To Hellifrit: Maybe. Maybe not. *Shrugs*
Learning how tragic the war is, and watching the fake smiles on the Albion nobles' before their lives vanished the next day, I know it's very hard to be separated from your beloved ones when the male has to go towards the battlefield and might not be able to return.
Though, maybe because having seen that happened, watching the boys in the Academy preparing to join Tristain's army, and the girls saying their goodbye, I feel it being… ridiculous. Of course, I won't say it out loud, and I understand their feelings, but… watching from afar just feels weird. Or maybe it's because Wisdom is still staying by my side. Yeah, that's probably it.
Speaking of him, he's still NOT telling me what he really wants. He's so persistent! I'm both proud and annoyed because of that personality of him!
…Though, 'no boys in the Academy except Wisdom' is a bit of a stretch, because…
"Uh, partner? What are you watching?" Derflinger asks curiously as he notices Wisdom looking up at the sky at one direction for a whole minute. Currently he and Louise are watching the couples exchanging their goodbyes as the boys are going to the capital to join the army.
"…How many Dragons in Halkeginia have white skin?" Slowly reaching his right hand towards the sword's handle, the familiar asks back.
"Uh… rare?"
"Hey, what is that?" One of the girls then notices something flashing in the sky, and her question catches the others' attention as they are now seeing it as well.
Then, when the object is getting closer: true to Wisdom's question, a white dragon is heading straight to the Academy, with a rider on its back. The creature then lands on the ground, hard, causing a small wind blast around it that causes everyone else to cover themselves against it. Once it's over, the students then sees the rider jumping out of the ride's back and landing on the grass ground with his feet. The person is a white-haired Nobleman, around their ages, with a handsome face and he wears a very clean uniform. A combination that definitely earns him fangirls everywhere.
And it's no exceptions to the Academy as the girls start complimenting him and the boys are slightly shocked both at their reactions and the boy's sudden appearance. Kirche also watches with interest, though her friend only gives the boy a small glance before returning to her book…
"Hey hey hey, partner! Your grip is breaking me!"
That cry from the sword causes the Void mage to look at her familiar to see him glaring daggers at the newcomer. The familiar also notices his partner's cry so he lets his grip loose a bit, but the glare is still there.
The newcomer also notices that one specific hostility from him, so the person raises his hands up in surrender mode as he walks to the duo. "Greetings everyone. My name is Julio Chesare. I am a transfer student from Romalia. I mean no harm."
"…Your transferring time is at one of the strange moments, mister Julio." Seeing the person currently not going for a fight, Wisdom retracts his hands and crosses his arms behind his back.
"It is." Julio smiles up apologetically, which causes the fangirls to shriek. "It was recently decided, so I came here unannounced."
"…" Wisdom doesn't reply back immediately, and instead closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Without looking at Julio, he says: "Welcome to Tristain Academy of Magic."
Not minding the gesture he's receiving, Julio replies: "Thank you. So, may I ask where I can find the Headmaster?"
…
"You better fix me up later, partner! I actually feel that one!" Derflinger grunts as the remaining students head into the class, and Wisdom heads to the seat next to his master.
"My apology. Our encounter with Wardes still left a bad taste for me about 'clean and polite' type of Nobles."
"Ease up, Wisdom." Louise's worry slightly lessens as she sees her familiar's expression softens after meeting with Julio. "I know you are doing your job, but don't overwork yourself like that."
"…I will try." The familiar replies, just in time Professor Colbert comes in and starts the lesson…
Only for a few minutes later, a group of knights led by Agnes barges in as the leader shouts: "Everyone, get to the field, now!"
"Hey wait! Who are you people?" Even the teacher is surprised at their sudden appearances.
"Her Highness' Musketeer Force." Agnes turns her face towards Colbert, which makes him flinch back a bit. "We have been stationed at this school in order to provide you with military drills. All classes are canceled from now on."
"This is ridiculous!" Colbert exclaims. "The boys have already joined the military, and there is no reasons to bring war into a school!"
"Silence!" Drawing her sword out, Agnes aims the tip right at the professor's neck, causing him to freeze in place. The students have also stood up and watch in fear. "I hate mages, especially the ones who specializes in Fire."
"And I hate arrogant people who try to force others work for them." In an instant, Wisdom teleports right next to Agnes and materializes an Ice Sword and places the blade right at her neck. The other knights see that and plan to draw their swords out, but numerous metal swords appear and point at them, stopping from proceeding.
"Don't interfere, Mage Killer." Recognizing the person, Agnes says in disgust. "This is Tristain's problem."
"And it is affecting people who want nothing of it. Retract your blades, and we will talk."
Having heard of how he single-handedly defeated the former Captain of the Griffin Squad and how he literally teleported from Albion to Tristain, Agnes knew that it is not wise to enrage the infamous murderer. Reluctantly, she pulls back her sword and sheathes it back. Seeing their captain doing so, the other knights follow.
