The Fifth Day of the School Competition is the Sharp shooting Even.

Be they with bows, pistols or rifles the various students are given the task of sniping targets arranged by the school. As a start, flying monsters have been gathered together and will be released into a controlled environment on the outskirts of the capital and students will be tasked to snipe them from afar. Aside from the monster hunt there is also a trick shooting competition. Finally there is a mounted shooting competition in which participants have to simultaneously ride over rough terrain mounted on either horses or Airbikes and shoot at targets that have been presented to them.

The school would also like to address recent security concerns raised after the bomb attempts during the race. With the Sharp shooting event taking place containing only a limited number of participants security at the new event promises to be much tighter.

Excerpt from the pamphlet for the Holfort School Festival


The Sharp shooting festival has always been a source of trouble. All the guns going off? Prime chance for a little bit of 'sabotage.' The kind of sabotage where the Sabotaged ends up dead. The Airship is one precaution for that, a platform for the students to shoot at the targets from, strategically located far away from any possible sniper's nest so that no one would take advantage of the existing gun fire for 'Accidental discharges.' Aside from that each of them were going by one by one, with a fixed amount of targets released each round and a limited amount of time to eliminate them. Leon liked nothing about this situation, not the bitch basic gun in his hands that he wouldn't be reinforcing with magic, nor the fact that a similar weapon was in the hands of the guy who tried to have a bomb planted on him who was on this very ship. And right now the young Warlock was doing his best to make this displeasure known to the individual in question without actually speaking to him.

"What exactly do you want from me!?" Jilk was already nervous. Leon looked ready to kill him a few days ago over a misunderstanding.

"Target practice." Leon replied bluntly having dismantled, examined and reassembled each individual component of his rifle. "You shat on the kindness of a good friend of mine, threatened my sister and my family, tried to plant a bomb on me and I'm still not convinced you didn't do it twice."

"And you nearly beat a man I consider to be my brother to death." Jilk did not feel like he was the one who deserved to be on the receiving end of punishment here.

"So in your mindset you can take another shot at me guilt free eh?" Leon asked as the threatening aura that was around his body intensified.

"I find myself curious as to how you are not in jail right now I will admit." Jilk stated bluntly.

"Your 'brother' needs a reality check." Leon stated bluntly. "You have no idea how many people hate him, how badly his foolishness, and yours, has screwed over this kingdom. And for your sake I hope you at least have the time to understand the depths of your idiocy before you all get killed for it."

"Enlighten me smart guy." Jilk stated as he crossed his arms. "I have nothing better to do until my turn begins."

"As a start? Your people are too poor to do anything, and you, your friends, and your prince spend all your allowance on crap like golden busts of your whore of a girlfriend." Leon stated his tone indicating he was saying something obvious. Fortunately, the Prince's bad spending habits hadn't been made public, even though it was one of the things he was being punished for.

Jilk snorted in derision.

"And here I thought someone running a business would have a better sense of finances." Jilk stated and he looked happy to give Leon a lecture. "The Kingdom's tax laws take into careful consideration the size of the territory, and they leave plenty of funds left over for the territory to be maintained."

"The Taxes are least of their concerns." Leon snapped by way of reply. "The Barons and other low ranking nobles of the Kingdom are being force to marry off with parasites in human skin who suck the life of their territory, will sell off their spouse's 'illegitimate' offspring for cash who will then be shipped off to die in a war before they can ever step foot in the academy and your stupid masters are paying them to do it!"

"Ah a 'Lumberjack.'" Jilk snorted in derision.

"A what?" Leon legitimately looked confused.

"One of the countless 'Ladies of the Forest' conspiracy Theorists who have convinced themselves that their step mothers are actively conspiring against the crown or blaming them for their parent's failure to manage their territories, named as such because they fantasise about the day they get to cut the forest down." Jilk lectured matter of factly.

"You seem rather doubtful." Leon stated as he made his suspicions known.

"You've met the women of the academy." The kind of stupid, selfish, spoiled brats that would gladly form a group exactly like that. "Do any of them look smart enough to pull off a conspiracy as complex as the one you are talking about and the Kingdom not know about it?" Jilk smugly stated his back straight and his head held high.

