The beast cells were much more secure than the one Villin and Elinoire were in. The one they were in was intended for those that aren’t quite a proper magus yet, even though it was easily capable of keeping a group of people like that, magical beasts were different.

The magical beasts captured here are those that either have unknown bloodlines or rare and powerful ones. Either way, they were hard to contain.

Each beast had three layers of security at the least, so that if the guards that went to grab them got knocked out, there were still multiple doors between them and the rest of the facility. Some of these fought every time they went to get them for experiments, making them very hard to control.

It would take time to break into one of the cells. Even with transfiguration, it would take Villin about ten minutes to enter one of the cells, this was partially due to his weak foundation in the art.

Usually, ten minutes wasn’t long, but the problem was that he was in the middle of an escape attempt. By now, most of the guards had already checked his cell and they began looking around the entire facility. 

Luckily, he wasn’t expected to go into the west wing which was once more filled with cells. After all, the only escape was to the north and the west wing didn’t have any connection with them unlike the central area or even the eastern wing.

This would buy him some time, in order to maximize this time, Villin had vines blocking the door that led here, using transfiguration too to make it even harder to get through.

It would probably take about five minutes for the first guard to get to the door, another five minutes later they should be through.

This meant he should be able to open the doors to the first cell in time if he was lucky.

And so, without delay, he began. The doors were massive being over four meters high and wide, this meant the creature inside would be big as well, his transfiguration abilities also affirmed that. Now he could only hope it was an intelligent beast or one that wasn’t violent. If something like an ogre came through, things would get troublesome.

And so, with his hands on the door, Villin began inserting his magic power. The door was full of enchantments that hampered him, making the door harder to transfigure or break.

Villin guessed the doors were probably always opened by the person that made the enchantment, either that or they actually took five minutes to get through them every time.

Slowly but surely Villin transfigured the door, after three minutes, he got through the first one, and after five minutes, as if on queue, Villin could hear the sound of an explosive spell, an enemy had arrived on the door connecting the central and western wing.

Villin ignored it as he continued working, and a minute later the second door opened. He didn’t take any time to check on his enemy, it was possible they were about to get through his defenses, if that was the case, he’d be in trouble.

A minute before Villin finished, the sounds of spells stopped, this meant they probably made it. He could only hope they would be careful, if they ran they could easily get here within twenty seconds.

Yet they didn’t, they quickly found the guard’s body and put up their guards, not underestimating their enemy. Just as Villin opened the final door, the guards reached them. There were three of them and they weren’t looking like they did normally. Each of them wore a chest piece and vambraces, it seemed to be made out of iron but it was likely some sort of magic material.

Before they were able of casting a spell, Villin and Elinoire rushed through the door Villin had just opened, he had no time to carefully see what it was first.

When they entered, they quickly moved to the right, out of the line of sight of the guards. Only then could Villin look into the cell properly, spotting the things now in the same room as him.

He gulped as he looked at the creatures.

It wasn’t an ogre as he had dreaded.

It was three ogres.

The creatures were each over three meters tall, they had human-like skin and were extremely muscular. Their bellies stuck out immensely and their foreheads were extremely tall. The bald creatures looked at them in surprise at first. Then they showed their teeth, two yellow teeth coming from the bottom were so big they stuck out. Their ears resembled those of elves but were much larger.

Villin wasn’t sure what to do at first as he stood grounded on the ground stunned.

The ogres were the same, each of them frowned as they looked at the two intruders who looked much different compare to normal. Their skin was full of scars, these creatures had been here for a while and by now they didn’t attack every time the guards came in anymore.

But this only lasted for a few seconds as they noticed Villin and Elinoire were naked, lacking the heavy equipment the guards used when dealing with them.

And so, with a roar, the ogres all ran towards Villin ignoring Elinoire.

This was because, in an ogre’s tribe, women were seen as the spoils of combat, ogre women didn’t fight generally.

This did leave Villin in a difficult situation though. Ogre skin was very tough. If he shot something like icy pike, it probably wouldn’t even be able to do any damage.

Seeing the ogres heading for him, Villin turned around and ran back the way he came.

When the guards saw him come back in their vision they prepared, two of them crouched down, casting defensive spells as they figured the boy was about to send a spell their way. As for the final guard, he sent a fireball his way to see how he would react.

Seeing the fireball heading for him, Villin twisted his body, letting it fly right by him. Half a second later, three figures appeared behind Villin, the fireball hitting one of them.

The ogre that was hit by the fireball was the largest one in the group, he roared, ignoring the wound as it sped up even further, it had changed his target from Villin to the guard who had cast the spell.

Said guard was stupified when he realized what was going on. Up until now, they had been so focused on capturing the escapee that they had ignored their location, it was only now he realized where they were.

Another shocking feat was the fact that this escapee was running as fast as the ogres behind him, this was much faster compared to a normal magus.

If he continued attacking he could probably send another spell or two at Villin before he reached them, his allies who had been focused on defending could probably do the same. 

But at that point, even if they took Villin out, the ogres would be right in front of them. Without the right preparation and gear, they would be massacred, there was no way three of them could defeat an equal number of ogres without a lot of preparation.

And so, after being stunned for a moment, the three of them turned around and began running as fast as they could, they needed reinforcements to deal with something like this.

Seeing their reaction, Villin cursed. He had some confidence in being able to take a few spells from the guards using his own spells, he was hoping to let them take care of the ogres that were chasing him, but it seemed he would have to deal with this threat on his own.

As he ran away, Villin managed to cast a spell backward, a couple of thick vines came out of the ground and the ogre in the front tripped over them, falling down. 

This bought him a couple of seconds, when he got to the T corridor where the guards had been waiting, Villin had to make a decision. He could go to the right where the guards had escaped to, go into the lab where a dead guard was lying, and try to escape through there or he could go the other way into the unknown.

Surprisingly, he chose the second option. He could tell that one of the ogres had focused on the guard that cast a spell on him. That ogre would probably go to the right and follow the guards, going to the left meant he would have one less ogre to deal with.

And so he did, and the ogre went to the right as he had hoped. I got even better when Villin noticed he was starting to grow more distance between himself and the remaining ogres. Unlike him, they hadn’t been training in their cells, they hadn’t been forced to live under extreme gravity either. They were only as fast as a regular ogre, normally they were much faster than a human but Villin was different. Training under extreme gravity had improved his body’s condition immensely, he could run as fast as an ogre and could keep the speed up for much longer.

Just as Villin thought he would simply be able to outrun the ogres, he turned a corner, then his expression changed. He had run into a dead-end, there were no doors on either side and the hallway only continued on for another ten meters.

Villin ran to the end but didn’t see any way to keep going, he would have to deal with the two remaining ogres.