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~The Third Academy, Mirror Reality Thirty-Four~

Smiley held a wooden practice sword, gritting his teeth in frustration as he stood in the training grounds.

“Next.” he said with an annoyed voice.

Another student stepped forward, holding their own wooden sword.

They held the sword low, then rapidly did an upward slash attack.

It was a feint, and one that in Smiley’s eyes, was far too obvious.

They took a step forward and lunged with a direct stab aimed at his chest.

Smiley shook his head, giving the student a disdainful look. He thought to punish this fool for such a pitiful attempt.

He easily side-stepped and got closer as he pulled the student’s arm.

The student stumbled forward as Smiley stabbed his wooden sword right into his throat.

His throat was easily pierced and blood ran down the wooden sword.

The poor student’s eyes widened, dropping his own sword and falling to the ground as he gargled on his own blood for a moment before his health points drained and recovered him; he was looking at Smiley in fear the whole time.

Smiley only looked back with a blank stare, one that seemed to say ‘your life is worthless.’

“Next.” he said emotionlessly, as if it never happened.

The next student stepped up and began to spar with him, while the other students whispered.

“Why do they call him smiley if he never smiles?”

“I don’t know… just don’t call him by his own name.”

“Matheson?” the student replied, but whispering a little too loudly.

Even during his current fight, Smiley glared at the student who said his name; the student immediately tensed up and recoiled in fear, hoping to not be noticed. Unfortunately…

“You’re next.” Smiley pointed at the student who uttered his name before ending his fight in a few agile moves.

The student he pointed at wasn’t even in the queue of students there to spar with him, he was merely standing in the crowd and spectating.

A shiver went up his spine. He wanted to protest but knew that would only make it worse.

Over the next few minutes, the poor student was helplessly ravaged by Smiley’s wooden sword which slowly turned red.

Smiley was being used at the academy as, basically, a live-training dummy. Out of all the tasks he was made to do, this was where he could at least vent some of his frustration.

Unlike his former self, he didn’t speak very much, instead letting his sword do the talking.

Other duties included accompanying weaker mages and students in dungeons and doing paper work.

He had his flame rapier taken away from him, along with any other weapons he had, instead given a wooden sword as well as an cheap rapier for the dungeons.

Without his flame rapier, battles in dungeons were now much longer, much more gritty and tiresome, though it only served to make him a much more vicious fighter. His skills with the rapier were above his level, while secretly he practiced with mana.

Of course, he would only have given up his flame rapier after torture, however the academy simply used a girl with a type of love magic to force him to bring his sword out of his inventory and give it to him – though the girl used all her mana in the process as she contested with Smiley’s sheer will.

In all this, Smiley had not given up on escaping. While practicing with mana, he also covertly gathered information, and even knew that he was trapped in a mirror reality now.

Knowing your cage was half the battle.

– – –

Sylvia stood in her own private laboratory, prodding the exposed spine of a slowly-breathing mist wanderer; a grotesque creature with a humanoid body, though it was much taller with the black frog-like skin of an amphibian; it’s limbs were disturbingly long, it’s hands long and slender ending in skinny, needle shaped claws.

“It worked on the first human trial… now…” she tapped a nerve through a gap in the spine, and one of its hands legs spasmed for a moment, “let’s figure you out…”

– – –

Anya had needed time to recover after leaving Losla, but as she joined her first classes with the other students, she still wasn’t herself – not that anyone could tell.

Her cold, diligent and distant temperament only became more detached and elusive. One the surface, she would seem like Smiley; at least to the students at the academy.

For now, the teachers had paired her up with two other students a few levels below her. One specialized in a sort of barrier magic which reflected attacks back with twice as much power, though they couldn’t be directed directly back which sometimes caused some problems.

The other variant had a form of micro-magic which could reassemble matter near his body into different structures. He was usually coated in a metallic, crystal-like coating which seemed impervious to most damage types, but was lacking in the offensive area.

Both of them were.

So Anya joined them, making up for the damage in some easier dungeons.

It was easy for her, but with the death of her father still sinking in, she needed an easier ride, even if she didn’t realize it.

