Chương 4: Academy Days (1)

"Enemies of Korsivir—tremble. Your death has arrived, and it has a name." – Shazharon Rudox, the Fourth Vazaag of Korsivir Immediately, one of the students walking nearby pointed towards them in wonder.

"Wasn't that a SABLE squad?"

"What? A SABLE squad?" someone asked curiously.

"What's that?"

"Have you been living under a rock? It's obviously one of the squads from Korsivir's SABLE company—the Special Assignments and Black-Level Enforcement Company." The first student shrugged.

"Never heard of 'em..." The other boy smirked.

"That's how they like to keep it, although their black trench coats and those masks make them uniquely memorable in the whole kingdom..."

"Hmm... So you say... What do they even do?"

"Assassination, covert intelligence, infiltration and espionage, heavy assault—you name it. They are the elite amongst the elite of Korsivir's manaweavers, and they work directly under the Vazaag's authority. They are infamous amongst the enemies of Korsivir City—both outside and inside—for very good reason. I even think one of the swords the group was carrying was actually a relic!"

"How would you be able to recognize a relic?" another student scoffed.

"Still, it makes sense. Who else would have a relic sword if not someone from SABLE?"

"I'm not sure about them having relics, but I've also heard rumors about the SABLE company from my father. Those masks have to be powered by runes."

"Then it has to be them!" someone else said in awe.

"They must be coming after clearing a dimensional rift! If they killed enough monsters in there, maybe they even brought a good haul of mana cores this time! Or maybe even new relics!"

"Yeah! If Korsivir gets enough mana cores, perhaps they'll start distributing mana pills in the academy to help us train more. Maybe we can finally practice some real mana techniques too..."

"Are you all idiots?" another student interrupted.

"Did you forget that no new rift portals have opened since before we were born? All the old ones have been dormant for just as long. No open portal means no fresh mana cores. At best, squads sent to those dormant rift sites only find mutated beasts and whatever scraps were missed years ago." Aloric had heard that much from Perilia, even if the academy had only covered it in passing. A dormant rift was not an open portal anymore.

Whatever strange place it had once led to—desert, frozen waste, jungle, or something worse—became unreachable after all the portals closed sixteen years ago. But the area around the old rifts remained thick with residual mana, enough to mutate the local plants, insects and animals over time. Those sites had been fenced off from the moment they were discovered, with rune-barriers placed around them to keep the lingering mana from bleeding into the surrounding land.

People still called them dormant rifts because no one knew when—or whether—they might open again.

"You're right..." The earlier student scratched his head in embarrassment.

"Then they must be returning after killing a dragon!"

"Yeah, that's still possible..." The third student replied with hero-worship in his voice.

"Killing a dragon is usually an A-rank and sometimes even an S-rank mission, and only SABLE has squads strong enough to take one down." Aloric listened to them as they all walked towards the gates of the academy. He had indeed heard about the strength of SABLE operatives, although there surely had to be a few other manaweavers in Korsivir who could take on A-rank missions by themselves. He wasn't sure about S-rank missions though, since they were so highly classified that he didn't even know what they entailed.

There was no way an academy student like him would get to know anything about those.

"Wherever they are coming from, I'm going to do all of these S-rank missions in the future!" The first student spoke in unbridled excitement while still gazing towards the rooftops on the right where that squad had vanished.

"That's because I'm going to join SABLE in the future!"

"Hah! You wish!" the second boy retorted.

"You never choose SABLE. They choose you..."

"Don't you all know? There's a saying that there are only two cases when you see a SABLE squad," Sikkar Rumiosi—who was in the same class as Aloric—explained to the impromptu gathering of students.

"Otherwise, they simply use Rush Step and travel far too fast to be seen by mere academy students like us," he finished sagely, with the other students hanging on his every word. Enjoying the attention, Sikkar moved a hand over his blond, slicked back hair—not that it could be combed back any more in the first place. His huge gray dog woofed right next to him, allowing the other students to pet him happily, as they stopped to listen to the story. Sikkar glanced at his twin sister standing beside him and smirked.

Sulia Rumiosi, who was always in sync with her brother, looked at the nearby students listening curiously and continued the explanation with a grin.

