Gilliam plunged the sword through the door to the sound of a muffled shriek inside, sure cutting the hinges could have been easier but he didn’t think that far. A simple half oval that starts and ends at the floor was simple enough, pulling the sword along the wood was surprisingly easy compared to stone, and it slid easily through stone as well. Two simple movements later and the door had a new door through it, a simple stomp had that fall inwards.

During this ordeal there were a lot of different reactions, Angela did her best to try and persuade Gilliam to stop and think about this. The students had a mix of fear, ‘get the teachers’ and just morbid interest going on, not everyone liked Garend after all.

However all of it fell on deaf ears, Savia was in here and he was going to liberate her at any cost.

As the smaller door hit the stone floor inside the room Gilliam saw two things, or rather the lack of two things. The window was open, there was no Savia and there was no Garend.

Running to the window he looked outside, it was not hard to see Garend running with what looked like a bird cage under his arm.

Gilliam needed to stop him, and the first thing that came to mind was not flying over, getting someone to help or anything simple, but rather the fastest and simplest solution; Aether arrow.

Forming the spell circle he was to the point where he was going to channel energy into it when Angela finally got his attention, and the way she did was the mother of all bitchslaps. It lifted him off his feet and sent him flying into the bed, breaking some of the maddress supports when he landed and cutting off the corner as the sword had not been dismissed.

Standing between Gilliam and the window, with her hands on her hips she looked very satisfied with herself as Gilliam’s face had changed from murderous intent to confusion.

“The fuck was that?!” Gilliam shouted out at his albino friend.

“Oh, so you can actually hear me, that’s very good to find out.” Though she smiled it had a heavy undertone of worry. “This is no way for a hero to act, aiming whatever spells at young kids.”

Her words cut deeper than he expected, she was right off course but he didn’t want to admit it. The little bastard had Savia in a birdcage, but potentially accidentally hit him with poor aim from his current unstable mind could be bad.

“He needs to be punished for what he has done.” Gilliam stated, still angry he had at least snapped out of his pure rage. He got out of the bed and walked up to the one blocking him from the window.

She stepped aside with a smile. “Of course he does, but not with the mindset you were in, you would probably eat him or something.”

It was clearly a slight joke to lift the mood, though Gilliam had snapped out of his blind rage he was in no mood for laughs at the moment.

However, as she had stepped aside he walked to the window. Garend had gotten more distance but the little idiot was running towards the main gate in the Fire field. This was not a problem to take over.

Leaving the slender blade active, but dismissing the wide cutting blade, Gilliam cast his flight spell. As he made a casual wave that manifested the complex spell circle before it attached itself to Gilliam once it got its energy had the other students react, he didn’t pay them any attention before he took flight towards the little shit that had Savia.

He barely saw Angela jumping out of the window, landing on the ground without a hint of effort, this shouldn’t be weird as it was ‘only’ the second floor, she jumped about that height when he met her in the jungle the first day. She started running to overtake them, though she was incredibly fast she was still slower than his flight. As he neared he cast a single barrier on himself, just in case his soon to be opponent decided to get smart.

Catching up with Garend he simply landed in front of him, glowing sword in his hand he now stood between the young noble and the exit, the very fact that he was standing here proof that there was no running.

The boy stopped almost like he was on ice, stumbling about to keep balance until he fell on his ass, this let Gilliam take a good look at Savia.

It... it sent a chill down his spine and almost set fire to his very soul. The monster that calls himself a noble had hurt her, he had pulled out feathers, burned her and some of her remaining feathers. She was in horrible shape.

Gilliam struggled, oh how he struggled to not just erase the shit stain from existence, parts of him wanted to cut him and keep cutting until there was nothing but mist left. He wanted to tie a rope to a leg and fly across the gravel with him scraping along it.

He. Was. Angry.

“Tell me, Garend.” Gilliam’s voice was loud and forceful, the word furious didn’t even come close to begin to describe his current state. The fact that he was talking at all was the sole hint that he still managed to keep his humanity.

“What the actual fuck have you been doing with my familiar?!” He put extreme emphasis on the word ‘fuck’ and ‘my’.

The boy was crying, trying to speak between sniffles and tears, placing Savia’s cage on the ground between them and crawling a few metres (1m ~3.2ft) away from it. Gilliam crouched down and opened the cage before putting his left hand in for Savia to climb into... She had to climb into his hand... No hopping and no flying.

Gilliam was incredibly happy, a few tears escaping the corners of his eyes, they were together again and she was alive! But his tears were not from happiness, they were from a mixture of sadness and utter rage.

“How are you doing?” He asked his little friend, managing to sound cheerful to a certain degree.

She sat down in his hand and hugged his thumb before she forced a smile at him. “Welcome back, Master!”

