Chương 49: Burning

Ch 49: Burning When the Grey crew realized the hull was burning because of my light focusing spell, they all panicked, their screams reaching me even across the distance.

"We need more barriers! Isolate the fire!"

"No casters available!" The casters were busy protecting the deck of the ship against the Mana Needles. I realized quickly that most of the Grey soldiers with the black armors had already jumped out of the ship, most of them already defeated by the Microwave spell and Sahirah's lightning. Lord Krosak also noticed they were understaffed, his attention moving away from Sahirah for the first time as the column of smoke became too dense to ignore.

Still, he was reluctant to move away from the guardrails and break the illusion that was keeping Sahirah frozen, shouting orders to his people instead.

"Are you going to let my ship burn?" He said angrily.

"A single caster is enough to protect me. The rest of you are free to put out the fire!" Even though a large fire was consuming the ship, the crew wasn't thrilled to hear that order. Doing what they'd been told meant giving up the large barrier and exposing themselves to the Mana Needles while they put out the fire, Lord Krosak being the only one spared from the risk.

Still, after nearly five seconds of staring at each other, with the flames most definitely growing stronger with their reluctance, the crew finally dropped the barriers protecting the deck. All the casters ran to the other side of the deck, one of them protecting Lord Krosak, while the rest of them collectively dedicated their efforts to cast barriers to seal the burning parts of the hull, starving the flames of oxygen. Without mana to even communicate with Zira and Lili, I felt terrible.

The sales representatives on the school roof now had a very tough decision on their hands. They could fire the Mana Needles and protect Sahirah at the expense of potentially killing some of those Greys, or they could do nothing and hope that Lord Krosak wouldn't punish them when he was done with Sahirah and me. Despite being my friend, I had no idea what our golden goose of an elf would do. Much less if someone as shy as her had the kind of resolve necessary to make such a tough call.

Yet, to my surprise, there wasn't a moment of hesitation. The very instant the Grey staff stopped moving around to focus on the new barriers to put out the fire, the first salvo hit. One of the casters took three needles in the chest. They punched through his armor's barrier, through the chest plate, and stopped somewhere inside him. He leaned over and fell from the guardrails, an unforgiving height separating him from the ground. As for the rest of the staff...

They simply abandoned their posts, ignoring Lord Krosak's order and taking cover wherever they could. Seeing all this chaos, I started to run toward the ship, using raw muscle power to get myself closer to Sahirah. Meanwhile, Lord Krosak grew furious, finally forgetting Sahirah completely. He raised a hand, pointing one of those rings toward his own crew.

"Have you forgotten your oaths of loyalty?" One of his rings glowed, and as I ran toward the ship, I got to see his casters experiencing pain, a few of them suffering so much that they threw themselves out of the burning ship, choosing the risky jump rather than facing the fury of their boss. I paid little attention to most of this as I ran toward Sahirah.

She seemed to have regained her freedom and was looking around confused, still protected by the barriers around her as she hovered high above me like a Goddess of lightning. She looked disoriented and her gaze was unfocused, like someone who had just woken up from a terrible nightmare.

"Are you alright?" I asked loudly. She didn't reply. She just stared at me. Then her gaze landed on the burning ship that at this point was quickly losing altitude, dropping toward the ground. Suddenly Lord Krosak appeared on the deck behind the guardrails. His face was covered in sweat. He was coughing because of the smoke. And he seemed very much afraid of the fact his ship was about to crash against the ground.

"Help me!" He screamed in despair.

"Save me and I swear I'll forgive everything that you people have done against me!" In her confused state, Sahirah's eyes widened, recognizing Lord Krosak. There was a fire in her eyes. And all that was left of her mana flowed into the red paper sheet. That was the spell I had made especially for her, converting mana into electricity, all of that energy gathering in the sphere above her head. I tried to be the voice of reason.

"Sahirah!" I said.

