I couldn't help but feel alarmed as I looked at the dragon. Yes, it acted as a nominal ally, and showed a surprising capability toward communication, enough to convince me about its intelligence, but that didn't remove the risk of a sudden betrayal. It didn't give a sign of doing so, but considering I was betting on reading the body language of a creature I first saw today, my stress was rather understandable.
However, when I stopped for a second to examine it, those concerns flew away. Even just a glance was enough to show that the dragon was near death. Most of its emerald scales had lost their luster, giving a rotten feeling instead, which was probably the effect of its extended exposure to death energy. Its claws were trembling badly enough to remove their threat. Its every breath was labored, showing its exhaustion.
Examining it carefully, my earlier fear was replaced with a new one. Just how much distraction the dragon could be in its current state. I sighed as I came to a decision, one that required me to bet on the goodwill of a mysterious creature with a sketchy reputation. In the end, I decided to trust my instincts.
"Hold still for a moment, I'm going to heal you," I said even as I put my hand on its body. It trembled under my touch, but made no move of pulling back. I gathered most of my mana together to cast a strong healing spell.
[-2329 Mana]
The dragon let out another breath, this time somehow smoother. Some of its scales regained their shine, and its trembling stopped. It was still far from the optimal condition, but that was the best I could do under the lack of time.
Pity I couldn't cast another spell even if my mana recovered. The only reason I was able to cast such a strong healing spell was the ritual that went out of control, and its effects were enough to prevent detection. However, I had to cast a protection spell to fend off the death energy when the ritual pulsed dangerously. Using the opportunity, I cast a healing spell on myself, even though it drained my mana further. With three instances of regeneration active, all I needed was to resist for twenty minutes for my mana to refill completely, making it a reasonable risk.
[-416 Mana]
[+623 HP]
"Let's move," I said to the dragon as I cut directly toward the nearest exit, and the dragon followed me immediately, smart enough to realize I was its only hope. I took a route opposite of the headquarters, wanting the necromancers to abandon that section as much as possible.
The first minute, we managed to avoid coming across anyone. I used a biomancy trick to hide our presence from their detection skill, which was a bit risky, but I was hoping that it would be attributed to the dragon. I was lucky that the dragon was relatively small, at least enough to silently move through the tunnels with its wings folded. It was still rather large, taller than a human even when it was all fours, but the tunnels were large enough to allow it to move.
Then, our luck turned, as I heard the shouts of necromancers, mixed with the unmistakable sounds of a bone dragon's stomping. They weren't too far away. "You try to get their attention, and I'll hit them from behind," I said as I pulled my sword and doubled back, looking for a connecting tunnel.
Dashing full speed, it took me less than half a minute to hit the ambush from behind, Aviada's sword gleaming under the flashing lights of the spell battle. However, much to the misfortune of the four necromancers that was leading the skeleton brigade —and two bone dragons— a raging dragon was a distracting sight. Distracting enough to miss a warrior charging with a gleaming two-handed sword until it was too late.
I was so glad that I stopped by Aviada to pick up her sword, because with its assistance, one cleaving attack was enough to kill all four necromancers, though I slashed a couple of extra times to make sure before casting a flame spell and burning their remains. I didn't want to leave blade wounds in their corpses.
[-23 Mana]
Meanwhile, the dragon was under the assault of two bone dragons, barely able to resist their assault, while the skeletons leveraged the opportunity, trying to stab its legs. I jumped up, climbing on the back of one of the bone dragons, breaking its spine as I climbed upward. It raged, trying to throw me from its back, but my twenty-five points of agility were not for show, so I easily climbed up to its head, destroying it with one mighty smash that would make a barbarian king proud.
Without the support of its mindless brethren, the other bone dragon failed to resist the raging assault of the emerald dragon. Meanwhile, I cleaved through the rest of the skeletons, which took me less than ten seconds. "Do you mind burning the remains?" I asked kindly.
The dragon sent me a gaze, and I had to suppress a laugh. I was amused because its suspicion was almost a physical thing, and receiving such a look from a monster was amusing. Still, it followed my small request, burning the remains with its breath before we started running once more.
We have dealt with three more blockades until we arrived at the entrance of the tunnel which led outside, every encounter making me more glad that I actually brought the sword with me, allowing me to save my mana. I even transferred some more mana to my unlikely ally, who was more than happy to receive the extra boost. As a result, when we managed to break through another hasty barricade and came near a tunnel that led outside, I was rather confident that it would be able to escape with its life.
