"His mana manipulation is absurd. I barely noticed him activating Mana Maxima the first time, but the second was just pure cheating."
Being able to activate, deactivate, and then reactivate his skill in a split second truly helped cement his place as perhaps the strongest first year in the Academy.
"What's done is done, though. Let me see if I can salvage something from this mess."
Following John, or at least, the intense mana signature he left behind, Dignitas made his way into the darkness of the alley.
It wasn't long before the pitch-black emptiness of the alley opened up to reveal an expected scene. There, he saw John holding the girl in his arms. She shrank into his muscley chest in almost the same way Curie did.
In front of the swordsman stood that very same thug who attempted to commit assault just a few seconds ago.
"You bastard! Do you even know who I am?"
Not wanting to cause a bigger ruckus than the one they already did, Dignitas lazily casted, "Reality Construction: Spike," as he slashed his sword in the shape of a cone with a very defined sharp edge.
Then, he slammed the edge of Dainsleif's pommel against the spike's blunt side, launching it akin to a bullet. In an instant, it pierced the man's skull, and his lifeless body dropped to the floor.
Noticing Dignitas, John sheathed his sword, before shifting the girl's position in his arms such that her head laid on his shoulder.
"Thank you, Dignitas. I'm glad you were here to help."
"I'm sure you would've handled it easily. I just hope the girl you saved was worth the trouble." He sighed.
"If I can, I will always dedicate every cell in my body to protecting the weak. That has always been my code." John smiled.
"Excuse me, miss." He stirred the girl in his shoulder slightly, startling her. "Oh, I'm sorry. Could you tell us your name?"
Now that John had a better look at the girl, he noticed how beautiful she was. Despite her young appearance, her charms made her stand out, somewhat managing to conceal how immature she truly was.
Long, silky, black hair that extended past her shoulders covered much of her facial features. One of her eyes was hidden behind its silky edges, the other one that wasn't was colored a sky blue. On her neck, there was a collar that Dignitas assumed only activated when the owner was around.
As the girl opened her mouth slowly to answer, a small gust of wind unexpectedly blew.
"Hmm…?" Dignitas' eyes twitched suddenly. "Was I seeing correctly?"
Giving no thought to the girl or John, he closed in on her, before loosely gripping her hair in his hands.
"What are you doing, Dignitas!?"
"Relax. I just wanna test something out." Slowly, he pulled his hand away, eventually revealing the thing he had seen. "Looks like I was right."
Almost as if it was a taboo to let her ears be seen, the girl pulled her hair back silently.
The girl John had saved was an elf. And not just any elf, in fact. She was a Moon Elf, one of the rarest kinds.
It was said that Moon Elves were descendants of Thera, the lunar goddess, who had a great deal of authority in Light and Negativity.
"It's quite rare to find a Moon Elf in this day and age. I, for one, thought that they went extinct a long time ago."
"N–not extinct! We still live! On– the moon!" The elf girl stuttered, speaking in a broken form of Midanian.
It was rarely ever taught in schools due to how much the humans hated their ancestors' actions, but Moon Elves used to be as abundant as humans.
The Academy was different from the norm, of course, and even Dignitas came to learn a lot about the world he now lived in from Professor Sopholes, their history teacher.
Going off what he was thought, Dignitas began recalling all his knowledge on the Moon Elves and their origins.
Back when the world had just recently discovered the cold vacuum of spacel and built ships to traverse its vast reaches of nothingness, the very first nonhuman races they met were the Moon Elves, or Lunalites. As their name suggested, they resided on Midania's moon.
When humans first came to the moon, they were greeted with warm smiles and gifts from the native Lunalites. The biggest cities of Moon Elves welcomed the arrival of another intelligent species. Now that they knew space had many secrets to discover, it fueled a passion in them to explore.
The very first ambassadors, and even the ruler of the Lunalites arrived on Midania less than two years after their first contact with the humans. They aimed to forge a peace treaty, in the hopes of combining their forces to explore the great beyond.
But as humanity would have it, they weren't satisfied with just a simple amicable relationship. Their greed was endless, and seeing as there was something great ripe for the taking, why couldn't they just go ahead and take it?
Long story short, the humans assassinated the Lunalites' ruler and launched a needless all-out war against the Moon Elves. Thanks to their superior military strength and better technological weapons, they were able to overpower them in combat, even as the Lunalites held home field advantage.
This set off a chain of events that led to the Moon Elves essentially being wiped off from the face of the galaxy.
"Well, there you have it. This Lunalite here was probably going to be taken to the Sister Of Fate to be auctioned off, after being used by the ruffian over there, of course."
"So, what's the plan, John? We can't exactly bring her everywhere we go. Unless…"
"You're not thinking of doing that, are you, Dignitas? We can't use her!" John objected, somehow understanding his thought process. Of course, he meant a different "use" than the one previously mentioned.
"The fact that you understood me right away means we're on the same page. But in case it wasn't clear, I was thinking of acting as the guys planning to auction her off. Not that we're actually going to do that, but you get the idea. It'll just be a way for us to sneak in without any suspicions."
"I don't know, it doesn't sit right with me to bring her inside a den of lions…" John replied, still sounding unsure.
"It's better than rushing in ourselves and praying we don't run into a B rank, I know that. We'll let her leave once we've made our way in, so just set aside your ideals this once."
"I'll leave you to talking the girl into it. In the meantime, I'll check on the guy's body. It probably has something we need."
Standing up, Dignitas made his way for the dead man's body and began searching it. He hoped to find a letter, insignia, or just anything that would ensure the two of them would be able to enter the SoF.
Thankfully, the man had a small letter stowed away inside his right pocket.
"Sounds like he wasn't gonna bother taking off his clothes, heh," Dignitas laughed as he saw the pants' open fly.
Once that was done, he continued rummaging through his other pockets, but was unable to find anything else.
"The letter's sealed shut, so I'm guessing it's only meant to be opened by the guards as a form of identification. Either way, we've got our way in, so it should be about time to continue moving."
"And what about the girl, John?"
"She's agreed to joining us for the time being. This is Evangeline The Lunalite, by the way! Or Eva, for short."