Gilliam snapped, getting to his feet he walked towards Garend and without properly thinking he stomped on his hand, ignoring the many sounds of cracking and breaking. As the kid lifted his head to yell out in pain he kicked him in the face, breaking his nose and sending him tumbling back a few metres.

“I asked you a question. What have you been doing with Savia?” His tone was back to his murderous self and he was soo close to just having the kid bite onto the sword before he manifested its wide blade. The blade was flickering ever so slightly, like the power fueled to it was getting a tiny bit unstable, its clean edge was getting jagged and electrified, its pattern was moving and getting erratic. It was clearly responding.

Garend tried to answer, but between his tears, snot, broken nose, broken hand and whatever he succumbed to when rolling backwards was making it problematic for him.

“SPEAK UP!” Gilliam commanded at the top of his voice. “If I want crying and sniveling I’d go back to the fucking demon world I spent a week in. Now answer me.”

This was absolutely a threat, his body full of scars, he came back with a weird magic sword and acted so differently; this should explain well enough the danger he was in. At least that was the intent behind the bit of information.

Garend took his time to speak, doing his best to enunciate the words, it was not easy but it was at least audible.

“I... hated... you... you died. I... Revenge on... it.”

He had to speak between waves of pain and just everything else going on with him.

Lifting Savia up to his face, she smiled honestly at him again though didn’t say anything.

“...It....” he muttered to himself but aimed at Garend. He knew that a lot of mages didn’t want to consider gender for their familiar or things like demons, as that kind of humanised and raised their value. To Gilliam it was an insult not to, especially when sentient.

Having a proper look at her now he could see that her scales had lost their lustre and her skin looks damaged as well. He had just gone to town with a collection of things.

“And what about Petal? I heard you attacked her?” His voice was not at the same level of hate regarding that one. Realistically speaking she was a demon and it made more sense to go that way. Though she was allowed to defend herself which Jial confirmed had happened. He still wanted to hear it from him.

At this point he was just sniffling, mentioning something about demons and attacking. Though parts of Gilliam could sympathise with this, she was still his property and this was an attack on his name.

Angela had caught up with them a short while ago and was sort of just monitoring. She didn’t seem too worried but that might also be due to her being there in case something goes bad.

Gilliam sighed, he wanted this to be over, there needed to be a punishment and at this point he didn't care anymore. He wasn’t going to kill him but...

Walking closer to him, standing within both sword and kicking distance the boy started bowing his head into the grass pleading for his life.

“Remember, Garend-” Gilliam gave pause to make sure that he lifted his head and looked him in his eyes.

“You still owe me money.”

With a swift movement of the sword the boy’s right arm fell to the ground, a few spurts of blood followed. The kid’s eyes widened as he looked to his side, seeing his arm on the grass sent him straight into shock, he went silent and just froze before falling over.

Gilliam didn’t want them to just reattach the arm, the healing magic of the Academy seemed pretty amazing so it would be too easy if he could just reattach it.

Dismissing the sword's blade he returned that to the ring, picking up Garend’s arm and did the same, musing a split second at the fact that this worked as the young boy’s arm in Gilliam’s hand had just disappeared into nothing.

“Someone might want to heal this!” he shouted at the crowd that was gathering, he would still live but the blood was leaving his body at a frightening rate.

Some people with the correct badges stepped forward and started doing their best, stopping the bleeding relatively fast before someone carried him away while someone else continued healing.

Angela looked a mix of horrified and confused, but as she saw the healers taking control she followed Gilliam. Inhaling to speak with him she stopped herself as she saw his face now being in extreme sorrow as he looked at the little critter in his hand.

Gilliam smiled at Savia, who smiled back, he covered her in healing energy. Having no idea how her body was different from the normal human one, he could at least focus on pain relief and general healing speed improvement. He had general knowledge that painkillers messed with the pain receptors and that the body healed itself through having the immune defence do its thing and a general cell replication... Or at least he thought this was how it worked, the important thing was that he could feel nothing but content and happiness over their bond and some of her superficial wounds were healing already, so it was working.

He continued this as he walked towards the central building, he had someone else to get out.

After a short minute of walking Angela finally found a moment to break in, she was hesitant, looked uncertain and seemed to try to find a way to word things without triggering anything too much.

“You... Don’t you think that was a bit much?” She commented but seemed to realise something she said as soon as she was done, having an ‘oh no’ expression for a moment.

Gilliam was luckily calm, he was too focused on healing Savia to care about tones and accidental wording.

“He deserved death, taking his arm is mercy.” His own tone was cold towards Garend, not cruel just cold.

“But... Why did you take his arm and... How...?” She had a weird satisfaction in the end of that question, almost like the question had been bottled up a short while and she finally got it asked.