"I've met your prince." Leon stated by way of reply. "They're smart enough to fool him, and I'm quite certain that acorn went straight down from the tree when it landed."

"You da...!"

"You were in the army over break right?" Leon asked cocking a suspicious brow. "How many of the men there do you think are less than Fifteen years old?"

"That is impossible." Jilk snapped by way of reply. "You have to be a legal adult of 15 years of age before you can enrol in the army."

"I'm not asking you about the law I'm asking you how old the people you were working with are. Did you not even bother to check, or is your eyesight so bad that you can't make a decision for yourself without reading about it in some file?" Leon just let out a sigh, someone really needed to get their head yanked out of their rear end.

The Sound of a tone went off on the Deck.

"That would be my turn for the sharp shooting competition. Best of luck chopping the forest down." Leaving behind some sarcastic commentary Jilk went out onto the deck.

Leon in the meantime summoned Left to his side, grabbed her by her apron, before pulling her in and screaming out in frustration into her bosom.


Your Majesty, It has come to my attention that a disturbingly high number of youths under my command are just that, underage children below the age of majority and thus should be legally barred from entering the army.

When I questioned them a disturbingly high number of these boys report being married of to women two to four times their ages, their actual ages as upon arriving here many of them claimed to be 13 or 14 years of age, the 'lucky ones' claim that they were unceremoniously shipped off here without ever seeing their 'wives' in the flesh, the less lucky ones I'm afraid are going to be permanently turned off of women for the rest of their lives. I am personally requesting a few months so that I can train them to the high standards I know you expect from me, I am also requesting an investigation into the noble houses that these boys came from and the ones that they have apparently married into on the grounds of my reasonable certainty that some unpleasant business is afoot.

I've compiled a list of names.

*What Follows is a list of names from almost every low and mid-ranking family in the entire kingdom*

It is my strong recommendation that if the Kingdom of Holfort is going to have a future of any kind then these individuals must be investigated post haste.

A letter from a rather Concerned General Patton


Leon was not the only one voicing concerns about the so-called Forest of Ladies. The difference Between Jilk and Angelica is that when a large portion of Angie's followers come to her with the same concerns, she has to pay attention to them. As a start expenditure reports from the various floating islands that her followers families live on were on their way to the academy for her to audit personally, that would take time however. In the mean time the women who were the source of these complaints were living here in the capital, and Angelica had two shape shifting spies with the ability to disappear into Shadow working for her.

"Report." Angelica looked up to see that Right had returned from the errands that she had sent her on.

"We have gathered a full expense report of all the houses in question." Right produced a stack of papers. Of course the demoness didn't do anything so boorish as stealing the original documents, that's amateur hour. Instead utilising blank paper, ink and their extensive amount of shape shifting skills they were able to create exact copies of the documents in question before bringing them to Angelica.

"Where's Left?" To Angelica's question Left suddenly appeared.

"Apologies Ojou, Waka had unexpectedly called me over." The Demoness in question bowed apologetically.

"What's your report?"

"Several secret passageways have been discovered leading to what we believe to be meeting rooms, inside of which I found documentation discussing the sale of several dozen young men between the different households mentioned on the list."

"How many of these individuals are under the Redgrave banner?" Anticipating that question, Right handled Angelica a thick bundle of documents that she had removed prior to, the conclusion she reached was 'enough to be concerned' especially about several people she use to consider friends.

"Package all of these documents and send them to my father." Angelica instructed bluntly as she returned to managing the student council.

"Do you think that he will do something about them?" Left asked as Right went to get boxes to put the documents inside.

"He'll start with his own vassals homes, inviting himself over and using the knowledge of the secret passageways that you will provide him to access these secret rooms. After that he'll turn them into informants to give him more concrete information on the vassals of his rivals and use that information to cripple his rivals at an opportune time." If anyone asks for an update on how long it's taking to sort out their familial issues Angelica will simply tell them that the paper work is being delayed in the system. Holfort's Bureaucracy was slow by design, and that's without the King crippling it for his own amusement or the blatantly corrupt officials stalling, she had no doubt that her new followers would believe it, fewer doubts that it would actually be true.


