Exiting the dormitories the group didn’t really know where to go since they didn’t have a map yet, hence, Villin decided to ask a few passing students the direction toward the mailroom.

The students looked at them weirdly and upon seeing they only had the school’s crest on their robes they pointed them in the general direction.

Sadly, the mailroom was at the complete opposite side of the grade from the dormitories. It took the group about an hour before they finally reached there “Seems like we really will be needing a chest, walking all this way for every meal would take up way too much time.”

Everyone agreed with Villin as they arrived at the wooden door that had a sign on it that read ‘Mail Room’.

Without any further ado, Villin opened the door and walked in. They were now standing in a massive hall, the ceiling was over five meters high and the room itself was about a hundred meters long and ten meters wide. Spread across the room were approximately five-hundred wooden crates with the contents for all to see. Many of the crates had meals in them, other than this Villin could see notes laying in some of the crates.

Villin felt odd as he could easily read many of the notes as he walked past the crates. Villin crouched down inspecting the ground around one of the crates to see if there were any magic arrays stopping thieves but couldn’t find anything. After about ten seconds of inspecting the ground, he heard a voice addressing them.

“HEY! What are you doing down there! Not trying to steal I hope!” A young magus with a second grade’s robe walked toward them with his wand in hand. On his robe, just below The Academy’s crest was another crest depicting a shield and a lion.

“We were just looking around.” Villin reassured, “We just joined today so I was wondering how to identify which crate belongs to which student.”

The guarding student looked at them in surprise before seemingly realizing something and tightening the grip on his wand, something that didn’t go unnoticed by the group.

“Joined today eh. The only person I heard was allowed to transfer in the fifth month is the Decorus princess, that must be one of you two then I presume.” he said as he looked at Amelia and Kayley, “Didn’t know you were allowed to bring a bunch of goons with you, but then again, nobody was really expecting our little princess to play fair anyway.”

Villin detected quite a bit of contempt in his voice, his tone also wasn’t low and a few other students came closer, Villin saw most of them had the same crest as the person that confronted them and they seemed ready to grab his wand at any time.

The right course of action wasn’t immediately clear to Villin. On one side the person before them was clearly hostile toward them but on the other hand, the reason was also quite understandable. People didn’t know of their arrival and the fact that the daughter of Decorus’s headmaster joined the school as a transfer student wasn’t a secret.

As for their dislike of Decorus, Villin completely understood it, after all, Decorus had attacked half the school just a few months ago and a large number of students had died.

“We aren’t from Decorus, we’re survivors of the first grade. Broke through the attackers and managed to escape to the mortal world, a wandering magus found us and brought us to the tournament where we reconnected with The Academy.” Villin said honestly as he raised his hands, clearly not looking for a fight.

This wasn’t the time or place, and Villin didn’t see these people as opponents either, they were all students at the same school.

The student that seemed to be looking for trouble hesitated for a bit. Villin said his words with confidence and he was prone to believe him.

But just as he began lowering his wand another student that had approached spoke up “Escaped from the first grade? Really now? You know what I heard, I heard there were traitors in the first grade, they stabbed their fellow students in the back and were allowed to leave safely. I’m guessing these people just didn’t have talent in transfiguration and after accomplishing little in three months they wanted back into The Academy!”

The student who said this had blonde hair and blue eyes, he looked arrogant and was wearing a crest depicting an eagle soaring into the sky.

To Villin it was obvious this student was just trying to stir up trouble, and even though a few others also got this impression, most of them were already on edge and distrustful of the group.

Villin cursed inwardly as he saw some of the people with the crest depicting a shield and a lion reach for their wands. Even though the initial person who confronted them still seemed a little conflicted, some of his teammates weren’t anymore. They all heard of the traitors and had formed a deep resentment against them.

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The student that wanted to stir up trouble used a very effective trick to do so. Instead of pushing on claiming they were with the Decorus princess, he gave them another, equally bad identity. This was enough to have a few of the students get enraged enough to want to attack, and from there, things could only go downhill.

Villin swallowed once when he saw the number of students in the room, even though they were originally spread out, the students that belonged to the first faction as the guy that was the first to question them, had now all approached within ten meters of them. There were a total of ten of them. As for other spectators, including the troublemaker, there were five looking at the scene.

