This was something that I had always been curious about. No, but why would you join those clubs? Swan's club activities were so incredible that everyone in school knew about it.
All of students who came in for consultations all ran out crying, and whenever he went out for community service, he always caused problems. Last time, the club had gone to help little children. Apparently, the club had later received complaints because all of the children became incredibly aggressive and looked like they were tired of being alive.
"I want to join your club. When can I change my clubs?"
I made a disappointed expression at Swanhaden's question.
"You can probably change it after a year."
There had been some changes to rules for joining clubs. Students needed to remain in the clubs they had signed up for for at least a year.
At my words, Swanhaden frowned and muttered, "If I make more issues, would they kick me out?" to himself.
Swan unconsciously continued to fold paper cranes as he thought to himself, putting them in the pond once he was done. I joined him and made cranes to float them as well.
It was kind of fun, but it was annoying to clean them all up.
Swanhaden ripped up his pink book and asked me question upon question.
All of the questions he asked were about small things. What I liked, where I liked to go, things that weren't too important. The whole time Swan spoke, he looked directly at me. I remembered the first time we had a proper face to face conversation. We were around a pond then too.
We sat slightly apart as we shared short, everyday stories with each other.
Chapter 13. Augran Mountain
Today was the day we went to subjugate monsters.
If we went to subjugation during class before, now we finished classes for the day before heading to subjugation. I prepared my meal and snacks and packed a few more things just in case before heading to our meeting spot.
If we went into monster subjugation with our safety ensured during junior years, our safety was in our own hands during senior years. So, unlike before, we had to submit written oaths about the process, and students were especially careful in preparing protective magic at the meeting spot.
When we signed our written oaths, it became proof that we had subjugation experience for jobs like soldiers or knights. A lot of students signed them without much thought.
We only went twice a year during testing season during junior school, but senior students in both magic and swordsmanship majors attended together once a week. It was mandatory.
Hestia and Yves, both of whom had nothing to do with subjugations, didn't seem to like how I had to participate in upper-level subjugations in the mountains. But it wasn't like they could stop me, either.
It was part of school. What could they do?
Because of that, Hestia always packed me anchovy sandwiches and milk, and Yvnes put protective item on item on me before I headed out.
There was a particular spell that would send me to Yves if I was ever injured. I changed the location to the nurse's office.
They weren't the only ones hellbent on my safety during subjugation, though. Hylli, Cory, and even Swan, all of them who were participating with me, prepared a bunch of safety items for me too. I understood the first two who weren't going with me, but I didn't get why the ones going with me were also making a fuss.
I already had a full bag of stuff from Yves and Hestia's things, but Swanhaden prepared potions for me to use during emergencies. Cory placed attack spells on my earring, and Hylli switched out my sword for an extremely sharp one. They prepared me enough that I could face a dragon if I ever saw one.
I also didn't want any of them getting hurt, so I made all of them bracelets with protective spells in them.
Hylli's was red, Swanhaden's was a sky blue mixed with white, and Cory's was gold. I made mine, too, and mine was orange.
It was probably just me being paranoid, but there was also a spell that transported you to the safest location you could think of before you passed out.
We ended up sharing friendship bracelets. All of them seemed to like the bracelets I made them, so that was nice.
Hestia seemed angry about the fact that she couldn't join the subjugation group and didn't get a bracelet, so I made another item for the two of us to have.
We went literally every week. It was exhausting every single time we got ready to leave.
But this was inevitable. I couldn't help but be reminded of Caradil's warning from before. At Caradil's warning about the mountain, Cory and I dug around a little and we found quite a bit of information that was…suspicious, at best. That was one of the reasons why we were hellbent on protective magic.
Anyway, the four of us, Swan, Cory, Hylli, and I, were one group and participated in the subjugation together. All of the others were in large groups of ten or more, but unless my friends were literal children, we wouldn't need that many people.
We all wore our burgundy-colored subjugation uniforms as we headed to the upper part of the mountain. The magic students were wearing wine-colored robes, and the swordsmanship students were wearing an outfit with a similar design that were less restrictive.
"Keaaagh!"
The monsters screamed at the magic fire that Cory made.
