Angelica was quite busy leading up to the new school year. As the highest ranked student she was expected to give the opening speech but that was the least of her concerns going forward. Over half of the student population at the school would be coming in from the army, former victims of the Forest of Ladies, and commoner adventurer students. That was second lowest on the list of Angelica's concerns though, because she once again found herself getting caught in Mylene's schemes.
"I must admit that I didn't expect to see you again." Angelica was addressing an individual old enough to be in her second year. A young lady with overall attractive features including her figure and face, however there was a notable bulge in her belly, though it wasn't notable by most, by Angelica's estimates she was roughly four weeks into her pregnancy.
"This isn't exactly the most pleasant arrangement for me either Redgrave." Stephanie Offrey replied letting out an exhausted tone, notably avoiding slouching.
Mylene Rapha Holfort: A magical accessory that can increase the mana capacity of an unborn child? Even I find that hard to believe.
Luxion: The Yamatai sex cult swears by them, and the Blackmore's are backing them up, and need I remind you that their lineage has some of the most powerful mages in Holfort? It falls in line with our own desires as well: You want more powerful mages, I want you Newman's to start storing more mana in your bodies and reduce what's in the atmosphere. Thus mutual benefit.
Mylene: Even if that was a good idea how would we do it? I'm given to understand that this process requires obscene amounts of sex, not even Roland can do the deed hundreds of times over in a single night, contrary to what he leads people to believe. You want to conceive an entire generation of mass produced Olivia's?
Luxion: Yes. And I have the time to do so. We start with a few dozen individuals, then when they've come of age we use the individuals with a vastly increased mana capacity to produce even more high mana capacity Newmans. This cycle will repeat itself until we've finally finished the atmospheric clean up that was started eight hundred years ago and we can finally stop relying on floating Islands to build civilisation on!
Mylene: And how do you plan on accomplishing this?
Luxion: I seem to recall an absurd number of viable females sitting near the border whose main job can best be summarised as 'get f***** senseless' again thanks to Blackmore.
A conversation between Mylene Rapha Holfort and the Information Being Luxion, stricken from public record
Mind you, Stephanie's last name wasn't Offrey at the moment, she might not have one at all, nor would anyone likely recognise her given the reconstructive surgery that's been performed on her.
"Do you even know who the father is?" Angelica asked looking concerned.
"Do you have the slightest idea of how many men I've slept with in the past year?" Before when a girl at the academy asked Angelica that she would conclude that it was one of the many noble girls bragging about their slaves. Now though? Based on the sheer look of bloody minded murder Stephanie shot her? "I have been trained in the best methods of pleasing men. I have been given drugs that drove my libido crazy. I have given oral until I puked, and I have ridden men of all ages until I couldn't sit anymore!" It was one thing to be told about the requirements for the Yamatai accessories that Tamamo had given her and Olivia, it was another to see someone who has gone through with it. Course, unlike certain individuals that would remain nameless, Angie was more than happy with Leon and Olivia and thus felt no compulsion to seduce Five Heirs in a reverse harem, so her conception plans might be a touch delayed. "I cannot tell you the number of men who have taken a vow of chastity and said they were going to join the temple after I was through with them!" Stephanie had a psychotic glint in her eyes as she tensed her fingers and looked up at the ceiling.
"Sounds like you've been through a lot." Angelica imagined it wasn't too dissimilar to what Olivia would've been put through had Leon failed to protect her.
"The fact that they parked the floating brothel I've been living in next to a active warzone left me good and motivated." Compared to the thought of getting blown out of the sky at any moment being treated as a public cum dumpster was fantastic.
"I hope you've learned your lesson in any case." Angelica stated as she let out a sigh.
"I assure you your boyfriend is in no danger of me sending a fleet of pirates after him." A fact that Angelica was going to conclude had more to do with Stephanie no longer having access to said pirate fleet than Stephanie feeling legitimately remorseful. "You wear your doubt on your face Redgrave." Stephanie had managed to lower herself from stressed out of her mind to merely annoyed with her rant.
"Under normal circumstances no, but I see no reason to hide my doubts from the likes of you." Angelica informed lightly with a shrug of her shoulders.