Villin already saw the troublemaker preparing to retreat and he instantly understood his character, they would run away as soon as he achieved his goal. As for why he wanted to initiate a fight, Villin wasn’t sure but he didn’t have much time to think about it.

Half a second after a few of the students were reaching for their wands, Villin and his group moved as if one. Amelia and Kayley jumped to the right at the same time, grabbing their wands in the process. Meanwhile, Villin and Rein jumped toward the left also grabbing their wands.

The other students with the shield and lion crest, lost their hesitation as they also grabbed their wands. But still, the first to fire off their spells were the two students who were baited in by the troublemaker. Both of them used a saved spell that looked like a green streak. One of them was aiming for Amelia previously but was caught off-guard by the group’s sudden movement, causing the spell to miss and hit the wall, a small explosion happened as the brick that was hit exploded into pieces.

The second student that was baited by the troublemaker took a little longer to send out his spell, he managed to react to the movement and sent the green streak right at Villin.

Not pressured that much by a single spell, Villin simply cast Reverto, extending his wand. The green streak hit the shield and paused for a moment, Villin was very surprised by the amount of magical energy required to halt the spell but still managed to send it back.

Seeing his own spell come back toward them the brown-haired boy didn’t panic as he cast his own defensive spell “Mogth” no visible effect happened but when the spell got within half a meter from the boy it disappeared.

Now, the reason the group split up became apparent. The enemies were grouped up quite closely and as they tried to aim toward their respective targets they got in each other’s way. Even though this only bought the group a few seconds it was enough to properly position themselves how they wanted. Villin halted as Rein kept running and on the opposite side the same thing happened with Amelia and Kayley. After a few seconds, they surrounded the group four times their own numbers.

Luckily most of the spectators didn’t pull their wands as they held their hands up, not wanting to be caught in the crossfire, only two of the spectators joined the fight. As for the troublemaker, he was already standing away from the group when he spoke and started running away as soon as Villin and his group moved, he got out of the room in no time.

After these two seconds of relative calm, both groups quickly began casting their spells. Villin noticed his enemies were quite well-coordinated, he hoped they would just each go for their own opponent, leaving their allies’ backs exposed but this wasn’t the case. The ten students with the same crest quickly moved together, forming a small circle facing outward, after a moment they also pulled the two spectators that decided to join in with them and the twelve people were all watching each other’s backs, they weren’t underestimating their enemies.

Villin cursed once again when he saw this, the pressure was high as he was facing three opponents at once but he could still manage, he was more worried about Rein at this time.

Rein, standing quite far to his left, was indeed in trouble. Compared to the other three he wasn’t a genius at all when it came to combat, he could only learn spells at a regular pace which was way slower compared to the rest of the group, As for the good abilities he did have, they weren’t of much use right now.

Seeing two more spells head for him, Villin barely managed to dodge to the left, he didn’t have enough confidence in his defensive spells to take a spell head-on like the others. At least the bit of sparring he did with the others improved his battle sense.

After twenty seconds passed, Rein felt completely exhausted. Both groups still had all of their members. Villin and Amelia had both managed to wound one of their enemies but didn’t manage to take any out of the fight. Meanwhile, he had been dodging, only able to send a spell back every now and then. His enemies could tell his defensive spells were only barely able to take a hit and started attacking at a higher frequency.

Rein had to do something to stop it now, and suddenly he had an idea as he thought of his saved spells. One of the spells he ha- ARGH!

Rein got sent back a meter as a spell managed to hit his shoulder straight on causing a bloody hole to appear. He barely managed to hold on to his wand as he quickly grabbed it with his other hand, this would further decrease the speed of casting.

Without allowing himself to think much more, he yelled out “VINEA!”

His enemies thought it was just the verbal cast for the spell he cast at that time but his allies knew better. Vinea Tenura was one of the spells they all knew and one they all decided to use as one of the saved spells due to its versatility.

It could generally be used as a last resort to block the enemy’s path or try to ensnare them, this would at least buy some time.

Hearing Rein yell out this word the others realized he was in trouble, and as if one, four people used one of their saved spells at the same time.

Suddenly, the ground underneath the feet of their enemies started to tremble wildly.