Gilliam walked closer and the more he looked at her the more he found that... she wasn’t a young girl.. Was she?

She had slightly pointed ears, rather tan looking skin, shoulder long dark brown hair and hazel eyes. There was just something odd about her, she was clearly no child but.. Oh.. wait! She must be a halfling! He had read about them in how they resembled human children due to their size and proportions but it was easy to see it properly as you got closer.

This was the first time he had seen one, so he was a bit taken back, but tried his best to hide it.

“She’s with me.” Gilliam confirmed referring to Petal as he pointed at his own neck, trying to explain it without saying it. The mark on her forehead as well as her collar should reaffirm this a bit.

The halfling seemed to calm down at least a tiny bit, but was still very on-edge.

“We’re here for the language spell thing?” Gilliam didn’t remember what it was actually called, but he knew what it did. He also wanted to try to normalise the situation with Petal in the room

She hesitantly checked a book on her desk and looked at him questioningly. “Gilliam Gibson?”

He nodded, causing her to continue. “It says here you’re to learn V’idan. But we’re speaking that now...”

Gilliam nodded. “Yes, it’s not for me, but for her.” pointing at Petal he started to realise something.

If this language casting thing was to plant something in her brain... What if the person doing this wanted to just mess with her since he was a demon?

Perhaps it was smarter for him to take charge of the situation and behave properly to make sure that they don’t, and he hated to even think this sentence but, ‘mess with his property’.

The halfling eyed her with uncertain eyes.

Gilliam steeled his mind. “I would prefer that someone who won’t do something weird to her handles it. I can’t say I would like to later find out that something weird was done to her.”

He said this without any smiles, humorous tones or anything of the like. He was polite but professionally straightforward.

Oddly, or luckily enough, this seemed to calm the receptionist down a bit, perhaps just acknowledging Petal as his slave helped in her mind?

“Right, I’ll find someone.” Her voice didn’t sound like she was entirely convinced, but it sounded better. She jumped off her little chair and went into a neighbouring room, they could overhear her talking to someone but not exactly what was being said.

As she was in there Gilliam thought a bit about things, now that Petal was going to learn the local language she would be able to understand and reply to the racism and all the other things... He might need to have a talk about certain things about expected behaviour. Though he might not be perfect in this world, at least he can teach her how to act according to how he would act. Which in his mind is plenty fine enough.

“Now that you will learn the language-” Gilliam decided to just start now, they were waiting at the moment anyway so might as well use the downtime.”-You will without a doubt hear a lot of.. Well.. shit, regarding you. People are racist and to be honest, not against you specifically but they kind of have good reasons to with the whole invasion and things...”

He really didn’t know how to dance around the subject, so blunt honesty became the way to go.

“I’m saying this now as I just want to make sure that y-” his explanation was interrupted by Petal’s oddly serene smile.

“Don’t worry. I don’t plan to lash out at anyone or do anything that could harm your name.”

Though her words sounded very obedient and on the train of thought in making sure his name is not sullied, her expression told a different story. This might also be something from her old life where your own life is literally on the line if you say the wrong thing... She might be extremely used to it by now.

Gilliam felt more and more sad for her, he had really never met someone who had such a horrible life before... Sure, the homeless on the street do indeed have it bad, but at least they won’t literally get eaten for being in the wrong place or for the fun of it...

About to continue the talk Gilliam was interrupted as the halfling opened the door and stepped out, walking back to her desk she started talking as she walked.

“You can go in there, first door to the left. He can help you.”

Gilliam just nodded and started moving. It was only a few steps so it didn't exactly take long, rounding the corner they entered to an office. It was simply furnished with a desk in the center not far from the back wall, some bookcases filled with various books and a few extra chairs for visitors. Behind the desk sat an Orc, a large, muscly green man, he had a ring in his left tusk and long black hair fastened in a ponytail of sorts. He was pretty much the stereotypical Orc from stories and books at home.

“Come in.” His voice was deep, rough and very action-hero-gravly. He didn’t even react when Petal came in, something Gilliam appreciated more than he’d expect.

They properly entered and closed the door behind themselves, the Orc gestured for the chairs. “My name is Muul, Ms Goldbranch, the young halfling in the room out there, explained the situation.”

Apparently the halfling was named Goldbranch, Gilliam did his best to not chuckle a bit as the naming logic followed what he expected. Though as did this Muul, it was interesting to be honest.

Another very odd thing was that, though he had a rough voice, this Orc was incredibly polite and smooth in how he spoke, it was a strange mental image clash for Gilliam.

