“We’re under attack.”

The world, which had slowed to a crawl, suddenly snapped back to normal speed as I whipped around, facing Harris.

“You need to get Mona out of here. Now.”

Harris instantly nodded, drawing two daggers from where I had no idea.

“Wh-what’s going on?”

I knelt, looking Mona directly in the eye.

“Listen and listen well. Whatever is happening, it’s not good, and I can guess that it won’t just blow over. You need to get somewhere safe because things aren’t looking great.”

“I can take care of myself.” She said, crossing her arms.

“No, there is a large difference between class experience and the real world. We have no idea what is happening, so you need to be taken somewhere safe, alright?”

Mona glanced to the side, but I couldn’t let her try to argue. Thinking quickly, I gently but firmly grabbed her shoulders.

“Listen to me. You’re important; that’s the reality. But more than that, you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. Treat people with fairness, kindness, and sternness when needed. Case in point, right now. I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. Follow Harris, get somewhere safe, and hunker down.”

“What about you?” Mona questioned, staring at me with eyes filled with worry, reminding me that she was very much still a child.”

“I’m going to see what happened.”

“But isn’t that dangerous!?”

I smiled at the girl, flexing my fingers for a good show. “Well, Zero never ran away before.”

Which was only technically true. If it was the best option, I would have escaped a bad situation in a heartbeat. It’s just running away never had been the best option, not when others would be put in harm’s way.

“Harris, you know a safe place to bring her?”

“Yes.” Was all Harris said before gently but forcefully turning Mona away from the sight of the rising column of smoke. “It’s time to go.”

Nodding with apparent effort, Harris began to lead Mona away, slipping through the crowds and using the confusion as the perfect chance to get her away and somewhere safe.

Now what?

I’d put on a good show, but the reality was I was in the dark. Harris had guessed this was an attack, but by who or what?

“Wish I had more to work with,” I muttered, but I was already taking off at a fast jog. The academy wasn’t far away, and as much as I wanted to sprint there at full speed, I needed to collect at least some of my thoughts before barging into who knew what.

Think Rook, think.

It took only a few moments before I began to see the beginnings of a hypothesis forming.

The academy is a gold mine of potential hostages. Kids of important figures everywhere.

I learned that security that you’d imagine would be quite tight around important figures could be surprisingly lax, relying on the impression of security more than actual security measures. When I’d returned to Akadia, I’d managed to slip back into the lodge with little hassle, and the security around the academy wasn’t much better.

So whose behind it?

Too many questions, too few answers. At the very least, I had the beginning of a vision of what was going down.

Leading to my quick jog turning into an all-out dash.

The kids are in danger.

That much had been evident from the beginning. Still, there was a difference between them being in the crossfire and being the targets themselves.

Faster.

Dashing around a street corner, the academy came into view, and without meaning to, I skid to a stop, staring in horror.

The building was on fire, smoke billowing out. Besides that, around the academy, bodies were strewn about. The guards that had been on campus were already dead.

Oh no, no, no.

I began running with renewed vigor, crossing the plaza near the academy in seconds, people milling about in confusion, pointing, hollering, and not being useful whatsoever.

Hurry.

Before I could reach the academy, something appeared beside me, running in stride with me.

“Pantera?”

I glanced down at the still-running cat as she looked up at me.

I felt a flash of emotion from the demon cat for a moment, breaching the divide between our minds.

Danger.

“Good, we’re on the same page,” I called out as we ran, never questioning how she’d found her way out of the room and located me.

Against a significant threat, the shadow blossom would be unlikely to provide much aid. However, given that she was still a reasonably high-ranked monster, she could fend for herself.

Most importantly, I’d come to understand she was intelligent enough to be given commands and follow them through, working separately from me.

Nearing the burning academy, the heat began to rebuff me. Still, a muttered word protected me from the growing heat, an imperceptibly thin veil of water shielding me.

“Here we go,” I muttered before I charged through the nearby doors where two guards lay dead next to the door. Inside, my eyes adjusted instantly; the lights that kept the academy well-lit had been knocked out. Glancing about, my fears were already being confirmed.