"The exit is here. The rest is up to you," I explained to the dragon, not even bothering the possibility that it wouldn't understand me. Its actions until now had proved its communication capabilities.
I wasn't surprised when it raised its claw, and wrote in the air with flaming letters. 'I owe you one.' After fighting together several times, it was clear to me that the dragon was much smarter than a regular human, but reluctant to show it for some reason. The fact that it knew how to write was not a surprise.
The only interesting part was the alphabet it had used, which belonged to one of the ancient languages, and even among the mages, only a minority used it. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to go into the details of it with an actual army of undead trying to find us. The dragon turned and left after one last nod, and I waved after it, before turning back and moved toward my own target.
The presence of the dragon was godsend in my infiltration attempt, even though they were alarmed. Whenever I came across a large group, I let them pass first or circled around them, and whenever I found a small group, I killed them using the sword before burning their remains with a low-grade flame spell, weak enough to avoid their attention.
As the raging cries of the dragon mixed with shouts and explosions, my journey got easier and easier. I was curious about whether the dragon would be able to survive, though it didn't slow down my steps. I had more important things to do than their survival.
When I arrived at their operational headquarters once more, there were only two necromancers there, neither of them a lich, both standing guard. Sneaking to them under the constant interference of explosions was almost trivial, especially when they were standing on the other end of the corridor, not even paying attention to the entrance. I could have killed them easily, but I let them live. I didn't want to arouse suspicion by killing them.
Without any guard, walking into the room was a trivial activity, since the wards weren't designed to keep someone away. And once inside, all the anti-espionage wards actually worked for my benefit, preventing my spells from being noticed. I rapidly cast duplication spells to copy every document I was seeing, which detailed a number of plans. Some were clearly in cipher, but solving them was the later issue. However, for one of the documents, I stole the original while leaving back the copy.
It was the detailed breakdown of the ward scheme of Silver Spires.
I couldn't help but frown as I saw that. The presence of it put a frown on my face, because the number of people that had complete access to the defense plans should be limited. It might be that the headmistress was the only one that had access to them, or not. Regardless, I decided to talk with Titania first and discuss the documents before deciding on what to do.
There was a determined expression on my face as I escaped the headquarters, though not because of the escape itself, which, despite my earlier expectations, turned out to be rather easy. To be fair, it was easy to sneak around when there was a raging dragon loose inside. I used my escape tunnel to climb up, sighing relaxedly only after I took a deep breath of fresh air.
Still, even as the landscape blurred under my feet, I couldn't help but feel that this wasn't going to be my last encounter with that dragon…
For the first half an hour, I just run without casting a spell, doing my best to avoid attention. I healed myself and purged the remaining necrotic energy in my body once my mana was full, then summoned another pseudo-elemental as a mount. It cost a lot of mana, but the speed it provided was much more important, especially since I was a couple of hundred miles away from the school.
The journey took a while, especially since I had to take a break midway. I couldn't help but sigh relaxedly as I finally saw the walls of the school in the distance. I dispelled the pseudo-elemental I was using as a mount even as I examined rays of the morning sun coloring the impressive —but not impenetrable, especially with the help of the plans in my hand— walls of the school.
I slipped inside easily. Compared to sneaking around in a necromancer base, it was nothing.
It took me less than a minute to sneak through one of the weak spots on the walls, which once again proved the complacency of the Silver Spires. No doubt the Necromancers were feeling confident enough to gather around. However, I had more important issues than the general overconfidence that infected one of the most important bastions of humanity. I needed to talk with Titania.
I met with a nasty surprise when arrived at the dead-drop location we agreed on non-urgent communication. There was a note from Titania, mentioning that there was an emergency, and she would be away for a day, maybe more. I bit my lips in disappointment, trying not to let out a cry of frustration. It wasn't just her absence, but the fact that she didn't bother mentioning anything about the mission, or how long it might last in the worst case.
The only happiness that I doubted the necromancers would be able to put another ambush together after my little surprise. I was able to browse through their plans on the way, and while many details were still encrypted, I was able to decipher enough to understand that the dragon I had saved to create a distraction was a crux in their plans, to be used as a ram against the weakest part of the magical defenses —which was discovered through detailed blueprints— by leveraging its magic resistance.
