Within the VIP Viewing Room of the Academy Arena

Year 2849 | Month 5 | Day 30 | Sunday

The door at the back of the VIP room opens, revealing both Leonidas de Ashford and Anabel Walker as they walk into the room, drawing the eyes of the various faculty members within in the process.

Leonidas immediately frowns at the number of people in the room, but Anabel simply walks past him and up to a table close to the viewing window. After a few seconds of standing there, the man follows after her.

‘They must have gotten word about Nathan’s status as my apprentice,’ Leonidas thinks as he pointedly ignores the various looks being sent his way, along with the quiet chatter filling the overly large room. ‘Maybe having them do an official duel was going a little overboard, but it should at least get him introduced to the arena so that he can get the solo fighting experience he needs to be able to go along with the doctor’s plan.’

The Class C magician frowns as he remembers his and Anabel’s last visit from the doctor.

One week ago

A man stands with his hands in the pockets of his black and white lab coat as he stares at the two instructors in front of him from the large no-longer-closed gate within Leonidas’s Magical Warfare classroom.

Both of the instructors stand without moving a muscle while under the doctor’s gaze before visibly relaxing once the man turns his seemingly-dead, violet eyes away from the two to instead look at a recordings of Nathan’s training that the instructors were previously going over prior to his abrupt appearance from the battlefield gate.

‘Of fucking course he would put a backdoor into that portal gate,’ Leonidas practically shouts in his mind without showing any of it on his face. Meanwhile, Anabel stays absolutely silent with the only thoughts on her mind being that of her terror.

Over five minutes pass in silence as the doctor watches the recordings before he finally turns back to look at the two instructors and says, “The boy’s doing better than I would have expected.”

Leonidas’s eyes immediately widen in shock while Anabel just continues to stare at the man without any indications of how she’s feeling showing on her face or movements.

‘Was that… a complime-’ Leonidas begins to think before cutting off as the doctor continues speaking while taking his hands out of his pockets and crossing his arms, “But it’s not enough to execute the plan.”

The fire mage’s eyes return to normal as he lets out a mental sigh and thinks, ‘Of course…’

However, after the doctor’s words fully register in his head, Leonidas gathers his nerves enough to ask, “What plan, sir?”

The doctor’s eyes narrow slightly on the man before he slowly says, “The plan to fake his death during the optional end-of-year mission of his second year.”

This time, even Anabel lets out a faint gasp at his words, seemingly finally breaking out of her terror-filled stupor.

“Holy shit…” Leonidas mutters before tensing up slightly at the further narrowing of the doctor’s eyes at his words, but he can’t stop himself from exclaiming, “that’s why you’re rushing the boy to graduate as early as possible?!”

The doctor stares at the man for a few seconds, only to eventually nod his head and turn back to the screen showing the recordings again as he speaks, “I’ll explain, but only so you two don’t mess up the plan. Because there’s already enough of a chance of that happening due to the boy himself.”

Leonidas’s lips twitch slightly at being called that before something clicks in his mind and he thinks, ‘The boy doesn’t seem to know about this plan, so the doctor obviously hasn’t told him about this plan, and if he’s still worried about it despite that, it means that whatever his plan is, the boy can’t know about it whenever it goes down…’

“I’ve learned all I can about the space and time mana integrated into the subject’s body at this point, so the only thing I can do now is to wait to see if anything changes after he gets stronger,” the doctor says, still without any emotion on his face, “and he can’t remain in the military without letting those annoying councilors learn that one of their soldiers isn’t aging, much less the academy.”

After a brief pause, in which the final recording of Nathan’s most recent training with Anabel – where she cut off his head before watching it reattach itself without any issues – comes to an end and he turns to look at the two instructors and finishes, “So where better to send him for unassisted training in which he won’t be interrupted than the Kingdom of the Fallen?”

Both of the instructor’s eyes widen in a mixture of shock and terror at the man’s words.

The Present

“Calm down, Leo,” Anabel quietly says with a short bout of giggles from the other side of the table, “you look like you’re about to have an aneurism!”

Leonidas glances at her before his frown grows deeper and he turns back to look at the arena as Nathan and the other cadet raise up from the floor. Meanwhile, one of the other officers within the VIP room begins to walk over towards the control panel.

After the officer reaches the control panel, he begins to mess with it, causing the arena to change into a city street with both duelists standing on two separate buildings facing each other on opposite ends of said street.

The captain – who is also the intermediate sniper rifle class’s instructor for the high level courses – turns back around and begins walking over towards Leonidas and Anabel’s table. Once he gets there, he asks, “May I join you?”

Before Leonidas can say anything, Anabel answers, “Sure,” and begins typing on the screen that appears above her ID card so as to order some food.

“Thank you,” the captain – Adrian Roth – says while taking his place in between the two majors and turning his attention back to the arena before explaining his choice of battlefield despite not being asked, “It’s only right that a couple of snipers battle it out in a place suited for them.”

Leonidas grunts at his explanation before glancing at a few of the other officers in the room.

“So, I heard that you’ve created a powerful fire regeneration spell?” Adrian comments while glancing at Leonidas with one brow raised in question.

The major in question just returns his glance for a second before focusing on the arena again as the countdown for the duel begins to start ticking down in the center of the simulator.

“Just watch and see for yourself,” Leonidas finally says with a frown after the countdown reaches three seconds remaining.

Meanwhile, Anabel chuckles at the combination of his answer and the irritated look on Adrian’s face.