Hey, y'all, here's chapter 2! I promise the pacing is gonna pick up from here on out, so please enjoy!
Five months before the magic knights selection exam (when Asta and Yuno take part)
The hideout of the Alabaster Foxes
Knock knock knock, knock knock knock, knock knock knock,
"Oh, c'mon, I know you're still asleep in there, jackass…" A tall young man with black hair stood outside the door of Tydus's bedroom. This young man was Percival Glacialis, the resident ice mage of the Alabaster Foxes who joined after the last magic knight's entrance exam, "Seriously? TYDUS, WAKE THE FUCK UP ALREADY!" he shouted at the door, hoping to get his vice-captain out of bed.
"Can I at least get dressed before I start getting yelled at?" Tydus swung the door open, standing there without a shirt, looking at Lucius, "Now what's so important that you had to yell at me through my door?"
"Captain needs to talk to you about a job that just came in." Percival sighed as he turned to leave, "but I would recommend putting a shirt on before you go downstairs."
"Tell him I'll be right down," Tydus closed the door and went over to his desk where his grimoire, a large dark blue book decorated with a three-leaf clover and multiple cards circling it, sat, "Let's see what the cards say today." he sat down and pulled out a deck of oversized cards and began shuffling them. He then drew three cards and laid them down on his desk. "Hmmm, the lovers, the chariot and...Death," he said to himself as he flipped them face up. He sat there and looked at all of them for another minute or two before sighing and standing up. "I'm not gonna figure this out by staring at them all morning."
Tydus put on a plain white shirt with a black vest over top of it, and on his way out of his room, he grabbed both his grimoire and his robe. As he walked down the hallway, he made sure to sidestep at specific points of detected magic on the floor that soon let out small bursts of ice magic as he fired small blasts of pure magic to disarm them. "Dammit, Percival, can you not leave traps all over the place?" He rolled his eyes as he followed the sound of chuckling from the common room.
"Oh, c'mon, it's just to keep everyone on their toes." Percival retorted once Tydus reached the common room. It was a simple room with a few couches strewn about with side tables resting by them. There were even a few larger tables in the room that each had chairs that encircled them, overall it wasn't anything too extravagant, but it was enough for the still-new squad.
"But to be fair," a young woman sat at one of the tables currently drinking a cup of tea, "You are the one who needs to improve, Percival." She had long black hair with two pigtails tied on the sides of her head. This young lady was Katya Ruina, an earth mage that joined up with the Foxes around the same time as Percival.
"We're back!" two young girls walked into the hideout shouting over Percival's reply. The redheaded girl was carrying large brown bags in her arms, smiling brightly; this young lady was Oriel Sano, the jade healing mage that's been with the squad since the beginning.
"Goooooood news!" the blue-haired girl next to her reached into one of the bags and pulled out a small brown box, "WE GOT MUFFINS!" Yseult Aes, the amethyst mage, was just as upbeat and happy as always.
"AH FUCK YEA!" Percival almost leaped off the couch he was lounging on so fast to get some muffins he inadvertently set off one of his traps, freezing himself in place.
"Idiot," Tydus let out a small chuckle as he walked past the ice mage, "So Oriel have you seen the captain?"
"Yea, he's up in his usual spot." Oriel and Yseult placed the bags down on a table next to Percival, purposely putting the muffins on the closest edge.
"Of course he is…" Tydus went outside and looked up at the roof of the hideout and saw two legs hanging over the edge, "If you fall and hurt yourself, it's not my fault!" he called up to the person sitting on the roof. After hearing his voice, the person jumped down and landed right in front of the vice-captain; Lain stood almost a whole head taller than Tydus and smiled as he spoke.
"So you're finally awake? Sleep well?" The captain joked as he fixed the sleeves of his tan, long-sleeved tunic.
"Why does everyone think I sleep in all day?" Tydus sighed
"Cause you kinda do," Lain put his hand on Tydus's head, "I assume you've heard that there's a mission for you?"
