Delta knew he was at a disadvantage already. The man in front of him was armed and seemed to understand things about the magic here that Delta had never even thought about.
The first thing Delta would have to do was try to even the odds. He looked around, finding a fist-sized stone on the floor. Emphasizing subtlety, Delta evaded the man’s attack, rolling away from his fist and towards the rocks.
As he stood up, Delta grabbed the stone and hurled it with full force towards the man’s face. He had expected the man to duck or move out of the way, giving Delta some time to grab a few more stones, but instead, the man used the club to smash the rock into pieces.
The man before him didn't seem to have an actual weapon, but rather something from the blue haze Delta had seen. Knowing that Delta realised that there must be a way for him to imitate what the man in front of him was doing.
Delta could see the blue haze floating around him, along with several other colours that seemed to cycle behind in a long line, making him seem like a merry-go-round of colours.
Whilst reflexively evading the man’s attacks, Delta focused on the blue haze. It seemed to move according to his intentions, albeit through rather strenuous activity, and it was slowly pushed towards his hands, where it condensed into a ball around his fists.
Delta then did the same to his other hand, moving the blue haze there too until he had a set of gauntlets, then focused on the man again.
Using the club of blue haze, he leapt towards Delta, swinging the club vertically over his head and aiming it at Delta’s head.
In a situation like this, most would freeze up, or move backwards to try and get away, but Delta knew from experience that he would be giving up the battle if he gave the man momentum.
Instead, Delta lunged forwards, bringing his fists right into the man’s stomach and sending him flying backwards several metres before he collided with a tree by the sports field.
The man didn’t get back up, and the blue haze club he had wielded disappeared too, retreating into the man’s body where it dispersed, becoming a much lighter shade as it circulated inside of him.
Delta slowly moved closer, ready to attack again if the man-made any desperate movements, but the attack never came.
The trees had vines hanging off their branches, so Delta grabbed a long vine and used it to tie the man to the tree, restraining his arms and legs before blindfolding him too. He then used a second vine and repeated the same actions.
Using the blue haze had made his fists several times stronger than they had been before, even as a fully adult mercenary, so Delta had decided that it would be in his best interests to interrogate the man he had captured and find out more about this power. If he was able to master it and combine it with his already mastered fighting style, he would be a lot more protected against some of the unknown things in this world.
“What have I gotten myself into…” Delta chuckled to himself.
A short while later, more students arrived, stopping in the middle by the haze statues and reacting in varying ways.
Some of the earliest ones fainted in shock of their ‘paralysed’ classmates, others broke down and cried, but the more mature ones noticed that the statues were far too unrealistic, or simply came too late to realise that people were frozen in the first place! (ED: Simply put, the statues of the first people to arrive were used as bait to assess how the rest of the students would react. The respective people themselves were knocked out and kept aside somewhere else.)
About an hour later, the collapsed students awoke, rubbing their heads in confusion before heading out to the field to join their relieved classmates. They seemed to have no recollection of what had happened and were equally as clueless as to the others when it came to where their teacher was.
A few hours after that, Delta got bored of waiting for the man to wake up on his own, so he took off the makeshift blindfold he had made and began slapping the man across the face until he woke up.
A few slaps later, the man remained unconscious, or so he tried to make it seem. Delta had noticed the slight change in his breathing pattern and thus realised that the man had woken up, and had simply decided to pretend.
The inner child in Delta took over, as he bent over to scoop up as much mud as he could, grabbing a large handful before opening the man’s slack jaws and pouring the mud in, making sure to let a good amount miss and fall on the man’s face instead.
The man opened his eyes suddenly, coughing and spluttering as he tried to get the horrible taste of the dirt out of his mouth.
“You’re a monster!”
He looked up at Delta, who seemed to have turned to look at him with a glint in his eyes as if he were a predator playing with its prey.
The man began to squirm around to get out of the vines he had been tied down with, but since he couldn’t get his hands together, he couldn’t perform even the simplest of spells since typical mana practitioners had to use their hands unless they had a pre-engraved mana circle on a piece of clothing or equipment that they carried with them. Unlucky for this man, however, he had left all of his equipment at his house, since it was heavy to lug around and he didn’t think it would be necessary.
‘I’m never leaving home without them ever again…”
Little did Delta know that this man would later become infamous for the strangely large bundles of equipment he would carry at all times, even to the baths.
The vines were naturally laden with high storages of mana because of the magic barrier around the academy, so even with all of his tossing and turning, the man had been unable to break out of his makeshift prison.
“Well now, you’re finally awake are you?”
Delta did his best to look as intimidating as a 12-year-old could, but the man he had captured didn't look impressed.
“You’re decades too young to scare me, brat,” he replied, clearly not amused.
“I’m old enough to hurt you though, so you better start answering my questions.”
The two looked each other in the eyes, as if in a battle of wills.
“Fine… you win, kid. Can you untie me now?” he said, giving in.
“You wish. Now answer my questions. How does the blue stuff work?”
“Blue stuff? Oh, you mean mana?”
“Yeah, that.”
“Oh… well my whole job was to teach you. That’s why I brought you out to this field in the first place. To test your talent with Mana. Could you untie me now? I need to be ready for when the students arrive.”
As he said this, the bell rang overhead, reverberating around the schools and signifying the end of the first lesson.
“The students were all waiting on the field. It’s time for the next lesson, so I should probably check what I have.”
Delta took out his lesson planner and used his finger to trace down to the next lesson.
“Homeroom… wait why doesn’t it say what class I’m in?”
“Maybe if you hadn’t tied me up, I could’ve given you all your classes!”
“So you mean I get some free time?”
“What? No! Untie me right now so I can sort out the mess you made!”
“Fine, but no sudden movements or I’ll knock you out again.”
“...”
Delta fiddled with the knot for a moment before he managed to untie it and free the man. He quickly got to his feet and stretched, his back audibly cracking as he stretched out completely.
“Man, that was uncomfortable…”
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his CT. After tapping in a few numbers and coordinating himself to a familiar green background app with a white pair of winged sandals on the front.
“Good old messenger”
He opened a group chat and typed.
‘Need a little help on Training Field 4. Athena had me get knocked out by one of my students and I still haven't done the assessments. Anyone available?’
He had a rather peculiar username, choosing to call himself ‘the Great Bard Sage’, even though he had been mocked by many of his friends for being narcissistic.
Shortly after, a chime rang as a message was sent back.
‘Sure can, oh great one, but I want 10% of the bonus Athena gave you.’
The one who had replied called himself ‘the Flame Prince’, which was rather misleading considering he preferred using ice magic instead.
‘^^’, another by the name of ‘Enchantress’ replied.
‘^^’, added ‘Old Man Luo shortly after.
Seeing this, the man sighed, before replying, ‘5% is the most I’m willing to offer.’
Before he could take anything back, the three replied ