(Dana)

Dana was getting increasingly frustrated with James and his ego. She understood that this was hard for him. Hell, maybe she was the one acting strangely by not reacting enough to the dead bodies of ex-students around them. But James was being stupid.

He was actively challenging something in its own home, or that's at least what she assumed they were in, which was strong enough to completely freeze 15 strong young people without any evidence of it taking damage. James would be able to kill it, with his stats way higher than hers, and by extension, theirs. But there was no doubt he would get hurt. A little frostbitten maybe.

James yelled an over the top war cry into the freezer, and Dana just sighed, continuing to read the notes in the ledger that the students had written. Something about not being able to leave through the loading bay. Apparently there was a wall of ice that they couldn't break through. It appeared unable to be melted either.

Dana muttered something about not trying hard enough, then jumped when the sound of rushing water and shattering ice broke through James' heavy breathing.

Dana looked up, expecting to see James triumphantly staring down a pile of whatever ice elemental looked like. But she could not be more wrong.

Instead, James was plastered to the far wall with a splash of ice over his torso and left arm, holding him up. The only reason he had not responded immediately was because he had briefly blacked out. But a quick analyze told her he had taken minimal damage, and didn't have any status effects yet.

Though that might not last much longer. The ice covering him was spreading, and she didn't have long before it covered his head and would either freeze him completely, or suffocate him.

Danas eyes narrowed and her vision became tinted red. She activated Mana sight, seeing much better in a blue world than she expected. There was a mana entering the ice covering James, feeding it. She followed the trail back into the freezer.

Using up a large portion of her mana, she used mana force and fire steam at the same time, trying to break the supply line.

She succeeded, earning a shrill cry of anger from whatever was in there. James, on the other hand, let out a sigh of relief, and started hitting the ice with his free hand, beginning to crack it with his own strength. Dana noticed he had dropped his gun when he was hit, and debated picking it up to try and finish this elemental quickly.

She decided against it, only because she had an idea of how to counter the growing ice blast that was way more dangerous than she had expected.

With her book open in one hand, Dana used mana force to spin all the mana around her. She forced it to compress, turning it into a dense shell.

Spell learnt: Mana Shield ©

No. This isn't enough.

Dana grimaced as she pushed and pulled the shell of mana until it was hard and volatile.

Just before she lost control of the spinning mass, she used what she knew of Mana flame to ignite it. For a moment, she was surrounded by a fierce yellow flame, and received the spell she was hoping to get. Kind of.

Spell learnt: Fiery Aura (B)

It wasn't exactly the shield of fire she had been expecting, but Dana guessed this would work too.

She cast fiery aura, a shell of see-through flames springing from within her, in a sphere of a diameter of maybe 2 meters. She was surprised to see how quickly it formed this time, and also how fast it drained her mana. She had maybe 20 more seconds of it being active, less if she used other spells.

Without wasting any time, she ran towards the door, and slammed straight into the elemental. Dana wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but what was scrambling away from her fire aura was not it.

The elemental wasn't exactly like an animal, but it did remind Dana of a 2 meter tall butterfly made of bright blue ice. Except it didn't flap it's wings, but instead hovered, and leaked the thin mist beneath it. As she stood in front of it, a small sphere that was darker than the rest of it, and possibly made up it's core changed colour. Red strands began to bleed into it.

Reading the damage windows above it, she had done an impressive 56 damage to it from proximity to the fire. But she had no idea how much health it had in total. It didn't even seem to be damaged, just wary that it had been hurt. While she had a second, she let go of the control of fiery aura, and let the shell burst around her, splashing the elemental.

Spell learnt: Flaming Nova (B)

The stray flaming mana had done another 20 damage to this large and pissed off ice insect, so she analysed it while it attempted to flee from her.

Ice Elemental:

Level: 17

Hp: 325/401

Mp: 167/206

Enraged (--:--)

The last level of analyze that she had gained after all the human icicles showed her the hp and mp of the monster, but she couldn't see the description of the monster that James mentioned she would start to see from level 10. It probably just didn't have one.

But it was Enraged, and before Dana had time to find out exactly what that meant, it charged for her. In panic, she tried to cast fire stream, convinced it would do the most damage. But her aim was terrible, and barely glanced it before it collided with her, throwing her across the room.

