"Please bring us to Rulid!"
"No can do. While I don't think you deserve horrible punishment like for committing murder, you still committed the taboo of crossing into the dark lands, Alice. And Kirim, you have a unique sacred task which doesn't bow to the taboo system but a law of the light lands was broken by you. Under aged pursuit of fighting dark landers is strictly forbidden."
Kirim sighed.
"Obviously I didn't seek out those fights. I was protecting Alice and the others."
"But you're stronger from those fights. The result is what matters. Being so much exponentially stronger than your age is what is forbidden in our laws. Right now you're stronger than most knights in the light lands. You'll need to be monitored until you reach at least an appropriate age for your strength. Which is why I'll have you train with the new integrity knights."
Kirim was shocked from hearing that.
"I'm not a light lander though-"
"Doesn't matter. You're one of us since you have a sacred task. You need to obey our laws and taboos, or I'll have to kill you. I don't want to kill you since you haven't intentionally done anything wrong, but I can't let you go back to what you were doing. If this refusal is because you have obligations back in Rulid, those can wait."
"The people of Rulid aren't immortal! They could be old or long gone before you let me out! I have students in Rulid who I'm sworn to teach. It's part of my sacred task!"
"You have one student here, and that should be enough to stop the sacred task from harming you. Now, if you can't accept the situation say so. Or I'll have to lock you up and force you to accept or the highly unpleasant option."
Kirim was panicking and as he talked she almost forgot that she was getting backlash from not doing her sacred task. It hadn't been that long since she taught Alice something, so that must be a clue.
"...backlash. I'm getting-!"
She doubled over as a wave of the backlash hit her. She almost fainted immediately from the pain. She laid on the ground twitching and froth spilling out of her mouth. It was too much for acting's sake, so Bercouli started a sacred art but Alice was faster with her magic. A small barrier covered her with restorative magic pulling from around her into Kirim in as quick and balanced a way as possible to combat the effects of the backlash.
"I'm sorry sir integrity knight Bercouli, but we're going to need you to bring us back to Rulid unless you'll bring her other three students here. I can't fight the backlash from avoiding sacred tasks yet, and apparently it's impossible for her to do any magic while suffering backlash. Please, we need to move now."
Bercouli panicked, tapped his dragon's flank and he grabbed up Kirim and Alice in his hands before taking off with Bercouli on his back. The three flew at such a blistering speed, it didn't match the pace of their approach to Centoria in the slightest.
"Alice, would you happen to know if Kirim is into suffering? If she was suffering enough from the backlash it got to that, then she should have spoken up sooner. I wouldn't have taken you all the way to Centoria if I knew she was that far into taking backlash. She would have been feeling it long before we took off from the dark lands."
Alice shook her head.
"She...isn't into suffering as far as I know, but she always seems like she's in pain. It could be from any number of things. Maybe she just has a condition like that? But...she wasn't in pain when I first met her."
Bercouli swore under his breath and tapped his heel to his dragon's flank again. His wing beats grew stronger again, increasing their speed. By the time they reached Rulid however, Kirim wasn't doing anything. Twitching, frothing at the mouth, or breathing. She might as well be dead, when the dragon landed.
"Let me try to heal her! Let us down!"
They hadn't yet crossed into Rulid, but they weren't far. They were at the mid point of the farm field to the village, and Bercouli's dragon landed. She placed Kirim down and let go of Alice. Alice knelt at Kirim's side and immediately got to casting magic. She was mixing her sacred arts practice for healing in, using the strongest sacred healing art along with the best her magic could do. It was bringing her to exhaustion faster than she could take a breath. There wasn't anything visible for her healing to focus on, the damage internal. She could only hope it would work.
"As strong as your magic and sacred arts are, I don't think either could bring back the dead..."
Bercouli was frustrated at himself but he calmed his voice as much as possible for Alice.
"It's your fault..."
Her words stung him.
"If you just listened to us, and brought us home, she wouldn't have...!"
The intensity of her magic increased while her sacred art faded. She screamed as she put all of her effort into imagining Kirim breathing, and her heart beating. If she had died, then she needed to get Kirim's heart beating and lungs breathing before her soul would fade. Alice passed out shortly into her scream and slumped over Kirim's chest.
"Certainly a passionate girl...I'd almost think from that amount of passion the dead might wake, but...!"
He clenched his eyes closed. Shortly after he closed his eyes, he heard a gurgling sound. He opened his eyes to see Kirim struggling, twitching again. He gently moved Alice off of her and sat Kirim up.
"How can I help you?"
"Press gently on my belly and lower back, and lean me forward so I can expel whatever is clogging my breathing without choking anymore."
