"Wow, Leo's strong, how about you Odin, you got to get stronger if you want to match their level." Selene somehow got the idea that Odin was weak since all she saw whenever a sitiation ocurrer was him lazing about.
He always commanded Leo to do the fighting, scavenging, scouting and anything else that needed effort while he remained at the front of the carriage doing nothing. This made Odin frown and make the other members uniformly break out into a small smile.
"Fine, I shall battle alone should the need arise next time." Odin finally looked battle ready after having his strength insulted by a little girl.
Unfortunately, they made the rest of the trip pretty much untouched which only made Odin close his eyes in silent indifference while Selene went to console him, believing him to be frustrated.
"You should be happy, imagine losing to bandits in front of your members. Do not worry though, everything's alright, you can always stay in my retinue if things get too difficult for you in the future."
Leo stopped the carriage and allowed for the other soldiers to take a quick break while he made his way to Odin and Selene.
"We have arrived near the entrance of the school miss. All you need to do is go into that building and they will show you to your dorm. Then your school life will begin, ahaha, how exciting!" Leo exclaimed as he instructed Selene on her next few steps.
"Aww, I'll miss you guys, your much more fun than the normal bodyguards my father assigned me when I was smaller. Hey Odin? Could you bring me into the school?" Selene asked Odin for this last request to which he hesitantly complied to.
They walked in but the kids near the entrance were immediately cowering and running away after seeing the towering Odin while the teachers looked on guard.
The clerks feared this intimidating man and tried to be as friendly as possible as they saw him make his way over to their location.
"H-H-Hello, how may we be of assssistance?" One of the Clerks tremblingly tried forcing his voice to come out after seeing the man covered in huge black armor, however he almost cried aloud when he saw the massive spear loosely held at the side of the imposing man.
"She's here for registration." Odin slowly spoke.
"T-T-That was two weeks ago?"
"She had family matters."
"I, I see, however to sign up and be admissioned, you must see the headmaster and see what he can do or talk to one of the vice principals."
"Call one of them here." Odin instructed.
"How insolent! They deserve respect and you will address them by their title and when you need something of others, you go to them. thats common sense!" A teacher who overheard this commotion stopped what he was doing and berated Odin for such blatant disrespect.
"Leo, go forth." Odin closed his eyes and let his right hand man do the rest as he was too lazy to raise his hand in an academy.
"Sir, the lady Selene wishes to meet the headmaster and her status isn't a lowly one, to disregard both her and our commander's order, none have lived yet to speak of it." Leo was emphasizing both their status's but really just meant Odin's.
"Enough, I've heard everything, allow the girl to enter her class, as for the two men, come to my office for a quick moment." An ephemeral voice appeared that sounded as of it came from everywhere which put Leo in his combat stance. After that order, an attendant appeared and led the way for Selene to make her way to her class. Selene followed along while waving goodbye to both Leo and Odin, feeling excited to finally start school. Leo waved back with a smile while Odin however, walked towards the stairs leading upwards and soon disappeared. Leo rushed after him and saw his shadow enter the principal's office so he too hurriedly accompanied his leader. There awaiting them was a old man sipping tea behind his desk. His murky white eyes kept close watch on both of them, looking as if he was learning something very surprising as he focused on them for a long while. He then closed his eyes and leaned back into his chair while savoring his cup of tea.
"You are strong." The old man spoke three words and went back to tea, satisfied with his result's from studying the pair.
Odin gave a once over as well and a bluish pressure enveloped the room, emanating from him. A gentle gold radiance burst out from the old man in response and pretty soon everything went back to normal, a quiet standoff.
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"Since you have nothing left here, please leave the premises and stay away from an educational environment like this one in the future." The old man gave a stern warning.
"You are a worthy opponent, a shame your past your prime or I could have gotten excited, no matter. This school is uninteresting and I see no need to extend my stay. Just make sure the girl is out of harm's way or regardless of the circumstances, the offending party will be obliterated. Heed my warning old man. Leo, we can see ourselves out." Odin turned and left, but even Leo saw the thirst for battle linger in Odin's normally calm and tired green eyes. As they exited, Odin spoke while looking at the bright blue sky.