"Thank you." The Ice Sword disappears along with the metal swords, and Wisdom takes one step back with his left arm placing behind his back. "Professor Colbert, since things have been like this, I believe that letting the knights here take the students out and train them would be a right decision."
"But, the lesson…" Colbert is surprised that of all people, the familiar would agree with…
"We can try minimizing the lessons without losing crucial details." Wisdom then turns to Agnes. "This is the first, and the last, time that you barge into a classroom during a lesson. I know you are at war, but that doesn't mean you can interrupt the people acquiring knowledge. If Your Highness wants you to operate this, then you should have spoken with the Headmaster and planned a schedule first before coming here."
"There is no time to plan." Agnes argues. "The enemies are already at the door of our land. If we…"
"Anytime is the perfect time to plan." The familiar interrupts. "The boys are doing their work stopping the enemies. If you blindly take the girls to train without a proper plan, it will backfire on you."
The tension in the room raises higher as Agnes' angry eyes stare at Wisdom's unchanging eyes. It goes on for a whole minute…
"Get the students to the field." Agnes then breaks the eye contact as she turns to her subordinates and orders. Immediately they comply and calls for the students to come with them. Then the captain just turns away and gets out of the room, followed by her knights and the students.
Louise decides to stay behind for a bit to talk to her familiar. "Wisdom, are you going to join us? I mean, you are already skillful enough…"
"I will watch from close by." He answers. "I would like to talk with Professor Colbert first."
"I see… We are sorry, Professor." The girl then bows apologetically to the teacher before heading out and joining with her classmates.
"…I still believe this is a bad decision, mister Wisdom." Colbert lets out a deep sigh. "They don't need to train to prepare for war."
"I can sympathize, Flame Snake." That causes the professor to slightly shiver. "That guard had a big mouth."
"…If you have studied on me, which I believe you have, you know the sins I have committed."
"And I can safely say that you never knew what happened until it was too late. That's why you dropped and became a teacher, to help guiding these lost lambs away from the bad things of the world. However, we can't let them live in illusions that war isn't going to reach them. They need to learn that reality is much harsher than their fantasy."
"…You really know the ways to talk to people." Shaking his head, Colbert then collects his stuffs. "I need to talk with the Headmaster about this."
"I will take a look at the training. I'm sure the knights won't push the girls too hard, but better prepare for anything."
…
"Uh… partner? What the heck are you using to repair me?" Derflinger asks uncertainly.
"Prototype element." Freely moving the component with his left hand, Wisdom applies it into the handle of the sword, and he starts observing the magic and metal shaping themselves around the broken handle. "Stay still."
"I'm a sword, partner. I can't move without you." Derf replies bluntly. He then 'feels' the metal coiling around his old handle. "How strong is this anyway?"
"It auto-generates itself upon damaged. A combination of metal, magic, and nature-law-breakers."
"…That third one sounds stupidly like Void."
"And that's why we haven't decided to give it a name yet."
The process takes a long time for the element to adapt itself, so Wisdom occasionally takes a glance towards the training field. It seems that the girls are struggling to keep up, considering that they are not really trained to use a weapon other than a wand before. Except Louise who has trained with him before so she doesn't seem to be very exhausted, though she still has some struggles holding weapons. And Tabitha who seems to be familiar with fighting…
A wooden sword suddenly flies straight towards his head, so he raises up his own barrier up. The sword collides and bounces away harmlessly.
"That's not a good way to call for someone's attention." Wisdom dryly comments as a trio of knights walk to him, with one of them picking up the wooden sword. "What do you need from me?"
"Your reputation spread like wild fire." One of the knights replies. "Prince Wales spoke very highly of your swordsmanship."
"…And you three want to check if his words are true or not." The familiar sighs as he puts Derf aside with the element doing the work on its own.
"Both of Her Highness spoke of your intelligence as well. Guess that's true." Another comments as the familiar stands up.
The one holding the wooden sword then makes the gesture of giving the training weapon to him. "Here's your weapon. We shouldn't use real weapons during training…"
"Not necessary. I have my own." Wisdom raises his right hand up which makes the gesture of holding something, and then a second later a thin wooden sword appears.
"Damn… and they said you are just a familiar." The knight comments.
"I am." The familiar then gestures them to head to the open field so they could fight freely, instead of right next to the wall of the academy.
By this time, the students have stopped training and start watching in curiosity as the three knights and the infamous familiar start facing against each other.
"Okay, so I will go first. The next will be…"
"You all can come to me at once." Holding the sword in his right hand, Wisdom puts his left arm behind his back while wrapping his feet with black armor. One strange thing everyone notices is that the armor looks like heels.
"Okay, that's just overconfident." Another knight says with her right eye narrowing in suspicion.