He followed her instructions as she gave them, and she vomitted out further froth and blood and plenty clear fluid which worried Bercouli, but she only gasped when she was done. She took some time to clear her breathing before using her voice.
"It seems Alice has a lot of promise. You were dead, at least for a short while. I don't know what she did that ended up working, but she used the greatest healing sacred art available to the public combined with a significant amount of magic. She made herself pass out from it all. I'm glad to see you back up though. We really need to hurry you the rest of the way back to Rulid so you can unburden yourself from your backlash."
Kirim nodded and yawned.
"I-ah-hak-hurk! ...I'm sorry, yes, please. I'm still feeling backlash. I really need to teach Kirii immediately..."
She hacked up one last bit of clog from her throat before telling him with her face red as a berry from embarrassment.
"Your sacred task is to teach one student specifically? The student just isn't Alice?"
She nodded, then shook her head.
"My sacred task was specifically made for me by Quinella herself. I'm supposed to teach any students under my tutelage until they tell me they are satisfied with my teaching. In a sense, until they've graduated. Kirii in particular is a student I won't be done teaching for several years at minimum. My sacred task is called adventurer, but it didn't have any risks for me as it didn't have taboos, so Quinella made it taboo for me to abandon my pupils, even unintentionally."
Bercouli nodded in understanding.
"Well, then I suppose we'll need to get you there immediately. Are you feeling well enough to ride on his back with me?"
He motioned to his dragon as he asked. She gave a short nod in reply and whispered to an empty shoulder as far as he could see, and the empty shoulder suddenly had a tiny dragon which hopped off and to the ground, growing to a size bigger than even his own dragon. He might have been frightened if he'd seen Kirim's mother armoured up on such a large dragon. Kirim climbed on his back and slumped over. She was still exhausted, after all.
"Take Alice with us...to the training ground..."
Her words earned a nod from Rithi and he gently picked up Alice cradled in his hands as he flew to the former location of the demon tree.
"Hey, wasn't there a giant tree here not long ago?"
Bercouli's words were answered by Rithi.
"Master Kirim's training helped the cutters fell the tree. They had to hold back toward the end, but some unfortunate consequences occurred because of how it was felled. It has been...nine days since the tree went down. It's still baffling my master only has half her vision since then."
"Wait seriously? Kids chopped down that behemoth? Considering Kirim's strength I wouldn't be surprised if it were her doing, but you make it sound like one of her students did it. Have they been slaying dark landers or anything of the sort?"
Rithi huffed.
"Of course not. My master isn't a fool. She wouldn't put their lives at risk for the sake of training. They are as of yet unready to take part in real battle. They're traumatized from seeing a little blood when some goblins were trying to cross over not long ago. Kirim is a benevolent master, and a kind teacher. She would never be the cruel type unless it be toward her enemies. She is still just a child however, and her greatest weakness is integrity knights."
Bercouli stifled laughter at hearing her weakness.
"Why are integrity knights her weakness, I would ask if she hadn't already given me ample enough reason to understand. Forty eight might need to be called back from duty to guarding the main cathedral if other people are going to have such a negative view of him. I'll have Administrator consider this. Thank you for explaining to me. This is quite fun though, I'm not used to being able to communicate this well with dragons."
Rithi snorted.
"Perhaps you don't let them grow old enough to speak with you. Or you don't train them with magic. We require controlled ambient energy and training in magic to be able to communicate, and good teachers. Between us, Kirim is not my first master, but she will be my last. I suggest you kindly beg her to open a magic school here in the light lands. If not for the sake of making more great mages in this abundant land, then for the sake of the dragons who live here unable to properly communicate."
Bercouli let it sink in. It was a suggestion he couldn't help but think of as groundbreaking for the light lands. If everyone could use a decent amount of magic, then they wouldn't need to worry about an invasion from the dark lands.
"I'll bring it up with Administrator. Thank you for your suggestion. And my pal here is two hundred right now, compared to you?"
"A whelp."
Bercouli rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment.
"Just how much younger is he than you?"
"Not even a tenth my age."
Bercouli stared in shock.
"How are you that...?"
"Old? I was raised well. Typically dragons don't live to my age in the dark lands, but the army on that side let go of me after a thousand years of service. I went around trying to find another partner to retire with, but it took until I met Kirim to find just what I wanted. A talented young untainted master who could live alongside me until my final days. I survived my service in the army for a thousand years which is when they retire their dragons. At my age we're past our prime. Our ability slows down significantly and we grow weaker no matter how much training or restraint we show. We'd just be a liability if we failed to keep up with our masters, so they retire us. They could just kill off those of us who live past our prime, but Vector was benevolent enough to grant us the gift of retirement."