“If I left the arm there the healers could probably reattach it, I want the punishment to be permanent.” The honest coldness from Gilliam didn’t seem to sit well with Angela.

Though before she could comment he answered her second question. “In the Fractured lands I ‘found’ this neat ring, it’s a subspace storage device or whatever you call it. A ring of holding.” He didn’t move his hand to show her or anything, he was busy covering his little friend in healing energy.

Due to his lack of knowledge in the field he might be overdoing it with the mana spent versus the healing done, but that was hardly something to care about.

“You do know that this will most likely have his family come for you, right? The Silverhawks are a powerful and respected family.” She sounded like she knew of them very well, still focusing on that topic instead of the ring or the mention of Fractured Lands.

“I hardly care.” There was no hint of consideration in his voice, he clearly absolutely didn’t care.

“You maimed their son, they will without doubt have you expelled and do their best to sully your name, If worst comes to worst they might even send people for your life.”

She seemed worried and seemed like she knew a little of what she was talking about. Which made sense, she was a mage even though she might be considered as the lower side due to how her magic worked.

“And they will most likely fail.” His voice was not filled with arrogance nor any better than thou tones. It sounded like he just started a simple fact.

“Realistically speaking, they will most likely try. But, expelling me from the academy might actually work but I doubt it. For the same reason that sullying my name might be problematic. I am a Heptagon Mage, I closed the portal to hell that opened, I closed the second one before it opened and I am the only survivor having spent time in their world. I know this makes me sound arrogant and... I really don’t want to sound like this but it’s all true.”

He did seem to dislike the self praise in mentioning this. Though factually he is correct about it all but it clearly didn’t seem right to toot his own horn like this.

Their talk continued as they entered the central building of the Academy, now being in a much better mental state he walked up to the reception.

A middle aged man was sitting behind the desk, hair starting to grey on the sides, some wrinkles starting to form in his forehead, but all in all looking like a nice man.

He was a bit taken back at Gilliam when he walked up to the reception desk, eyeing Gilliam’s lack of clothing, the albino standing beside him and the fact that he was actively casting a spell in his hand.

“Good day, how can I help you?” His voice was calm and practised.

“I want my slave back. It’s the demon that is being held in the basement somewhere.”

There was no tact or beating around with the statement, he wanted her back and free... At least as free as possible.

The man was very taken back at many things here, freezing up a second in his speech. But before he could respond Angela forcefully turned Gilliam around.

“Wait, you have a demon slave? H- how.. Why?”

Gilliam was confused for half a second before he remembered that she wasn’t here during the two invasions, especially the one where Aeris was taken into the portal and brought Petal back. So she wouldn’t know about any of that. So it all made sense.

“I’ll explain later, in short she’s a magically bound slave, or whatever that thing was called.”

Turning back to the receptionist as Angela seemed to want to respond, cutting her off Gilliam decided to be a bit nice and help the receptionist out a little.

“It might be easier for you to get hold of Jial or Ghaos, they know what this is about.”

The man recomposed himself and started checking some papers and books. “I see that Ghaos should be in his office, I will go check with him. Can you wait here while I do?”

It was clear that this was not a request and just a polite command, if Gilliam wanted the help he would have to wait.

He was not unaccustomed to waiting, so he just nodded and kept healing Savia for now.

Angela took this moment to get some questions in, stepping forward with a perplexed expression.

“So... I’m gone for a few weeks and you have a familiar and a slave now?” The tone was not judging or anything like that, it was more like a kind of ‘please explain’ statement.

“When did you get back?” Gilliam asked her to know where to start.

“A few days ago.” She seemed a little calmer that Gilliam seemed fine with responding but she was still looking somewhat uncertain about things.

“Well, in short. Detia, my teacher in unstructured magic suggested I get a familiar, in her words it was to have someone do the menial tasks for me so I could lazy about, but I got a friend in stead.” He smiled softly as he looked at the little creature in his hand.

Continuing a second later

“A while after you left a portal to some demon world opened outside of the Academy. Demons attacked and lots of people died or got hurt. Aeris, the teleporting girl, was one of them. Though she came to and managed to panic teleport back to us, bringing the one carrying her at the time with her. That demon was punched unconscious and put in a secure cell. Aeris is fine physically. I manage to conjure some superspell or something to destroy the gate. Now, since I have some weird gift of understanding every language or something, I was brought in by Jial and Ghaos to talk to her, she was surprisingly open and started sharing details, not knowing if they were true or not the idea, from herself no less, was to put her under the mind-slave-thingy, so she could not lie to us. They put that responsibility on me due to my reputation as the Heptagon Mage, claiming it could keep her safer. It kind of worked for a while but I think it was mainly for them to not bother with it. We got some information from her and once that was done she was still my slave... so... Here we are.” He smiled, clearly stopping the story before the second gate.

