I pulled him out of the room. Then took repeated trips in and out of the room taking all of the scrolls with me and dumping them in a pile outside.

The pile was huge, not that scrolls piled easily in a rush. I pulled out a lighter Dot made and lit the pile at all the edges.

As it burned the now broken contracts sparked and spread the fire even faster.

Back in the office I looked for a key chain of sorts, I couldn’t spend the time picking each of the locks.

After tossing things around, probably making my search harder in the long run with the mess I had already made in this messy place, I managed to find several key chains. I picked them all up and headed back into the main area.

I unlocked the first one I reached after flipping through almost half of the keys.

“What’re you doing, we can’t go anywhere with these!”

It seems I understood them, they spoke in common. Well common with a heavy accent I wasn’t familiar with.

“There’s a small boat and a river in the door down there. I got the keys, and the scrolls will be burned up soon, you can figure the rest out on your own.”

I handed them the key chains and headed off back to the stairs and to the vault.

I unlocked the door and started to pack as much as I could away and into the few bags I had and my storage device that Dot finished a few floors ago. I didn’t really see the point of bringing the non-magic scrolls, if they were in a language no one could read they would be completely useless. Even without them, I was still missing a good chunk of the gold.

“Hey! So, is this the vault we’re supposed to rob?” it was Paeris.

“Yeah, where are the others?”

“They’re watching the library.”

I handed him the storage ring.

“Take this and get the rest of the stuff, and then fly down to the canyon below the windows in the library, I’ve got something else I need to do.”

I went past him before he could ask any questions. Up through the stairs and back into the library I untethered Mezu and plopped him down on the ground by the others.

“Hey did Paeris find you?”

“I explained it to him, I’ll meet up with you later.”

I sprinted out of the library and headed back to the coliseum.

My anger wasn’t quelled by releasing the captives. Even if the ebashin ceased to exist only momentarily… it was worth it.

This time instead of heading through the door at the end of the tunnel I turned for the stairs.

“Yayn do isoya mu kien.”

Would be a waste of time to waste my breath, but then someone grabbed my sleeve.

I turned, grabbing the hand only to see the little fluff ball at the end of it.

“Mai’na, Mezu I thought you’d stay with Quartz.”

He shook his head and held on tighter.

“Fine but keep quiet.”

I held out my hand and reset his flying and tether before I flew us up the stairwell.

There wasn’t a single landing as we headed up the spiraling staircase. Halfway up though I heard some shouts.

These weren’t in common, or any language I had heard before.

There weren’t any footsteps yet, so they hadn’t come down the stairs. I kept going but pulled out my dagger just in case.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

As the shouting grew louder, we made it to a wooden door.

There was some light peering from the bottom of it. A shadow passed in front of it, and I shot both me and Mezu up to the ceiling. I kept him behind me and floated just above the door, but as out of the way I could be. And hopefully out of sight.

The door slammed open, and someone stepped through. They shouted something back through the door before closing it and heading down the steps.

I floated after them until we were what I thought was halfway down before dropping in behind them and following as closely as possible before I latched onto them.

Legs wrapped around their waist, my arms crossed and latched onto their chest and my blade pointed at their throat. I felt her breasts in my grip, so she must’ve been the lord.

“Etayuun do kien ri yaroa”

Instead of clutching at me, she gasped, and her hands shot for her throat. She didn’t even react to the blade slicing before she went limp in my arms, only held up by my own flight.

I let go and went back up the stairs.

They must’ve been yelling at someone. Anyone physically close enough to her must’ve been guilty of similar things.

I opened the door to already find a bloody scene.

There was a man in a robe carefully gathering the bodies a crazed look in his eyes.

He saw me and smiled.

“Chionaa” I flicked my wrist and sent that same dagger at his throat.

But instead of it being my normal force it ripped through his neck and continued out of the open-air wall.

I heard clapping and turned to see that fuzz ball with a toothy grin looking at me.