Bercouli landed his dragon where the demon tree had been and Rithi landed beside him. Bercouli stared at the sky.
"I wonder if I'll ever get to retire. For some reason I have a feeling I may never retire. I'm usually fighting so it might be in battle where I meet my end, but it would be nice to retire and enjoy my final days in peace."
Bercouli hopped off and took Kirim and Alice from the dragons, laying them on the soft grass at the border of the area where the demon tree had been. A crowd was gathering from the village, staring and murmuring in their excitement. It wasn't often they saw one dragon, let alone two. Rithi often kept himself hidden or camouflaged as a bird while in the light lands after all. He thought it would be nice if after the current situation he would be able to stretch his wings regularly again. Though he would miss napping in Kirim's expertly stitched pockets. It was so warm and soft in them, and she was comfortable to be close to.
"To what do we owe this visit, sir integrity knight?"
Alice's father came forward from the crowd of villagers and saw Alice under one of Bercouli's arms. He panicked and ran forward, forgetting his manners of addressing integrity knights until he was just in front of him. He gave conflicting signals if he was being formal or if he was begging for Alice to be released, but he held out his arms to take Alice from Bercouli and knelt as if humbly begging forgiveness for being rude.
"The children Kirim and Alice were found in the dark lands and I was escorting them to Centoria for punishment for violating the taboo of entering the dark lands, however Kirim was experiencing lethal levels of sacred task backlash so we needed to come back. Alice is only unconscious from bringing back Kirim from death. All who are Kirim's students, step forward immediately."
Bercouli's words had them all nearly shouting in worry. Kirim had died, Alice brought him back, and they were both supposedly being punished for going to the dark lands. They knew it was against taboo to enter the dark lands, but punishable by death? They even thought it was too far.
"Calm down, calm down...we just need Kirim's students to come forward and be taught something for her backlash to stop bringing harm to her. As for Alice, she just needs some rest."
Kirii, Eugeo and Selka all walked in with terrified expressions toward Bercouli. They didn't know if they could trust an integrity knights words when it came to Kirim. But they knew they needed to respond. When Bercouli saw Kirii, he double took several times looking from one to the other until he realized he wasn't seeing double. There was definitely a twin-level resemblance between them. He could only tell them apart from the clothing they wore and current state of conscious. Kirim's clothes were akin to a noble's of the light lands, while Kirii's were barely more than the standard clothing provided by the weaving homes.
"Well then, time to wake her up. Thank you for coming forward."
He quickly chanted something and a sacred art circle appeared above Kirim. Kirim stirred and barely managed to open her eyes.
"Are we...home yet?"
Bercouli snickered a little.
"Yes, now try and think of something you haven't taught your students yet. They're all here."
Kirim yawned and a few seconds after, she began mumbling something incoherent to him, she moved her fingers of her left hand expertly drawing something in the dirt. Kirii, Selka and Eugeo stared at it for a few moments and they conjured the drawn image from the dirt into a visual representation. The conjured magic circles transformed into small illusion animals. They were in the shape of a deer, wolf, and dragon and they danced around in the air around them, glowing stronger as they moved. After a minute of the animal illusions dancing around, they split into two of each, and evenly disappeared when they collided with Kirim and Alice. It were as if they dove into water, but the surface of the water was the clothes they were wearing.
"...better. Thank you, you all learn so fast."
Kirii, Selka and Eugeo were all just as baffled as the rest of the crowd.
"I can feel your confusion. That was a combination rune. Usually it's used for laying delayed or triggered traps, but they can also be used to combine different kinds of magic. In this case, it was a gathering illusion in which it played a little show for our audience, gathering ambient energy around us, and then it brought that energy to the targets. This is something I haven't used in...five years. But it has its uses. Like right now, I knew it so well I could teach it to you with little to no communication, just showing you something to imitate. It's also good to learn the individual magics, illusions can be helpful if you're feeling lonely or for any number of uses, and magic to pull in energy in such a targeted way makes it possible to not harm things or people which require that energy to live."
Kirim was sounding more and more energetic as she explained. The gathering population were relieved to hear Kirim's voice growing stronger, especially as they saw Alice sit up, awake. It was immensely relieving to see the both of them up and moving. They heard Bercouli talk about death. Death was something that was unavoidable. Once it happened, it couldn't be reversed. But they witnessed Kirim go from a state where she wasn't even breathing, to being able to explain a magic that her other students who weren't with her used.
"That's pretty incredible, being able to use magic like that. But it's good to see you're okay. Sir integrity knight said you had died..."
Kirim looked up to the knight beside her and though the armour frightened her at first, she was able to rest her eyes on Bercouli's face and the fear faded. He was kind, even though he nearly killed her through neglect, and apparently had.
"How did I come back?"