"Liandry is quite interesting, but these missions have been boring me the last few months and I am tired of traveling. We will move back to Authmus, only the battlefield is where I can unleash my strength with no repercussions. Hopefully the headmaster and my former mentor will appear when war breaks out in the future."
***
Two weeks later.
The Duke was leaning on a tree while observing the child before him. Darkness and evil was emanating all around Zephyr every so often. The black book would then take corporeal form and a cleansing purple aura would soothe the evil away, only the aura of darkness remained, with the evil being erasee.
That was what confused Duke Reinhardt for he thought the source of evil was the black book, not that it was actually a cure of some sorts.
Meanwhile inside Zephyr's mind. A warp issued and Zephyr appeared in front of an enlarged book and was dumbfounded from what he saw.
There were a couple items missing and the book looked heavier and majestic, but most surprisingly of all were that two whole pages were colored in with a drawing despite only having a couple words on them.
Zephyr sort of understood the first one, the 'Tyrants Armor'' which is most likely due to the fusion between Shelly's shell technique and the mutation of the black book. What confused Zephyr was that now that he was finally able to remotely open the book, the new item still seemed eternally dormant, only the name was visible, 'The Conqueror's Great Axe'.
A massive image of a black double headed Axe with the head being three times the length of the weapon. It looked absurd but extremely scary, after focusing more energy into the page, details flew out that shook Zephyr speechless.
"A massive Axe that decimated the nations around the great conqueror, from east to west, none are spared during combat. Only a single blow is needed to annihilate all opposition."
The emblem of the Axe and of the armor flew into his wrist and chest respectively. They had become dark engravings in the silhouette of the armor and Axe and had energy swirling around the two areas constantly out of sync.
After that Zephyr was forced out of that domain and what he saw when he opened his eyes was his grandfather. His grandpa's face was right in front of him with his eyes widened like a bell shaking him back and forth, trying to awaken him.
"I'm up, I'm up!" Zephyr screamed, trying to indicate he was already awake.
Duke Reinhardt collected himself with a cough and set him down.
"Now that you look fine and dandy, I will need you to enter deeper into the forest." The Duke stated with a harrumph.
"Isn't that suicide gramps? I thought demons and beasts were walking and roaming around there by the thousands, each with the ability to squash me with one hand." Zephyr trembled in fear from the revelation of the impossible task.
"I know, but don't worry, this time I will accompany you until we get to our destination, you will be plenty safe on the journey." Duke Reinhardt slapped his shoulder and consoled while roaring with laughter.
They both then got up and started moving along the path and hastily rushed forward for a few kilometers when the Duke grabbed Zephyr and hid by a couple bushes and motioned to keep his silence.
Zephyr was confused at first but then a horrendous aura rushed out and overwhelmed the entire area with the scent of blood. A massive person covered in brownish gold armor was standing in front of what looked to be a gate covered by various trees and simply massive.
What shook Zephyr was that the man was able to sense their presence despite the far distance between then.
The man had turned from the gate and had faced the direction they were in with his aura skyrocketing, as if preparing for battle. Zephyr was alarmed since he believed the approximate distamce was about fifty meters apart between them and all the bushes and flourishing trees helped with their cover and the only reason Zephyr saw the man was due to honing in on that bloodlust and being prepared.
Despite that, all of those factors in helping them hide was useless when compared with this man's perception. Through the entire way the Duke was able to bypass most monsters they saw and this was the first time they were caught without much effort. The Duke sighed and got up and faced the mysterious man.
"Are you guarding that place?" The Duke lightly spoke.
"Humans begone, this is not where the likes of you should be." The man's voice rumbled and was akin to thunder claps. After taking a closer look Zephyr noticed something abnormal. The man had horns coming out of the top of his forehead and fangs on both sides of his mouth. He was standing about 210 centimeters tall and was simply humongous and was bulky too. His grizzly brown hair covered most of the horns but they were still intimidating nonetheless.
"I'm gonna have to apologize but my boy needs it and the opportunity to challenge it shouldn't be open to you alone." the Duke calmly spoke, but a greenish aura emanated from him, seemingly also preparing for battle."
"Hmph, very well, but boy, when you enter there will be another person in there also going through the trials, he better be safe or I will assume a fall out occurred and will kill you. See to it the young master is safe." The man gave a short but terrifying speech and then resumed his previous silence.