"Yea, the statue inside told me there's a job that you wanted me to do." Tydus pointed inside, "So what's the mission?"
"Statue?" Lain looked inside and saw that Percival was frozen solid, and the two girls were putting decorations on him, "I guess I'll see if the crimson lions can spare a fire mage to help with that. However, a merchant wants protection from two magic knights due to the high-value items he will be transporting. I've decided that you and Katya should be the two who'll guard him on his way back to his village."
"So, two magic knights for a simple escort mission?" Tydus asked, somewhat baffled, "Why does this not sit well?"
"I agree," Lain looks towards the sky, "That's why I want to send you; you should be able to figure out if there is something amiss about the whole thing. As far as Katya goes, she needs more experience, plus her magic is strong enough to keep the merchant safe while you figure out what's truly going on."
"Yes, sir," Tydus saluted his captain, "So when should we leave?"
"About," Lain rubbed his neck, "An hour ago."
"WHAT!?" Tydus ran inside and grabbed both his and Katya's brooms as well as Katya by the collar of her red sweater, "Sorry, I'll explain on the way!"
"BUT I DIDN'T FINISH MY TEA!" Katya screamed as Tydus threw both of their brooms into the air before both mages jumped onto them. Once they were in the air standing on their transportation and going towards the capital, Tydus explained the situation to Katya, "Wait, so this merchant wants two magic knights to defend his cargo instead of clearing the road of bandits?"
"That's how it seems," Tydus stared directly ahead, "I wonder what that valuable item he claims to be carrying is." He stroked his chin as he thought to himself.
"Tch, I'm sure that whatever it is, he doesn't need two of us." Katya let out an indignant huff.
"Well, we should be able to figure it out soon we're here." Tydus began his descent towards the street with Katya in tow. Once they landed, they began looking around for the guy who posted the job request. After a seemingly short amount of time, they found him loading goods into a covered wagon. He looked like a young man with shaggy blonde hair; he soon turned and faced the two magic knights.
"Oh! You two must be the knights I asked for," He quickly approached them and bowed, "Greetings, my name is Frederick Terrus."
"Greetings Frederick, my name is Tydus," the more experienced of the two magic knights introduced himself, "This is Katya; she's another member of the Alabaster Foxes." Katya waved to Frederick after being introduced.
"So uh, I just have a few more things to load up; what are you doing?" Frederick explained what the plan was when Tydus pushed past him, walked over to the wagon, and lay on the ground before sliding under it.
"Just want to make sure that the wagon is all good to go," Tydus called out from underneath the wagon.
"Since when did you know anything about wagons and carriages?" Katya looked down at Tydus.
"That's why I'm looking cause if I see anything wrong, then something is VERY wrong." He replied as he placed his hand on the bottom of the wagon, imbuing the wood with some of his mana. "So it all seems good. Shall we get going?" Tydus came out from underneath.
"Uh, yes. Yes, we're can just waiting on the most important piece of cargo." Frederick replied as two burly men came over carrying a large chest that they almost slammed down into the back of the wagon. "Sorry…" Frederick whispered under his breath, hoping no one else heard him.
"Let's get going then." Katya was getting impatient with the two men standing there. Frederick nodded as he walked over to the wagon's front and held out both of his hands.
"Iron creation magic: hearty iron beast!" Frederick's grimoire floated up next to him and began glowing a dark grey color as a giant iron ox materialized in front of the wagon.
"That's impressive magic," Tydus remarked, seeing the spell come to fruition, "If you have magic power like that, why do you need protection?"
"I know it might be kinda impressive. I have no attack spells to speak of," He sighed as he strapped the wagon to the ox. "Climb aboard; it's time to go!" All three climbed onto the wagon with Frederick and Katya in the front and Tydus in the back.
"Katya, you can take point with this one," Tydus laid down in the back. "I'm going to take a quick nap."
