Chapter 24

Nick woke up early in the morning because the light was shining in his eyes. He wanted to sleep some more, but the brief sensation of pain throughout his body was enough to wake him up completely. His body was in a lot of pain, in addition to what he got from Ent yesterday, overloaded his physique, and he was on the stone almost all night. Nick got out of the bag and began to warm up, today it was harder than ever. Doing a simple stretch, he whined like a grandfather with arthritis. His morning was completely unsuccessful. After 20 minutes, the others began to wake up, no one was in a good mood, even the prince. Nick watched him and saw how Brandon and some Fire Mage were helping him.

Name: Rass Cleansing Flame

Race: Man attuned to Fire Mana [Rare] Lvl 35

Class: Fire Mage [Rare] Lvl 3

Class: Not Selected

Nick knew this family, it was the family of one of the Dukes, but the boy was not the main descendant. Now Nick remembered that the Brandon family was also from a collateral family of another Duke.

Hmm, they even found a guard for him in the classroom, why am I not surprised? Most likely the king knew where his son would be thrown.

Nick lay back down in his sleeping bag and began to think about what he would do today.

Most likely today there will be a general conversation in which they will all introduce themselves and so on, how I don't want that. I already remembered 16 people, do I need more? What a piece of shit it is to talk to these kids.

Nick gathered his strength, opened his backpack and started eating what he had. In his opinion, in the magical world, at least there should be an opportunity to eat tasty food whenever you want.

How lousy.

Having finished his food, he approached the prince and asked about his plans.

"Evander, what are your plans for today?"

The prince turned his attention to him and tried to smile at him, but he failed. He looked as exhausted as everyone else.

"Dylan, today I plan to gather us all together so that everyone can introduce themselves and say a few words about themselves. We also need to find water, but overall today is a rest day."

"I understand, don't count on me today, my body hurts too much."

"Yeah, I understand, it's okay Dylan. You can go and rest."

"See you."

Nick decided to walk around their camp and catch the general atmosphere. In general, everything was peaceful and no one tried to mock anyone. But the atmosphere was not the most pleasant, almost everyone looked a little out of it, almost everyone had not slept enough and were extremely unhappy about it. Nick noticed an alchemist who was trying to carve a wooden sword from Ent's troupe, deciding that he would not bother him, he went on. Everyone was now doing their own thing, the magicians were meditating to accumulate mana. The warriors were training with weapons, and those who were in the last battle were just resting. It would have been an idyll if everyone did not know that monsters would soon descend here and they would not have the to fight them off.

The prince held a general meeting, where he made everyone introduce themselves and say a few words about themselves. Nick did not listen to him at all, he was just thinking about his own. When it was his turn, he simply said that he was a secret mage and owned the art of the ghost sword. Which of course was obvious from his status, he hid in it only the fact that his first class was unique.

"Hello everyone, I'm Floyd Traveler, my class is Apprentice of the Space Mage, I'm afraid I can't offer anything to the group, since right now the most I can do is use a spell that sees in space, but nothing more." He introduced himself modestly.

"Hmm." Nick assessed it.

Name: Floyd Traveler

Race: Man Tuned to Space Mana [Rare] Lvl 18

Class: Apprentice of the Space Mage [Rare] Lvl 1

Class: Not Selected

Nick was curious, this boy was from the main family of spatial mages of the Kingdom, their family had the rank of Marquis. Apparently their teacher definitely wanted to instill in them the protection of the group. In fact, the Apprentice of the Space Mage was really useless, but what's worst, he was a burden. Unlike the healers and the alchemist, he had nothing to offer for his protection and in such a situation, he would become the very first victim, along with that humble shadow mage. This was bad for Nick, if the hierarchy began to disintegrate within the group, this could lead to a variety of consequences. Thinking about this, Nick fell into meditation. He meditated all day and only occasionally got up to relieve himself and eat. People began to move away from him when he passed by, this was because he never took off his armor and now stank like God knows who. He did not take off his armor for reasons that were quite understandable to him, he still could not wash himself and wash his armor. He wasn't going to walk around without them, and he didn't care that they were "supposedly" in a safe zone. He didn't waste mana cleaning his armor, because he thought it was complete stupidity. Per day he restored 340 MP in a day and raised his stamina to 80%. By the time he lay down in his sleeping bag, his body felt much better.

The next day Nick woke up with the same unpleasant feeling as yesterday, tired and having done a warm-up he began to feel almost at his maximum, only with slight pain in his back and arms. The day today passed exactly as yesterday, after lunch the prince made an announcement.

"Hello everyone, yesterday and today our scouts were looking for a river and we found it, it is located 20 kilometers to the south. But there the scout saw several orcs in the skins of killed animals, I suggest that we also save up mana today, and tomorrow early in the morning go to the river."

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Nick completely agreed with the prince, they didn't have mana and decent weapons, but they needed water and more time to prepare. But not everyone agreed with him. Nathan Spelsword decided to object to the prince.

"Prince, perhaps it would be better to go now, collect water and, if necessary, kill any orcs we meet. We have the necessary number of warriors for this task."

Now Nick couldn't understand why Nathan decided to oppose the prince, after all, he also needed mana just like the mages. It really didn't add up. Nick thought that the motives in this case were unimportant, what was important was how the prince would resolve this situation. He could go the way of dictatorship, or democracy. Nick hoped for dictatorship.

"Nathan, you should understand better than anyone how humans don't have enough mana, it's best to come as prepared as possible. As long as we have time to safely gather mana, I see no reason to leave here."

Wow, is he really that good? Or is it just me? It was logical enough, and he didn't try to crush Nathan with his authority.

