For the following hour, the students asked question after question concerning the specifics of the operation. It quickly became clear that the students selected weren’t just powerful idiots, a number of them had a great brain as well.

Yet, even though the right questions were asked, many were left unanswered.

The reason this happened was simple, they had limited information. Their spies from within helped a bunch getting them a proper map, letting them know of the most popular spells and the most notable students in the grade.

Still, many things were left unknown. For one, the spies didn’t know the hangout spots of the more powerful groups of students. Alongside some other questions that couldn’t be answered it quickly became clear the information was a bit outdated.

The information seemed like it came from the end of last year, this also meant that the notable students that only joined this year weren’t known.

During the meeting, Villin and Kayley remained silent for the most part. They listened trying to get a better feel for, what seemed to be, an extremely dangerous operation.

After this discussion period, the groups were announced. Villin would be leading one group, they would take care of the most northern corridors. They had the least amount of area to cover meaning Decorus students were very unlikely to accidentally slip by, but their area was also the closest to the more popular classes and the training grounds. They would have to deal with quite a few students. They would be followed by professor Crumb.

Ruby would be leading a second group, this group would take care of the southernmost corridors. They would probably have it easiest. Kayley was under Ruby for this mission.

The other two groups were led by one of the leaders of ‘The Shielding Lions’ and the blue-haired Cassio brothers respectively.

For the following nine days, they would be expected to train in their groups every day after class, additionally, they had to master two spells.

One spell was made to take care of corpses. When you used to spell on a corpse it would begin rotting extremely quickly. First, the skin would disappear, then the blood, and finally the bones. They were warned it was quite a scary spell and they were all heavily advised not to look at the process, they simply had to wait for three minutes, and then all there would be left were the target’s possessions and a pile of dust. Both of which were things that could easily be destroyed.

The second spell was a special sort of masking spell.

The spell was extremely simple, only holding three nodes. It would cause a very faint illusion to hide your face somewhat. When someone focused on you they would still be able to see you but it would take a few moments before they would be able to have a proper look at you.

It was a very subtle spell meaning that people generally wouldn’t realize they are looking at a magical effect. Using this spell would give the groups a few extra seconds before potentially being found out. Even though it was unlikely someone would realize they weren’t from there after seeing their faces, it was best not to take unnecessary risks.

Going back to the guild tower, Villin felt uneasy. Overall, he was fine with attacking Decorus, they attacked them as well after all. The problem was that they were with a lot fewer people and only a few teachers to aid them.

Furthermore, if a Decorus teacher actually showed up they would’ve probably already taken out half the group before their own teachers would have the opportunity to protect them.

All he could do about it now was prepare properly. For the following nine days Villin got into a bit of a rhythm. He would start the day by working out a bit, following this he would spend the following hours practicing spells and working on derivatory variants. When this was finished he and the small team that would move with him would get a special lesson from professor Crumb.

Professor Crumb taught them certain tactics that may help when dealing with students from Decorus but he mainly focused on getting the team together and making sure everyone learned how to work together properly. Villin was happy to see his team was getting stronger quickly, they had a wide variety of spells and after some practice, they worked really well together.

After practicing with his seven teammates, he would go back to the guild tower where he would work on improving the enchantments on some pieces of Blue Mythril equipment. The three sets would be donned by Villin, Ruby, and Kayley. Villin would get the best set, then Ruby, and finally Kayley since she didn’t lead a team.

On the evening of the ninth day, a huge announcement was made. All the students were informed that The Academy would be attacking Decorus the following day and avenge the previously fallen students. Sadly, the students from the second grade were considered too weak, only students from the third grade up would join the fight.

This immediately caused the mood in the entire grade to change. Even though it was said they wouldn’t fight, they all still prepared for battle. The guild hall became super active and all non-combat killed were constantly working on commissions preparing gear for those preparing to fight. Athena’s Forge was no different as they were busy enchanting a large number of objects.

It was also this very evening that Villin got another one of his extremely odd dreams.

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The moment Villin cast ‘Drowse’ on himself to help him sleep, his vision changed.

He found himself in a completely different place. His breathing quickened and he felt panicked, he wasn’t sure why but he felt scared and lonely. The room he was in was mostly desolate. Moss was growing on some of the dark-grey stones that most of the room was made of. 

Against the walls were stone statues that seemed to be relatively well-maintained. He also noticed a faint shine in the air in front of him, it felt faintly familiar but he didn’t focus on it too long. This was because he noticed the door in the corner of the room. A heavy-duty stone door without as much as a keyhole. He could even swear the door and wall were merged together.

When he turned his head he saw there was someone else in the room other than him. There was a girl, completely naked. Scars covered her body and a few of her toes were missing. One of her ears was mangled but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t see her face. All he could see were the tears streaming down her face and blood, dripping from her mangled ear.

When he saw her he didn’t quite feel sorry for her, he didn’t have the energy within him to do so. But still, he felt sadder than he did a moment ago. As he crawled closer he saw long scars covering his arms but he ignored them. He quietly sat next to the girl letting her head rest on his shoulder as tears came out of her eyes.

“I-I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to keep this up.” the girl’s voice was unsteady as she had barely said a word in the months that passed.

Villin just sighed and even though he wanted to respond, trying to cheer her up, he felt incapable of lying to her to try and make her feel better

“I know.”

These were the final words he said before he woke up.

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The morning of the tenth day, the secret task force discreetly gathered in one of the classrooms. There were five teachers there in total, other than professor Crumb, Villin didn’t recognize any of the teachers here, they were supposedly all from different grades. This way, their absence wouldn’t be too suspicious since a few teachers of each grade stayed behind to defend from a potential counterattack.

Once everyone arrived, they went over the plan one more time. The main attack force would be moving toward the Decorus sixth grade in two hours and they would arrive in four hours. Their task force would head toward their destination in four hours, arriving one hour later.

At this point, it was too late to back down. 

Villin checked his bag to make sure he had everything with him. He wasn’t allowed to take an interspacial object with him since it could set off an alarm within the school, furthermore, they could only take a certain amount of magical equipment with them. Luckily when the Blue Mythril armor was checked, it didn’t seem to radiate too much energy, and it would be fine, the same went for Villin’s puppet.

For the final couple of hours, everyone continued to strategize and make sure they had everything they needed with them. Then, finally, it was time to move out.