Chapter 169: Discovery

It wasn’t difficult to spot what had caused the loud noise. Noah nearly fell off his sword as he caught his first look at how Moxie’s fight had gone. The crab she’d been fighting against was a little smaller than the one he’d been up against, but it took him a moment to register it.

The crab had been ripped apart. Thick brown vines rose up from the sand beneath it, winding through large cracks in its plating. They’d forced themselves in through the crab’s mouth and shattered its shell, ripping it apart and suspending the crab in the air, split apart into multiple pieces like some grotesque art show.

I guess the crack I heard was Moxie’s vines literally ripping its shell apart from the inside out. I’m never telling Moxie this, but she’s actually terrifying.

It looked like the students had won their fight as well. The four of them stood in front of the somehow simultaneously frozen and smoldering remains of a relatively smaller, horse sized crab. It was pierced by several sharp stones and covered with deep scars that wept gray blood.

Noah jumped off his sword, landing on the sand behind them with a grunt. They all turned toward him, flinching at his arrival. James summoned a blade of wind to his hands before he realized who had arrived and let it dissipate.

“Anyone injured?” Noah asked, casting his tremorsense out once more in case there were any other monsters in the area. He found nothing.

“No,” Emily said with a shake of her head. “We were able to handle it with the four of us.”

“Good. Moxie handled things on her end as well.” Noah’s gaze turned to James, and the boy turned his eyes away, taking a step back.

“I’m pretty sure Revin called these,” James said. “I’m sorry. I’d say he didn’t mean to cause you trouble, but I’m pretty sure he did.”

“I’d gathered as much,” Noah said. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He shoved me out and then dipped. Do you have room for another student? I’d like to transfer professors.”

James didn’t sound like he was joking. Noah couldn’t help but feel sorry for the boy. It wasn’t hard to imagine how embarrassed he probably was, and nothing had even gone wrong. If something had –

Noah’s expression darkened. If Revin’s games had gotten someone killed or seriously hurt, he’d be finding out if Arbitage had any rules against professors killing each other.

“Does he do this often?” Emily asked with a note of sympathy in her voice.

“Yes,” James heaved a sigh. “He’s a no-good psychopath of a–”

A hand slipped out of the air behind James, wrapping around his mouth. Revin appeared from thin air, a wry smile on his face and his scythe hanging loosely at his side. James let out a muffled curse.

“Bad mouthing your professor isn’t cool,” Revin said, taking his hand off James’ mouth.

“Neither is trying to get your student killed!” James snapped. “What’s your problem? What if someone got hurt?”

“I’m of mind to ask the same question.” Noah’s eyes were narrow, and he kept his magic at the ready. “What the hell is your problem?”

“Oh, please.” Revin rolled his eyes. “Nobody was in any danger. These monsters never posed you any real challenge.”

“I’m not talking about me,” Noah growled. “I’m talking about the students. You had something to do with these powerful monsters showing up, didn’t you? What if one of them got past me or Moxie?”

“They wouldn’t have,” Revin said with a shake of his head. “Come on. Tier 2 monsters like those never could have defeated either of you, and it’s not like I wasn’t watching. It was a perfectly safe training exercise. You all looked quite cool, by the way. Even you, James. Well done.”

A vine burst from the ground beneath Revin. It passed straight through his body as his chest turned to smokey darkness, squeezing tight on nothing. Revin chuckled as he stepped to the side, rematerializing and looking over his shoulder at Moxie and Lee, who stood on the top of the dune behind them.

“That was rude,” Revin said. “You didn’t even say hi first.”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“I have half a mind to kill you right now,” Moxie snapped, sliding down the dune. “Are you insane?”

“Come off it,” Revin said with a roll of his eyes. “Students need to be pushed to reach their full potential, and they won’t grow unless they’re challenged.”

“We’re not stupid,” Noah said. “We know that, but there’s a difference between a challenge and intentionally bringing down multiple fairly powerful monsters at the same time. And, even if you were correct, these are our students to train, not yours.”

Revin yawned. “I suppose so. But did you even see what you did? That explosion – that landing! Incredibly cool. You should be thanking me, really.”

“I think you might have some serious problems,” Noah said with a shake of his head. It was pretty clear that there wasn’t any point trying to reason with Revin.

Revin shook his head. “Never mind. I don’t think this is going to go anywhere interesting, so I’ll be taking my leave.”

“Hold on,” Moxie started, but Revin tapped the butt of his scythe on the sand. A ripple of black energy coiled off his body, swirling up into a circle above his head. Runes flickered within it, each one burning with energy.

A powerful gust of wind pushed Noah back a step. Revin hooked his scythe out around James, pulling the boy back to stand beside him. Energy crackled off Revin, kicking up sand in a cloud around him.

“Be seeing you, Vermil,” Revin said, tapping the side of his head. “I like the company you keep, but I wish you’d let it have a little more fun. I’ll chat with you again during the survival exam. Look forward to it.”

James opened his mouth, presumably to apologize for his professor’s actions, but he didn’t get a chance to speak. There was a loud crack and the darkness collapsed in on itself. The circle shattered. Revin and James vanished, and the desert was silent once more.