Bercouli pointed to Alice who was still struggling to stay in a sitting position, threatening to fall back to sleep.
"How did you do it? What was my condition so you could save me?"
Alice was flustered, and her energy was at the lowest Kirim had ever witnessed. It would be best for her to rest and recuperate her energy.
"...I...you...not breathing...your heart...no beat...magic...make you...breathe...heart beat...sacred art...magic...layering..."
She was drifting in and out of consciousness, but she was able to answer basically what Kirim had asked.
"Thank you for answering. Get some good sleep now. I'll give you lots of energy while you're sleeping after this."
Alice nodded and flopped back, a smiling restful expression filling her face. She even snored a bit.
"How will you be doing that? Are you even in a condition to do that? Your energy is lower than hers."
Bercouli's questions made Kirim only feel annoyed.
"Well excuse me for being able to compose myself on shreds of energy. I'm used to it. I've been draining myself at least thrice a week since I hit my fifth year. I would be a disappointment if I couldn't compose myself at least a little at my current level. Alice is new to using magic though and she successfully layered magics and sacred arts enough to bring me back from death, if I'm to believe everything I've heard. She'll experience a physical and emotional exhaustion for a week because of her newness and the immensity of bringing me back. You know of the dark lands but your knowledge of magic is about as typical or more disappointing than other light landers, sir Bercouli. You can go there as you please but you still know so little."
Bercouli sighed and crossed his arms.
"Please answer how you'll be restoring her energy."
"A similar method to how Kirii, Eugeo and Selka restored our energy. But much stronger. Now that I'm conscious I can take in energy quite easily, but I'll need a bit of time and a better controlled environment to supply her with energy. With so many people around right now, it would be dangerous to take ambient energy."
Bercouli nodded.
"I guess there's not much point in continuing this. I need to get back to Centoria, but I'll be sending another integrity knight to check in on you since you still committed taboo. I need to apologize so taking you back to Centoria won't be in punishment anymore. I'll just have you open a magic school here and send potentials to Rulid. So build a school and housing for prospective students. Let the integrity knight who will be watching over you know when your school and the housing is developed enough to take in...let's say ten students."
Kirim nodded with a sigh.
"Quite the job you're lumping me with, but I guess dying for a bit of freedom was worth it. Thank you for letting me stay here."
Bercouli nodded and pet Kirim's head, ruffling her hair a little.
"Grow up into a strong mage. It would be great to have a serious spar with you at some point when you're grown up and not in such an exhausted state. I entrust you with the school job because I want you to have plenty of chances to grow while training others. We all gain by giving you a school to teach."
She hummed a little.
"Would it be fine for me to teach things other than magic at this school you want me to make? Typically I teach in a multifaceted way, so that my students are skilled in multiple areas. As example, I'm teaching Kirii and Eugeo how to fight with several melee type weapons and pugilism, while I'm also teaching the bow to Selka. I'm teaching all of them magic, so they're multifaceted in those ways. I'm also teaching craftsmanship, how to hunt, and how to cook. They'll be making their own equipment with time, collecting their own ingredients for food and materials for their equipment. They might even get to a point of creating materials needed for their equipment with magic. That's the kind of school I would teach."
Bercouli nodded with a grin on his face.
"You'd be making all round survival experts of the integrity knights, knights in training and sacred arts practitioners. That would certainly make us immensely more ready to handle an attack from the dark lands. If that's what you want to do, then do what you can. Let me know how many students is your limit so I don't end up sending too many."
She shrugged.
"Right now I have four students and that's the most I've had. I won't know my upper limit until I reach it and I might eventually surpass it. But teaching leaves little room for me to improve myself if I devote too much time to my students, so I think I would like to top the limit at your suggested ten. With Kirii, Selka, Eugeo and Alice learning from me for now and into the future, that would make it a total of fourteen students at a time."
He closed his eyes, crossed his arms and had a satisfied expression on his face.
"Well, this has turned out to be a very beneficial meeting. I look forward to meeting you again whenever I can."
Bercouli stepped onto his dragon's saddle and sat, and just before he signalled the dragon to move with its reins, he looked at Rithi for a solid few seconds and then back to Kirim.
"You should let your dragon partner roam at his true size once in a while. Now that this village knows about him, no point in hiding him."
She nodded and gave him a big smile.
"I was already thinking about that. Have a safe flight back to Centoria, sir Bercouli."
The rest of the village were surprised to hear the name of the integrity knight. As he took off, he was still looking around at the villagers and spotted something that was throwing him off the entire time. He hadn't noticed it before, but it was obvious then – there was a familiar icy blue sword hanging on Eugeo's back. He didn't recall a reason to it being familiar, but he knew the sword.