I took my time returning to Witchaven. I visited Gittrian again. Had some talks with the cute old lady. Then I went to the capital of Hjuva and spent a week there. I had a lot of fun under the humans. After detouring for almost 2 months, I finally returned. I got summoned to the council the moment I entered the airspace of Witchaven. I guess they’re this angry

“Can you explain to us why Verruka is still at large?”

“Do you want to hear the answer you want to hear or the truth?”

“You’re not funny Ayaru! Tell us the truth!”

“Ok, due to your unwillingness to step in yourself and send a youngling like me after a Misha elder, Verruka has had the time and freedom to kill at least 2 more Misha which has made her extremely hard to track down, she possesses dark and light magic skills now. The combination of those 2 elements is notorious for being able to hide oneself and slip out of virtually any situation. I was lucky enough to encounter her twice but unless several of you mobilize or we get the help of a race that specializes in detection, we have no means to catch Verruka in a realistic timeframe. And the week you had given me months ago certainly was unrealistic.”

“The audacity! Are you suggesting that we are incompetent?”

“Well, since I am probably going to be exiled anyway, yes you are. Your self-centeredness has continued to hurt the Misha community. You halt the progress of our race; the students are dumber than ever. And now we have a kin slayer running around and you send only 1 Misha after her? Is that how unimportant this issue is? So yes, the council as a group is incompetent. You as individuals might be highly competent but you as a collective are incompetent. Now give me my exile so I can be done with this.”

“I see, the problem is worse than we though. You will not be exiled; you will receive a greater punishment. We have had a recent report that the god Zarrazax is marching his army of 2 million soldiers upon Witchaven. He had requested us to hand over our land, city and a portion of our race in exchange for his protection. We refused of course and now he is coming to take it by force. You will fight them off until we can gather an adequate force to counter them.”

My mana flared. “2 million? And a god? You are basically telling me to die!”

“You place a high importance on our race, right? Shouldn’t dying for your race be your duty? Since you seem to place a high importance on that.”

“You can’t be that unreasonable!” I looked at Remi, she was crying but nobody was paying attention to her. She also looked quite beat up. Did she fight against the council…

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“This is not unreasonable if we can sacrifice 1 Misha for the good of all then this is quite reasonable and efficient. The army will reach here in 2 days. Go show us how much you care about your race.”

I stormed off. I made sure to flip the council off and slam the door behind me. This is so unfair! Why do they always do this? Why me? I should just drop a [Meteor] on this city. I hate them! I hate this place! I went home and dove into my bed. Why does this always happen to me? All I want is to see our race do well. Was my life a mistake? Tears flowed down my cheek. I buried my face in my pillow but that didn’t stop my tears. I wish I would have never been born. What can I do? I don’t want to fight that army off alone. I can’t ask Paula and Paul… Paula would be fine but Paul wouldn’t. But if I don’t do anything they would get hit by the army before Witchaven does. I don’t have a choice, do I? The tears continued to flow. Why is my life so miserable? After I had finally accepted my exile, they just made it worse and made me fight a god and his army.

Returning to Witchaven was a mistake. I looked at a picture of me and Paula. I don’t have a choice… They beat up Remi, they had exiled Paula, and they have hurt everyone I cared for. I don’t even know where Bea is. Who knows what they did to her? As much as I want to be defiant… the people I care for will be in danger if I don’t comply. How are we supposed to fight against a god and his army of 2 million… As much as I wanted to cry and complain about how unfair this was, it was not going to make this army go away. I dried my tears and picked up some books. I created ideas of skills I could make that could help me. I scrapped all ideas 20 minutes later. This isn’t going to work. I’m fighting an army and a god. I can’t make skills that will still be in their test phase.

I cleaned up my house and got everything I needed. I looked at the house that had protected me from the elements for almost 40 years. I hope I will be able to come back here but that’s unlikely. The sun was setting and I went to the Misha academy and entered my lab. My life and possibly the lives of every Misha here is on the line. I can’t half-ass this. Instead of creating new skills I will improve all the skills I already have. I used [Time Dilation]. It will stretch the 1 day I have now to 2 days. It’s not much but it’s better than nothing. I started with my hat. It would play a crucial role because it could give me extra chances at life. I first made it extra stylish. If I were to die, I want to die at my most beautiful. The council mentioned Zarrazax. It is risky but I will disable all the elements I probably won’t be using. I reroute the mana runes to empower all my water, spatiotemporal, and charm magic. In this state, I would be even unable to use fire or wind magic. It’s not a big deal because these elements aren’t a great idea when fighting a god of fire. I managed to strengthen my [Azure Aura]. I deepened the connection with my hat and the mana it had available increased by 40%. Not as big as its last increase but it was better than nothing.

A day had passed and I hadn’t touched my skills yet. I wished that I had made my [Time Dilation] a bit more efficient. I started improving all the skills that had ‘Azure’ in them. I feel the most comfortable with them and they are my strongest skills. I got to 3 water skills after improving my ‘Azure’ skills, when time ran out. I have 5 hours to sleep and prepare to run into my inevitable death. I sighed. Do I say goodbye to Remi and Paula? They would tell me to run, but what about all the other Misha here? They are stupid but not stupid enough to deserve to die. Am I a softie for protecting those that hate me?