“I will admit that I have my reservations about aiding a Demon, but I can’t exactly say no when she’s a contracted slave with our own Heptagon Mage. That and I’d never hear the end of it from Jial.”

Though it should not come as a surprise, Muul knew Jial. They were both teachers, something that his white badge with a yellow and pale blue triangle badge confirmed, for some odd reason Gilliam just didn’t consider that... well.. All teachers are colleagues. It is super obvious but...

“I’m glad to hear it-” Gilliam replied as he sat down, Petal followed after Gilliam was properly seated. “-now, how is this going to work? I only know the little bit that the pamphlet explained.” He was interested more than anything, instantly learning a language is unique to say the least.

“I will cast the spell on her, as long as she doesn’t resist she will learn V’idan to the mastery level that I have, it won’t affect how she thinks or speaks except that she can do it in V’idan as well.”

His explanation was not exactly complicated, and was almost as if he just confirmed that the pamphlet was correct, there weren’t any extra details or anything like that.

“It only takes a few seconds. A very common side effect is a headache for a few minutes after as the brain adjusts, but it’s nothing dangerous. I have done this many, many times before.”

That made a bit of sense, though a language can be considered just information, it would make sense that this could be just implanted. In theory you don’t need training in the same way that you might need a physical or magical skill... But then again, with this logic, could Gilliam just give knowledge about any language? He would have to look into this later.

“Well, in that case, let’s get started.” Gilliam smiled. He was not happy about putting Petal through any discomfort but all things considered a slight headache as the cost for an entire language, it was easily worth it.

“Very well.” Muul got out of his chair and started making an oddly complex magic circle; it had several sub-circles within certain nodes and became oddly multi-layered.

Gilliam turned to Petal who frankly looked a bit worried, she knew why they were here but now there was a spell being aimed at her, so it was somewhat understandable.

“Don’t resist, it’s the language learning spell.” Gilliam tried to comfort her with facts. It seemed to help perhaps a tiny bit, but she was clearly fighting some flight response.

She did manage to stay physically calm, but it was not hard to see that she would prefer to be elsewhere.

Muul didn’t seem to react to it, he had probably seen this many times before, if he was one of the language teachers that did this on a... daily basis?. He had probably seen this a lot of times before. As Petal did her best to keep calm and hopefully not resist too much, Muul focused and channelled energy into his magic circle.

Once it looked about ready he placed it on her head, the spell circle flashed and disappeared, the whole process from the spell circle started existing until it was complete only took about ten seconds.

Muul must have a lot of skill with this. Just remembering that complicated magic circle sounded like a hassle to Gilliam. Petal showed some discomfort only seconds after the spell was done, seems like this might be the thing he spoke about.

“There, it’s done. I recommend she takes it easy the rest of the day, just letting her mind process this. She should be able to understand me immediately but it might be an hour or so before she’s able to speak V’idan. It is an unfamiliar thing after all.”

Muul just smiled, he was done with his job and all things considered they were done. This was so much faster than learning a language could ever be at home. A good mage and ten seconds later, poof, you know a language! Gilliam didn’t properly know the value of money yet so he didn’t really know how much this cost, but it would be worth a lot back home.

After thanking Muul for the job Gilliam contemplated having Savia learn the language as well but as this was a cost he decided to look into it later, in stead they left and went back to touring the place.

Taking it easy as suggested Petal did confirm that she could read signs, understand the things said around her... none of which was positive, but she didn’t seem to mind. Based on how she reacted to things, what she had explained before and just some piecing thing together it really did seem like she was going to have it better as his companion, even as a slave, than she ever had in her own world. If nothing else, food here was easy to get and she was getting it! That alone seemed to weigh up for everything else.

Gilliam had her carry his bag and other smaller menial tasks of the sort, if he was to take Jial’s suggestion smaller things like that could perhaps have things less bad for her. He didn’t enjoy the thought of it but he did enjoy the thoughts of her living calmer.

The touring was eventually over, more meals had been eaten, both Petal and Savia were quite happy about the latter part. Petal seemed to be rather good at remembering things no matter how illogical they seemed to her at the start. The concept of privacy was not something she was used to, so it was a bit hard to properly explain to her why people preferred being alone on the toilet or in showers. In her society the concept of privacy is practically nonexistent, they prefer to wear clothes but the closest you got to toilet privacy was behind a rock, but then it was more for the distance to it more than anything.

Likewise with intimate life, they didn’t consider intimacy the same way as humans and were more carnal about it. In short they were incredibly barbaric, adding their social structure to this, it didn’t sound like a good place to be in Gilliam’s head.

It did explain a lot of things about the lack of privacy concepts, but she would have to adapt as people here didn’t share her view on things.

