Chương 24: Multiple Times in A Lifetime Opportunity

Sint sheathed her stilettos after the Inscribed Glyphs of Repair got them back to peak condition. Calm. She had to remain calm. If only she had listened to the Elders back on Revorel. They loved to espouse the benefits of possessing a wide range of Glyphs, one of which had been their infamous Glyph of Pacify. Sint had rejected the need for such a Glyph because she believed her will was more than strong enough. In Ryland's vicinity, she felt like she couldn't have been more wrong.

As Ryland walked past the dead Greater Glyvern without even sparing a glance, Sint was once again struck by a wariness that almost became a panicky fear. This was a man who had called down the sun just to break through a glacier. A man who had frozen the perception of time itself for his targets. And now, he had casually exsanguinated a Mithril-ranked monster that should have been beyond him—beyond anyone in these Trials—without even inflicting a real wound.

Every instinct she had managed to suppress during their travels together had reignited. Danger, her nerves screamed, yelling at her to get away from this place before she suffered something even worse than the Greater Glyvern. She had thought she had gotten over those impulses as they had talked and travelled but… Some ingrained instincts refused to die so easily.

Especially after his revelatory spell had shown just what he had looked like, just how much he had outshone literally everything not just in their Trials, but anything she had ever seen.

"Sint," Alendra said, approaching her with a troubled expression. A pale acknowledgement that they had just witnessed magic that should have been impossible.

"What do you think?" It was stupid. They already had proof that none of them could hold a candle to Ryland. The man was odd. The man was perilous. Yet, something about seeing him deal with a beast that would have torn all three of Alendra, Sint, and Kendren apart in a single sneeze had broken her sense of perspective. They were essentially at the mercy of Ryland. A realization that, like Sint, Alendra was struggling with too.

"I need to see what he did," Sint said tightly, brushing past the half-elvhenan and towards the Greater Glyvern's corpse. Its maw hung open, which allowed her to peer into the monster's carcass without too much difficulty. Her heart was thumping a little too powerfully. She already had strong suspicions of what she'd find, so why did her body feel like she was about to discover something horrific? Sint didn't even need to hack or slash open the enormous corpse to find what she was seeking.

It was evident after just a minute of looking.

"What did you see?" Alendra asked when she returned. She swallowed at the look on Sint's face, her voice lowering.

"That bad?"

"There's nothing in there anymore." With that bit of dreadful truth, Sint quickly followed in Ryland's trail so that she could enter the Designated Area. Only once all team members were within the area would it activate. Alendra followed her as well, dragging along Kendren who was obliviously casting his [Snapshot] at everything. How could he be so lackadaisical in the face of… of the horror that Ryland was thoughtlessly capable of? No. No, thoughtless wasn't it. He had been clinical.

Extremely focused in the very specific way he had obliterated that Greater Glyvern. Which made it all the more terrifying.

"Come on then," Ryland said, smiling brightly at them all like he hadn't just unleashed spell after spell that would make most Academs weep.

"It only starts once we're all inside, yes?" Sint slowly nodded. As soon as Alendra and Kendren were within the field bounded by the metal posts, mana flared. Glyphs notched into the posts burned to life, a shimmering light creating a translucent barrier that removed the world from Team Three's field of view." Team Three has reached the Designated Area," a loud, formal voice called over the entire area. It was probably being broadcasted both everywhere within the Trial Zone and outside the Reality Demesne as well."

Teams outside the area after the two-hour countdown, which begins now, will be disqualified." Sint could finally relax. She had essentially finished the Trials and succeeded. She was almost a student of Arcoryx Academy now. If only there hadn't been a walking, talking natural disaster of a mage in their midst. Somehow, the perspective of thinking of Ryland as a natural disaster really did help. It wasn't like she could do anything against a hurricane or an earthquake. So why bother getting worked up about it?

She decided against examining the childish ridiculousness that she was considering a person—a fellow candidate for Arcoryx Academy's graduate student body—a Calamity-cursed natural disaster. Alendra seemed to be wrestling with the same thoughts. Maybe Sint could give her some tips.

"Oh no," Ryland muttered. They all immediately turned to him. When the person who could bring down stars and freeze time said oh no, one tended to pay attention very closely. He was looking at something strange on his wrist, having pulled his cloak away from around his arm. Sint frowned. If that was a watch, it certainly was no regular one, with that starry, hemispherical face.

"Look at the time," Ryland said.

"I really need to be off."

"What?" Alendra asked.

"What are you talking about?"

"The Puredrake Poet is doing his first live performance in over a century on Realm 90!" They all stared at him. Sint was just trying to decipher that sentence of his. He kept talking about this and that Realm with numbers that made no sense whatsoever.

