Mia approached the gates of the Academy with her new weapon on her back. Normally it would be impossible to draw the blade if she was using just her own body but she could easily unsheathe it with her psychic powers. The weapon on her back felt like her father was hugging her constantly and she couldn't get enough of it. She was almost skipping as she went to her classroom.

“Look. My dad made it for me. Cool isn't it?” Mia said to Shishen and Narissa and they sat down to wait for their professor.

“Yeah.” Both of them said as they didn't really know how to respond. The o-katana that Mia had was just a basic weapon, not decorations or anything but Mia was beaming with happiness about the weapon so all they could do was smile and nod. Mia, for her part, managed to restrain herself and not use the thing.

Soon enough, the rest of the students began to arrive.

“Mia! The carriages are at the gates. I already got permission for them to enter when we will be leaving so I am counting on you.” Cassandra stated.

“Leave it to me. I will move the food for our trip.”

“You seem very happy.” Klaws said to Mia.

“My dad made this for me. Look!” Mia said as she showed her weapon. Klaws was impressed. Not by the weapon but by the fact that her dad had made it. Being a blacksmith was a really prestigious job from where he was from, not that he said any of it.

A few minutes later, Mirai entered the room.

“Follow me.” She said in a commanding tone. They were being guided to the principal's tower going by the direction they were going after they left the building. “I will try to be brief. First, congratulations for not fleeing. Second, I hope you are all prepared. Third, the situation there is entirely manageable by all of you alone, much more with the people already there so don't panic and do your best. You will be going to the city of Gish in the country of Lagosa. You already know your assignments so I will not say them again. We are here.”

“Hello children. First, catch.” The principal said as Mia and the others approached his tower. He tossed them some sort of badge. Mia quickly figured it was a companion badge. “Those are special so you don't need to do anything, just put them on. They will serve as a way for others to identify you too.”

“Principal. What do you mean by special?” Mathias asked.

“There is no reason for the students to use those things here so you probably don't know but it was found that normal companion badges have some really big problems. If someone like me uses a powerful spell there is a good chance that the badge wouldn't work for my allies. Your badges will also link with any other badges that other people you consider allies have, if they have any.” The principal happily explained.

Everyone quickly put on the badges. They were simple blue circles that had a beautiful shine to them.

The carriages that Cassandra had told Mia about also began to arrive and a group of men began to unload various crates in a designated area. Cassandra went all the way and brought crates filled with food that had a volume of more or less exactly what Mia could put in her pocket dimension.

With heavy expectations everyone watched as Mia poured mana into something they couldn't identify followed by the crates just vanishing.

The principal, upon seeing that Mia didn't make any mistakes with her spell, began to open a portal to their destination.

“How are you feeling? Are you nervous? I am nervous! Please tell me I am not the only one.” Narissa said to Mia and Shishen, showing some panic.

“We are going to the beach, right? I never saw the ocean.” Mia said happily, almost ignoring Narissa.

“Not a fan of sand.” Shisen added.

“We also don't have swimsuits. Do you think they sell them there?” Mia asked.

“Probably. It is a coastal town.” Shishen said. The only problem in all of this was that what Mia was thinking and what Shishen was thinking when it came to swimsuits were two different things.

“Alright, come in, we don't have all day.” Mirai said as the principal finished his spell and a portal, bigger than the ones he usually makes to go around the academy appeared.

One by one all the students went into the portal with Mia being the last one along with Onyx. She was giggling, imagining how things would go. Mirai and the Principal were taken aback by Mia's mood knowing what was like on the other side. Even the other students noticed something was different about Mia and everything came crashing down the moment the portal closed and their test officially began.

The first thing Mia and the other noticed was where they were. They were transported to a fortress that was on the edges of town, away from the sea. Someone who looked to be the commander of the place was there to greet them but he wasn't very happy about doing it. It was possible to hear the fighting going on outside and he would much prefer to be on the battlefield it seemed.

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“Welcome to our base. As you can see, we are having a hard time fighting those honorless bandits so I have to keep this brief. Fighters with me, the dungeon is that way, the food warehouse is that way, it's the big blue building with lots of guards. The mayor is in his house on top of the small hill, can't miss it. It's the only thing that survived the waves on the coast. Our command center is inside this fortress as well as the medical center. That one is technically outside but the temporary buildings are connected to the insides of here.” The man explained.

“Alright, let's drop the food at the warehouse, deal with the bandits, I will deal with the dungeon and we can go to the beach. Do you know anywhere that sell swimsuits?” Mia said and then asked, in a very cheerful tone that took everyone who heard by surprise.

A few soldiers just thought that Mia was trying to uplift the mood, the commander thought that she was a strange girl he didn't want to have to interact with and her colleagues were confused for the most part. Mia was a happy girl but they all knew that she knew how to get serious when the need arrived, like training or studying but this was too much. They could literally hear people fighting and dying not a few kilometers away and Mia was acting like they were just there to go to the beach and play.

