In the last few months before I left, I tested out the new teleportation a few times. If I would sacrifice half of my mana every day, I would be able to use it twice a week. It works really well. When I activate it, I get transported to the designed area and would leave the black stone behind where I was and if I want to go back, I would be transported to back to my last position. It was not good to use in a battle but in the end it was just for me to come back and check on the children.

The 4 months I used to train my 3 favourite students, were also really fun, at least for me, and I was relieved knowing that they would be able to defend the island against most enemies. In order for them to hide their appearances and to be able to give them some little gifts, I created 1 hood for every single one of the 100 children.

Knowing that they will survive for a while even without me, I left. I made sure to fly in the direction where the human continent was located at. For the first time in 3 tries, I was able to reach my destination alone and without any problems. Perhaps it was only a short distance of a few kilometres, but for me personally and moreover, mentally, it was a huge step to overcome my traumatic experience.

I flew for a few hours and luckily I didn’t come across any other people. With that I know that at least there are less to no humans who tried to go to the black continent for now. I reached a remote place to land and rested a few minutes before I advanced further. With my [space inventory] back, there was no problems with my rations, water or any other stuff I would need, I had everything stored in there. After resting, I proceeded into the direction of Sonya city, the 2nd largest human city and also the city where Sonya academy was located in.

After 3 days travelling, I arrived at the nearest town to Sonya city. Over the days staying in villages and towns on my way, I heard all sorts of rumours. Some of them were about me and the island, some other about all the other spotted islands, some were about famous adventurers. What made me wonder, was that I as the adventurer Darkness was somehow raised to the S rank and received the title “the black adventurer”.

Nice that I have to hear that from rumours and not from the people in charge.

Because I was an S ranked, I wasn’t able to reveal the identity of Darkness anymore. If I would, I would have caused a huge commotion either with the name Darkness or with the second Nightmare, both were a no-go. Because I went out of names I could use, I had to say my real one if someone asked for my name now. Luckily no one did yet and the earliest I would have to reveal it was when I arrive at the academy.

On my way a lot of people asked me why a kid like me was traveling alone, or that there are a lot of bad guys out there who would try to kill me, etc. They asked me if I wouldn’t want to come along with them but I refused every single one of them. Why should I even bother trusting someone I didn’t know, after what happened to me 3 years ago. The children back on the island were the only exception and I mean that. Even if I needed to find the other gods and work together with them I wouldn’t trust them.

Because I wasn’t able to take any quests from the guild anymore, I was relatively short on money and only spent it for inns and entrance fees. This was bad because after travelling with a merchant to Sonya city and paying the fee I was left with 1 single silver coin, which I probably spent on some random person. Or to be honest, it was swiped from me, when I was in a crowd of people. At least it was only 1 silver coin and nothing else from my [space inventory], so it didn’t really bother me. To be on the safe side, I checked 4 or 5 times if I had everything else.

I had no money and no interest going anywhere else so I headed straight for Sonya academy. I think my biggest question at that moment was if the city was named after the academy or the other way around but to my disappointment that question was never answered.

When I reached the academy, I already had my first problem. In front of the entrance there were a lot of people waiting in a queue. Most of them looked rather young and the others were probably only their guards or family members. Did I already mention that there were a lot of people in that queue? When I finally reached the gate and entered, the sun was already beginning to set.

I arrived at some sort of counter and had to show my invitation. I told them that I had some issues I had to attend to and came late. Because I was 1 year late, I had to take at least a test or I would have to start in the 1st year, but because it was already getting late and they had their hands full of things to do, 1 of them showed me around, brought me to the boy’s dormitory, gave me a key for a room and told me that he would come back the next day so he could take me to the testing grounds.

The dormitory was huge. Not as big as the academy but at least half its size. Especially in height it was not far inferior and that had a specific reason. There are 8 years in which you can attend the academy and both the girl’s and the boy’s dormitory had 8 floors, 1 for every year. It would always be possible for students to leave but because of the reputation you would get by graduating from Sonya academy almost everyone stayed. Floor 1 was used by 1st year till floor 8 was used by last year students.

Moreover the students had some weird kind of hierarchical system. If you were a 1st year you would be regarded as a freshman, from 2nd to 4th you were an underclassman, from 5th to 7th you were mid class and 8th year students were called upperclassman. At least that system didn’t apply to obedience but only to respect.

When I first entered the dormitory, I got some awkward gazes from the students when I went to the stairs and up to the 2nd floor. I could understand them though, they saw me waiting in line with them and now I was going up the 2nd floor. I didn’t mind them and just searched for my room. As I reached the next floor, I got even more nervous gazes and some of the boys started to whisper things to each other.

It was already late and because of me running and waiting in line all day, I was really tired and just wanted to find my room and go to sleep without causing any trouble on my first day. Therefore, I just looked back at them for a second and then hurried to find the room with the number 222, which was a really odd number by the way and also hard to find on that huge floor. I somehow managed to find it and was relieved when I entered it.

After closing the door, I lied down on the bed provided, ignoring everything else and fell asleep almost instantly. With that my first stressful day at Sonya academy came to an end.