"Mathias get over there and clean that up!" Duke Phillip yells. "Honestly, what kind of slave are you?" "Right away Duke Phillip!" I yell back as I quickly get out of bed, change my clothes and run down the stone steps to the training hall he sent me to. Why the hell do I have to clean the mess those damn knight trainees made. If I didn't need the money I would be long gone from this hellhole of a kingdom.

Of course the 'collar of domination' poses a problem in my grande plans for escape. Blasted thing zaps me full of lightning magic whenever I disobey his orders. Can't even forcibly remove it either, as it was made to resist the strength of high level Demons, hell some were enchanted with enough spells to even subdue Demon Generals, albeit not without a large amount of difficulty.

After finally making my way outside to the knights training field, the field is ruined and pockmarked full of massive craters, you can also practically feel the mana in the air from the attacks those knights used. "Oh look it's Mathias Sparrow our resident ' assistant mage'. Do us a favour and fix up the training field, would you? The duke would be rather upset if we can't continue training due to your incompetence am I right?" snickered the knight captain Herald Vorlander. The other knights burst out in laughter as they walked back inside the Acadamy.

I sighed as I started silently chanting a spell to fix the field, 'Terraform', a rather useful spell even if it is a basic spell. Seriously, this field was covered with protection spells to prevent this very scenario and yet they blew it to shreds, leaving me with the cleanup. I'm no janitor ok, I'm just an assistant mage that is working here, but this collar makes me nothing short of a slave. My title as an assistant mage as well as my wages are simply a formality so the Acadamy of Nepholite and the Noble running the place don't get in trouble with the King of Megallia.

Slavery was long since banned and the collar is only used on criminals, but nobles are constantly finding loopholes in the laws to abuse. I'm not considered a slave as long as I get paid reasonable wages weekly, and have my own freedom. The collar's allowed on me legally since I'm considered "unable to control my mana efficiently and safely, thus requiring the aid of the collar to prevent any incidents at work." As if! The duke faked numerous accidents and made it look like I can't control my magic properly, and since he "cares dearly for his fellow employees" he requested for a collar to be placed on me with the only restrictions on it to be that it will prevent any accidental mana overloads, aka my spells going kaboom because I couldn't control it. The king approved his request but added an observer to be placed in the academy to make sure that the duke doesn't abuse the collar. Little did the king know the observer was one of Duke Phillip's lackey's rendering the whole observer deal a moot point.

I was originally a mage who had finished training at the Adventurer's academy that is free to the public to enroll in as it teaches people the basics of being an adventurer as well as how to defend yourselves properly. I was looking for a job after graduating so I could collect enough money to enroll in the Nepholite Academy, the best academy in the kingdom, and found a job opening one day. Luckily I got the job as an assistant mage, but that's where my problems started. Accidents occurred whenever I tried casting spells, which was strange as I was a competent mage so it frustrated me to no end. Eventually an incident occurred while I was helping a teacher demonstrate some basic fire spells, but it was just my luck that the duke happened to be showing the king around the Academy and I lost control of my fireball, sending it careening at the king. He was saved by his royal guard and that was when the duke suggested the whole collar thing because he 'cared so much for all of his employees', which is how I wound up in my current predicament.

Remembering the whole ordeal made me so angry at both myself and the duke. I was angry at myself for being tricked so easily and at the duke for tricking me in the first place. He sabotaged me back then by having other mages cast spells to disrupt my flow of mana causing each and every incident that happened. I learned about this after becoming his slave and by then it was too late to run away. He wanted me as a slave in the first place because he was gathering promising mages to form his own sort of private mage squad. Since he couldn't hire any good mages normally due to his terrible reputation which I didn't hear about since I lived in a village most of my life, he tricked various mages into becoming assistant mages at the academy and one way or another he made them into slaves.

Currently there's 5 of us in the mage squadron and Alex Wishmonger was a friend I made after joining the squad. Alex is a tall guy with short hair that always manages to look perfect each morning, with practically pale skin and is very well built. His arms look like tree trunks due to the muscle he has on him, and you wouldn't be able to tell that he's a freaking mage of all things. When we first met we just hit it off. Alex is a happy go lucky goofball with little to no regard for his own safety when doing things. He usually got me into trouble with his various pranks, I remember that one time he greased up that jackass Herald's armour with chilli peppers from the kitchen, man that was a riot. Too bad we both got stuck with no food for the next 3 days after that, but it was worth it to see his smug face look so stupid.

After I finished cleaning up the field I head back to my room to see Alex fiddling with some random bits and bobs, which can only mean more trouble for me. "Whatever you're doing keep me out of it, I already took the fall for you last time and I'm not about to suffer for another 3 days because you want to torture Vorlander some more." I say while sitting down on my bed.

He chuckles and replies "Dude this one will be worth it! I got word of a new spell from Ms.sylfa that can cause Vorlander to constantly trip and smell like rotten eggs, it'll be great! I just need to finish a few enchantment engravings on his armour and boom one smelly and very uncoordinated Vorlander! That aside are you still getting those weird dreams like usual?". "Yeah but only this time it was far more detailed and could actually hear things, It felt so real dude. In the dream I was wondering about where you and some chick Maria were. I don't even know anyone named Maria. But this time got so close to touching the glowing sword, I was inches away but I woke up before I could grab it. These dreams keep getting more vivid and feel as real as you and me." I say in exasperation as I flop onto the hard surface I call a bed. Alex looks up from whatever it is he was engraving and speaks to me all excited "Do you know what the sword was enchanted with? A glowing sword with flames doesn't seem like your average everyday weapon if you ask me. I wonder if I could make my own glowy sword of doom. Then I could give one as a 'present' to Vorlander only to have it explode! Oh what if I made it light him on fire and then break into dust, or how about-".

Alex went on another one of his rants about ways to cause me more headaches. As much of a pain in the ass his pranks can be, he is a genius when it comes to enchanting and crafting. Not to mention he can cleave someone clean in 2 with an axe if he wants to. He's more of a warrior than a mage, even if he can enchant. What kind of mage can cleave Wolves in 2 with an axe?! Not to mention all the nasty poisons and other status effects he oh so loves to stick onto things. I shake my head trying to forget the dream and tell him to clean up the mess he's made and get ready for work before the duke notices he's been slacking off again. I don't want to eat hard bread for a whole day because he was late again.