Oops, way longer than I expected. Sorry guys, got too many stuffs to deal with irl.
Also vaccine's after-effects, urgh.
To Guest: Good theory. We will see.
Unknown time
"Hey brother! Tomorrow is going to be another day-off! Want to head to the casino tonight?"
"I see no reasons to attend to that addictive activity. You should stay away from that place."
"What gives? It's not like we're poor or…"
"A karaoke is a better place."
"Wha… oh now you're talking! I'm calling the others that…"
"That's not…"
"No no no! No backing away!"
"I never said…"
"Knowing you, you always avoid crowds! YOU picked karaoke, not me, so you are going with us!"
"I never said about singing with a group…"
"Karaoke IS the place for a group to sing!"
"…Sometimes I hate being rubbed off by you all."
"Well thanks for your love!"
"Don't blame me if my singing is bad."
"WHO CARES!? It's just for fun!"
Morning comes. The sun raises up and above Tristain Academy of Magic.
Groggily waking up, Louise shakes her head left-to-right to throw away the dizziness in her mind. Once it goes away, she then remembers another piece of memories of Wisdom, if she's correct, somehow being free of protection for her to look into. Even though she can't see anything, she can hear her 'familiar' talking to someone else, presuming one of Wisdom's friends given how they casually talked with each other. She guesses that even his friends couldn't even crack his shell and…
"Good morning, my mistress." Turning to the door, she sees the person just entering the room with a basket full of clothes. "Did you have a good sleep?"
"…You should check your own protection spell again." That's the girl's reply before she jumps off her bed and heads to the wardrobe.
At this point, Wisdom knows that Louise would take every moment to practice magic, even when she's sleeping (by trying to bypass his spells), so he's not surprised anymore. Though, having a hole in his system is not something he can overlook. Placing the basket down, he starts folding them while talking with the girl: "It seems you are getting along with that spell. I won't say to stop, but like before, be cautious when using that." A pause. "What did you see this time, my mistress?"
"Only sounds this time." Louise confesses, as she starts undressing. "You were talking with someone, who called you 'brother', before what seems to be Void day to us."
"…Brother." Wisdom repeats the work, not once stopping his pace.
"Is he yours?"
"…In a sense. Our relationship is complicated."
"Everything about you is complicated, partner."
Being used to how he answers, Louise changes the subject: "…How's my sister?"
"She's still in stable. Nothing dangerous, just a few coughs now and then."
It's been a week after they returned from the Valliere Mansion. Thanks to Wisdom's advanced technology equipment, Louise can check on her sister's health anytime she wants to without travelling the whole way back to her home. The 'familiar' himself also found reports of similar symptoms to make comparisons, but at the moment there is no same cases as Cattleya's.
"…Maybe I could try that."
"Try what?" Finished wearing her uniform, Louise turns to Wisdom and asks.
"…No, never mind."
"Why am I not surprised?" Sighing, Louise picks up her wand and starts putting the parchments into the drawer of her desk. "Tell me if any of your ideas is viable, okay?"
"I will."
…
With an uppercut punch, Wisdom hits Agnes' hand and knocks the steel sword out, sending it flying away then falling to the ground. "It's my win again."
Shaking her right hand a few times, the Musketeer knight grunts in both disappointment and a little pain: "I can't even beat you while you are unarmed."
"You did give me some hard time…"
"Because you didn't wear that ridiculous armor of yours." Picking up the sword, Agnes sheathes it back into her scabbard. "And you didn't even get cut once. If you are a Tristania, we would recruit you to our force instantly."
"And you obviously know my answer for that." Swatting the dust out of his clothes, he turns to watch his mistress practicing with other students. "What's the situation between Reconquista and Tristain?"
"According to Prince Wales' subordinates' reports, they're trying their best to hide their presence while interrupting Reconquista's preparations. They had also gained some supports from the locals, but it won't be enough to stop the war. Their first attack might start two weeks from now."
"It is inevitable." Creating multiple water bubbles with different sizes, Wisdom makes the smaller ones spinning around the biggest one in a constant pace. "Human history tends to prove the rise and fall of an era being affected by the ideals of those who decided to act, bad or good. Until it happened, good becomes better, bad becomes worse."