I shook my head, he always found new ways to make me uncomfortable or confused.

But then his face changed.

I looked back and the man’s throat rippled as if it were an illusion and he smiled.

I was slammed up against the wall behind me.

Wind mana, and they’re stronger than me.

I didn’t know of any way that wind mana could be altered to make illusions like that though. He had to be able to use light as well.

His mana had pushed my tether to lengthen as well, but I couldn’t pull it to bring Mezu towards me.

The man was now laughing, and he turned on Mezu.

There wouldn’t be anything stronger than light mana especially in this wide-open space. If only we were back in the tunnel.

I couldn’t move any of the mana directly around me.

“Kien do rua mu seo ri imucotsu.”

I gripped the mana cloud Mezu was floating on and tossed him away from the man.

I looked around the room. Near the large openings there were curtains.

I flicked my wrist and muttered “Kien do seo ra ikoyuu.”

The hand dispersed and sent cutting wind towards the ropes that held the curtains up.

They fell down and the curtains swung across the openings, blocking almost all of the light out.

Behind the sound of the curtains, I could’ve sworn I heard a ding, but I wasn’t teleported. Instead, I could feel a new weight inside of me. I was aware of a mana that was separate and distinct from my air mana.

I felt a new denseness around me. And it seemed to lessen towards the light that still escaped from a few gaps in the curtains.

Of all the papers I read at wasarera, and from all those stupid classes. The only mana that made sense was dark mana. That would be too convenient, I’m in the situation I’m in and I suddenly awakened a new mana? One that I didn’t even know how to handle.

But being held by air mana manipulation much stronger than my own and going against a light manipulator, grasping at straws was all I could do.

Mezu was no longer in sight, I had flown him outside the room’s space. I didn’t need to think about him for a bit.

I just had to gamble. All mana could at least be manipulated at its bare particles, I think, well if I remember anything from my time there.

The man was shouting at me, before turning to the curtains.

Just try anything!

“Ebayade do etekeen.”

I felt, rather than saw, a me sized figure of mana grow from the ground in front of me.

Hoping it would act the same way as my hand mimic, I ran it forward and grabbed the man’s arm to pull him away from the curtains.

He lurched back but didn’t look at my shadow thing. I guess he couldn’t see it.

Unarmed hand to hand wasn’t my thing, but the shadow was very specific to my body. It matched extremely closely, somehow, I could tell and felt the weight of my own blades.

I tested it by mentally grabbing it from my side and felt the shadow do the same and the weight of its hand shift to the new weight.

While the man struggled against my grip, that was much stronger than I’d be able to muster in my own body, I pulled the blade out and slashed his throat.

He clutched at it and frantically whipped his hand around searching for any beam of light.

The shadow and him were relatively close to one another, so I pulled him back away towards me and deeper into the shadows of the room.

I didn’t know much about light mana, but he seemed desperate enough to try to go for it.

When that didn’t work, he used the wind to put pressure on the wound I made and tried to grab at my shadow.

His hands went right through where the arm would be and I stabbed his leg, aiming for the main blood source there.

He yelled in pain and moved mana there as well.

I kept at it, stabbing and slicing where I could, eventually I would cut enough, and enough blood would leave him that he wouldn’t be able to keep up the pressure on the wounds.

Then I felt free from the wall but didn’t drop. I guess my mana wasn’t counteracted, it was simply too weak to do anything against his own.

The wind holding his wounds together stopped as well and he collapsed in a heap.

I didn’t want to take any second chances, so I pulled him back into the stairway and closed the door behind me before pulling the curtains away.

A short bit away from the edge of the window, Mezu was pouting but still floating in the air.

He must’ve been mad that he missed the fight. Well, better than him taking away my chance to kill the ebashin.

I shook my head slightly.

“I know, hopefully you can watch next time.”

There was a ding and then what sounded like a trumpeting ring.

The banner appeared.