Blunt force damage received:

-17hp.

Stunned (0:10)

She was stunned for only 10 seconds, but that was all the time the elemental would need to kill her. Fear caught in her throat, and she watched as her certain death approached her.

"Oy! You icy son of a bitch. Should have finished me while you had the chance."

The elemental paused, and turned to face James, who had managed to free himself. Out of the corner of her eye, Dana could see he was shivering hard, and the skin that had been exposed to the ice was still covered in a light frost. He was still under a status effect, she could tell.

But that wasn't stopping him. James had retrieved his revolver, and started firing. His aim wasn't perfect in the condition he was in, but he managed to land four out of his six shots.

Each time a bolt of white mana hit it, the elemental was pushed back under the explosive force, and took between 50 and 60 damage.

James paused to reload or recharge his gun, distracting the elemental long enough for Dana to no longer be stunned. She had dropped her book, but she wouldn't need it for this. She still had about a third of her mana, so she stood up quickly, and ran straight at the ice construct.

It noticed her charge and fired a beam of ice at her. She recognised the pattern of the mana, and knew it would coat her in a growing layer of ice. Before it hit though, she cast fiery aura and mana shield. Her mana dropped quickly, and she barely had a few seconds to reach it.

Pushing against the sustained stream of ice, Dana managed to reach the source, and watched with satisfaction as it began to melt. It's remaining hundred or so health disappearing almost instantly.

Monster killed.

Damage dealt: 198

Exp earnt: 304

As soon as the ice elemental ran out of hp, everything but it's still slightly red core evaporated instantly. The core itself shrunk, or rather melted until it was the size of a marble as opposed to the football it was before.

Dana sat on the ground, watching the cold mist disperse, letting the mana that made it become free again. The temperature in the room began to rise, but Dana was only concentrating on catching her breath. She had ended the fight with only 4 mana left. Another second, and she would have passed out. James would have finished it, she was sure, but it would still terrify her to pass out in front of a murderous hunk of ice and mana.

"James, you good?" She asked between heavy breaths.

She was rewarded with a groan in reply, but James answered properly. Eventually.

"Ugh. Yeah. These status effects suck. Cold just makes me slightly slower. But frostbitten stings like a bitch, and my response time is doubled apparently."

"Huh. Don't know if I can help you there."

"Don't worry about it. It's warming up in here anyway, and it only last another few minutes."

Dana stood wearily and retrieved her book after confirming James was in fact still in one piece. She picked up the marble that had dropped from the elementals core but didn't analyse it. Her stamina was surprisingly low, and she realised she had turned off mana sight at some point. Probably when she charged at it.

Come to think of it, even when mana sight had been active earlier, she had noticed that fiery aura and flaming nova were both... fire coloured.

Maybe the mana acted differently when it was pushed into a specific form. It seemed obvious now she thought about it, but it was only a theory. She would need to discover more elemental magic to figure that out.

"Hey, can we finish up in here, I don't really want to see these things start to melt."

James gave her a disappointed look.

"They're still people. Or at least, the remains of people."

"Exactly. I don't want my last image of any of these people to be their melting dead bodies."

James sighed.

"Fine. You make a good point. Just grab whatever you want and let go then. I think we should circle back to the workshop. That's where the others probably are by now."

"Fair enough. I'll grab some of the non perishable left. Can you check the freezer for food?"

"Sure. Lets get this done in a few minutes then."

The two of them worked quickly and systematically. James searched the freezer for cans and found a surprising amount of canned meats and fruit from a long, long time ago. They wouldn't taste great, but they wouldn't kill anyone and would keep for months in his bag.

Dana was much more lucky, and searched the shelves for dry food. She found a huge amount of bran crackers and crisps.

"At least the crackers are a little different."

She mumbled with more than a little hate towards the oily food.

James was waiting for her and was reading the ledger she had been flicking through earlier. After all the food delivery logs and invoices, the students hiding in the room had started to write in it. It was mostly the names of everyone who was staying in there, and a few notes on skills and spells that she already knew. There was only about a days worth of text, so the ice elemental had probably kept them frozen for about 15 hours. It stung even her that if they had explored the college earlier, they might have made a difference.

"Shit."

James had flipped the book open at the last page, and was reading something.

"What is it?"