"Pft." Stephanie responded with a snort of derision. "Read the Room Redgrave. I was the daughter of merchants, a 'commoner' like your precious Olivia. The only difference between us is how well we adapted to our environment." Stephanie was beyond bitter and twice as jealous, had she known that just being herself would mean that she could've dodged Blackmore's wrath then she would've done that from the start, hell she might've even got him to get Fanoss off of her back.
"Meaning without being surrounded by rabid vultures circling for any sign of weakness you would be a normal, well adjusted young lady?" If true, that was the best news Angie has heard all day. "Excellent. You will have ample opportunity to prove as much." The Noble girls had been given an ultimatum: behave yourselves or be thrown out of the school, possibly in jail depending on the severity of their offences.
The Blackmore's had reportedly cornered the 'paid escort' business with their vast supply of Shadow type demons trained on how to pretend to be human, and all of them obeyed the strict guidelines put into place specifically to regulate demi-human actions. Needless to say the days of students being physically abused at the hands of one another had all but ended. Stephanie was currently the most successful of the various women sent off to the AI's breeding camp but that would probably be changing soon, Luxion would want to keep his pet project close to the chest.
That next brought the other situation that she would be dealing with before the entrance exam. The Alzeran students.
Among the Second Game's Capture Targets, personally speaking, I like Serge Sera Rault the least. The adoptive son of the Rault family, while I personally sympathise with the feeling of being separated from your birth family I don't act like a dick about it.
Serge has what can be generously described as a hostile relationship with his parents and his sister Louise, and as an act of rebellion took up adventuring, a profession looked down upon in Alzer. Perhaps then it's only natural that he would end up in a relationship with Noelle, who seems to be the arch-nemesis to his own family.
I want to say that he gets better as the game goes on but no. Serge spends the beginning of the game being a needlessly hostile little prick, he continues to be one on his dates with Noelle, and he remains one after successfully finishing off his own father after he was fused with the sacred tree.
Frankly speaking, if Alzer ends up in his hands by the end of the whole parade we might be better off writing the whole country off.
Excerpt from Diary 2
The Young Man sitting across from Angelica was the representative of the Alzeran students. His hair was neatly tied back into a pony tail, his skin was well tanned from time spent out doors and he was well muscled. Despite this, he sported a sweater vest and an ascot while the case for a set of reading glasses could be seen sticking out of his coat pocket. In short, he looked like a nerdy but well kept young man in good shape.
"Serge Sera Rault, a pleasure to meet your acquaintance Miss." The young man who called himself Serge held his hand out for Angelica.
"Angelica Rapha Redgrave, a Pleasure to make your acquaintance Mr. Rault." Shaking the other man's hand Angelica took out the file that she had prepared in advance. "So your application says that you're here to expand your horizons as an adventurer?"
"Archaeology is not a well looked upon past time in my native land sadly." Serge lamented with his arms spread. "We only have the two dungeons, and they have this nasty habit of sucking your mana out of you as soon as you enter them." Angelica could understand the problem there. Mana wasn't just necessary to cast spells common belief be damned, without it your start feeling fatigued and if you lose all of it you can even collapse which surrounded by an pack of hostile monsters is a bad thing, if it keeps sucking on you after that you'll die from having the life sucked out of you.
"Just so you know, the capital's royal dungeon is undergoing reconstruction at the moment. I won't deny the possibility that new artefacts will be extracted during this time, the Saint's bracelet was found inside the Dungeon just last year after all, but students won't be the ones taking them out." Angelica explained as she brought up the file on the Royal Dungeon.
"Fine by me." Serge shrugged his shoulders as if Angelica was talking about something that didn't affect him. "My main interest is in the Blackmore's compound."
"Aren't you this 'Celene's' son? Shouldn't you have had the chance to explore it before?" Angelica was confused by the actions of what was for all intents and purposes Leon's cousin.
"My current mother is Celene yes, but I was adopted into the family from my current father's side after the death of my father." Serge looked to the side as he was thinking about something awkward.