For once Leon got to enjoy one of the school's events without having to blast anyone with magic, getting blown up or getting in trouble. Still the day was young and so were the challenges, Leon and Jilk ended up tying for first place, while Leon's feat of hitting three of the little flying Fury demons in one shot was impressive it didn't affect his score. Thus the second part of the challenge.

"I cannot believe you actually know how to ride a horse." Jilk commented as he let his engine hum as he looked up at Leon.

Mortal and demonic horses aren't that different from one another, the Blackmores keep a ranch of particularly unruly demonic horses known as Geryon, hunted to near extinction by various demons as their souls grant the power to control time.

"I cannot believe you have the balls to perform this event on the air bike that Clarice had given you." Leon replied as he looked down at the expensive customised Air Bike that Jilk was sitting on.

"You do understand that we are being timed correct?" Jilk replied as he completely ignored Leon's statement.

Leon just rolled his eyes as he let Jilk go first.

Aside from the drone that would be following each contestant as they went through the woods one by one there were also several drones with heat sensitive camera's that were combing the entire forest outside of the Academy, no trouble makers would be wreaking havoc on Luxion's watch, that was guaranteed. Jilk of course got the highest score, in and out of the forest in little under ten minutes, and every target pitted. But Leon thought he could do better, as the last one to participate in the race he now got an idea of where all the targets were located. And since the other method of scoring points, aside from shooting the targets, was spending as little time as possible on the track, Leon simply took his horse, strolled into the entrance to the track, and parked it.

Whipping out a lever action rifle Leon began opening fire into the woods accurately unloading every projectile dead centre into each of the targets in question, ricocheting off of the ones that he did have a clean line of sight on to get to the ones that he didn't. Finally Leon strolled back out of the woods, rifle resting on his shoulder, in one fifth of the time as the rest of the competition.

"Done." The rest of the competitors ran wild at that. Leon Argued that the rules did not specify a distance from which he had to hit each individual target, even went so far as to question if he was suppose to be delivering shots at point blank range, he also noted that the contest asked for the time it takes him to get out of the woods as a means of scoring. Thus Leon got the fastest time.

"Cheater." Jilk bitterly snapped and for once the rest of the crowd was agreeing with his assessment as Leon hauled off his winnings.

"No one wants to hear that from you." Leon snapped by way of reply. "Come on the last event is this way." The Trick shooting competition was held inside of a large ware house, to minimise the chance of outside interference.

A simple and uneventful matter of being given one shot and using that to hit as many of the three targets present as possible. Leon of course hit all three targets with the simple revolver that he had been given.

"Would've been able to hit more if I was allowed to enchant the ammunition." Leon let out that complaint as he handed the single gun they were all sharing to the judge.

"Cheating hasn't stopped you yet." Jilk complained as he waited for the gun to finish being loaded.

"Not cheating, interpretation." Leon corrected for the umpteenth time that day. "Seriously why do people even bother talking to you when you don't even listen to them?" Leon stated as he looked around the area.

"I'm the son of one of the Founding five families you thug!" Jilk snapped sounding insulted.

"Even they don't want to talk to you right now. That's what being disowned means." Leon pulled a random flyer off of a board and started reading it for the sake of not having to deal with this moron anymore. "Piss off if you're not going to actually listen." Then of course Leon learned that the flyer was in regards to the Alzeran Exchange student program crumpled it up before throwing it away. There was a reason why he was doing his schooling here instead of in Alzer.


Alzer is very much the economic capital of the world.

To put this into 21st century terms, imagine if you will that there was only one country in the entire world that still had gasoline, not only that but the gas well was both sentient and armed. That's Alzer's Sacred tree in a nutshell, while you can in theory match the power output of the Sacred Tree's mana stones you'd need mana "donations" from hundreds of individuals at a time, for which you'd need enough room on your ship for hundreds of individuals plus your existing cargo, which means that you'd need a much bigger ship and even more mana to make it move. Small dungeons have been born from the natural conclusion of this cycle, modern armours would be effectively impossible.

It gets worse though.

If this was say Afghanistan of old Alzer would have been torn apart five times over by various countries from all over the world, but Alzer is effectively untouchable. The same semi-sentient tree that siphons magical power from the atmosphere is equally as potent at siphoning mana out of people and vehicles, invading Alzer means having the tree suddenly reach up and pluck your ships out of the sky sucking them dry, the people on board soon to follow.