"The first case is when they are returning from a high-ranked mission and are deliberately moving slowly enough to let the other citizens see them—to show Korsivir's power and strength—which must be the case today." Then she looked back at her brother. Sikkar waited for a while, trying to raise everyone's anticipation, before he spoke in a low voice, "The second case is when you have done something that goes against the law.

In that case, the sight of a SABLE squad appearing right in front of you—wearing their black trench coats and their iconic masks—is the last sight you'll ever see..." One of the nearby students shuddered, while the others gazed towards the rooftops on the right, where that squad had disappeared. Aloric wasn't sure if the Rumiosi twins were boasting or not—they were well known troublemakers in his class—but it did make sense.

He had heard from his sister that the SABLE company took orders directly from the Vazaag of Korsivir —the ruler of the city—but it was certainly a rare sight to see one of them in the city.

While he knew that the City Police were usually only tasked with keeping order and dealing with crimes within the walls of Korsivir City, Perilia had told him that she had worked in coordination with a SABLE squad a few months ago when they needed to apprehend someone who was far too dangerous for the City Police, especially since the arrest had to be done outside the city. It was probably a B-rank criminal they had needed to arrest, or maybe even an A-rank one. So perhaps the troublemakers were right after all.

The SABLE squads were... dangerous. Before long, the small crowd lost interest in the chat and began walking toward the multi-story red building of the only Mana Academy in the Kingdom of Varrenia. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Aloric followed the others as they entered the main gate in groups of two and three, wondering how many of them would graduate as real manaweavers, how many would have to repeat the year, and how many might be forced to give up on the dream entirely. Not him, of course! Aloric grinned. He had a goal to reach, and there was no way he was going to let himself fail now.

~ Classroom One ~ ~ Mana Academy of Korsivir, Kingdom of Varrenia ~ Aloric sat in the back row that afternoon, staring out of the second-story classroom window while the teacher droned on. A light autumn breeze moved through the academy courtyard below, shaking loose reddish-yellow leaves from the trees. They drifted lazily toward the ground, joining the colorful scatter already spread across the courtyard. Aloric watched them fall, his thoughts drifting toward the life waiting beyond the academy.

Today was the last real class of his academy life. After this, he only had to pass the graduation exams to officially become a manaweaver of Korsivir, assuming the results went his way. Then he could take all kinds of dangerous missions with a team and finally start earning some money. He couldn't wait for the day he could finally afford to treat his sister to dinner at one of the nicer restaurants in Korsivir. Perilia had been really busy lately too.

Although she rarely told him anything about her work, only saying it was classified, he still knew that the latest case she had been working on for the City Police had already lasted for weeks, which was very unusual. Many times she could not even return home for the night because of work, and only sent him a note telling him not to cook for her. He still hoped she would find time to congratulate him after he graduated. He shook his head. Who was he kidding? Of course she would.

She had already sacrificed so much for him... And he was thinking about one dinner? No. That was too small. A meal at a nice restaurant would be a good start, but it wouldn't be enough. Once he became a registered manaweaver, he would take missions, earn real money, and then start going on S-rank missions that would surely pay enormous amounts. He would earn enough to send Perilia on a long vacation somewhere quiet and expensive, where no one could push another classified case into her hands.

That sounded much better. After everything she had done for him since he was a toddler, she deserved at least that much. To be fair, once he graduated and became a Nourim, he would only be given E-rank missions in the beginning. But that was only a start. He would surely reach the top one day...

"Aloric."

"Aloric!" His attention was brought back to the classroom when he realized his name was being called by the teacher. He reacted instinctively and stood straight.

"Yes, sir! I'm here!" Teacher Daisor was frowning with his lips pressed into a line. Aloric even noticed the eyes of other students on him—some of them sniggering as if it was funny, while others just watched the spectacle.

"Daydreaming again, Aloric?" the teacher asked.

"Of course not, sir!" he immediately countered with a nervous grin. Daisor stared at Aloric for a while, making him sweat in unease. Will it be another twenty laps around the academy grounds after the class ends? Daisor was a strict teacher, always demanding obedience in his classes. Kicking students out of the classroom and making them run laps or giving other exercises as punishment was a near daily occurrence in his classes. The teacher exhaled finally.

"Sit down, Aloric. And focus. This is the last class of the academy for your batch. What we are revising today might be asked in your graduation exams. So, listen to what I'm saying instead of staring at the leaves."