"My condolences." Angelica meant it too, two months of conducting interviews with the young men who had been victims of the Ladies of the Forest somewhat acquainted Angelica with loss. "Does your birth mother still live if you don't mind me asking?"
"I don't actually, she does though not in a good way. She and dad use to be part of the army you understand, it does a number on you." Serge cleared his throat and the awkward atmosphere with it. "In any case I wasn't actually in the family until a couple of years after Leon's side left Alzer, my interest in Archaeology didn't blossom until after that."
"Yes." Angelica wisely took the change of topic for what it was. "It's rare to have so many historical ruins without monsters actively running around."
While Angelica and Serge discussed their mutual interest in the ancient civilisation Luxion's drone was floating off to the side. Luxion produced a image from his database, a still from the game, featuring a young man with dark tanned skin and a mane of long wild hair with a displeased look on his features, Luxion compared the picture to the one it was supposedly of, Serge who was sitting right in front of him. Objectively? They had the same facial features, even the image recognition software recognised that they were the same person, that said the Serge of the game and the Serge of reality couldn't be further apart from one another if they tried.
"The Captain isn't going to like this." Is the summation of Luxion's thoughts.
Among the third game's cast of dateable characters, Aaron is the only commoner.
Originally a adventurer of some success Aaron was promoted to fill the gaps of nobility that was left over as a result of Julius's ill-thought out actions and the massive losses suffered at the hands of the Principality. Aaron is introduced to the protagonist at a welcome party for the new and exchange students, where he and his friends had spiked the booze hoping to get lucky with any number of the girls present, instead Aaron ended up zeroing in on the one girl who wasn't drinking.
Excerpt from Diary 3
While Angie was speaking with the various incoming noblemen, Olivia was handling her fellow commoners.
Well Olivia wasn't a commoner anymore, on paper she was Olivia Fou Gardenia, named after her parent's farm store back in former Offrey territory, the only member of her Knight house, a formality Angelica prepared leading up to their three way marriage. Even though Olivia was to be handling the incoming students there was no one on one interviews in her future. Instead Olivia was sitting in a corner, her star of Solomon medal attached to her uniform as she read a novel she had taken from the Blackmore's library.
"Cleare-chan there's some people who put something in the punch bowl." In reality, Olivia was using her powers as a empath to keep an eye on everyone in the party. She wouldn't go as far as to use her mind altering magic to make them behave with brute force, but Olivia had a understanding of what everyone was feeling, and frankly speaking she was quite glad she didn't drink alcohol. Aside from the negative effects on the mind, thanks to the efforts of Olivia's new juniors the booze would have a particularly bad effect on her body. Luckily Olivia's Teetolaling had managed to dodge three 'dates' already.
"Again? That's the fourth time we've had to swap it out!" Cleare was wondering if the royal family had inadvertently invited a bunch of criminals to attend the academy.
"Good afternoon miss!" Olivia looked up to see a caucasian man with brown hair smiling at her as he held out a glass for her, the smell of alcohol thick in the air. "I couldn't help but notice that you seem a touch lonely."
"I already have two fiancees." Olivia accepted the glass none the less. "One of them is the daughter of a Duke Angelica Rapha Redgrave and the other is the son of the Umbran Clan Leon Rapha Blackmore." Olivia kept the boy's attention squarely on her face while she magically assessed the contents of the glass and then purified her drink turning it from drugged wine punch into harmless fruit juice. "I trust you didn't mean to make a social faux pass but I assure you I am quite happy with the relationships I have. Now excuse me please." And with that Olivia made a big show of downing the contents of her 'drugged wine' in one go. "Now if you'll excuse me." Olivia stood up to move elsewhere, before she suddenly started to wobble and held the side of her head.
"I got you!" Indeed Aaron did, or so he thought. One hot babe for him and his friends to do with as they please tonight. So what if she had fiancee's already? This Kingdom was aggressively polygamous. What Dukes or nobles? Word around the Rumour mill is that the nobility is being phased out entirely. What morals? Please, with what he's heard about the women of this academy she has it coming. As Aaron was about to put Olivia's arm around his neck and grab her by her ass he felt a sudden sting like a mosquito and suddenly felt dizzy. An immediate reversal of events took place as it was now a very sober Olivia supporting a obviously intoxicated Aaron.