"Oh, before that, would you two mind putting these on?" Frederick quickly pulled out a couple of brown cloaks from a box in the back of the wagon and handed them to the magic knights.
"Um. Why?" Katya asked almost impatiently, wanting to know why he desired them to cover up their magic knight robes despite Tydus doing it almost immediately.
"Uuuuhhhhh no reason, just it might get cold out today," Frederick explained nervously as he climbed back up into the driver's seat. He quickly urged the ox he made to start going before anyone could ask any questions.
"Fine," Katya begrudgingly put on the cloak over her robe while Tydus fell asleep. "Mind telling me what you're transporting, at least?"
"Just some food items and yul." Frederick told her, "My village, Halthir, doesn't have excellent ground for cultivating plants, but the river nearby does provide us with a good amount of fish. Luckily, there is some wild game around that we hunt for pelts, and we use the bones to make jewelry, so every so often, I bring excess fish, pelts, and other good into the city to get some produce for the village so we can have balanced meals."
"So I guess, for the most part, we're to protect the yul?" Katya surmised. Frederick got suspiciously quiet for a bit after she asked that question.
"... Yea, I guess." Frederick sounded almost sad with his answer as he looked over his shoulder at the chest that was sitting in the back of the wagon. The ride was silent for a good while before, out of nowhere, a pillar of sand erupted from the earth in front of them. The ox came to an abrupt stop, almost causing Katya and Frederick to get flung forward.
"WHAT THE HELL!?" Katya shouted as she gripped tightly to her seat. When she looked back up, she saw three people standing a ways from the wagon wearing hoods.
"There you are!" One of the bandits called out, "Just drop the goods, and you can go home!" all three started chuckling at each other.
"So, you are the bandits he was worried about!" Katya stood up and shouted at them. "Well, today is your unlucky day! Earth creation magic: fangs of the earth!" Four large pillars shot up from the ground and rocketed towards the bandits striking the ground where they stood but not hitting a single one of them. "Shit!" she gritted her teeth as she watched them all dodge.
"Is that all you have?" One bandit mocked, "Pathetic excuse for a bodyguard!" all three of the bandits launched attacks simultaneously.
"Earth magic: tectonic blast!" Katya cast a spell that released a blast of pure earth towards the three attacks heading towards her. All the magic canceled each other out, but she felt that something was off and looked up to see the fourth flying down on a broom.
"Too late, girly! Fire creation magic: inferno blade!" he called out to her while throwing the fiery blade in his hand.
"FUCK!" She thought to herself, "IT'S TOO CLOSE, AND TOO FAST I CAN'T STOP IT!" the spell was about to hit when suddenly it dispersed into multiple streams that arched out away from the wagon.
"Is that so?" a voice called out from the back of the wagon, "Tarot creation magic: wheel of fortune, turn in my favor." The fire spell had set off a trap spell that Tydus set up before the left, which created a large spoked wheel to appear out of thin air and not only drew the magic into itself and canceled it out. "You see, I kinda saw this coming before we left." Tydus stuck his head out next to Katya.
"What?" She was stunned she had never witnessed the vice-captain's magic in action before.
"Damn…" The bandits looked towards him, "He has insane magic power; there is no way we can handle that. Retreat!" the leader of the small group called out before they all took off away from the wagon.
"Thank you so much!" Frederick began thanking the two magic knights repeatedly, "You saved us!"
"Hmph." Katya looked away with her cheeks puffed out, "Thanks, I guess, but I didn't need your help, jerk."
"It's what we're here for," Tydus addressed Frederick, "But you might want to explain something to me: You see, I noticed something odd earlier, that chest has air holes cut into it." he then turned around and with a blast of magic blew the lock off of it. "Mind explaining who she is?" He flipped the chest open, revealing a well-dressed young lady sleeping in it.
Alright, so that was chapter 2! Who is this mysterious girl? And why did the seemingly innocent Frederick have her locked in a chest? Don't worry; all will be revealed shortly, so I hope you all come back for the next chapter!