"So which state our era is in now, in your opinion?"
"A junction. The war will decide how this world moves forward." The bubbles then spin faster and faster, to the point they create rings of water, then dissolves themselves, the heat of the spin also vaporizes the big bubble in the middle. "Personally, I would like Reconquista to be destroyed."
"Then…"
"Doesn't mean I will tip off the balance of the world. I'm no native of this world, so I won't do anything. Even if my mistress asked to do so."
Knowing that there's no way to convince him, Agnes shrugs a bit disappointedly and walks to the students and starts instructing them for the next lesson.
Meanwhile, Wisdom turns his head towards the Fire Tower and sees Colbert heading to his own office which looks like a Science Lab. In his hand, the Fire Mage is holding a bottle of some kind of yellow liquid. 'That thing, huh?' Wisdom has heard the professor talking about 'Dragon Blood' before and he has showed the familiar the item. The smell was definitely what he knows, but he decided not to say anything so that the bald mage's excitement won't drop.
"…Do you think if I should tell him the true nature of Dragon Blood or not?"
"Your choice, partner. If you don't want another fire in the Academy again, then go ahead. I see it entertaining, though."
"Seeing the school burnt down is not entertaining." There was an incident in the past involving the Dragon Blood and a certain mage's curiosity went wrong, and Wisdom had to intervene since the Water Mages were not exactly the good choice to deal with the problem, and they didn't know the knowledge of shutting down that kind of fire, yet.
"Not that extreme, partner." The sword then hears the 'phone' in Wisdom's jean pocket vibrating. Considering his partner always checks the item the moment it makes its existence known, Derf is no longer surprised. "Another check-up on little miss' sister?"
Not answering instantly, the 'familiar' pulls out the phone and looks at the text. "…Chris."
"Oh? Finally calling someone from your place for help?"
"…Somewhere along the line." Taking a small glance back to the group of students, the familiar sees his master continuing physical practices under the knights' instructions. Seeing there's no reasons to interrupt, he makes a high jump towards one of the towers and sits on the rooftop, and starts typing on the phone. "He can't really help much considering his specialty, but I can keep my disappearance a bit more private."
"I'm sure whoever back in your place are worried about your safety." Even if his partner is not what people think of him, Derf knows that the ones close to him don't care about that and would find a way to…
"More likely they… never mind." Not wanting to badmouth people he doesn't hate, Wisdom shuts up.
"So, who is this fella? Your friend?"
"…Yes, at best. We are in a unit."
"Like the knights in that chick's Order? Or like that 'brother' the little missy saw in your memory?"
"…Yes." Wisdom makes some comparisons before answering, not exactly confirming which relationship is correct.
"He must be a close friend if you trust him to keep your secrets."
"He's known as a person with secrets. One more won't hurt him. Of course, it's just how the people describe when they can't get things out of him."
"Why does he sound like you?" Derf asks suspiciously. "Are you describing yourself?"
"No." Wisdom replies with no hesitations. "I don't say much because people don't earn enough trust from me. He doesn't say much to keep people out of danger, and he does tell the reasons of not revealing information."
"Basically a friendlier version of you then."
"…You can interpret my words that way." Reading his ally's replies, Wisdom sighs. "No luck, then."
"Not even a small clue, partner?"
"Like I said, if it's related to heritage, then there's nothing we can do except accepting that we can't help…"
"What about more forceful ways?"
"…You know something." Wisdom says slowly, not letting his subtle annoyance be known.
"Hey, you are NOT going to like it, and neither are her family, so I said nothing."
"Then you shouldn't even speak up."
"I know YOU know something, partner." Derf says, being literally the one closest to understand his partner. "That eye-twitching might go unnoticed to the others, but not me. Don't underestimate this six-thousand-year-old sword."
That causes Wisdom to pause his thought for a moment, then releases a deep breath.
"And that's the sign of you willing to listen."
"…Did Brimir perform that spell?" Given the sword knows that sort of spell...
"Um… actually no." Derf confesses. "He did find the spell, but he never performed it. Not even on the Elves he swore to destroy."
"Which means there could be records somewhere." Wisdom pockets his phone and starts walking on the wall and heads down a few floors. "Time to pay the library a visit, again."