In theory Alzer is the perfect country, economically wealthy, fortified from invasion, technologically developed. The issue here lies in the fact that the people of Alzer are ass-holes, specifically its ruling elite. Technically speaking, Alzer is not one country but seven bound up in the roots of its sacred tree, each of the constitute parts has it's own ruling family bound directly to the Sacred Tree, so long as none of them violates it's rules then the members of that family are basically given Carte Blanq to use the tree's power however they like.

One also has to remember that among the people of Alzer's ruling elite there are also people who treat their connection to the Sacred Tree as a license to Rape, Murder and Pillage. Every war Alzer has won has been a cycle of provoking other countries into attacking them resulting Alzer's victory in a defensive battle. That said as all things do Alzer's invincibility does eventually come to a end, which will hopefully not be as nearly as apocalyptic for us as it will be for Alzer.

This isn't to suggest that all of Alzer's ruling elite are unrepentant psychopaths, the various capture targets of the second game are for the most part decent people, though they are one bad date with the second game's protagonist away from slipping off into the deep end.

Excerpt from Diary 2


Stephanie was getting the bandages taken off of her face. Pieces of hair harvested from a corpse had been shoved into her scalp and the scars that Angelica had left in her face had been smoothed out, for the price that Stephanie paid you'd think they'd get rid of the scars in her mind too.

"Clara..." Stephanie growled as the girl in question came to attention. "I have a few instructions for our associates, get me my stationary."

Stephanie was sure that the Forest Would enjoy turning Angelica's pet giant into a communal sex toy and her pet commoner would make a great toy for the pirates on top of that.

"Good, go find out where the little commoner is staying too. I want to make her suffer before we sell her off!" Carla's face cringed at that statement. "I figured you'd want to do that so I looked into it in advance and..."

"Good! Give me the room number!" Carla just let out a sigh, Stephanie's assertions that Angelica and Olivia were sleeping together were slightly more accurate than she had initially guessed, well she assumed that some people just have to learn the hard way.


The Sixth day of the School Festival is reserved for the magic competition between students. Each of the students are given one chance to fire a magic spell into the air, the magic is judged by the rank of the spell used, the control displayed, and the power output for the spell. Students are advised that if they use any spell that directly threatens the lives of the audience they will automatically be disqualified. Aside from that all students are encouraged to let their creativity flourish.

Excerpt from the Pamphlet for Holfort's School Festival.


My knowledge of Newman Biology is limited, but I can provide the insight from my time playing the game. Since video game-like mechanics are a thing in this world then it's appropriate to describe the effects of Levels on our bodies as Status. Strength, Agility, Endurance, Vitality, Intelligence, Wisdom and Perception are the seven stats. Strength refers to raw muscle tissue, augmenting brute strength and your defensive power. Agility is movement Speed and attack Frequency, your body pushing away on your surroundings to reduce friction. Endurance is Stamina, our bodies are already machines powered by mana at this point. Vitality is health regeneration, to be clear your health stat remains the same but it's more accurate to say how much and how well you heal from your injuries, which necessitates the use of armour.

Intelligence, Wisdom and Perception is slightly misleading, near as I can tell it doesn't actually make you smarter though it does augment existing mental faculties. Intelligence refers to magic capacity, according to the royal mages there's also a direct correlation between magic capacity and memory. Wisdom refers to magic regeneration, and according to the experts people with high magic regeneration are able to sort through their memories and apply information faster. Perception would probably be better called control, the ability to gather together magical energy from within and without and assemble that into a magic formula. Maybe it's called that because you have to imagine the formula and effect into existence?

Either way it's hard to say how much of the game's lore and mechanics are adapted from this time period and what the developers added in to make the world feel like more of a traditional RPG.