"Ah…" Ryland apparently realized he had explained nothing at all.

"That makes no sense to you, does it? On Gil—" He frowned.

"Now what was the name again? Golvere? No, Gol—""Golmere?" Kendren asked. His eyes were big and round.

"You've been to Golmere?"

"Ah, yes! Thank you, Kendren."

"But Golmere is a dead world. It was a testing ground for all sorts of vile magic during the Realmbreaker Wars, ravaged by at least a dozen different Calamities across the entirety of its existence. There's nothing there. No one below Primordial-rank has been there in ages—" Kendren's eyes widened. Sint slowly found herself swallowing too. If no one who wasn't at least Primordial-ranked hadn't stepped foot on Golmere for a very long time… then what did that make Ryland?

"On the contrary," the man said, ignoring Kendren's implied conclusion that had more or less floored all of them.

"There have been attempts to resurrect Golmere into a more stable state. Yes, it still only allows those in the highest echelons of power to withstand its rupturing atmosphere, but that's what the Puredrake Poet is trying to reverse, you see." Stolen novel; please report. Alendra shook her head.

"Who or what even is—" Ryland put a hand in his cloak and pulled out a gigantic tooth. No, a fang. Sint could only stare. That thing was nearly half again as tall as she was. How in the world had Ryland just pulled it out of nowhere?

"This is one of my prized souvenirs," Ryland said.

"A tooth from the Puredrake Poet himself. And yes, as the name implies, he's a dragon who rather adores poetry. He goes around using it to revive sections of Golmere one by one. He's even lent me the birds he's brought back to Golmere."

"A dragon poet who tames birds," Alendra said.

"And adores poetry." Her voice was so flat, Sint would almost have thought she didn't believe a single thing that Ryland was telling them. Except, he had a dragon's fang in his hand.

"Indeed," he said. His eyes shone with a fascination that was nearly childlike.

"It is an honour to see the Puredrake Poet at work. A once in a life—" He paused.

"Multiple times in a lifetime opportunity, if you live long enough, that is. Regardless, I am not about to miss it. I am merely warning you that I will be missing until the Trials end."

"You're just going to disappear, in the middle of the Entrance Trials, just like that?" Alendra asked.

"I believe the Trials are more or less completed, yes? It's only a matter of waiting out the time. To that end…" Ryland crossed his legs and took a seating position on the ground.

"I humbly request that you protect little old me till the Trials end. Thank you!" And then he was gone. Not physically, of course. He simply closed his eyes and stilled, reminding Sint uncomfortably of how those Wolbears had been frozen.

"Can you believe this insane pr—" Alendra forcefully stopped herself from insulting a man who could probably have turned them all into a fine red mist with a mere thought. Strangely, Sint found herself relaxing. She had to shamefully admit to herself that it was a lessening of tension borne from simply no longer being in the crosshairs of someone far, far stronger. The next hour or so was kind of boring. At least Alendra had Kendren to bicker and banter with.

Those two seemed to know each other from before, acting like they were siblings. Sint was unfortunately left to stew in her own thoughts. She wasn't sure how to feel about her experiences in the Trials. Her journey had been… greatly simplified thanks to Ryland's presence. It should have stung, because there was the thought that she wouldn't have reached the Designated Area without him. Yet, she had been pushed to her limits and had given it her all, hadn't she? Right.

She really had received ample opportunity to showcase her magic. In the end, Sint had something to be thankful for. Being wary and fearful was all well and good, but that shouldn't preclude being a decent person, now should it? Other teams began trickling in after nearly a whole hour had passed. And the state they were in just hammered home the fact that maybe Sint had judged Ryland too harshly. Almost everyone besides Team Three was wounded.

Well, Sint had been wounded too, but a basic Glyph of Healing had taken care of it. The injuries some of the other teams had suffered definitely didn't look undoable by prospective academy students who hadn't specialized in healing magic. She winced when one team dragged themselves into the designated area with two of their members supporting the third who had lost an arm. The fourth member was missing entirely. That should have them disqualified, unless the member was still alive and out there, somewhere.

Another team had just one member conscious, who was slowly dragging in the other three with the help of a Glyph of Empowerment. There was only one other team who appeared completely uninjured, but that didn't mean they were fine. Their clothes were torn and ragged and bloodied, the look in their eyes reminding Sint of first-time prairie hunters watching their comrades get slain by a wild beast. Trauma. Sint supposed that was yet another reason she had to be thankful for Ryland.

He had possibly spared her a few traumatic experiences.

"They look beat up, don't they?" Alendra muttered. With the arrival of the other teams, Sint and her companions had gathered closer together, just in case. There was no telling when any of the other teams would get uppity and try to stir up trouble. They'd need to be ready.