"We need Lord Krosak ali–" Kaboom! All my eyes managed to capture was a blinding flash, and the next thing I saw was Sahirah plummeting toward the ground, her own mana reserves depleted just like mine. Fuck! I ignored the burning ship falling toward us and I sprinted toward Sahirah, catching her in my arms before she touched the ground. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

My arms wrapped tightly around her, and when our eyes met, my legs were already moving in an attempt to take us away from the crash trajectory. Still, it didn't change the fact that there were several tons of burning wood coming toward us, and without either of us having enough mana to cast Haste, I could already visualize our deaths in my head. Well, compared to the prospect of dying alone in the woods to Nozak's sword, this somehow felt less terrible.

But somewhere inside me, I was determined to nag Sahirah for all eternity in case there was an afterlife. Seriously, why had she wasted the rest of her mana in such a stupid way? I was already feeling the heat of the burning ship about to crash on my back, when a spatial distortion suddenly embraced us.

"You both died, little lamb." Elitha's voice was playful, the archmage towering over us as I dropped to my knees, my legs giving out on their own the moment I realized we were safe in Elitha's tower, teleported there moments before we died. Among ragged breaths, tired muscles, and questions about why the archmage had saved us, Sahirah's insane actions still managed to draw my attention.

"What the hell was that?" I asked.

"You screwed the plan and you nearly killed us both." Sahirah still looked confused. She touched her forehead as if she was experiencing a bad headache. And only then did her eyes meet mine.

"The illusion..." It still took her several seconds to get a hold of herself.

"It was dark. And his voice..." A shiver crossed from her body to mine.

"A girl was trapped in the void, and Lord Krosak was there, telling me I belonged to him, and that resistance was pointless." My anger lasted about one second after that. I sighed, and placed her on the ground to stand on her own two legs.

"Well," I said, "I guess you didn't have a choice but to smite him to death. Self defense for sure. It's not even an argument!" My attempt at humor fell flat, and Sahirah touched her temples, and then asked, "Did... did a girl really kill him?" I didn't know what to say. Mainly because I hadn't come to terms with what I had been forced to do myself. Thankfully, Elitha answered the question I couldn't.

"You really think it's that easy to kill a noble, little kitten?" Elitha Hearthstrong extended a hand, and space itself wrapped in front of her. Suddenly Lord Krosak himself materialized in the air, and no part of his body was touching the ground the moment he appeared in there. He fell to his butt immediately, and I got to see a faint barrier breaking, it was perfectly encompassing his body like an eggshell, only to shatter to pieces the moment he fell.

"Wait a minute," I said.

"So Sahirah's lightning did nothing at all against him?" Lord Krosak was terrified, unable to speak at the sight of Elitha, his eyes wide as he watched the twin light sensor spell covering her face, my solution to fix her sight.

"Look closer, little lamb, check his fingers." Sahirah and I checked his hand at the same time, and we both went speechless when we noticed one of his fingers was missing, the scar charred as if the cut had been cauterized by lightning. Elitha smiled, stepping on top of Lord Krosak's chest and pinning him with her weight.

"In the Royal Army, they used to say that nobles have three lives. But they don't. It's just three expensive sacrificial rings that take the punishment in their owner's place. It's the first time I've seen one of them explode and claim a finger. You sure know how to be entertaining, little kitten." Sahirah crouched, Lord Krosak recoiling at the proximity with her.

"A girl has lost her temper, but he's still alive." She turned to face me.

"Is our plan still viable?" My eyes widened. Things had gone too wrong to count on just the original plan.

"The ship!" I rushed towards the nearest window, knowing I would certainly be able to see the wreckage from the tower. To my surprise, the wreckage was still there, and it wasn't even burning anymore, with large clouds of water vapor rising from the partially burned wood. Could it be that Elitha teleported one of those enormous water spheres on top of the burning ship? Also, there were a lot of Greys from Lord Krosak's crew still alive around the ship.

And despite the fact they certainly didn't know their boss had been saved by the archmage, they were making no effort whatsoever to search for him. Still, the fact that several people had died made me question the viability of my original plan. But to talk about it with Sahirah... someone would need to take a nap.