Other things they touched on was the Demonic biology, all organs were the same in theory, some might be stronger than others and given their natural self-healing hinted to them being at least pseudo magical to some degree. Petal couldn’t use any magic and even with guidance she couldn’t manifest any form of mana control. Though given that they could gain power from eating people it did hint that there was something more to it.

If nothing else, Petal didn’t have any neat abilities save the racial ones. So she could heal faster than what was normal for Gilliam, and if she eats sentient creatures this would do to her as any other demon.

This latter part was not something Gilliam was super keen on trying out, it didn’t work with only parts of the creature in the form of cooked meat, so normal food would never trigger this.

During all of this Savia either slept in Gilliam’s hair, flew around chasing insects or just took some odd leisure flights harassing the local wildlife that was small enough to not eat her. She did come back with some beetle thing she was super proud of having captured, hearing the little crunch as she ate it was.. Weird..

The sun was slowly starting to set, the light had grown a little darker. Evening was on them and today had been incredibly relaxing. Just walking about, talking and giving some light tutoring on things. They spoke about oddly random things, mostly as Petal wanted to get used to using V’idan, having a language planted in your mind was an odd thing to say the least, to Gilliam it was all the same but he was happy to oblige.

Currently passing through the Earth Field, aiming towards the Air Field through one of the arches in the 4th wing, they were talking about what Petal thinks her life-goal will be in her new life.

Moving to intercept them were a group of students, not thinking more about it Gilliam just changed the angle of where they were walking to go around them, no need to cause any problems. Though problems followed them as it seemed that the group changed their own angle to meet them nonetheless.

Oh no... a group of students going towards not only the new student that has already gotten a reputation, but who has the demon servant... It was a bit cliché but it made sense nonetheless.

It didn’t take long for them to meet up, though Gilliam did wonder if they should just turn around and perhaps walk faster or even run, that would just cause things to be weirder.

“Stop right there!” the apparent leader of the group, a young blonde and rather handsome boy shouted. He looked 14 or 15 years old, was dressed in the same attire as everyone else but wore a very nice gold necklace. His wavy hair was very glossy and very well cared for.

Getting in range Gilliam saw that his badge had a silver plate and only had the south triangle colored in a sandy brown colour. This explained him as a 2nd year earth mage.

His posse were a mix of two 2nd year students and three 1st year, making it six in total with the talking boy counted.

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“You and that filth should just leave this place.” He sounded adamant and though a little understandable Gilliam absolutely did not like that Petal was referred to as such.

“No.” Gilliam replied bluntly, he normally tries to be polite but he has no consideration to spare for self entitled shits.

The school had a non-status policy, meaning that a high noble is considered the same as a beggar somehow able to pay for the tuition, this meant that even though Gilliam had absolutely no social power in this world, they were equals in that matter. The only thing this student had over him was that he was a 2nd year, and Gilliam himself was a fresh 1st year.

The bluntness of Gilliam’s reply seemed to trigger the young boy, he did look like some uptight little brat, sadly stereotypes weren’t always just made up.

“Y-You dare?!” he stuttered as he replied but still managed to make this sound like Gilliam should basically grovel for being in the boy’s presence.

“Yes, please just leave us alone, I wanted to have a calm night, but thi-” Gilliam tried to just diffuse the whole thing through talking, but he was interrupted by the young boy.

The boy flipped his blonde wavy hair out of his eyes with practised flair. “I Garend Silverhawk, challenge you to a duel!” he shouted as he pointed at Gilliam. His tone of voice sounded incredibly sure of himself.

One of the other people in the group stepped forward and whispered to Garend, Gilliam could overhear that he was uncertain because “He is a heptagon mage.”

Garend pushed him back, angrily replying “That doesn't matter, he’s a shitty new first year!”.

The other kid continued with “He fought the battlemage in the dome, and won a few times.”

Garend scoffed “The teacher just went easy on him, why would he go full out against a student.” This just didn’t make sense to him.

“Why are you doing this? Is this some weird power thing?” Gilliam asked, breaking up their internal scuffle. He thought it might just be the demon thing or that his reputation is too good for being a new first year so an ego thing.

“Wh- What.. What this is about?!” he sounded insulted and baffled that Gilliam would even ask. There were a lot of noble noises, the coughs, the stuttering and the sheer anger.

“You parade that filth around like you own the place, it should have been executed and made an example of.”

Before Garend could continue his possibly prepared speech Gilliam decided to break in and just stop it right there. “Look, if you lost someone in the attack I’m sorry for your loss. But it was not her fault, she was not part of the attack so just leave us alone.”

Though this was not entirely true, Gilliam strongly doubted Garend would stay silent long enough to have the proper context and situation explained.

Garend laughed quite mockingly. “ ‘Not her fault’. It’s one of them, it’s at fault. Now, will you accept my challenge or are you leaving, like a coward?”

His tone was incredibly condescending, and based on how the kids behind him reacted when the option of just leaving was presented, it was hinted that this would have been the worse outcome.

Gilliam had no idea what the rules for these things were, was this allowed? What would happen if he lost? If he left? Asking him or his posse would most likely just make things worse somehow. If he just left him being branded a coward might just have more targeting him and could even make his earlier threat completely moot.

On the other hand, what was the worst that could happen? He weren’t exactly close with the faculty but he did have some contacts he could bring in, Jial seemed like the person to properly analyse both sides if need be... Though having ties to him might have Jial disqualified for any intervention?

In the end Gilliam realised that he didn’t care. There was an attack coming in... all from whenever to a couple of days or something, telling the kids this would either cause panic or just having him not believed, so he decided to not consider this.

Sighing deep he decided to just fess up, Garend’s ego would most likely have the rules explained if he angled it properly.

“Well, I’m not really from any proper place you know of, so I don’t know the rules for this. Mind eucating me?”

Just looking at the boy’s smile filled with an inflated ego hinted that Gilliam got this right on the head.

“Oh, you don’t even know the rules-” he started laughing, which had the others laughing a solid second later. “You accept the duel and we fight, we decide the condition of your defeat. When I do win I get the agreed prize. Since this becomes a mage’s agreement it’s final and binding, so no backing out.”

“Fine, whatever. Let’s just get this over with. What is the victory condition, and what is it that you want?” Gilliam figured out that he needed to just continue the strong arm plan. If he backed out here it would ruin the earlier outburst in protecting himself and Petal, so.... Might as well get used to this.

Garend smirked, he looked like he had won already. “When you are knocked out or give up, I have won. And when I do win, I want it to be taken care of properly.” Again he referred to Petal as an ‘it’, mentally triggering Gilliam a bit more.

“And what do I get if I win?” Gilliam commented, calmly. All things considered he felt rather sure about himself. Though he didn’t properly know what the second years were capable of he did have an idea what the head Battlemage of the school could do. He had also seen some testing spells cast by the other students of all years. Sure, the testing spells would not be properly considered as their best, but reactions from all teachers hinted that he should be fine.

On the other hand, if this kid is as big mouthed as he is, he might be naturally gifted and this might end up quite problematic. Gilliam decided to not underestimate his opponent. Getting into a habit of doing that could suddenly become lethal.

Garend laughed again, much harder this time, turning to his companions.

“This peasant thinks he can win.” He held his sides like he was about to fall over.

Turning back towards Gilliam. “What do you want? Money? Status? A proper slave?”

“Money sounds good.” Gilliam replied without consideration. Though status was something he wanted in the longer run he wanted to earn that properly, and a proper slave was out of the question for several reasons.

At the same time he was a bit uncertain, what if this kid was actually that much better than him? Garend might have years of duelist and training experience because he’s probably a noble. He most likely had training and Gilliam didn’t.

Well, he did, but it was only a few hours in the dome with Ghaos. If he failed here then Petal would basically be... well.. In a bad situation.

As dumb as it was in his arrogance he accepted the duel before they had discussed the win and loss facts, he regretted this a bit at this point. Though at the same time this increased his motivation a lot. He couldn’t afford to lose.

“How far can we go in the duel?” Gilliam decided to get the ground rules and facts before he planned the negative sides.

“Oh, I don’t plan to kill you~” Garend gloated. “But as we all know accidents happen”. He looked very happy about himself again, seeming to relish the thought that he had caught Gilliam in the trap that is his duel.

“Oh, so no reason to fear some damage, that’s nice to know.” Gilliam was a bit calmer now, this meant that he didn’t have to hold back. Of course he was going to... When he fought Ghaos the dome was what kept him alive but the few times Gilliam properly hit Ghaos, he would have straight up died. And he was a trained battlemage.

None of the kids here had any healing magic, based on their badges, so he would have to be a bit careful.

“Good, good. So... How do we do this?” Gilliam wondered as he took Savia out of his hair and handed her to Petal.

Since she knew the language now she seemed to know what was going on, leaving the nearing area she made some distance between them. The kids around Garend had done the same.

Garend pulled a rod out of his inner coat pocket, it looked like a sceptre of sorts, very gilded and with a nicely cut gem on top. From what Gilliam gathered this was a Foci, meaning that casting should be a little easier for the lad.