Running full-speed or trying to hold onto pseudo-air-elemental wasn't exactly the best environment to analyze a bunch of papers, after all. But even if I had the opportunity, it would doubtlessly take a lot of time.
Luckily, I had someone clever enough to help.
When I arrived at my room, Helga was still sleeping, so I put all the documents on the table, hung Aviada's sword on the wall, and had a quick shower in the corner of the room. Water spells were sure handy, especially when I could use some earth magic to create a drain and other amenities.
After showering, I didn't bother wrapping a towel around myself as I went and kissed Helga. "Good morning, sleepyhead," I said.
"Good morning," Helga answered with a huge smile, not bothering about the cover that slipped away, revealing her naked body underneath. After sharing an extended kiss, however, she pulled back and frowned. "You look tired. Were you out the whole night?"
"Yeah," I said, and chuckled at the flash of jealousy that passed her face, which was understandable. Just because she agreed that she wasn't going to be the only woman in my life didn't mean that she wouldn't feel any jealousy. Even if I had an actual good reason for it.
I was tempted to tease her a bit about her jealousy, but unfortunately, we had bigger problems, and not enough time. "I found the base of the necromancers last night," I said with a grave tone.
She grabbed my hand, tight enough that her fingers turned bone-white. "Explain," she said, so I gave her a five-minute summary of my adventure, not particularly bothering to disguise the risks I faced. It made her panic, but I needed her to have an accurate background before she started working on the documents, just to give her a better idea. "You're a madman, or have a martyr complex," she gasped as I explained how I freed a dragon as a distraction just so that I could raid their headquarter.
I shrugged. "Hey, I'm not exactly loving the risks as well, but it's not like we can just escape," I explained.
"Can't we?" she asked.
"Not if we still want to leverage all the benefits of the Silver Spires," I said. "And even if we're willing to give up all the benefits, do you really want to see what else they would do after the school has fallen. The Empire is already nothing more than a loose collection of cities, and the Silver Spires is one of the few places that is connecting them together. The royal family is strong, but they are barely able to stall the destruction, not reverse. I really don't want to see what would happen if we lost our most important training facility," I explained, then added with a smirk, "Even if that facility was elitist and pointlessly traditionalist one."
"You're right," she said with a sigh, but when my smirk got wider, I earned a slap on my shoulder. "But you don't have to be an ass about it."
"I know, but it's fun," I said, which earned a playful giggle that made me wish I wasn't about to collapse from exhaustion. Even worse, I only had a couple of hours to rest.
"So, you want me to decipher them, any particular priority?" she asked.
"Anything that pertains their contingency plans, I doubt that they would act immediately with their biggest weapon lost."
"Are you sure the dragon has managed to escape?"
"Not completely, but even if it failed to escape, the ritual is definitely ruined. Even if they managed to capture it, the best they could have is a huge delay, and more likely, they had to kill it and raise it as another bone-dragon. It might be a bit stronger with its skin still intact, but it will not be anything close to their initial design."
"Makes sense," she said and just as she was about to turn, I grabbed her for an extended kiss, one that I used to drain my whole mana. Since I was about to regenerate it while sleeping, why not use it more efficiently. It wasn't enough to make her Level Up again, but almost four thousand mana pushed her quite a bit in the distance. Also, I used the opportunity to examine her soul space, making sure that there was nothing wrong other than some harmless instability.
Still, a level a day should be a limit for a while, I decided, at least I could be certain about the side effects. I had managed to Level Up several times in a day, but my condition was rather unique.
"Have a nice sleep," Helga gasped as I closed my eyes, her arousal clear. Pity that I was really exhausted, and didn't want to abuse biomancy tricks to force myself awake.
"Wake me up in two hours," I told her and closed my eyes. I was falling asleep when I felt a gentle kiss on my cheek.
—
[Level: 23 Experience: 263100 / 276000
Strength: 28 Charisma: 38
Precision: 21 Perception: 25
Agility: 25 Manipulation: 30
Speed: 23 Intelligence: 30
Endurance: 22 Wisdom: 32
HP: 2737 / 2737 Mana: 373 / 3565 ]
SKILLS
Master Melee [100/100]
Master Tantric [100/100]
Master Biomancy [100/100]
Master Elemental [100/100]
Expert Arcana [75/75]
Advanced Subterfuge [50/50]
Basic Speech [25/25]
PERKS
Mana Regeneration
Skill Share