"Why did I agree to do this?" The boy's behaviour wasn't entirely their own fault, or so Olivia led herself to believe.
It was true that she wasn't directly controlling anyone but she had cast a minor spell on everyone at the party at Cleare's request to make herself seem more attractive. Nothing astounding, chances are good that she wouldn't be ruining any relationships tonight, but she had made herself the most desirable target for single men. In most cases they would just leave it alone after she turns them down, some would only drop it after she brought up the 'Fleet Burning Princess' or the 'Demon Knight.' And then there's people like Aaron, the exact kind of individuals that Olivia was suppose to draw out by turning herself into 'rape bait.' Using a spell that altered people's perception and another that enhanced her strength Olivia carried Aaron to an open window and pushed him into an empty cart that had been waiting for her.
"Get him out of here!" Olivia hissed at the two boys working the cart, Daniel and Raymond. "We already have enough to worry about as it is!"
Raymond gave a thumbs up as he drove the cart away from the party.
"So another one for the 'party' then?" Daniel asked as he quietly thumbed the Dia he had in his coat pocket.
Essentially, they were being paid twice over. Once from Angelica to escort these losers off the premises, and once more to hand them over to their upper class-men. It was no secret that the women of the academy left students traumatised, some had even been turned off from women for life, and while as a result there was no shortage of partners among themselves it also made them uniquely qualified to exact some well deserved Karma as well. For now the troublesome individuals were being dealt with.
Students of the Holfort Academy, I am Duchess Angelica Rapha Redgrave of the Redgrave family.
We've had a rather hectic year I'm afraid, so while I would like to tell you all that it's going to be business as usual but there are going to be some severe changes in place, some permanent and others not.
The Royal dungeon that the school has relied on for generations will be off limits to the public for at least another year as part of the ongoing reconstruction efforts. Instead the Blackmore family has generously offered the use of their family's dungeon, Avalon Forest, which has been temporarily moved to the capital.
For this reason the graduation requirements have been adjusted appropriately: Wandering Avalon forest in their respective territories are four angels and four demons known collectively as the Eight Colossi, any party that has defeated one of these Colossi are considered to have matched the 'clear the bottom most floor' of the Royal Dungeon in order to Graduate.
I am also obligated to explain the safety measures in place as Avalon Forest, after a survey from the Adventurer's guild, has been deemed considerably more dangerous than the Royal Dungeon.
In the event that students are captured by the Angels or Demons living in the forest retrieval teams will be deployed to find them. Per the Creatures contracts with the Blackmore family none of the students will be irreparably harmed, however they will be stripped of all the items they had accumulated since the last time they entered the dungeon, including their memories. Don't ask me how.
Sale of materials taken from Avalon Forest will be done through the Adventurers guild branch in the Blackmore's territory, who has methods for strengthening the weapons brought to them and can sell recovery and buff items.
Speaking of which, I am proud to introduce our new professor of Demonology Professor Jeanne Blackmore of the Umbran Clan.
*Professor Blackmore stands and bows, students applaud*
Now than for the final matter of discussion. I understand that the academy has a rather poor reputation, particularly concerning it's female students, that said several of the new students have already engaged in criminal activity, I won't mention who or what. This behaviour will cease, effective immediately. I will neither accept arguments to the contrary nor explain further.
This academy exists to raise the next generation of the Holfort Kingdom in a relatively safe environment, one would think that after narrowly averting a battle to the doom with the Principality of Fanoss we wouldn't have any internal problems to be worried about, and while that is not the case now it will be.
Angelica Rapha Redgrave's speech at the opening ceremony in her Second year at Holfort
So far the Demonology course was something of a let down. The Classroom looked more like a repurposed store room with the array of random items organised off to the side. The professor had specified that the students were all meant to arrive five minutes early, and now ten minutes into the class itself there was no sign of Professor Blackmore beyond the blood red cat that had been grooming herself on the professor's desk.
