A week later, the students were not feeling too great about the thought of training, especially since it was training, and they very much so wanted to get out of the current situation. At the moment, Rune was standing above them, once again in the Arena.

Rune sighed. He was in his Human form and wanted to get out of the sunlight. He looked over the student body, making sure that the Honors class was not there.

“I have an announcement! I will be leaving on some missions, as per request by the King.”

Murmurs broke throughout the crowd. Rune had wanted to spend some time with Sophia the day before due to a notice that came to him in the morning the day before.

“I know this is quite sudden, to me especially, so I will tell you the new plans. Starting this week, you students are going to complete live training exercises where you kill monsters and beasts and things like that… But this time you will be accompanied by either Bel or Mir, choose one, and you shall head to Hell’s Gate to gain some experience fighting real monsters. The rewards have now been changed as well. You will hand in materials and blueprints to the Lab and you shall obtain your requested piece of armor, weapon, or equipment. Mir will be hunting on the coasts while Bel will hunt more inland.”

He paused to let that all sink in. He also needed more time to think of how to say his words properly for, at the moment, he does not do words good. It was morning after all and he stayed up well after midnight.

“That IS too sudden!”

“It’s as if an author of a story decided to take a sharp left turn!”

“If that were true, it would be lazy storytelling.”

There were some teenagers who spoke louder than the rest. Some of which were disturbing the peaceful, or at least somewhat peaceful, minds of the other students. Rune just sighed and held his hand up in the air to silence the mass of people.

“I have also heard that you now know about the oncoming threat of Dragons. I wonder why?”

He sternly looked at Hela who was turning away and gliding through a wall.

“Anyway, now that you know, decide whether you will fight when that time comes or if you will not. Either way, you will still have to train. That is all.”

There was an audible groan from the teenagers as they still had to train, and in this heat as well. Rune turned away and sighed his whole way to the exit of the Arena. He really did not want to go.

The King of Storveld, Leo Regis Domini, ordered him to scout the areas believed to house many Hierarch Dragons. If he saw them, he was to report his findings or wipe them out and then report. He decided on the latter as he intended to have some fun killing before he had to report with paperwork, his true rival in this fantasy world.

“Will you be alright?”

Sophia was waiting for him inside the Arena and she hugged him from his side.

“Ah. Well, probably, but I don’t want to set up any death flags.”

“Huh?”

“No, nothing. I will be good… maybe. Be safe while I’m away.”

“Mm!”

Sophia nodded and here fluffy ears followed her movement as well. Rune sighed, but this time in satisfaction. Then he promised himself. It was a promise of eradicating the Dragons as quickly as possible and then returning to his wife as soon as possible.

“I’ll make them extinct!!”

“Ahem.”

He turned, although quite hard with his wife still latched onto him, to see Rouna with her arms crossed.

“You mean to say the Hierarch and Irregular Dragons will die, right?”

“Hm? Yeah. Yeah, that’s definitely what I meant.”

“Uh huh.”

The Green Dragon girl nodded with a large amount of skepticism and started to walk away. She was also part of the mission to scout and was in quite a bad mood as she couldn’t meet with Elisa.

Elisa was also sent on a mission, one that no one, save for the king, knows about due to how it must be held in utmost secrecy. She was to guard the queen and first and second princess at an unknown location. The first prince, even though being the second oldest out of the three, was living under the tutelage of a former general and he had priority to learn strategy, warfare, techniques, intuition, fighting styles, and magics before the other two, due to how he was to be the next heir.

Rouna was quite wistful when walking away and wasn’t paying attention when she hit the wall. However, instead of her head hurting, the wall gained a large new dent in it which was going to have to be patched up. Unfortunately, there were not enough workers for there to be free hands to do spare and odd jobs.

“Just turn a little ways…”

Rune motioned with his hand for her to go to both his and her right in order to exit the arena. In the architectural plans, Rune decided on four exits, two of which would also be entrances. Two entrances/exits on opposite sides of the colosseum and two exits made using an emergency tunnel underneath the building that led to the school.

“... To your right.”

“I KNOW that.”

She truly was in a bad mood. Enough so to want to throw a tantrum, which she decided against. If she had, about ninety percent of the people in the area near the Academy of Learning and Fighting would be decimated and the rest, save for a select few, would be heavily wounded.

Rouna left through the double doors and Rune watched her go before turned back to Sophia and placing his head on hers. He was tired. Mostly because it was morning and he had woken up less than an hour ago.

“It’s gonna be okay.”