He also took a coin from his pocket. “I’ll fling this coin in the air, when it lands we start!” He looked eager.

The other boys that were around him had started gathering a crowd already, shouting ‘duel!’ around and shouting Garend’s name as well. Based on the little murmuring he could overhear, this was apparently not the first time Garend had done things like these.

“Are you ready?” Garend asked with a large smirk. “I don’t want you to cry about this when it’s done, that you didn’t get enough time to prepare.”

“No, I’m good, let’s just get this over with.” Gilliam’s smile and polite face faded. It was not his honour on the line, he couldn’t care less about that, if he could just fake a loss and leave that would be perfectly fine with him.

No, this was about Petal. She was innocent in this and this brat wanted to have her killed, just for what she is. This was an unacceptable process of thought.

Gilliam folded up his shirt arms, he was going to win this. He hated going against a kid, GIlliam was about twice his age and this felt very wrong, but this was a very special scenario.

When he mentioned that he was ready there was another scoffing chuckle before Garend placed the coin on his thumb which was under his index finger. A few seconds later he lifted his hand up a bit and with a swift movement the coin flew into the air with a satisfying pling.

Flying several metres (1meter ~3ft) in the air the coin only used a few seconds to come back down, plinking against the ground.

Immediately the young boy started creating a magic circle, it was deep brown in colour, had a square shape in the middle and some runes that started coming into play.

Gilliam didn’t intend to let him finish, as soon as the coin flew into the air he focused on the mana in his body, having found out in the training against Ghaos that this sped him up a bit he decided to use it properly here as well. Pointing his open palm towards the young boy, aiming at the circle and the mage behind it he did a simple one rune circle. Since a magic circle was just to aid with certain aspects of casting, and unstructured magic did all of that in the mind at the cost of more mana, why not just mix them?

The rune read Target, he just wanted help aiming, forming a sphere of Aether energy was hardly a problem, it didn’t even take a second before a yellow glowing sphere of energy had formed in his hand.

Thrusting the sphere through the magic circle had it contract and be absorbed into the ball, in the same split second a thrusting force was added behind the sphere sending it at blinding speed through Garend’s magic circle and into his chest.

Garend’s magic circle faded instantly, and the force behind the energy ball sent him rolling backwards a good solid 5 metres (~16.5ft). There was sound of breaking bone both at the moment the sphere impacted the young boy but also a few times during the ragdolling across the ground.

Gilliam walked towards the young boy, he seemed conscious so that was fine. There was complete silence in the crowd that had formed around them. The broken boy was crying, whimpering and rightfully so, he was in horrible shape and to be honest; Gilliam would do the same had he been in his situation.

Noticing Gilliam getting closer he panicked more and more, tried to crawl away but the pain stopped him. This meant that Gilliam was with him in only a few seconds, having the poor boy cower and plead.

Crouching down next to him, Gilliam had already decided that he needed to have him loudly announce his defeat, to deter any future ambiguity for some ego saving.

“Soo... Should we continue?” He decided to sound a bit insane on purpose, this was a scare tactic after all.

“No... n.. No.. no... Please.. Stop..” He had some problems speaking through the crying,

Speaking a little bit louder than he needed to, clearly for the sake of making everyone hear it. “Do you yield?”

There was no doubt that the kid was not capable of fighting anymore, but he needed this to be a clear and doubtless victory.

“I... Y.. I .. I yield!” Garend shouted through the pain, he seemed to realise the danger he was in if this fight was to continue.

The crowd cheered, his posse was speechless, and Gilliam decided to throw him a bone.

He didn’t properly know all things that were wrong with him but he didn’t want the kid to die from this. Gilliam started healing the young boy as best he could, since healing magic was based on knowledge the focus was on the things he could see. Weirdly bent limbs were broken, bleeding wounds were... bleeding wounds... He didn’t have super biology knowledge but he knew how to handle those two specific concepts at least.

Garend yelled out “I yielded, please no!” out as soon as a hand charged with energy was closing in on him, no doubt in panic. But he calmed down considerably as the warm pleasantness of healing magic washed across his broken limbs and wounds.

Though the pain, the confusion on his face was almost stronger as he asked in disbelief.

“W... why...?”

“You might be a racist cunt, but I’m not going to let you die just because of that.” Gilliam was focusing so there were no smiles or polite tones, he knew how to handle some healing but he was far from good at it.

Luckily some trained healers took over. Getting up from doing this he first now properly realised that there were some cheers going on, Petal had walked back as well but had chosen to walk around the crowd. She still got some considerable distance from the ones that noticed her, but the focus was on Gilliam.