“What in the Damned Plains is wrong with him?” Lee asked, voicing all of their thoughts.

Noah shook his head. Revin was insane – but the circle he’d just formed above himself had put off nearly as much pressure as Combustion did.

That must have been a formation. Revin must have filled it while or before we were talking. Just what is his angle? I don’t understand, and I don’t like it.

“He was using a formation,” Todd said. “That circle above his head had four Runes in it. I didn’t think it was possible for a Rank 3 to have real teleportation magic, but it really looked like he just teleported.”

“It could have been a fake out and he might just be stealthed,” Emily said, glancing over her shoulder. “Maybe he’s still here?”

“I don’t think so,” Noah said after a moment. “I’m not sure why, but I don’t think he’d lie. He straight up told me that they were following us earlier. I guess he got what he wanted.”

“Until the exam,” Moxie said with a scowl. “And what did he even want?”

Noah shook his head. “I don’t know. And where did those crabs come from? Just how inaccurate are the dossiers?”

Moxie grimaced. “Evidently pretty damn inaccurate. Calling the crabs variants would be a pretty big stretch. They’re a whole new variant of monster.”

“They weren’t too hard to fight,” Isabel said, glancing down at the smoldering monster at their feet. “With the four of us, at least, we handled it pretty well.”

“It wouldn’t have gone as well if one of the huge ones had come after you,” Noah said. “But I suppose life is going to be far from predictable, so good job. At least it looks like James isn’t quite as insane as his teacher.”

“For now,” Todd said with a chuckle. “I don’t know if the poor guy is going to be able to hold up too long with someone like that. I’ve spoken with Revin twice and I already want to punch him in the face.”

“Tell me about it,” Noah said. “That’s always been my preferred method of solving problems.”

“We know,” Moxie said, looking at Noah out of the corners of her eyes. “But, unless anyone has objections, I think we should continue our preparation for the upcoming exams. Unique monsters or not, we can’t spend all our time running.”

“I agree,” Noah said. “But… shall we start by eating? It would be a shame to leave all this free crab lying around for scavengers after we did all the hard work.”

***

They ate, and it was every bit as good as Noah had been expecting. He gathered up all the pieces of the crabs that he could fit into his bag – and then filling Moxie’s bag with them as well.

That night, they kept an extra tight watch, but like Noah had suspected, Revin didn’t return. Isabel and Emily ended up sneaking out, but Noah and Moxie both pretended not to notice.

When the following morning dawned, they fell into a schedule once more. But, this time, it didn’t get interrupted.

Days slipped by as the students trained, going through a variety of different test scenarios and games. Moxie occasionally split them into teams or made them fight against herself or Noah. When Noah took over, they trained against the monsters, pushing themselves to their limits of their powers. They all improved, but Noah could see the gap between the girls and Todd growing with every day. The injury to Todd’s neck continued to interfere with his fighting, even though his control over his Runes was improving.

At night, after Noah and Moxie finished going over the day with the students, Todd would retreat to the solace of his stone tent. Isabel and Emily spent a lot of time by the campfire, talking about their plans for how they would improve the previous day, but Noah could tell they were intentionally giving Todd his space.

Their time in the Red Barrens came to an end and the group set off toward Graybarrow, but their schedule never changed. Todd continued to remain within the confines of his tent whenever he could.

Deep bags formed under Todd’s eyes, but Noah didn’t interfere. He’d still yet to come to any ideas on how he’d help Todd solve the issue of his neck, but Todd was clearly working on something. If he wanted help, then he’d ask for it. Keeping the boy from working would only make things worse.

Noah’s goal to fill his Runes in the Red Barrens wasn’t quite met, but he killed more monsters than he could count before they left and along the way to Graybarrow. By the time two weeks had passed, he’d hunted so much through the nights that he suspected monster parents likely used his name as a threat when they put their children to bed.

His efforts had pushed his Runes up in strength significantly, and all of them were full aside from his second Pyroclastic Resonance and the Trilling Monsoon Runes, both of which were over eighty percent of the way there.

Todd took up Isabel and Emily’s strategy of sneaking off in the middle of the night. Noah didn’t know if he’d given up on whatever he’d been practicing in his tent or if he’d succeeded, but Todd didn’t say and he didn’t ask.

The irony of having an entire camp that almost nobody actually used to sleep wasn’t lost on Noah, but considering he was one of the people using many – though not all – of his rest hours to hunt monsters, he didn’t have much room to talk.

The time until the survival exam continued to run out. Just a few days after they’d arrived at Graybarrow, Todd pulled Moxie and Noah to the side early in the morning. He requested to be released from training for the next few days as he worked on something. They’d been surprised, but had accepted.

Three days passed. Todd didn’t leave his tent once. The rest of them continued their training, but the camp was thick with tension. Isabel was clearly concerned and even Emily looked worried, but there was nothing they could do but wait.

And, finally, on the night of the third day, Todd emerged at dinnertime. Isabel had nearly dropped her strip of jerky into the flames when he’d stepped out of the tent. He was thinner than Noah had ever seen him, but there was a glint in his eye that had been missing ever since his neck had been injured.

“I figured it out,” Todd said, a weary grin playing across his lips. “I need to spar with someone.”