"How about you find it out if I'm overconfident or not?" Wisdom gestures them to come to him with his right hand while still holding the sword.
"You ask for it." The last knight decides to rush in first with an overhead slash.
And obviously he sees it coming and dodges to the left. Though the knight doesn't give up and swings her sword back, and Wisdom deflects it with zero problems while not breaking his posture. The two then exchange slashes with each other, with the man not planning to make a proper counterattack… yet.
He then feels a sneak attack, so he quickly holds the sword in reverse after deflecting another attack from the front and places the blade behind and below his waist to block an uppercut slash. He then pushes the attacker away and twists his body to the right to avoid a hit from the first opponent. Re-holding his sword normally, Wisdom starts his usual deflecting sections, though he has to put more forces so he isn't pushed back too much when the opponent's force is doubled. And it quickly turns into tripled, though luckily the last knight decides to not play dirty and instead joins on the front.
By this time, constant sounds of swords clashing (even when they're just woods) emit throughout the whole field. The girls and Julio watch in astonishment as they see that Wisdom is not missing a single deflect or dodge despite the continuous attacks from three different opponents, and that doesn't count the fact that he's still having his left arm behind his back the whole time. Then, they see that the three knights take one small moment to stop attacking, and when their opponent takes that moment to adjust his stance, they then swing their swords all at once, planning to end the fight right there.
However, that's also their mistake. In a moment, everyone feels like time has been slowed down, as they watch Wisdom slightly throws his own sword to his right, and when the attacks come near…
He kicks his right leg up and GRABS THE SWORD WITH HIS HEEL, and SWING THE BLADE HARD towards his opponents, completely negates the attacks and slashes all the weapons away from their holders while sending the knights fly away.
Agnes, watching the 'training' from the beginning to the end, hangs her mouth in shock at how it ends. She was expecting the Mage Killer could keep up with her subordinates, she wasn't expecting that he could make next to no mistakes fighting all three of them and wear them out till the end. And ends the fight with a unique… technique.
"The people who know me long enough know that I won't do anything unnecessary." Grabbing the wooden sword out of his heel, Wisdom makes it disappear along with the armor heels. "You are definitely trained well enough to be a knight, but you still have a lot to learn. Still, it's a good workout. Thank you all for helping me getting closer to my prime." During that, he helps pulling the knights up back to their feet, then he bows down formally and walks back to where Derf is to pick him up, with the girls cheering for him on the background.
After snapping out of her shock due to the cheering, Agnes pinches her nose and asks herself: "Is he really a human? Just how powerful is he?"
"Um… about that…" Upon hearing the question, Kirche decides to tell the knight about the La Rochelle incident, and how he defeated the giant golem Fouquet made.
And when she ends, the Fire Mage watches in amusement as the color on Agnes' face slightly drains away. "All of that… and he didn't even use magic?"
"Well, maybe he did. Though, he's pretty good at using non-verbal and non-visual spells…"
"No magic that time." The girls turn to Tabitha. "However, armors appear on command. Could be the case. Magic combined with technology, as he said."
"…I'm having a migraine." Agnes starts rubbing her temples with both her hands.
"You only need to meet him a few times. I'm actually trying to get through that wall of stubbornness every day." They look at the Void Mage who's having the face of 'You haven't seen everything yet'.
"Oh my. And I thought you are proud of him." Kirche half-jokes about Louise's statement.
"I am. Doesn't mean that I can accept him not opening his mind to me. Even after I found that out."
That perks Tabitha's interest, however, she quickly hides her face behind her book.
"Found what…"
"Never mind that." Louise quickly interrupts Kirche. "Miss Agnes, either you resume our training, or you call for the end."
"…Let's end for today. That fight seriously gives me doubts about our abilities in protecting Her Highness."
"That's quite unexpected coming from you, Captain of the Musketeer Force." The group turns to Julio who's wearing his usual smile. "Though, after that, I can understand. His story has spread nearly everywhere within the commoners. Not sure what they would think if they found out he can use magic…"
"That surely won't affect him." Kirche shrugs. "You will see it once you are around him enough."
Our schedule changed after the day the Musketeer Force arrived. Thankfully, we're still able to learn magic alongside with training physically. A day later after Wisdom singlehandedly beat three knights, Princess has come and negotiated with the Headmaster about asking for help and the schedule fitting both sides. During that, Wisdom and I also found out that Julio was actually sent here by Romalia's Pope to help Tristain. I'm sure he has some problems trusting Julio, but I'm also certain that Wisdom won't do anything rash.
To be honest, it feels just a bit weird being trained physically. But, seeing that Wisdom values these kinds of training, maybe it's not so bad. Besides, I can practice with my spells more often, which makes the girls jealous a bit that I'm now 'better' than them.
Though… The news doesn't travel that far than I thought, because…