Having weekly subjugations made us incredibly used to the whole experience. We all knew what to do in whatever situation.
When Swanhaden and Hylli attacked particularly aggressive monsters by hitting their pressure points, I made it so that they couldn't move and Cory burned all of them right there.
It was good to kill them with our swords, but that meant that we had to dig through the dead monsters to find their cores. So burning them with Cory's fire was the quickest and cleanest way of collecting cores.
Not long after starting, we were done with our quota.
"But doesn't it feel like the monsters are getting more and more aggressive? It feels like they're getting stronger, too."
Hylli poked at the dead monsters that we didn't need to burn as he spoke.
"The monsters seem to have a higher magic store than before, too."
Cory handed us the collected monster cores as he agreed with Hylli.
At Hylli's words, Cory and I fell into thought. We had gone up to the upper part of the mountain before to capture some higher-mid level monsters.
The magic I used then and the magic I used now was different. Their defensive magic skills had gone up quite a lot. I knew that monsters evolved and grew, but I didn't know that the change would be so visible.
"Ooooh..."
Meanwhile, Swanhaden seemed to be having a blast with the stronger monsters.
When he participated in subjugations, he never did it normally. He messed with the monsters so much that you almost pitied them.
He would tie their arms and legs together and make them brainwash them into crawling over to where Cory was, strip the intelligent monsters and shame them before making them dig out their own cores, and used other measures that were incredibly professional and cruel enough to make you wince in pain.
I was just thankful that he didn't do that to people.
Once we collected the cores we needed to turn in, Cory and I decided to head over to the suspicious part of the mountain.
"Hey, Cory and I are going to head to the back of the highest part of the mountain. Do you guys want to go too?"
Swan and Hylli nodded when I asked.
"But the highest part is near the peak, right? That's where the strongest monsters are. Why would you go there? Isn't it a bit too dangerous?"
Hylli asked, curious.
"Because it's dangerous we're not heading there with our own two feet. We'll be floating over the area to scope out the area."
Swanhaden, who seemed ready to stop me from going, turned away at that.
I drew a magic spell around my body to head over a bit quicker.
When I rushed to head over, the others began to prepare too.
Cory was so used to floating magic that he could just draw the circle in his mind and float right there. He also drew a circle for Swan, who couldn't use normal magic well, and Hylli, who couldn't use magic at all.
The view of the mountain from above was absolutely beautiful. The green leaves were plentiful, and the mountain was massive. The highest part of the magic had more than just green leaves. There were purple leaves, pink leaves, sky blue leaves, and various other beautiful colors of leaves.
Cory and I thought of our model and looked for where we thought was strange.
"Shushu, it's there. That was the weird place."
Cory pointed at a particular part of the mountain with his finger. That specific part was darker than the other parts. I didn't know of the leaves were just a darker color or if there was just less light, but I felt like it was the former.
Cory looked intently at the place with the strange aura. He drew a small magic circle and put it on his eyes. The circle that Cory drew was [Far Distance], a modifying circle that allowed you to see things far away as if they were closer.
It wasn't very good for your health, but if you staggered its use, it wouldn't cause any harm. A recent study from the royal magic research center had reported that recently. The spell that Cory used was also staggered in use, so it wasn't a problem.
There was a small circle that drew itself in Cory's green eyes, and Cory began to look closer at the strange part of the mountain.
"Oh, what's that."
Cory peered closely at the specific part of the mountain as he tilted his head in confusion.
"Stay here. I'm going to go down to check."
Cory lowered himself from above and said that he would go check what he had found. We had gone to the upper part of the mountain before, but we'd never gone to the highest part of the mountain before. I was kind of worried.
In the end, we all decided to check together.
When we followed Cory to head down to the place where the leaves were just a bit darker than everywhere else, Swan and Hylli also headed down to the ground.
Seemingly having discovered something, Cory looked a bit bewildered.
As soon as we stepped foot in the area, we couldn't help but feel chills. The only thing we could hear were the sound of leaves hitting each other against the wind. We couldn't hear anything else. There were no birds, nor the sound of small animals. It was almost eerily quiet.
Cory headed somewhere without an ounce of hesitation.
He tilted his head for a moment before looking left and right and scowling.