Sophia patted him on the head, even though her field of vision was blocked by his body. She was tired too, but more mentally fatigued as she had been restless the past few nights. The idea of Rune leaving her coupled with the fact that an evil god dragon was arriving in their world soon was enough to keep her awake at night.

“You just do what you have to do and come back.”

Rune stepped back and looked at her, from head to toe and back again. He opened his mouth to say something, but paused. What should he say to her now? Especially knowing that most would die during this event. He felt the burden of his students’ lives and his friends and his acquaintances, well, not so much Hela as he would be fine without her. He wanted them all to make it out of this predicament, but that would be too optimistic. At best, three fourths of the people that go to fight it will come back alive. At worst… well, he decided not to dwell on that idea.

“Like I said, or rather, as I should say, I don’t plan on setting up any death flags. Once I find Tiamat, it’s only a matter of time before I beat the life outta her.”

He clenched his fist and grinned. Then he relaxed his tense posture, once he realized he was worried, and patted Sophia on the head.

“Well, I’m off.”

He said, waving to her.

A flash of blue light and a slight burst of wind produced Rune in a wooden area. He used teleport to transport himself to a ship, his ship. He looked around to find that there were no other objects near him, just floorboards and the masts. He was on the top deck of the ship that was still docked to the port town located on the coast of Hell’s Gate.

“Wow, nothing but dust on this now.”

He hadn’t taken the ship back, as it would be destroyed if he did since he would have to go through monsters once again. Although, he probably would be able to complete the journey more easily now that he had gained quite a few levels.

Still, no one had come onto the ship for a while. Actually, that wasn’t true, nothing humanoid and intelligent had come aboard. A few Lesser Wyverns were perching on a mast like they owned the place.

Rune looked around. The village was the same. Well, rather it was different as the teleportation door was moved from the ship to the village inside of a stone building and technology was moved back and forth. Sometimes, if Kelly couldn’t be found in ALF, she would likely be here, chatting with others and swapping technology.

Rune’s greaves hit the floor with a clop as he moved to get off the ship. Once he had successfully left the ship, he made his way over to Nacht who was generally handling the paperwork, as per usual. She was easier to find, much more so than Lacht, Mya, or Nya who slid off to different locations at any given time. Not only that, but Rune was looking for a better map.

Inside the arena, the students were dividing themselves into two groups, one under Mir and the other under Bel. Mir was to gather at least fifty people, as was Bel, but she was told specifically by Rune that whoever had the more students under them would be paid more. Currently, she had 95 people and Bel had 80.

There were now two hundred students in the high school as more people have been arriving in the school. Those who were new were actually quite weak, even compared to the weakest in the school, at least before the new students showed up.

Mir decided to try and get at least a hundred and one people on her side to get more people than Bel, but it seemed like some people were walking towards her side, more than those walking to Mir’s and she decided to campaign.

“Come to this side! We’ll have a fun beach trip! I promise!!”

Those words carried across the chattering of the students and they clearly showed how desperate she was. Even so, multiple teens moved to her side and, in the end, 107 teens were on Mir’s side and 93 on Bel’s. The entirety of the Honors class was on Bel’s side, clearly showing how they liked her better than Mir.

Bel was hard on people, but was more friendly and relaxing. She generally did her job well and properly, but, outside of that, she was relaxed and did what she liked. Mir generally did her job correctly and, once her mission was completed, she basically lazed about and did whatever other people wanted. In this way, the students could do what they wanted after they finished their training. She was actually similar in that way to a certain little girl from an anime who was sent to another world during a world war. Thus why it was so close between Mir and Bel.

When all was set and done, the students each were given pins for the two groups. The group with Mir was given a pin with the outline of two rapiers crossing one another. The students with Bel were given a pin with the outline of a large lance.

Once a student was given a pin, they left the arena and went to do whatever it was that students did in that area. The school day had already ended and, earlier, Rune had to find a replacement for his class once again during his break hours. The other person who substituted for him before was gone due to family matters and he had to find another person quickly.

The person he chose was Gaira who was still being trained for other classes. She was told, for the weapon classes, to create weapon and armor designs and, when a student finished making at least a total of four, could do what they pleased within reason and in the classroom. So far, Gaira was getting along quite well with people and showed no signs of violence, unlike Rune.

Gaira was not at the school like most of the other teachers. Instead, she was working on lesson plans since she was sprung with the substitute position just a few hours ago. While doing so, she sighed most of the time since it was hard to plan for lessons when you are a novice teacher.