Dana walked over, eager yet nervous to read whatever was causing James this grief.

He spun the book around to face her, and pointed at a hastily scrawled note. She recognised it as Dom's handwriting. It matched the letter almost perfectly.

Seal team-DC stopped here at 7:45 pm on day 2 of the shift. The inhabitants of this area were happy to share food in return for information. At this time, they appear to be attempting to open the walk-in freezer.

We, as the ablest, will assist in barricading the entrance, they will continue searching the college building towards the gym.

Signed,

Dominic F.

After reading the note, and trying and failing to figure out what he meant by seal team-DC, she looked up at James' grim expression.

"You know what this means right?"

Dana dropped her head and hit It against the ledger. Repeatedly.

"We have to go back to those FUCKING SPIDERS!"

James placed a hand on her shoulder, comforting Her.

"Yeah. Let's prepare as much as we can ok? It's going to be a rough time."

James sadly had to forego some of his less healthy snacks, but was keen to pick up some fresh fruit. Well, mostly fresh.

After some final impulse grabs and an equally awkward exit from the barricade, they sat in the cafeteria and figured out what they had to do.

Dana had been wrestling with the book again. She couldn't get past the first few pages without finding herself back at page 1.

"So what can we do now to get stronger? Classes?"

James shook his head.

"I don't have nearly enough experience using this weapon. But I don't really need it. Each shot is powerful enough, and I just need to get used to recharging it every six shots."

"Fair enough. I don't even have a weapon though to get a class. I asked the system about sorceress and witch, but I have almost no progress in either."

"What about the book?"

"What about it?"

James lifted his gun by the handle and laid it flat on the table.

"Ask to make a class for your book. If I want to get a class for this, I just have to keep using it."

Dana thought for a moment.

"Sure. But getting an occupation was a trippy experience for me. I was safe in the garden. Make sure I'm safe Here, ok?"

James smiled and put his hand on hers, squeezing it lightly.

"Of course."

"Hey system, can I get a class for this Spellbook?"

Request acknowledged

Class request: Grimoire

Experience: [100%]

Bonus conditions met: (3)

• Soulbound Grimoire

• Created spells (6)

• Evolved spells (1)

Class ready.

Would you like the class: magical girl?

"Are you kidding me?"

James looked up from his gun. He had been messing with the latch on the back, and had removed the cylinder.

"What? What's up?"

"I could have had this class ever since we were in the garden."

"Oh. Well you can get it now though, right?"

Dana sighed, defeated.

"Yeah. I accept."

Suddenly, Dana was surrounded by a swirling sphere of light. A white background crossed with streaks and swirls of a spectrum of colours.

Dana didn't panic while this was going on. The light surrounding her felt... warm.

The shifting colours grew faster, and Dana felt tingly all over. She could feel shifting on her body, and could feel the rough armour covering her disappear.

She was momentarily worried that all her clothes would disappear, but her fears were unfounded, as the light disappeared seconds later.

While she was cocooned, the sphere had risen, and she was dropped from the center of the room, just a few steps back from where she had been sitting.

Congratulations on receiving the class: magical girl.

You are the first on your world to receive such a class. +50 level cap.

Due to bonus/special conditions, your class has been renamed.

Your class is now called: Wrath, the final sin.

Skills and spells have been allocated.

Class level up: you are now a level 2 magical girl.

INT +5

WIS +1

STR +4

AGI +2

Class level up: you are now a level 3 magical girl.

INT +5

WIS +2

STR +4

AGI +3

Class Skill unlocked: Emotional Influence

Class level up: you are now a level 4 magical girl.

INT +5

WIS +3

STR +5

AGI +3

Class Skill Unlocked: Grimoire Morph

Dana felt incredible. The granting of a class and so many stat increases had filled her with energy.

She dismissed all the notifications and looked at James who was staring, open mouthed.

Dana beamed at him, but her joy turned to a twisting fear as he struggled valiantly to hold back laughter.

"What? What's so funny?"

Dana put her hands to her chest, and was shocked to feel fabric on them.

She looked at her hands and saw elegant black gloves reaching halfway up her arms, fading into red, and ending in frilled cuffs.

"No. No. No... What the hell. JAMES!"

James jumped at her sudden shout.

"Ah! What?"

"I'm a goddamn magical girl!"