The theory classes at the academy were optional and varied, and included military strategy, mage hunter tactics, injury prevention, history of the academies, and the resistance.

Of course, there was also weapon theory, weapon arts and martial arts classes too.

A few classes specialised in other cultures and languages too, such as the dimerkin language; it was in this class where Anya learned that the dimerkin that were secretly supplying the resistance with needs in exchange for dungeon drops, similar to the adventurer association.

Out of the three dimerkin clans, only one seemed to hate humans. The other two clans viewed the variant resistance as a useful tool to keep the other humans, namely the mage hunters, ‘busy’.

To the frustration of many students, they were all required to train with using a ranged and melee weapon, to make them proficient in more forms of combat – even if they could use mana.

While the students were variants with incredible and random powers, they were taught not to reply on them, to use every tool at their disposal.

Unfortunately, not every variant was safe to keep at the academy, and were kept in different mirror realities, some of them even having their personalities changed.

Others could hardly be called humans anymore, not that the students knew of their existence.

– – –

~Losla~

Linc, Vanderby and Estra had gathered in the Snakeraven inn, discussing their next moves as they were looking for clues of Jay’s whereabouts – namely, his bed.

You would think it would be an easy task to find someone’s house in a village, but it was not the case.

Unfortunately, since he was a fugitive, most people were not willing to talk about Jay in fear that they would ‘know too much’ and be accused of hiding him, or even punished for leading people astray with false information.

The recent house raids of the mage hunters had left their mark on the Loslan residents, making their job of finding Jay even harder.

“So,” Linc spoke first, “there’s one place in town that remains under guard of the mage hunters, though it’s a butchery. I’m not sure if Jay slept there, but it’s the our best option.”

Estra nodded, “I have heard a few things about Jay. Some people thought he never slept, some thought he slept in dungeons, and some girls even said he slept at the adventurer association with the guild masters daughter.” she shook her head, “I can’t tell if they’re rumors or not, but it’s something… certainly something… The more I learn about this guy, the more mysterious he seems.”

Vanderby chuckled, “Well, I found a guy who said he’d tell us everything we need to know – as long as we party with him and enter the mist keep dungeon and grind with him for a bit.” he smiled.

“Hmh… what do you want to do?” Linc asked.

“Well how about you try and sneak into that butchery shop; Estra and I will help this guy kill a few things in the dungeon.”

Linc nodded, finishing his drink.

Vanderby added, “We’ll need to leave before the thousands of mage hunters come.”

– – –

Lieutenant Marsh was sitting in his commandeered office in the adventurer association, waiting.

He had done everything he could to catch the necromancer – even revealing that fact that he was a human, and his guess of Jay going south was also true. He had mage hunters on his heels and tracking him.

Unfortunately, Jay had entered a vast forest, so they were preparing a way for more mage hunters to begin a large-scale search operation.

As well as that, he shut down a revolt within the association itself.

In all the chaos that happened at Losla, he came out with mostly accolades – however, he wasn’t happy at all; Jay still did get away, and a mage hunter had died under his command.

He sat at his desk, gritting his teeth, wishing he did more. Wondering if he could have done more – but his moment was over.

Soon, legions of mage hunters would be here and he would be relieved of command of Losla as his own commanders would assume control.

As for any rewards or punishment, it could go either way.

– – –

~Hollow Forest~

After packing up camp, Jay had only walked for a few hours before he came across a large thicket of vines, creating a wall between the trees.

It seemed to go on for about thirty meters in either direction and made a round circle.

“Hmmm…” he squinted his eyes, seeing that there was an opening on the other side.

The vines looked eerily similar to the blood-vine bears, but were unmoving and lifeless. It seemed they had died due to lack of blood, or that the bear had made this wall to merely function as a barrier.

“Well… something good has got to be inside.” he thought, imagining the bear hoarding loot like a dragon.

“…or maybe it’s just a nest or a sleeping area” he shrugged, commanding his skeletons to open it up.

The skeletons all brandished their weapons and rushed foward, hacking away at the dead vines.

“In any case, it’s the quickest way to my hunters.”