Chereads / Tales of Aeolus the Outrageous / Chapter 18 - And So, There's Trouble

Chapter 18 - And So, There's Trouble

Larien is able to consistently damage the werldhide though it continuously heals itself. Gasping for air, he still attacks relentlessly. Forming a magic sword out of mana in his hand, he charges at the beast with quick steps. He's most likely using a spell to hasten his speed. He stabs the back of the werldhide, and it lets out a loud roar. Not pulling it out, he drags the sword across its back down to its hind legs, and severs one off. Another wail is heard from the creature. Even though it's in this much pain, it'll still heal, though it won't be able to regenerate the leg that Larien cut off. Knowing this, Larien stabbed the open wound, and went in to slice another leg off.

Impressive. He's pretty quick on his feet and has good reflexes, but...

The werldhide catches on to what Larien wants to do and shakes him off with his claws, allowing most of his wounds to heal.

Clicking his tongue Larien mumbles, "Tch! Nothing's going through."

"This is insane!" Feran exclaims as he backs away then trips and falls to the ground at the roar of the werldhide.

"I thought this was just a test! What's a werldhide doing here?!" Turnan adds in fear as well.

Fernan is at level 22 and Turnan is at level 24. If they teamed up together and actually tried, though one of them might lose a limb, they may actually be able to defeat it. But of course these noble brats just have to be a bunch of empty barreled pansies.

"Losers," I mutter out loud before joining Larien in the front line.

"Uh hm?" He gasps, watching me take the lead.

I take a breath before forming a make believe gun with my hand using my index finger, then speak, "Ice bullet."

Larien watches in awe as the single bullet pierces through the head of the werldhide, and it collapses, the light in its eyes leaving him, showing it's dead.

Magic is usually invoked using magic spells. Like how the spell summons a fire arrow, and the spell allowed the caster to teleport themselves through traveling in fog or smoke. However, for me, instead of incantating spells, I just catalogued all the magic I wanted to happen into simple words like , or . It's much simpler that way and allows my magic to be precise. Magic is all in the mind anyway. I wonder if Larien will catch on. It was easier to do in a game since no player was actually going to memorize the individual spells themselves, but this technique is very much plausible here in real life. If Larien learns this, with the amount of mana his body can store, it would definitely increase his potential. Maybe I should teach him? Nah. Skills work best when you figure them out yourself. Or maybe that's just a laid-back gamer's mindset.

Larien stares at me for a while, as well as the other two nobles who couldn't stop dissing me earlier, before chuckling and saying, "As expected from a tier 4 mage."

"You weren't bad yourself," I say, returning his smile.

I guess this means our group's pretty much won, with only one minute left on the timer.

Larien sighs while wiping the sweat off his forehead. "We should start heading back to the entrance now."

"Mm." I nod my head in agreement. But just as I do, a loud explosion from the east side of the forest drags our attention.

"What was that?" Larien exclaims, both of us looking in the direction of the rising smoke.

I let out a breath of air then expand the area of my magic detection. Using magic sense I can usually tell the location of nearby living creatures, but with magic detection, I can widen the area and pick up the exact location of any living thing within the area of use.

I can sense a bunch of monsters, no surprise there. But one thing that stood out was a foreign presence not to far from our position. A human. He's clouded in so much dark energy so I know he definitely isn't a student or teacher at this school. Moreover, just as I detect his presence, several magic circles form around us. From what I can tell, they're spread all over the forest, and are this guy's doing.

Larien shifts as he watches the glowing circles around him. "What's going on?"

I squint my eyes as I inspect the form of the magic circles. It looks like a teleportation circle. But these types of magic circles can't be drawn my any mage, most especially a dark mage. If a teleportation circle is constructed with dark magic, then it would need at least four dark mages supplying it with sufficient power to run for this long and spread out this wide. Normal teleportation circles are made with light magic which would still need more than one mage to pull off, or holy power requiring a pretty high ranking priest able to channel the power of a god that has bestowed their blessing on them.

I only detected that one guy, and he's definitely not a priest with the amount of dark energy emanating off him. Which would only mean that his magic tier is higher than 5. But that doesn't make any sense since with my magic sense as high as it is, I would have noticed him as soon as he stepped foot past the entrance not to talk of the forest and in close proximity. And it can't be that he has an artifact helping him summon this many teleportation circles either. For that to be the case, the artifact would have to be about A-grade, and I would have definitely sensed that too, especially with the tato system. So then, what's going on? This many circles done by one person who isn't a holy high ranking priest, isn't more than tier 5, and isn't using an artifact. The only other explanation would be he is of a higher rank enough to stay hidden from my magic detection.

Impossible! Cause that would mean he'd have to be higher than tier 6, no with dark magic, tier 7. Even though I'm less proficient in dark magic in this form, my titles as Aeolus still work, meaning with the achievement of Demon Lord, I would be sensitive to dark energy from even miles away. There's no way he'd be higher than tier 7 and I wouldn't sense it. I'm definitely missing something, but what could it be? Wait... huh? Could it be that? But... there's no way right?

"Ah... Look!"

Larien's voice pulls me out of my thoughts. I follow the direction his gaze is pointing at and see a horde of monsters moving towards us. I faintly sensed them inching closer, but I didn't feel any hostility.

The group of monsters split up towards each magic circle that was closest to them. One by one, as each stepped into the magic circle, they vanished. Teleported to wherever the circle was connected to.

"Wha- what the...?!" Feran exclaimed, watching the monsters pile up into the circles.

"They're being... teleported!" Turnan added with a gasp.

Larien turned to look at me, his expression easily portraying what he thought. "Alice, what's going on?"

I sigh behind my response, "I'm not entirely sure."

Not a moment longer, screams start to be heard from further outside the forest. It sounds like the main campus is being attacked.