"Uh, no, partner. I doubt that spell could be…"
"Everything has its secrets, big or small. If this school doesn't have one, I would be surprised. The 'Staff of Destruction' would be one good evidence for that. Or that dead man's incident."
"…Why am I not surprised hearing that? Also, why walking down? Just jump…"
"I'm not going to create another hole on the ground. And the library is not on ground level."
"I mean… you know what, I will shut up and let you do your things."
"Thanks."
"And remember to return those books as well."
"I will, once I get enough information."
Reading fairy-tale stories at my age? People would instantly call that person childish, and it's even more embarrassed if a younger Nobles calls him or her out. Even a commoner in the same age would only pick the books up if to read for the children.
That same line of thought doesn't seem to ever cross through Wisdom's head, however.
I have seen him borrowing books from the library ever since he revealed his magic to the whole school, and I don't see a problem with it. Though, at first I saw him reading books about Halkeginia's history or about how our magic works. And after meeting my family… the books are mostly changed into fairy tales and fantasy stories that none of us thought being real. I wanted to tell him those books wouldn't give him anything useful, but given how he works, I reconsidered and never spoke up.
After all, demons don't exist in Halkeginia… right?
A strange coldness runs on her back, so cold that causes the poor Void mage to nearly jump out of her bed in surprise. Quickly turning her head around the room, Louise sees that it's still nighttime after she goes to sleep. Though, she notices the light outside of her window shines a strange yet ominous red color. She turns to where Wisdom usually sleeps and sees nothing, not even Derf is there. Alarmed, she picks up her cloak and wears it over her before rushing outside.
Getting out of her tower and looking up at the sky, Louise's face turns pale as she can clearly see only one moon on the sky. Normally it's not really a problem since the two moons align in a line sometimes. But from her current view, it looks like that's neither of the two moons, and the new one is shining blood red light. Alarmed, she looks around to see if anyone notices this strange phenomenon…
"Miss Valliere!" Thankfully, Professor Colbert rushes towards her from her left as she turns her head to the direction. "Did you get hurt? I saw many others collapsed the way down here!"
"I am fine, professor." Louise is relieved that at least one professor is still okay. "Wisdom is not in my room, however. Did you meet him?"
"No." The Fire mage shakes his head in worry. "I saw the servants lying unconscious on the floor along with some knights on the way here. I tried to wake them up, but to no avail." He then looks up to the blood moon and continues: "I think that's the cause. But there's nothing strange during the…"
His speech is interrupted as the ground shakes once, causing Louise to nearly fall if Colbert doesn't manage to grab her arm and hold her in place. "Thank you professor." The girl says her gratitude before turning her head around to find the source. "What is that?"
"Something from the forest, I believe." The two turns to where the voice comes from and sees the Headmaster and Tabitha walking to them, with the Water mage having her full set of clothes on her like she's expecting something like this to happen. "The others are knocked out, unfortunately. We need to find out what is happening."
"Wisdom?" Tabitha asks, not expecting that the familiar is not with his master.
"…He's probably there already." Louise sighs, self-explaining to her own question of her familiar's disappearance. "Let's go and see if he needs our help."
…
After a few minutes, the group reaches the edge of the forest. So far, they see nothing wrong…
"Blood." Colbert covers his nose with his left arm sleeve and says with disgust. "Either this is Wisdom's blood which would be bad, or it's something else's blood. I hope it's not Wisdom's."
"We need to be careful. It might be something terrible if he's in the area filled with blood." Old Osmond warns the others as he holds his cane ready.
Louise nods as she uses her Void Shield on everyone, with Tabitha casting Silencing spell so their movements won't create sounds. The professors thank the girls then go into the forest first, the students also quickly follow. They do not take a straight way, and instead hide themselves between the shadows of the trees to make sure that nothing in the open could see them. Even with the Silencing spell on, they wouldn't dare to speak in order to save energy.
Time passes, and they head closer to the middle of the forest…
"That…" Colbert's sweat appears on his bald head, as he and the Headmaster see the scene before them. He then moves his right hand up to stop the two students from moving forward. "You two shouldn't see this…"
"I saw Wisdom getting stabbed before, Professor Colbert." Louise says, quickly understanding the mage's concern.