Angela blinked vacantly for a few seconds as she processed everything.

“But... wait.. No... Hold on. You can understand all languages?”

She looked like she had many, many other questions but she had to start somewhere.

This had Gilliam chuckle a bit. “I like that from everything I just said, that’s the part that caught you.” Turning to her properly for the conversation to continue. “Yes, I don’t always know I’m doing it, but if I hear or see a language I can understand, read and speak it without problems. Not always able to control it as it all sounds the same for me. That’s also why I’m so good at magic, I know the magic runes like any language. I think I almost gave Jial a stroke when he found that out.” He smiled a bit sheepishly. He was extremely happy and proud of this, not that he had worked hard for it but it was still something he could do.

Angela paused again, this time looking more in thought.

“So... does this mean that...”

Not waiting for her to complete his sentence Gilliam decided to just give her more info.

“I can make up or change any spell on the fly based on what I want at the time? Yes.”

He knew that this was where most of his power lied. Sure, his absurdly massive mana pool let him take advantage of this, but it seems that knowing the magical language properly allowed him access to powers that most mages only dreamt of.

Her mind looked like it was about to have a stroke, something Gilliam chuckled at. “Jial had the same face, even broke his speech pattern for a moment.”

“No.. Wait... You can.. You can read magic?” She was still struggling with this, it was unheard of.

Gilliam could only sympathise with her reaction, based on the information he had from before, the research into the magic runes is often a lifelong one. Sure, the school shares some to get the students started and help them research a few, but usually they leave the school with a handful of runes, and even then they might only know one or two of their meanings.

Gilliam knew the language by heart, he knew it properly. Meaning that he already had several lifetimes worth of research in his mind for free. Any mage would react to that.

“Yes.” He answered simply, though he failed to contain a satisfied smirk.

Before Angela could continue the conversation the receptionist came back.

“Mr. Gibson, Ghaos explained who you are, if you go down the stairs he will be waiting for you.”

He forced a smile that almost hinted that he might get slapped.

“Thank you.” Gilliam smiled, giving the receptionist a nod bow before he headed towards the stairs with Angela in tow.

“Wait, hold on. None of this explains what happened to you just now. You just showed up in the Light field, the other students say that you came through a tiny gate, killed two demons and passed out.” She sounded almost rushed as she seemed to want to get an answer on this before they got to Ghaos.

Having started walking down the central spiral staircase at this point Gilliam thought for a moment. “I think it’s better to wait with that explanation, it’s long and... It’s long. I’ll make sure you’re there when I explain it later, Jial and Ledels will most likely be present as well.”

He didn’t really say much more as they walked down, just tended to Savia.

Eventually they happened upon a short, stocky and heavily tattooed man.

“Mr. Gibson.” It was clear he wanted to say more things but parts of him tried to be tactful and didn’t continue.

“Come with me.” He entered the door he was waiting for them at, and like before they went through a small room first with a guard inside, the woman in here looked fancy in her guard uniform but it was not just for show.

Following Ghaos down the hallways it was not hard to see that Angela was very uncomfortable, probably hadn’t been down here before. It did have a very different feel than the rest of the academy, rather than nice wood furnishing and fancy walls, this was more like a claustrophobic stone dungeon.

They went around a few corners and ended up in the same room that Petal was originally captured in. Or rather, they stopped in the room before the actual holding room, there was nobody here this time, just a desk.

There was yelling and angry noises coming from the holding room, Gilliam didn’t like where this was going.

“Now, before you go in there...” Ghaos stopped him before he went through the last door with a heavy expression. “We don’t know what happened but she went very feral after the incident with Mr. Silverhawk. He attacked her first and she defended herself but something seemed to have snapped in her... Perhaps you can do something about it.”

There was not a hopeful tone in his voice, but Gilliam was very aware that Ghaos knew about the slave brand, so worst come to worst that should work.

Not wanting to risk anything, Gilliam handed the still wounded Savia to Angela.

“Do you mind holding on to her?”

Angela didn’t seem to really know what to do in the situation, so she almost looked relieved when she was given a purpose. “Of course.” She nodded.

She cupped her hands together and let Gilliam place the little creature in her hands, causing her to open her eyes wide for several reasons.

Gilliam nodded to Ghaos who opened the last door and entered first. Gilliam followed.

Rounding the doorframe and looking into the holding area, he saw a rabid Petal, she was chained up on all limbs, including her tail and neck, even some chains to her horns. Her eyes were glowing much stronger than before, to the point of them just being glow; no irises or anything. She was yelling, snarling and seeming to try to attack her way out of the chains, the wounds on where the manacles made contact with her hinted that she had tried this for a while.

Gilliam’s expression saddened.

“Oh... Petal... What happened to you...”