Children, teenagers, dead. Their bodies were strewn through the halls and the classrooms. Not just the kids but the teachers had been butchered as well. As I passed one of the classrooms, I peeked in, noticing the sign proclaiming the classroom as a science class. Peering in, my gut sank.

As with every other room, those inside had been butchered, lambs to the slaughter. There was a story to the carnage, though. One body stood out because it was lying on the ground before the butchered teenagers as if attempting to put themselves first.

The assaulters appeared, and with no way to protect them, she put herself in harm’s way, trying to buy them as much time as they could.

Her attackers had clearly taken some time to revel in the act, the teacher had had her arms removed at the shoulders, and her legs had been chopped off beneath the knees. Had I not been jaded and calloused to the brutality of violence and death, examining her head would have likely elicited an involuntary gag to escape from me.

Fallen, the woman had been stabbed through the middle of her face before being stomped on. Her face was barely recognizable, reduced to a mash of pulverized flesh.

But recognize her, I did.

I’m sorry, Zet.

I hadn’t known her well, and she’d been rude in nearly all our encounters, but the woman hadn’t deserved to be butchered and carved up like some festive fruit.

Steeling my heart, I turned around, jogging out from the room.

“Pantera,” I muttered, holding on to the feeling of cold steel gripping my heart. “Go search some of the other rooms. If you find any survivors, try to lead them out of here. If you see any bad guys, get out of here. Okay?”

The shadow blossom inclined her head before slipping through the darkness. I wasn’t worried for her safety; few monsters could walk the shadows as silently and discretely as a shadow blossom.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Keep going. Save who you can.

I tried to keep those words strong in my mind as I ran through the halls, searching classrooms, but when all I found was further death and destruction, my hope continued to crumble.

Why?

I’d initially assumed this attack was about taking hostages, but this much of a massacre didn’t fit with those goals. There was more than what met the eye.

You can play detective later.

I ran past where the fire was raging especially hard, and with a quick flick of my wrist, I doused the worst of the flames. I didn’t have the mana to put out all the fires, but at least I could slow or exhaust the fire where it proved tactical.

Plus, I can’t expend too much mana, either.

I had no idea who was behind the violence or how powerful they were. They were clearly skilled to some degree; they’d made short work of the guards, some capable of magic themselves.

Probably more than one team, or they work in small groups or pairs.

I had to be cautious, but at the same time, caution would only cost more lives.

Faster.

I could have tried to use my mana sense to locate anyone alive. Still, with all the fire, it would be hard to detect anything through the raging inferno and the violent torrents of mana swirling in the metaphysical shadows of the flames.

Not to mention all the death.

While there was no such thing as ‘death’ mana, or ‘life’ mana for that matter, there was a sort of power derived from life and death. Take a forest filled with bountiful vegetation and forest critters; the mana in such places would be especially thick, radiating out from each living thing like magical body heat.

Death, meanwhile, was highly inefficient in producing mana, but what it was was fast. Upon death, all that energy contained within a living thing would quickly extinguish or evaporate into the ether, only a fraction of that vital essence ever becoming tangible mana with which to be utilized.

But kill enough things, and even if only a fraction of their ‘mana’ value was created, it would still hang around like a choking smog. It was unpleasant to sense; violent deaths were better at releasing vital energy as mana, their final moments of agony and terror felt from the mana like haunting echos.

That was what I was worried about. The mana resulting from the fire would be hard to sense much through, that much was obvious, but it didn’t compare to the real issue of the agonized mana. So many violent deaths, deaths in the depths of desperate fear, could send me reeling, wreaking havoc on my mind, especially given how personally close I was to the matter at hand.

Damnit.

Gritting my death, I slammed my shoulder into a doorway that had partially collapsed, pushing through into the room beyond.

For the first time since I’d entered the school, I saw a sight different from the brutal slaughter of the rest of the rooms.

Sure, dead bodies littered the room, but two of the bodies were clearly not children or staff. Not just that, they were hanging from spear-like branches that had erupted from the ground beneath them.

