you really want to have everyone from the club in your bedroom?”

  “I don’t see an issue with it.”

  “Well, I can think of one or two people who’d be delighted to celebrate in here.” Rin says shaking her head.

  “Well, it is a bit cold to eat outside now, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but we could always borrow a classroom since it is on our day off. I bet Professor Schwarz would let us have 2A as long as we clear up afterwards.” Rin suggests.

  “Ok Rin. You ask her.”

  “I’ll get Yu Kii to ask, since she’s training with Professor Schwarz after class each day.” Rin says and not being here of course, Yu Kii can’t protest. Hermes and Asuna have both been very quiet so far. They didn’t talk much last night either.

  “Are you both ok?” I ask them.

  “Yes.” They both quickly reply, but then go silent. I am considering what else to ask when there is a knock on the door. We all look at the door wondering who it could be. I open the door with wind magic and see Midori standing there with her pale skin, short green hair and bright purple eyes that I haven’t seen for a long time now.

  “I hope I’m not intruding, but I wanted to say, welcome back, Peter.” Midori says with a nervous smile.

  “Thank you, Midori. Come in if you want.”

  “Thanks!” Midori says eagerly and as she enters takes a quick look round. “I knew it was a bigger room than normal, but it’s really nice. So how does it feel to be back?”

  “It’s a relief.” I admit.

  “I’m glad you’re back. You’re not going to be leaving the academy again are you?”

  “Hopefully not until we graduate.”

  “I wish I was in the same year as you. I’ll have to wait a whole year to see you again.” Midori sighs. I can’t tell her the truth about that so I keep quiet. “You have more muscles than when you left. You must have been working hard.”

  “He has?!” Rin asks and then after a closer look she frowns. “You have.”

  “I was working hard.” I nod remembering the trek through the forest and tunnels, followed by working at the main forge. Much of that was magical, but there was a lot of physical work too. I hadn’t really noticed a change though. Midori is clearly more observant than I realised.

  Chapter 21 (Peter)

  Back in class I realise that the afternoon lesson is theory. It doesn’t take long to realise how far I’ve fallen behind the rest of the class, because I have no idea what Professor Schwarz is talking about.

  “Ash, what is a micro discrepancy?” I whisper.

  “When your magic is sufficiently aligned to the correct elements to cast the spell, but not sufficiently to optimise the use of mana.”

  “So when you use more mana than you need to?”

  “Yes.” Ash nods. Now I understand that, however Professor Schwarz has moved on to something different and I missed what she said. I must be the worst student in the class at theory given that I missed most of Year 3 and have now missed even more lessons.

  I’m going to need to beg Rin to help me catch up. Or maybe Asuna and Hermes will be able to help. I’ll ask Asuna first. She’ll help me without asking for anything in return. Hermes is good at theory too, but Asuna is probably better.

  The lesson goes on and Ash answers my questions but even with her help I only understand about a quarter to half of the lesson. When the lesson ends Ash ports away before anyone else has even stood up.

  “Good luck.” Rin tells Yu Kii and then looks at me. “You’d better not be thinking of skipping training. I’ll have a riot on my hands if you put off seeing the rest of the club any longer. You got back yesterday and everyone must know by now.”

  “Don’t worry. I want to see everyone again. So could you port me, because I’m not sure my memory is clear enough to port there?”

  “Yu Kii will port you.” Rin grins. Yu Kii just sighs and holds out her right hand. I take it with mine and she ports me.

  The cold is the first thing I notice as it steals my breath. After a moment I recover from the shock of the cold and take a deep breath. When I breathe out my breath creates a sort of white fog. It reminds me of a snowy scene buried deep in my memories. As I try to remember where I saw it and try to bring the scene clearer into my memories it fades altogether.

  “Peter! I’m so glad you’re back.” A familiar voice says and as I turn to face it I see not only Aventurine’s smiling face but also most of the club either porting in or turning to face me. Aventurine’s emerald green eyes shine even brighter than normal in the fading light. Her noble aura, her ever so pale skin and shoulder length red hair make her stand out as much as ever.

  “I’m glad to be back.” I answer her with a smile. It is good to see her and everyone else again. Then I am met with a chorus of ‘welcome back’ from the rest of the club. I think almost everyone is here now. “I’ll just be watching today to see how everyone has progressed whilst I was away, so everyone please continue as if I wasn’t here.”

  “But we want to hear all about your adventures!” Neko complains.

  “There will be time on our day off after the next match.”

  “But that’s a whole week away, nyyya…”

  “We want to hear now.” Aventurine nods insistently.

  “Everyone will concentrate more on their training if you talk to them about this first.” Lilian tells me and Rin nods.

  “Ok, I guess I don’t have much choice. I’m not shouting though, so everyone gather around.” I sigh and once everyone is close enough I start to tell them what I can. There are of course some parts of my story I can’t tell everyone but there is still plenty to keep them entertained. As I talk to them about so much of what I have been through it starts to seem quite impressive that I not only managed to achieve what I did, but that I actually survived and returned home to tell the tale. By the time I finish, most of the club are rather stunned to say the least.

  “I look forward to talking more to everyone at the end of the week but for now we really do need to continue with your training. Once the tournament is over I plan to take everyone on bounty hunts.” I tell them and that brings a few cheerful, or in some cases nervous, smiles to their faces.

  Then everyone breaks into pairs or in the case of Helski and the Lightwood twins a trio. Without Jenny here anymore there are exactly fifteen pairs when Yu Kii finishes her dimensional training with Professor Schwarz, but whilst she is training there are an odd number of people. Unless you count me, but I’m just watching today. Rin explained last night that rather than having one person teach everyone an element, they are now at the stage where they can mostly just work together and help each other train. If they have a problem they can of course still ask a more experienced student.

  Most people work with another user of the same element for half of the training and then choose someone with a different element for the other half. Today everyone is working with a different element first but sometimes it is the other way round.

  Although we have so many wind users we still have just enough users of other elements to make this work. To ensure everyone gets a chance to practise every element some of the wind users practise only wind magic in a training session. Otherwise the members who don’t specialise in wind magic would always be working with wind users. Of course the wind users rotate each day so nobody misses out on any element.