"No problem." Tabitha simply responds.
"…Feel free to cover your eyes if the scene unnerves you." Old Osmond simply says then walks to the clean field, heading to whatever the two elders are seeing.
Louise decides to peak out once she's out of the shadow, and slightly gasps at the scene before her:
Bodies of human spreading everywhere, though thankfully they are still in one piece. That doesn't ease her up when she notices the blood surrounding them. She walks meekly to one of the bodies and kneels down, raising her left hand to it. The magic around her hand starts to glow up…
A large purple magic circle suddenly appears under the body, causing Louise to fall back in surprise. To her horror, a monster emerges and swallows the body in one go then retracts back to the magic circle before it disappears. That happens to a couple more corpses, and the whole event occurs in mere seconds that none of the mages have time to properly react.
Once it's over, the forest turns dead silence again.
"W… What… just happened?" Louise's forehead starts pouring out cold sweats as she gasps for air, horrified at what she just witnessed.
"…" The grip on her own staff tightens, as Tabitha snaps out of her shock and looks around for any dangers. She then notices some of the bodies are not… eaten. She slowly closes into one… and sees that the person is only unconscious since she could clearly see him breathing. "…Louise, previous body, dead or alive?"
"Wha… what?" It takes her about ten seconds to slow down her breath before Louise could reply, albeit with a bit of difficulty. "I… I don't… think so…"
"Colbert, immediately check the other ones. See if they are alive or not."
The Fire mage instantly follows the headmaster's order and checks the bodies' vitals. After a throughout check, Colbert reports: "All of them are alive, sir. There are bruises, but they're not life-threatening."
"…May Brimir guide those lost souls to a better life." Old Osmond mourns for the dead ones. The group then sees the birds flying out from another portion of the forest. "We have to find if anyone alive is still in the forest, and deal with whatever in there."
The others nod and they quickly head to the direction while Louise slowly getting her mind back to normal. However, she thinks of one possibility…
…
"A demon." Not wasting a single second, Tabitha blasts a few Wind Blades towards the figure, gaining its attention.
Even from afar, the group could see the monstrous figure holding a person up in the air with tendrils growing from its back. There are more attached on its arms and running around the body. Some of them are connected to the ground below the demon. The tendrils don't even flinch when Wind Blades hit them, but the demon starts turning its head to the group.
Quickly standing in front of the girls, Old Osmond and Colbert start chanting a few defensive spells, preparing to counter any of the demon's attacks…
"Yeah, told you that moon would draw attentions partner." A familiar voice speaks up from the demon's back, causing one of the tendrils to pull it out…
"…Derf?" Louise asks incredulously.
"Hey there little miss, you saw the mess around here? Sorry about that. Those punks talked trash about you and…"
"That's enough." A deep, echo voice interrupts the sword that comes from the demon's head, causing the others to point their weapons towards it. Then, to their surprise, the darkness surrounding the head starts moving away, revealing the head of the Mage Killer behind it. "My apology. I have thought that everyone has already asleep. It appears that I was wrong." His voice now is completely normal, under his standard.
"…You are a demon?" Colbert asks, not dropping his guard yet.
"…If you are talking about my armor, then yes, it's a demon." The tendrils then retract, dropping the person they are holding on, and disappear into the familiar black armor the group has seen before. It then also disappears, leaving Wisdom in his normal butler outfit. "About myself… no. Not a natural one at least."
"Well I'm sure the ones you knocked out have nightmares about you when they sleep." The figure coughs a few times, her breath getting ragged due to being squeezed a bit too hard.
"At least those nightmares won't kill them directly." Grabbing the person's back-collar, Wisdom then drags her towards the mages who are now lowering their weapons…
"Did you…" Louise starts asking her familiar.
"Yes. I did."
"Why?"
"Like Count Mott."
"No. I mean…"
"That's for the armor, not me." And apparently Wisdom understands his mistress enough that he answers before the question is fully asked.
Colbert then notices who Wisdom is dragging. "Wait… you are…" He uses his free hand to move the hood of the cloak out of the person's head. "Fouquet!?"