What the hell happened here?

I glanced around the room as I tried to make sense of it until a hint of motion, a stirring toward the back of the room, caught my attention from beneath a partially collapsed shelf.

“-fessor?”

The voice came out slow and strained as if the speaker was barely holding on.

No.

My blood felt cold as ice.

No. No. No.

I rushed over, tossing aside the shelf as if it weighed nothing from atop a boy who’d been partially buried and pinned against the wall.

No. No. No.

His usually brilliantly blonde hair was stained with ash and dust, mixed in with blood that dyed his hair.

No.

His nose was broken, and blood had dried as it rolled down his face.

No.

His brilliant, shining white teeth had been shattered, or at least several had, a violent conflict at the source.

No.

He was missing his right arm, everything beneath the elbow hacked off by a bladed instrument.

No.

And to top it all off was the gaping hole where his abdomen used to be.

“Professor… you…came… knew…you…would.”

“Don’t speak, Elios.” I dropped to my knees, trying to find ways to staunch the blood flow, but my eyes kept drifting toward the hole in his body like a cannonball had ripped through him.

He shouldn’t even be alive.

The logical part of my mind pointed the obvious out. His spinal cord hadn’t been spared, and he was missing too many vital organs. Death should have been instant. The only way he could have lived was-

“Oh, oh no, Elios.” I groaned, the reality of what had happened clear. “You didn’t.”

“Sorry.” The boy quietly uttered. “Couldn’t… do…nothing.”

“You idiot,” I yelled, burning tears beginning to trickle down my face. “I told you not to.”

The boy said nothing for a while, fear gripping me that he’d already slipped away into nothingness, but I heard his voice again before I could stand.

“Did…did I do good?”

No longer thinking of myself, I opened my mana sense wide, pain blinding me to the dark smog of post-death echoes lingering within the mana around us. All I could fixate on was the brilliant spark before me, seconds away from winking out, precisely as I’d expected to see.

No saving him.

Gently, as gently as I could, I lifted his hand, holding it within my own like I was praising him for winning a grand victory and not comforting him in his final moments.

“You did. You’ve made me proud,”

The boy smiled faintly.

And then he was gone. The spark that made Elios Ecurps a living, breathing person with hopes, dreams, and aspirations was gone.

He was dead.

“Damnit!” I yelled out, fire and ice doing a dance for control over my heart.

When his class had been attacked, Elios had done the only thing he could think of. He’d been practicing forcefully pushing mana about in ways his body wasn’t used to, so where most wouldn’t have been possible of what he’d done, Elios had burst his own mana core and, for a short while had gained the strength needed to kill two of the attackers. It hadn’t been without severe injuries, but it hadn’t mattered. He’d consigned himself to death by bursting his mana core, regardless if he’d come out physically unscathed. Once the surge of power gained from bursting his core passed, it would whisk away all the mana from him and, with it, his very life force.

I looked up at the branches spearing the two attackers. A chuckle began to escape me, a laughter born of anger, helplessness, and pride.

Elios had died, but he’d died the hero he was always meant to be.

“Wood magic even.”

Wood magic was, as far as I knew, some form of deviant magic. He’d managed to draw upon magic few knew existed and even fewer could ever hope to see.

He’d made me proud.

If only it hadn’t cost him his life.

I’ll make them pay.

No longer concerned with my own well-being and galvanized by loss, I swept the area with my mana sense, the mana resulting from the burning fires barely a distraction as I swiftly located several sources of mana that must have been the attackers.

In a healthy state of mind, the echoes of agonized death swirling through me as I opened my mana sight would have left me a paralyzed mess on the ground, but I was too far gone, rage insulating my mind from the worst.

Filled with determination, I strode through the halls before finally ripping open a door.

My door. In my destroyed classroom, twelve people were strewn about in different positions, some standing, others sitting, lounging like the burning building was of no concern.

One man was seated at my desk, his bloody boots besmirching my pride as a teacher, dripping viscera where I’d spent many hours grading papers.

“Get those damned things off my desk,” I said, my voice ice cold.

