Nocturnio (24.12.9978 AS)

Laura was charging through the halls of the Guardian Academy, not paying attention to anyone, not even to Sabrina who tried to catch her like usual could hold her back. She didn’t look good, under both her eyes there were two big shadows that almost looked like someone had punched her in the face.

Yesterday, after she had come home late from visiting the people that were supposed to be her grandparents. She had gone straight to her room without saying a word to her mother and had started thinking about their words. Thanks to these words she wasn’t able to sleep all night long. All she could think of, was on how to get stronger, how to prove them wrong with her actions.

She didn’t like the conclusion she had come to; the only person she knew could help her was her one and only rival: Tristan. Yeah, the only one who could be moved to help her was the guy, who never trained and did anything to become strong, but still always got the best out of her. Yeah, that person that was the reason for most of her frustrations: Tristan.

Yeah, she couldn’t think of no one else that would be willing to help her with her training, without asking questions. She knew he was too nice to decline a request from his best friend, what made Laura feel even worse. She hated herself for taking advantage of him like this.

Laura knew he had to have a similar background as her, she wasn’t so stupid to think, Nana was his grandmother, he lived with after the death of his parents like Dolores and had told her. Thinking about the ways they had met in front of the Obscurati’s ‘Portal Main Station’ she was sure he had to be the bastard of some clan leader.

Just thinking about it, she couldn’t help but feel bad, since they were supposed to stay strong together as a team in the same boat. And not use each other like she was about to do, but she had no choice, she had to get stronger and that fast.

‘We’ll give you five years, five years to train as hard as you can and if you manage to beat me after five years, then we’ll help you. Yeah, our whole clan will support your ambitions of become the leader of the main family...’ Laura recalled her grandfather’s words.

‘… But if you were to fail… You’ll have to accept our training and inherit the clan…’ Just remembering these words made Laura feel sick. The deal that she had negotiated with was like a double-edged sword, she could gain a lot of support in her cause, but it could also mean the end of her ambitions.

That’s why she needed to get stronger no matter what, as far as she knew her grandfather was on Low King Level, which was quite a lot stronger than her actual skill level of Low Super Devil. This meant he was at least 1’000’000’000’000’000 times stronger than her.

After taking a sharp turn, she finally reached the corridor where Tristan’s class room was. Although, they were classmates and shared most of their classes with one another, today they had all their elective courses on the same day.

This meant she wouldn’t see Tristan today, unless they walked together from home, but today Tristan had left his house early in the morning to go check on how Ai was doing.

Laura entered the crowded classroom, filled with students eager to learn different type of ranged spells. For some reason Tristan had chosen against his talents in hand to hand combat, and had booked all courses he could with subjects typical for magic casters.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Tristan was sitting between Ernesti and Abigail chatting merrily with them, before the lesson started. Laura walked up to Tristan. “Hi, do you mind if I lend him out for a bit?” She pointed at Tristan while sending a kind smile towards Ernesti completely ignoring Abigail, who puffed her cheeks.

“Yes, I do!” Abigail answered and linked arms with Tristan, like showing who he belonged to.

“Aby!” Tristan said while forcefully freeing himself from her grasp. “Actually, I’ve also been wanting to talk to you.” Tristan said as he was about to leave the room.”

“But… The class is about to start.” Abigail protested.

“Tell the teacher I had to go to the rest room.” Tristan answered a little annoyed and walked outside the room with Laura.

“So what did you want to talk about?” He asked with genuine interest.

“Well, the Terra incident kinda left me thinking…” Laura said not knowing how to approach the discussion, since she couldn’t just tell Tristan the truth.

Tristan smiled, pleased, as he heard Laura’s words. He knew exactly where she wanted to go. “Don’t sweat it, I already promised to help you train back in Terra… But you know, Terra also made me start thinking that I lack a lot, especially in the hand to hand combat… So would you mind helping me out there while I train you in using caster like spells while fighting melee?”

Laura just stared at Tristan not knowing what to say. She had expected him to agree to train her in spells, but in her wildest dream she would have never imagined that it would go this smoothly. No smoothly was the wrong word to describe what just had happened. It was like a Fors’ sent miracle that she didn’t need to do anything, but to nod at Tristan’s proposal.

“I think your nodding means yes.” Tristan said happily. “So, how about we meet up this afternoon after near the library?” Tristan asked Laura who just nodded in response.

***

Laura walked towards the library where Tristan had agreed to meet her for their training, she was still unsure, why they had to go there to train and not to the gym where she always used to hang out. But what did she know about magic casters would use anyway? Up until now she had spent most of her time learning magic to buff herself while fighting.

The only magic she knew besides those buffs were; spells tied to her passive. Tristan had shown them to her while they were on Terra, of course, those spells were far from perfect, but they already had saved her life during her fight with Sariel.

While Laura was walking lost in her thoughts, Tristan suddenly appeared out of thin air next to her.

“Jo, how is it going?” He asked with a calm voice.

“Kyaaahh” Larua screamed.

“You should really pay attention to your surroundings while wandering around on this hour. The crime rate has been increasing steadily around this area, despite the strong military presence. Tristan said a superior tone. “So how about we go to our new training grounds?”

Tristan pushed Laura into an alleyway.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Laura asked her mood worsening.

Tristan didn’t answer and just took a door knob from his pockets and stuck it on the wall. Suddenly the wall turned into a door. Tristan opened the door allowing them to enter the room.

“Promised me, you won’t tell anyone.” He said with a serious voice.

“Of course I won’t.” Laura answered without delay.

“Good.” Tristan answered while handing her a contract. “It’s not that I don’t trust just, it’s just for the case of the cases.” Tristan said with an apologetic tone. “Look you’ll even get your own door knob.” He said showing her a second door knob.

“Where do I have to sign?” Laura answered without hesitation, taking the contract signing it and walking into the room Tristan had created with the door knob.

“Do you like our new training grounds?” Tristan asked as he also entered the black room filled with utensils for not only training the body but also the magic powers one had.

“What is this?” Laura asked baffled.

“My little secret.” Tristan said while walking deeper in tot the large room.

This large black training room was inside of the same dimension of his Laboratory. Tristan and Schattenklinge had spent the past night on separating the Laboratory from this room, without Abigail’s knowledge of course.

They had done so by overlaying as many barriers as they could.

Laura bit her lips as she gazed around, before finally bringing out some words out of her. “Erm… Soo… Shall we start?”