The Honor’s class was still in the arena when the rest of the students left to do what they pleased. They wanted to work on some training, although they couldn’t go to Hell’s Gate as it was almost dark and worse monsters appeared in those times, but they could still train amongst one another and with Bel and Mir, even though they didn’t choose Mir.

The eight Honor’s class students split up into teams of four, two teams in total. One group, who had Hika, Yula, and Akta would be led by Rena, would fight Bel. The other, which was made up of Mynn, Hyht, and Nija would be led by Erin, would fight Mir. Of course, Hika would be a far better leader than Erin, but the group had split up using the table they received from Rune of who was better than who using an average of test scores and fighting skills. The odds went to fight Bel, being led by Rena who placed first, and the evens would fight Mir, led by Erin who placed second.

Erin was better than Hika in fighting and combat and memorization while Hika was better than Erin in scouting and formula work. However, Hika was extremely bad at language arts while Erin had around the same average for all his classes, an 85. To be more specific, Hika was on the lower side of the spectrum in language arts with an average of 68.

The arena was split between the two battles and silence filled the stadium. Bel had taken out her lance, placing a green crystal, a Wind magic crystal, inside of the weapon. Mir had unsheathed one rapier and the other four followed, whizzing around her like a defensive swarm. The other students readied their weapons, trying to hopefully not die in this training.

Rena’s weapons were now two kamas that were at a size between a regular kama and a scythe. They were made of Dragon bones, Rune had fused a few, and some Lightning and Darkness crystals. There were designated areas to hold the kamas because they had chains connected to them there that were also connected to her new gauntlets. Using a simple pulley system and some magic, the chains could retract allowing her to throw her weapons and retrieve them. The actual blade portion was made of magic crystals, but had some teeth in it made of Dragon bone. Her armor was now lighter than before, but provided extra defense due to how they had multiple enchantments on them.

Hika was a katana user. Her odachi, basically a longer katana, had been upgraded by Rune so that it now could phase through non-living and inorganic material. This means that when she pours in magic energy, the weapon can go through armor and hit her opponent, but this also leaves her wide open to any attack as she would not be able to parry and block. Thus, she was given two bucklers on her new gauntlets, one on each arm, and they could easily deflect incoming attacks and had an enchantment to dispel most lower leveled spells.

Yula, being a person who relied on her fists, was given a simple weapon system where she could dole out simple blunt attacks reinforced with a burning effect, courtesy of Fire crystals. However, her gauntlets could also had blades attached to them at any point and disengaged at any point. They had to be the blades that she carried, but she carried such an assortment that it would be impossible to foresee which she would bring out next. As for her feet, she was given grieves with an acceleration effect and was endowed with the Ice element.

Akta was given a scythe, far larger than Rena’s kamas, with could use multiple illusions on itself and the caster when magic is poured in. She could become invisible, change how her weapon looks, change her form, and multiple other endless possibilities. That along with the effect that her weapon can use some Water spells and even fewer Ice spells.

Erin, who constantly keeps breaking his weapons due to hitting too many hard things, received a weapon made of multiple sea monsters, as some of their bone structures were harder than Hierarch Dragons. His new greatswords could now absorb a blow’s force and repel it, but it could not hold more than one attack’s energy at a time and the sword would be hit regularly with the attacker’s full force if the attack isn’t repelled in time.

Mynn used a bow and was given a bow that had two protrusions from it that could be used as a melee weapon. His arrows were now just made of mana and there were multiple slots for the mana canisters inside the bow so that the way he could reload was to just place a can of mana in the slot. He could make the arrow more or less lethal by varying his strength on how far he drew back. Since he was more like a ranger or hunter, his weapon could fold up in two places, like a hinge that could lock, and was surprisingly light.

The knife that Hyht received was one that could reach a further distance by creating a blade of mana attached to the knife’s blade itself. The different weapons he could create with mana were controlled with four buttons on the handle, a zweihander, a longsword, a scimitar, and a handaxe. He also carried throwing knives that could come back to his sheathe after a specific time or when he pressed the button on those sheathes.

Last but not least, Nija was given a grand shield whose shape was like a stretched out pentagon and a shortsword whose blades could be changed out. In the shield, there were four blades, Fire, Wind, Lightning, and Light, and a fifth sloth for the regular blade. All the weapons could be switched out at the top of the shield and all she would need to do is plug her sword in the middle, then move around the handle to the preferred blade of choice. The shield itself could create a barrier in front of the user for a short while that deflected all physical ranged projectiles and physical melee attacks.

Now, they were prepared for battle.