"Yes, Prince, you are right, but we could work more efficiently. Most warriors have full stamina and, unlike mages, we cannot store it in our staves."

Hmm, maybe he's mad that he stayed with the others and wants to prove himself. I don't see any other reasons.

"Okay, so what do you plan to do Nathan?"

"I would gather a small detachment of warriors and take a couple of mages with me to go fill the empty water canisters. If we meet Orcs along the way, we will not attack them, if they do notice us, we will of course kill them."

Nick thought it was a decent plan, except that the mages would have more mana tomorrow, meaning more opportunities. And the likelihood that no one would return wounded would be higher.

"Nathan, I still think that this shouldn't be done, we'll do as you say tomorrow."

The prince put on a serious face and ended the argument. Nathan tried to take the refusal with dignity and simply answered, not forgetting to remind the prince why everyone listened to him.

"As you say, my prince."

Nick thought it was low, of course they hadn't officially chosen a leader, but it was clear to everyone that it would be a prince, or some senior heir to the nobility, it couldn't be any other way. Deciding that all the interesting moments were over for today, he sat down to meditate, but not even an hour had passed before someone got a hard slap in the face and was very angry. Nick opened his eyes and could see how some guy was red-faced from a blow from Linella the Illusion Mage. Of course it looked funny, Nick appreciated it.

Name: Harvey Trass

Race: Human [Uncommon] Lvl 30

Class: Spear and Shield Adept [Rare] Lvl 3

Class: Not Selected

The guy stood there with a red face and was apparently recovering from such an unexpected blow. He also noticed how all the attention was focused on them. Nick saw how the gears were turning in the guy's head and how he was thinking about how to get out of this situation. Nick, like probably everyone else, thought that the guy had gone too far with Linella. The guy really tried to think of something to say, but he couldn't think of anything better than this.

"What are you doing, whore? How dare you hit someone who is higher in status than you."

Nick shook his head and laughed at the absurdity of this statement, he couldn't help it. It was just his limit. Many heard his laughter, the guy suddenly blushed even more than before and wanted to say something, but when he saw who was laughing at him, he swallowed. Many could not understand what was so funny about the guy, but Nick realized from Liam's eyes that he was also having fun. In this world, the noble class gave something similar to mental control, you could not disobey the order of the one you obeyed, without great willpower, mental resistance skills and artifacts. This meant that if the king ordered the count to do something, he would hardly be able to refuse, since he swore allegiance to him. The same thing happened when the viscount gave an order to his baron, or the servants who were in his service. But this spread much further, if you were some kind of nobleman, then this skill also affected all people, but much weaker and it could be significantly resisted. That's why in the world everyone tries to obey the one who is higher in the noble hierarchy. Of course, the reincarnators didn't care about the noble hierarchy and they didn't have much respect for this line of classes. Nick stopped laughing and decided to speak.

"Forgive me, you can continue, don't pay attention to me."

The guy decided to use all his courage and answer Nick.

"Was there anything funny about it? I am the son of a viscount and she is the daughter of a baron. Was I not right?"

Nick decided that he was tired of this and decided to explain something to him.

"I'm afraid you may be right, but as Teacher Elton said, if we try to intimidate someone with our status, we will regret it."

"I don't intimidate her with my status, I only say that she must obey me."

Nick nodded and stood up from his seat, he slowly walked towards the guy. When he was close, he activated one of his techniques. With a quick movement of his hand he hit him in the head and knocked him out.

"Now, I'll repeat this if Prince Evander doesn't want to do it. If anyone tries to do the same, I'll give them a hard time."

The people who watched this performance decided to remain silent, all the senior nobles also decided not to interfere. But Nathan Spelsword decided that he needed to stand out.

"And what right do you have to hit him?" Nathan asked and walked up to him.

Nick wasn't too arrogant and turned on [Accelerated Perception] just in case.

"I'm just showing the noble hierarchy, as he said. Is there something wrong?"

"But as you said, we are all students of the Royal Academy and have the same status. And the fact that you hit a student for no reason shows that you have no self-control."

Nick knew he was wrong in this situation, but he didn't want to be right. He didn't like the system of nobility of this world and he didn't force himself to submit to it. But he decided to get out of the conflict, if of course he was allowed to do so.

"I think you're right, next time I'll try to resolve things in a more civilized manner."

"I think you should apologize to Harvey for this." Nick turned his gaze to the unconscious boy.

Yeah, I may have miscalculated my strength, but he's a warrior, oh my God. To him need to put more stats into physique.

"No, no, I won't do that. I gave him a chance to find a flaw in his logic."

Nathan didn't like his words at all. He put his hand on the sword in its sheath and tried to use the [Aura of Intimidation]. Nick was surprised that he had received such a complex skill. But he didn't care, the aura at this level only worked if the enemy really considered you a threat. Nick was of course a little wary of Nathan, but his skill [Mental Resistance] was more than enough to brush off this threat. Nick decided that he would not respond to his threat and simply waited for further developments. Nathan looked into his eyes and saw only cold indifference to his aura, this was enough for him to turn it off.

"When we return to the academy, I will file a formal complaint against you, Dylan Ghostblade." With that, he turned and left.

Nick thought that the conflict was over and also began to leave, on the way he noticed that Lynella had taken a sexy pose and was cutely twirling her hair around her finger. Nick at that moment decided that he should be wary of her manipulations.

This bitch could have set this all up.

Nick spent the rest of the day in meditation and fell asleep just as easily as yesterday. In the morning, everyone began to prepare for the meeting with the orcs. Nick admitted to himself that he also wanted to warm up in battle.