As those thoughts began to settle inside the minds of the people who were there, a wave of bloodlust suddenly hit the fortress. All the soldiers there felt it but from the special class, only Klaws, Mia and Onyx felt it. The soldiers all drew their weapons, Klaws began to emanate some mana and his fingertips morphed into full fledged claws, Onyx also began to emanate his mana, ready for a fight. As for Mia, she began to sweat profusely, her knees began to fail her and she dropped to the ground on all fours. Before anyone could check on her, she began to puke.

The students quickly went to Mia and tried to talk with her but she wasn't hearing anything from them. She was having an existential crisis at the moment.

John! Mia! WAKE UP YOU FUCK! What was I doing? How did I lost myself so much? Breath! Breath! Breath! Mia thought to herself as she tried to calm herself.

What happened to me? I almost completely forgot who I was before. I am in the middle of a fucking war zone! Why was I thinking about playing in the fucking beach? Mia thought to herself again. This time more harshly.

How long was I in that state? I don't think it was that bad when I began classes but I can't remember when I began to just go with the flow. Not even when I started to talk with the principal on my first day I was like this. Mia thought to herself, trying to piece together what happened to her.

Mia was supposed to be someone made out of John and Mia but at some point during the last month she completely forgot about who she was in her old life. She forgot why she was doing all she was doing and just began to live like normal as just Mia. Only with the technical knowledge of her old life and nothing else. Mia was pretty sure that if she stayed like she was for a little longer she would forget about Jessica and everything related to her quest for power to find her. And that sent her into a spiral of panic. She felt very weak. The weapon on her back now felt heavy. It was something made exclusively to kill and she was parading it like a toy. The food that she was holding on was not just a distraction in the way of her fun, it was literally something required for her and the town's survival. The same went for the dungeon. It was a dangerous place that only she could deal with at the moment and if she failed, who knows how bad things would become, especially since she would most probably be dead by then.

Alright Mia, that's enough panicking. You remember who you were and who you are. We can panic and think about this situation later, when there isn't a war and two natural catastrophes on the horizon. I also don't know if I should be glad or afraid of something that can emit such killing intent.

“I am alright now. But what is this?” Mia asked as she began to get up.

“No fucking idea but if it came from the battlefield, we need to go now!” The commander said as he began to leave the room. The bloodlust was still there but it was more manageable now.

“Onyx, Cassandra! We need to go to the warehouse. I don't know if the spell was affected so we better hurry.” Mia said as she offered her hand to Cassandra on top of Onyx. Cassandra accepted it and they quickly dashed through the city towards the warehouse.

The half of the city they passed wasn't as bad as it could be but it wasn't good. Cassandra commented something about the commerce there doing the bare minimum and Mia knew from her past life's experience that the town was close to the turning point where the bad situation was going to become an emergency. There didn't seem to be people begging for food yet but people were clearly mindful of their food, trying to not waste any of it. Water wasn't going to be a problem with the various underground streams of clean water going to the ocean that the town could tap or so Cassandra explained to Mia.

Once they arrived, Cassandra quickly talked with the guards and they were let in. The place wasn't empty but it also wasn't full. The warehouse was something Mia would expect to find in a port in her old world, size wise, so a lot of things could be stored there. Cassandra guided Mia and Onyx to the location they would use. The entire warehouse had a spell that specifically preserved food for up to 5 years so the location was more to make it easier to find their goods than to properly store something. Once Mia got the word she quickly dropped the crates in the designated area.

“To think that this place was once full of emergency supplies.” Cassandra said as the crates on Mia's pocket space dropped.

“This place barely seems half full. Did they use all of it already?”

“In a way, yes. When a crisis doesn't happen often enough, emergency stuff becomes just worse and the safe place just becomes another place.”

“Wait, they sold emergency food and the space in here?”

“Yeah. At least they didn't sell everything. They still have enough to survive if everything is resolved around the time frame we have but barely.”

“...Ok. Onyx, until I come back you are to guard this place but focus more on these crates. Don't let anyone get anything from them unless Cassandra here tells you t. And you Cassandra. Find a way to have people be identifiable to Onyx as someone you sent here as I don't think you will be here all the time.”

“...No, I won't be but I will find a way.”

“Ok. I will be going to the dungeon. Take care.”

“...You too. You know that you were acting really stra...” Cassandra tried to say before Mia dashed out of the place.

Mia was still panicking inside and the only thing keeping her together was the fact that she had a mission to do. If she stopped to analyze what happened to her in depth, she didn't think she would be able to do anything for a while.

As she moved in the direction of the dungeon, something came to her mind that everyone in her class thought of. It was going to be a hell of a week.