"You think they'll let me take [Snapshots]?" Kendren asked. Alendra stared at him.

"You're serious, aren't you?"

"They're not too beat up to cause trouble," Sint said, getting to her feet. Alendra and Kendren both tensed. Tensions were already flaring. A couple of the other teams were already at a standoff. The one with only a single member conscious was desperately trying to stay out of every other team's line of sight.

"No," a loud voice said.

"No, you don't belong here. If you're not going to get out, then I'll make you get out." Sint and the rest of her team turned to see a large man with a bald head towering over an entire team by himself. A Glyph shone far too brightly on the back of his hand. Sint tried to read it, but she was too distant. And he was getting farther away too, his every step towards the other team making his opponents back off.

"We made it this far," one of the opposing mages said.

"W-we won't be intimidated!" Sint could only see the back of the brute's head, but she could feel his grin.

"Is that right?" The bigger mage's arm rose.

"Then maybe you need to learn a lesson." None of Sint, Alendra, or Kendren moved. This wasn't their business. Until their team was affected, they had no reason to mire themselves in the conflict. A tenet that every other team in the area was clearly following, going by how they were purposefully ignoring the altercation. The only reason Sint had her eyes on it was to remain wary. That Glyph… When a multitude of spells flashed at the big brute, he swiped his arm and wiped them all out.

Every bit of magic flung at him was simply shunted aside by the mirrorlike sheen on his arm. Sint frowned. Forget a Glyph, that could very well be an Inscribed spell circle. She was left a tiny bit jealous. He punched next. The force behind it even took her by surprise. An audible crack reverberated from the man's target as he was sent flying backwards, all the way out of the designated area's bounds. It took only a second before the struck body simply disappeared with a shimmer. His companions looked stricken.

The brute didn't advance on them. Only laughed uproariously in triumph. Right. There was no real death within the Trial Zone. Once somebody died, they were forcefully ejected from the Reality Demesne and then disqualified. And if a teammate fell, the whole team was knocked out. A moment later, the "killed" mage's teammates disappeared as well. The brute turned to the others.

"Who's next?" he growled, grinning viciously at everyone else in the Designated Area. His teammates hung back. They were happy to let him run amok. Far from looking concerned, they appeared haughtily aloof and uninterested. Sint's lip curled, her hand sliding inside her robe to clasp the handle of her knife. Sadly, the oversized brute didn't come to her first. He bullied the team with the lone conscious member first. Right. That's what bullies did. Go after the weak and the lonely first.

Prey on the ones at the edges of the herd. It was the safest option for dominance. With that one dealt with, the brute finally turned to them. Sint's heart thrummed. She herself was ready, and both Alendra and Kendren standing nearby presented a united front, especially because they were in a much better state than almost all other teams. In other words, even with his undoubtedly pea-sized brain, the brute should have known that picking a fight with Team Three wasn't going to end well. Except for one small issue.

Ryland was sitting insensate to the world, essentially reducing Team Three to three members. That was what had to have emboldened the jerk.

"He's from House Flitchard," Kendren said quietly, like the name of a human noble house was supposed to mean something to Sint.

"We need to be careful."

"Calamity kissing nobles," Alendra muttered.

"Hey!" the brute called with an evil grin. Sint had her stiletto out, ready to intervene. But Kendren went ahead. With suave grace, he approached Flitchard with his typical, lackadaisical gait.

"Hoi there, Flitchard," he said brightly.

"Come to join us for one of our exemplary [Snap —" Flitchard's Inscription burned bright on the back of his hand at the same time that his arm rammed into Kendren. Sint and Alendra had both started, but they were far too slow. Kendren didn't even get to cry out as he was sent flying, his body bouncing across the ground. Sint cursed loudly. If Kendren had died from just that one hit, then this was all over for them. Alendra had shot forward, but Sint grabbed her arm." Get to Kendren," she hissed." If he's gone, we're all gone." Credit to Alendra, she was able to rein in her anger at Flitchard and rush over to where Kendren had fallen. The brute laughed." You're right. I should finish what I start." He was about to dash to Kendren, but Sint was already manoeuvring herself in front of him, blocking the way forward. She held her knife at the ready, but the brute sidestepped her. He was headed straight for a different target. Sint's breath caught in her throat. She had instinctively been about to move, but her body had frozen. Because Flitchard had targeted Ryland. And Ryland of all people didn't need Sint to protect him. Flitchard got to within three handspans of Ryland before he froze as well. The air pulsed. The ground trembled. Sint's every instinct flared, screaming at her to run. Ryland slowly got to his feet, golden eyes open and smouldering." Ah, you've made a terrible mistake. You just interrupted the greatest show of this century."