A supplement on Game Mechanics, provided by Captain Erica at Luxion's request


Erica was with her mother Mylene sitting in the arena as they watched the magic show being put on by the school's students. Mylene wanted to spend more time with Angie, but right now she was dealing with a group of students that had broken into her room at the dorms, hopefully it wouldn't result in Angie having to maul someone with a blow torch again. So far most of the impressive magic had been done by the third year students, though Erica reasonably suspected that would be changing soon with the next person to compete. Brad had been personally tutored by some of the best mages in the country, and in many cases surpassed them, mind you he wasn't the best mage in the kingdom, there were lots of people in the army who regularly participate in monster extermination missions who exceeded him in raw power and the royal court magicians exceeded him in terms of experience and technique. Of course he wasn't the one people most wanted to see either.

"For a Saintess you look more like a pig." They however will have to settle for disappointment, not only because the Saintess in question was not participating due to her shoddy health, but also because said saintess was stuffing her face full of Hot-dogs in a grotesquely unlady like manner.

"I'm hungry!" Marie snapped by way of reply as she nearly swallowed a hot dog whole. "I'm doing five years worth of growing over here!"

"So naturally you choose the unhealthiest food you can get your mitts on." Erica snapped as she handed over a veggie cabob for Marie to eat. "Need I point out, you require the minerals in root vegetables for your bones?" Marie snatched up the cabob as she smoothly cleaned it off in one motion. "And pay attention, it's Brad's turn and you are going to cheer for him." Marie visibly recoiled at that.

"Why are you pushing them onto me after the big deal that you all made out of me seducing them?" Marie asked visibly confused and concerned. Erica replied with a death glare that bordered on the unhinged. Marie promptly stopped stuffing her face long enough to cheer Brad on.

"A tribute to my lady love!" Brad shouted as he gave a bow, ignoring garbage that was being thrown at him.

Marie could at least take some joy from the fact that Brad at least would be getting full marks from the judging committee and winning the contest just like he did back in the game. The ground melted in front of Brad melted into a lava sludge as he pulled it out and shaped it via a invisible mould before using air magic to completely cool the statue down again. Marie stared on in shock and horror, as Brad, just as he had done in game, produced an accurate rendition of his lady love entirely out of cooled molten rock. Of course in the game Brad had drawn up a statue of a beautiful curvaceous young lady, here he instead produced a gaunt, flat rail thin young woman who looked like she was starving to death. The crowd visibly recoiled in horror.

"...ahhhh...!" Marie found herself having a hard time cheering after that display.

As if Brad's display had been judged for figure instead of any of the qualifications it should've been set for the Judges gave nothing but Zeroes. Contrary to Marie's expectations Olivia didn't participate despite having done so in the game, or rather despite it being possible for her to do so in the game. Olivia, unlike Marie, was choosing to do the smart thing and avoid the Church and public scrutiny like it was a plague, besides she knew already that she wasn't going to win the competition.

That's because the last act of the day, Leon, had walked into the arena for his turn. Leon already had a large butterfly pop already prepared, he knew for a fact that he was hobbled in what he could do. Leon was limited to a tenth of his total mana thanks to the limiter, had access to no Devil Arms whose demons he could access, and his mental fatigue was only barely being held at bay by the contents of his thermos. Therefore the young Warlock was forced to utilise one of his trump cards that he'd rather people not know about instead.

Thus Leon started to dance, tap dancing while his feet shuffled about and his arms swung wildly. As the audience was trying to figure out what Leon was doing the energy around him started to crackle as the familiar summoning circle appeared around him. A glowing symbol resembling the head of a devil with crescent shaped horns appeared on his back as Leon's hair suddenly gushed forth like a geyser. The jaws of the audience dropped as their eyes went wide in horror. From Leon's hair a red and black giant emerged, a massive poorly defined demon made of black hair with horns resembling a Crescent Moon, a curved dagger shaped tail, and large red wings like a ghost. The giant was already straining the limits of the safety barrier for the arena, if it broke through he would be immediately disqualified from the competition.

"Alright you settle down." At once the Giant abruptly stood up straight and crossed his arms, his wings folding up and creating a cloak around his body. Immediately Leon had been given the only perfect score of the day, which was good because he exhausted his mana supply.

"I thought he wasn't allowed to use Devil Arms for the Contest." Marie questioned as she looked on in confusion. Erica of course knew the truth, there was exactly one demon down there in the arena right now and that was who Leon summoned.


Among the Umbran's various summons, there are individuals known as the Primary Contractor.