"Yes, sir!" Aloric nodded and took his seat again, while hearing some snickering in the background, probably from the troublemaker twins. Daisor looked at the rest of the class again, making Aloric sigh in relief. No punishment today.

"Now, who can tell me what a manaweaver is?" the young teacher asked while gazing at the whole class. Immediately, there was a groan from everyone in the class.

"Come on, Teacher Daisor!" one of the two dozen students in the class protested.

"That's too basic..." Daisor just gave a smile as he walked to the side of the lectern.

"Basics are always important, no matter how far you reach in life. Like I just told Aloric, today is your last day of regular classes, so you can consider this a final revision before your graduation exams. So, who can give me the answer?" Arla Farritz with her cropped red hair was the one to raise her hand first, as Aloric expected. She always got the second highest score in the written tests, after all.

Once Daisor gave her a nod, Arla stood up to her full height of barely five feet and explained, "A manaweaver —which is the correct technical term—or just a mana user, which is how they are often referred to, is simply the term applied to anyone who is capable of weaving mana techniques." Daisor nodded, while gesturing to her to sit down.

"A textbook definition, but it's accurate enough. You all know that their most important task is to kill the monsters that come out of any active dimensional rifts, and even to go inside those rifts and kill them before they can come out to threaten people. However, a manaweaver is much more than that, especially in peacetime and when there is no active rift on the continent, like now. With the ability to use mana being so rare, they are the ones who help those who can't help themselves.

They defend the innocent and punish the wrongdoers. Actually," he paused, "let's leave the punishing part for those of you who'll go on to join the City Police, shall we?" There were many laughs at that, and Aloric couldn't help but chuckle as well. The City Police took care of law and order within the towering walls of Korsivir City, and he knew how important they were, but in his opinion, it was probably the most boring job one could get after graduating. He didn't know how his sister even tolerated the work.

Perilia was much smarter than him, but even so, the job sounded unbearably dull to him. Being the top-ranked student of her year, she could have gotten into whichever manaweaver division she wanted when she graduated five years ago. But Perilia had specifically requested to be assigned to the City Police after graduating—that was the only military division of Korsivir that didn't require her to leave the city too often—just so she could keep taking care of him.

The two of them were each other's only family in this world, after all. Well, the City Police were probably still better than the RAM— the Research and Applied Manaworks Division. Aloric snorted at that thought. Who knew how many books someone had to read every day to even qualify for that division! He could never gaze at a book for more than a few minutes at a time anyway, at least not without getting a headache. Books were just too boring...

He wanted to be out there, fighting the enemies of Korsivir or even the mutated beasts found in the dormant rifts. However, as Aloric expected, their teacher frowned at everyone's laughter.

"It's nothing to make fun of," he scolded, "whatever biased perceptions you might have of the City Police. They are the reason we can sleep safely at night without worrying about any major crimes happening here. Korsivir City is one of the safest places in the whole continent for a reason."

"Whatever you say, Teacher," Sikkar Rumiosi—the male half of the troublemaker twins—quipped.

"But everyone knows that only the dregs of the academy get recruited there. Not like those idiots would have any better job prospects other than the City Police anyway." He looked at his dog.

"Isn't it, boy?" The huge dog just woofed in reply. Sulia Rumiosi immediately added to her brother's taunt, " Exactly! Nobody from Classroom One would ever want to join the City Police. Their stupidity might be contagious, you know?" Both of the twins started snickering at their shared joke. Other students in the class began to laugh as well on hearing that, while Aloric bristled.

The twins weren't exactly wrong in their opinion that usually only those people joined the City Police who didn't have any other job options or didn't want to leave the safety of the city, but his sister had taken that job by her own choice! She could have gotten into whichever manaweaver division of Korsivir she wanted! He glared at the twins.

"Shut up, you jerks! You know nothing about the City Police!"

"Of course we do," one of the twins remarked, before the other added, "Some of them even came to our clan compound yesterday. We had lost one of our ash beetles, you know? But those useless City Police idiots couldn't even find our pet insect!" The twins high-fived each other at their shared joke before they began to laugh loudly again. Aloric saw red and stood up from his seat, clenching his fists, ready to put them in their place.

He did not usually lose his temper so easily, but nobody insulted his sister's workplace, and by extension, his sister. The twins grinned and got up from their seats as well, while a few others in the class began to cheer, anticipating a fight breaking out.