"Come on let's blow this." Annoyed several students began to get up to leave. Suddenly the lights started flashing and soon a woman's voice sounded off.
"Disappointing." In place of the cat there was now the familiar form of Jeanne Blackmore wearing a woman's three piece suit in red. "If I was a demon, all but five of you would be dead without knowing what hit you." Jeanne wasn't a demon but she was borrowing their power. The Students gulped as they sat back down. "If I was speaking to a group of children who have never stepped foot in a dungeon before this would be acceptable. But the majority of you are supposed to be either experienced adventurers, military veterans, or students who have been here for one or two years already." Students of all grades were attending this class, not all the new students had been stuffed into the first year at the school, but all the students were attending Demonology.
"Class is now in session." Jeanne abruptly disappeared before she reappeared at the top of the auditorium, laying on her back with her legs kicked in the air. "For those of you unaware, I am your new professor in Demonology, or layman's terms the techniques of my clan that involves raising, fighting and using demons." Jeanne disappeared again, several students had their desks disturbed as an invisible figure walked over them with the professor reappearing on the desk. "Under my tutelage you may learn the methods to wield the power of gods, brew immortality or command armies of demons at your beck and call as you would mortal men. For now you are students." Jeanne waved her arm and a board and gauntlet combination appeared. "When you learned how to wield swords you were given wooden sticks to hit each other with. These will be your wooden sticks in magic. Angelica Rapha Redgrave, front of the class."
Angelica was aware that she and Olivia had special status among the students, not for their noble rank though, as fiances of Leon the son of Jeanne Blackmore. As such, both of them would be receiving private tutoring and would be helping with these demonstrations. They would as a consequence also be held to a higher standard.
"With Miss Angelica's help, we will now demonstrate the tools you will be using to learn the clan techniques." Angelica was met with several pieces of equipment, most notable being a bejeweled arm guard with a slot in the top. "This is known as a training brace. It connects to your own catalyst crystals and allows you to cast spells from these." Jeanne held up a deck of cards and proceeded to pick through them. "Miss Angelica you are a pure fire mage correct?"
"Correct." Angelica had received no shortage of headaches about this from the other students. "I have learned how to use heat to manipulate the environment so while it appears that I have some proficiency with ice, wind and lightning in reality all of these are just fire in another form." Now she suspected that this would not be able to deny those rumours with the same ease as she had before.
"I see. Take this please." Angelica received the card from Jeanne, the picture on it suspiciously resembling a Water Jet, a water affinity spell. "Spell cards are recordings of spells that were made by the Umbran Clan specifically to teach it's members how to cast magic. In fact it is even possible to use one to cast a spell that one has no affinity for, simply by slotting in the spell in question. Miss Redgrave if you'd kindly." Angelica held her arm out and fitted the spell card inside. A profound feeling of wrongness creeped through Angelica's arm before a stream of water was fired out of her hand and across the room. Angelica was left visibly panting from the ordeal. "It's also important to remember that there are consequences to casting magic you have no affinity for." If it was a emergency and they needed a healer? Yeah popping in a healing card would do the trick but that's it. "Thank you miss Angelica you may sit down now." Angelica took the brace off and sat back down.
"Personally, I would prefer all of you to learn how to successfully cast magic without outside assistance, and indeed your magic professor has been given access to the necessary teaching materials we have just shown you all. I give this demonstration because being able to use magic is an important part of being able to interact with and utilise demons. Miss Gardenia." Olivia had been called up next and put on the training brace that Angelica had taken off, however instead of another card Jeanne gave her an item resembling a decorative plate. "In order to teach our clan members how to interact with and manipulate demons in battle one of my sisters-in-law invented a game or sorts known as Omnyoji."
Olivia was given a card next, and putting it on the formation plate a glow lit up the room, soon a figure emerged in the middle of the room, a skeleton dressed in crude and worn armour, in other words an undead. Demons come in many forms, people, animals, objects even. It's not unusual to think that a corpse that had perished under particularly unpleasant circumstances and left somewhere saturated with mana would come back as a monster.