A Umbran only has the one soul to sell after all, and many demons that they need to summon, thus a compromise must be formed. Many demons of Inferno go out of their way to gather subordinates either other lesser Demons or rivals that they've defeated and made into subordinates or Devil Arms, those who have managed to accumulate a large number of different powerful demonic species/individuals are particularly desirable as contracted.

The Umbran who become particularly powerful in life and make contracts with contracted can even become subordinates to them once on the other side of the barrier between life and death, of course such contracted only go on to become even more desirable partners for summoning, sadly such contracts are quite rare these days. Otherwise it isn't uncommon for groups of demons that become too large to split off from one another to form their own groups, to mixed results, similarly if a exceptionally powerful demon were to appear it's not unexpected that they would go around and bring groups of lesser demons under their control.

More than the number or power of the demons in question or the strength of the summoner the most important thing to remember about making contracts with demons is a clear understanding of what both parties want out of the relationship, Failure to understand this is dire.

Excerpt from Demonic Contracts & Politics by Jeanne Blackmore


The final night of the School festival is a large fireworks/magic display, students are encouraged to enjoy the festival to it's fullest. Students can, with the permission of the faculty, walk from person to person carrying wares of refreshments and food for the sake of profit but are otherwise encouraged to relax and enjoy the festival to it's fullest.

Excerpt from the Pamphlet for the Holfort School Festival


Off in the distance, fireworks were going off as the school festival was on the cusp of ending, but for Leon the real work was only beginning, his packed ship on its way to go hunting Pirates. That said, he first had to deal with these three stowaways.

"And what are you three fools doing here?" Leon asked as he looked to three of the Five Fools, Brad, Greg and Chris standing together on his ship.

"Marie told us to report here." The three of them would probably make a fuss if they were told that they were here to be tutored, pride had a way of affecting people's rational judgement after all.

"I'm going hunting for pirates." Brad and Greg cheered as they gave high fives to each other, Chris however looked suspicious. "I've no idea what you three are here for though." Leon would thus have to word what he said carefully to get the result that he desired.

"Excuse me!" Greg growled and Chris sighed as if he expected this result.

"Aside from Brad who might be able to conjure something to strike down the enemy armour." And he doubted that he'd do much good though the Peacock looked all too happy with the praise. "What exactly are you two planning to accomplish without any armour?"

"Give us some then you dumbass!" Greg snapped as if what he was saying was obvious, instead he confirmed Leon's worst fears.

"There's one armour on this ship, it's mine and it has a demon inside of it." Leon stated as he sounded tired.

"Oi why weren't you prepared for something so basic!" Greg snapped and Leon gave a glare in response, he didn't want to hear that from the guy who went into battle for his lady love in armour in such bad shape that after a tiny love tap chunks of it flew off and was lodged inside of his body.

"Because I'm not accommodating three stowaways who sneaked onto my ship and made demands of me." Leon stated as two familiar figures appeared on the ground behind the three.

"You three can think about what you're going to do for the next few days to make yourself useful." And then Left and Right appeared behind the three Idiots who then managed to grab the three now struggling men by their collars before they ultimately dragged them off.


Review Section:

RonaldM40196867: It's not that bad, Leon uses it all the time to cross the trinity of realities. I can't say that I hate any kind of magic really.

desropter: Mylene is going to wonder where the dear sweet Angie she used to know went, then she's going to remember the sheer amount of abuse Julius put her through and what Roland has done to her over the years and it clicks together.

RED BALL: Your Welcome.

Dakota Bruder: The Umbran Contract trades dead angels for years added onto Leon's life span, the stronger the Angel the more life span he gets, there are also techniques that uses that life span and penalties that are paid for by it. As for the second question the term that you're looking for is called Gods, specifically borrowing from Judaism, Egyptian, Norse and Buddhism.

RedRat8: That's part of Angie's plan yes, it has the effects of dragging Julius and co through the mud while salvaging the reputations of Angie and her friends: "Well of course none of their fiances were interested in them, they were all gay." Not that being gay itself will negatively impact their reputations, it's everything else that's gonna do that.

Guest: It's reacting to the staff.

Justinq719: *Cackles maniacally!*