“Ahh, if it isn’t Professor Koor, we’ve been waiting for you. Or perhaps I should go by Zero? Or no, maybe Wolf is better? Or do we go with the original Rook Baster?”

“This is the guy?” A woman leaning against a wall to the man’s right called out. “I mean, sure, he’s quite the eye candy, but he doesn’t exactly look the type to be a cold-blooded killer and former adventurer.”

“No, that’s him, alright.” The man said as he stood up. “It’s been a while, Wolf.”

I was about to respond with the man’s name before I stopped.

“Yes, yeah. It has.” I finally resorted to saying instead.

“Hah, you couldn’t even take the time to remember my name, could you? Too busy fucking our lady.” He spat out. “Gaulfrey. Aldric Gaulfrey, head of security within the Gaulfrey Family.”

While I hadn’t recalled his name, I had recalled his face. He’d been responsible for protecting the Gaulfrey family, one of the Don clans within Songhold. Specifically, the same family whose daughter I’d murdered before abandoning the city.

“What are you doing here?” I questioned, my rage tempered momentarily by my need to know what was happening.

“Oh, that’s simple. After you fled Songhold and we discovered you’d killed Maeya, we wanted nothing more than to return the favor. Still, alas, you’d up and vanished. That aside, it wasn’t as if we were so foolish as to believe we could ordinarily beat you in open combat. So, we stewed in anger; you should have seen the family head, oh how he wishes to mount your head above the fireplace. Months passed until we caught wind of a certain special duel here. Suspicious, we began to ask around, when through our questioning, we attracted the attention of a certain… benefactor.”

I clenched and unclenched my fist, rage colliding with sudden guilt as I was told they were here because of me.

“Our benefactor had a simple request and offer. They could give us the information regarding you, your whereabouts, and the confirmation we sought. In return, we would lead a raid against this posh little academy.”

It’s me they want, but someone else was planning an attack here from the beginning.

The guilt didn’t dissipate so much as it allowed itself to be once more consumed by my rage. This attack would have come one way or another; they’d simply been the tools of another.

“The only stipulation was that we had to remove your body after killing you, which is more than suitable for us, given your head is wanted.”

“So you decided to murder hundreds of innocents, that it was fine?” I spat out; my words were barbed with hate.

“Hah.” The man snorted. “We’ve lost everything already. You killed our next clan head and cost us almost everything. After you tipped off the rigging of the champion’s circuit, the blame fell upon us, and suddenly, we became the target of quite a few investigations. One thing led to another, and we were sacked of everything. We were forced to sell ourselves off like damn whores, the other clans and families who’d once treated us with respect saw us as dogs and mercenaries. All that was left for us, to those who remained loyal, was to take your head.”

“You’re a damned fanatic and a moron to go that far.” I spat out before looking around at the rest of the crew. “All of you. You’d go that far for such a stupid reason?”

“It doesn’t matter what you think, vagrant. All that matters is we take your head. With that proof of our success, we will rebuild ourselves. We were offered quite a generous position of power. It won’t be the same, none of it will be, but from the ashes of this dead country, we will be reborn as winners, survivors.”

Dead country?

“Well, you’re still damned fools,” I said, eyeing them all. “You talk a big game, but do you really think you’re prepared to face me? Considering what you’ve learned, you should know that a lot like you all has no chance.”

I’d already evaluated the group, and while on average they were quite powerful, each member of their little ‘task force’ roughly the equivalent in terms of mana capacity as high silver or low gold mages, I’d proven in the Honos Festum that I had the strength to defeat a nizeium ranked adventurers. Perhaps if they’d gotten the jump on me, they would have had a shot. Still, they’d decided to wait in my classroom like melodramatic actors rather than would-be assassins.

“Say what you will, but it’s your head we’ll be taking with you.” The man grunted, cracking his knuckles.

“Yeah, you’ve said that enough. Try me.” I said as a veil of icy calm masked my face. “After all, I need something to let out all this unyielding rage on.”

“Just what I like to hear.” Aldric roared with laughter before his face contorted in ugly hate. “Kill him.”