"Lowest of the low it may be, this is a demon." Jeanne introduced the hideous creature like it was something that none of them had ever seen before. "When two formation plates are activated in proximity to each other they create a barrier, any demons summoned via plates are released inside of this specialised space, and if the barrier is broken then the demons inside are dismissed and goes back to being sealed inside of their cards. This one next dear." Jeanne handed Olivia another card, and when she put it on the plate a pair of Tonfa made out of bone appeared in the Skeleton's hands. "This is a Demon Arm, a lesser version of the Devil Arm the members of the clan prefer, made from this very demons bones in fact. Over a period of time and after ingesting the proper materials this skeleton may grow into a stronger version of itself, an effective partner in battle and his weapon will grow with him."
Jeanne and Cereza were outliers in the clan. Most of the Umbra have the one demon partner whom they fight alongside in battle and whose weapon form they made use of, Jeanne and Cereza went through weapons like most people go through outfits.
"My job is to instruct you on how to raise this skeleton and the others like him, his power, the materials he needs for strength, how to effectively wield him in battle, and how to build a working relationship with him. I guarantee you all that if you go into this treating him as some savage attack beast and he some disposable weapon for you all to wield and use until he breaks the ones that suffer will be you." The skeleton lifted up one leg into the air, and slammed it back down into the floor with enough force to shatter hundreds of years old hardwood flooring. "I shouldn't have to outline to you all the dangers of pissing off those who are stronger than you, but considering your King I will err on the side of caution. Now line up." Jeanne snapped her fingers and the monster cards she had been holding organised themselves into neat piles. "I've organised the cards according to magical affinities." Jeanne disappeared again and reappeared behind the desk she had been sitting on. "Remember to choose something that has compatibility with you, and I don't just mean your magical affinities. These are your partners, if you don't get along then your progress will suffer."
With that the students walked up to the desk and took away the cards that Jeanne had left on the desk for them.
Soon Angelica and Olivia had their 'partners' picked out and were now sitting at their usual Gazebo discussing the contents of their efforts.
"So, you decided to keep that thing?" Angelica was looking off at the side, at the skeleton staring off blankly into the sky.
"He's nice!" Olivia weakly attempted to justify the walking corpse that was her homework. "What about you?"
"It's over there." Angelica indicated a stone lantern that was sitting in the middle of the path. It was out of place no matter how to look at it, a oversized stone brazier that did not match the modern electrical lighting of the academy or it's architectural style sitting in the middle of the walking path. And indeed it was a stone lantern exactly as it looked like, however as the grounds keeper learned the hard way when he tried to move it, it was also a demon resembling a figure with a single giant fiery eye for a head wearing a smokey cloak. "I don't even know if he or she applies here." Angelica had gotten an Artefact spirit, apparently one that was specially picked out for Angelica by Jeanne. It was vastly weaker than either of the Salamandra's but the thing was that Angelica didn't have them anymore. "I'm planning on introducing... it to the Salamanders when we enter the fire region of the dungeon." At least Angelica was the legitimate owner of the two demons, even if thanks to hers and Leon's efforts they had outgrown their Devil Arm forms and were now stretching their legs.
Olivia on the other hand had to return the Gilgamesh and the Dr. Faust that Leon had borrowed for her, so she would be starting from scratch in her training and relationships.
"The one I would really like to establish a contract with is Leon." Olivia stated as she voiced her complaints.
"Well. I suppose we'll need to earn his mothers approval before they let us at him." Angelica stated letting out a sigh. Even Vincent her father was on the fence about Leon for a while after the duel. Of course little did Angelica know that the Women of the Old Era, in other words Cereza and Jeanne, held the right to haze their children's romantic partners for quite some time, and thus they were in for bullying worse than what Olivia received in herfirst year of school.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: The Smokes are for guests, as for the alcohol let's see you spend all day dealing with Alzer's spoiled inbred nobility and see how long you stay sober.
Dakota Bruder: Yes, the part about the Heike general was taken straight from the Bio, I have no idea what it's referencing but that's the situation.
LaughingMan: The worst part is that they're going to find a way of blaming Leon for it. Olivia likes learning, that's all there is to it.