"Took a while for you to come here." The woman sarcastically replies to his surprise.
"You aren't welcome around here anymore." Old Osmond says, not with malice but disappointment. "Who are the people coming with you?"
"I will tell you, and the survivors will add in if they feel comfortable enough." Wisdom answers in her place.
"How?" Tabitha asks, referring to how they're going to bring the unconscious people back.
"Three." Louise sighs and draws three fingers out, which causes the others to look at her in confusion. "Two. One." Each time she says that, she retracts one finger. And once there's no fingers left, all of them including the ones scattered around the forest are now in the school yard. The Void mage then notices the blood moon is still there. "Wisdom, please get that moon away please. It's unnerving everyone here."
Apparently everything was Wisdom's set-up. I should have known better. That didn't erase the memories of those dead people being eaten up by the 'demons' my idiot familiar has summoned.
After the moon disappeared, Wisdom woke the ones he knocked out up by letting that 'armor' roar which also woke the entire Academy up. We then waited for the Musketeers to show up and 'help' bringing the intruders to an empty classroom. From then, an interrogation happened.
Turned out, Wardes' warning to the Reconquista's leader has been heard, and they sent a team of powerful knights and mages towards Tristain to try to abduct me. And since Fouquet was once a member of the Academy, they selected her to be the one guiding the team. She knew that fighting head-on is practically a no-no, so she proposed to attack at night, when the security 'appeared' to be less heavy. However… the result was clearly soon to them that the knights weren't even needed.
About the ones survived Wisdom's attacks, some of them were desperate to join the Rebels so they could earn something to help their remaining relatives, the rest were actually the Royalists blending into the Rebel's ranks to gain information. And they also brought bad news: If they either won't return or return empty-handed, Reconquista will attack in a few days. The Loyalists suspected that the place being attacked first might be La Rochelle, given that it's a port city and it's near enough to Albion. The others agreed, although Wisdom was doubting something was amiss but he didn't give out any solid evidences for the suspicion so he dropped it.
They then changed the topic and asked about Wisdom's 'demonic armor'. He simply said that he got it during one of his hunts. What kind of hunt? He never said. At least he did confirm that he would never… eat anyone. Maybe?
About Fouquet…
"What did you talk with Fouquet about?" Louise asks Wisdom as the two return to their room. Everything is over for the night and everyone has retreated back to their room. The Loyalists, however, have to stay in the previous room with the Musketeers and the other Reconquista members for 'security reasons', since the Academy doesn't have a proper prison.
"…You noticed?"
"Thanks to you training me to trace magic. Also, your sudden change of behavior is a get-go that you performed Time Stop." She replies while climbing on her bed.
"…It's not something I can tell you yet, my mistress. Matilda wants to keep it in the dark before we talk with Prince Wales and Princess Henrietta." The familiar puts Derf on the floor next to where he usually sleeps before sitting down himself.
"Is it related about the future of Albion-Tristain alliance?"
"…It's more complicated than that… And Fouquet told me that La Rochelle might not be the target."
"Then why didn't you tell everyone…"
"Because it's still a suspicion. Besides, the Port City does sound likely a good target. Unless Reconquista wants to destroy everything, then they will just attack the nearest location to Albion."
"…Can I ask you this?" Lying down on her bed, Louise asks with a bit of hesitation. "If I want to go into the battlefield… would you stop me?"
"My job is to protect you and give you advices." Wisdom instantly answers. "If you're determined in your decision, I have no voices in stopping it. I will follow you and keep you safe, and even make sure that you can achieve your target. Unless it's a malicious desire then I will stop you. For your current question, no."
"Thank you." Louise smiles and starts going back to sleep. "Goodnight Wisdom."
"Goodnight, my mistress." The familiar responds, and the Master goes to sleep…
"So, no talking about the Elf?"
"That's the Royalty's problem, not my mistress' one. Besides, even if the Elf's unlucky, it's not our responsibility."
"Unless…" The sword knows his partner NEVER one hundred percent accepting a bad choice.
"That's to be decided on our next conversation with the Prince."
A small clarification before any of you speak about: how Wisdom called Matilda or Fouquet depends on the context, whenever he was talking about a thief joining a Rebellion or a person who has someone to look after.