"Can you put him to sleep?" I asked Elitha. Lord Krosak's eyes widened.

"You have no idea the kind of punishment awaiting you if–" Instead of using a spell, Elitha kicked Lord Krosak in the jaw, knocking him out with such a primitive method that Sahirah averted her gaze at the display of violence.

"I saved your lives and now I'm doing you little favors," she said.

"As fun as kicking him in the face was, I'll ask you a small favor in the future. I hope none of you forget this when you grow stronger." I nodded, grateful despite the fact she was most likely acting in self interest. When I turned to Sahirah, I explained the problem with the original plan.

"That plan will be much harder to pull off now. Even if I tattoo both Lord Krosak and Principal Dickhead with permanent parasitic illusions, there's a lot more people who saw us the aftermath of our war. Other noble houses won't like the idea of Riftstorm arrivals organizing armies when they learn what happened here." My original intention was capturing Lord Krosak.

I would make him see an illusion of our deaths so many times that he would eventually believe it, and Principal Dickhead would be convinced by a similar illusion the adoption was successful, erasing our presence permanently from his mind. This had been the plan all along, if people hadn't died, we could have stayed at the school for a while, tricking our enemies to believe they won, which would buy us time to sort out everything with the company and come up with an exit plan on our own terms.

But now that lives had been lost, a floating ship was no longer floating, and there was no shortage of witnesses who had seen us organize a private army and use deadly force against a noble... I wasn't sure how long it would take for the Royal Army to show up in this school to capture us and investigate the incident, even with Lord Krosak claiming we were dead, they might still show up to arrest everyone who helped us. That meant the plan failed, and we would have to abandon the school anyway.

Yeah, it truly sucked didn't it?

"What are we going to do now?" Sahirah's eyes reflected her worry, and I could see a trace of sadness on her face at the fact our school days were over. I held her hand, pulling her closer to me, bringing her near the window where she too could see the smoking wreckage, one side of the hull completely burned.

"Hey, Elitha," I asked, "Can you keep the Royal Army and the other noble houses away from this school for another week?" Elitha smirked.

"For the right price, I could teleport all the survivors to another continent," she said.

"I could ensure none of the teachers talk more than they should. And you are perfectly capable of dealing with Lord Krosak and Principal Zorik yourself. This would give you one week, little lamb." Dealing with Principal Dickhead and Lord Krosak was the easy part now, and I really wanted to erase our presence from their minds permanently, so that they never became a problem for us again.

"What's the price?" I asked.

"Teach me the principles behind the spells you used to destroy their armor." The microwave spell and the ultrasound spell? Elitha Hearthstrong would become even more of a monster with that knowledge. And given how much she hated nobles and the Grey royalty, I was fairly certain she was more likely to use those things against her own people than against humanity... I smiled, and wrapped my arms around Sahirah as we watched the water vapor rising from Lord Krosak's ship.

"We have a deal," I said to the archmage. Then I addressed Sahirah, "As for us, we are going to spend all our credits on the renovation of that ship. And when this week is over, we are going to take the whole sales team with us to the new mobile headquarters of our company. Good thing they are all combat trained now, and perfectly capable of working part-time as a pirate crew." Sahirah's jaw dropped, "A girl... a girl is going to be a pirate now?"

Of course, that was a lot to ask for someone who loved the school as much as Sahirah did, but unfortunately we screwed up our chances of keeping our quiet studant lives this time. Niko, Zira, Kip, Kap, Lili... Everyone who helped us would need to abandon the school. And I was already seeing the future we would build together, all of us. Establishing a mobile spell production line in that ship. Selling the system from city to city. Coming up with one new version after another.

And hopefully finding a way to reach the Riftstorm arrivals faster than the Greys during the next Riftstorm season, giving them a system and making them our allies. It would certainly be fun to see Principal Dickhead trying to control a bunch of students with system capable of giving them skills.

We could even offer them jobs, quests, and levels, everything that people like us didn't have when we arrived in Navar, forced to live without a system and with no option but to join a school that tried to sell us to some noble family for money.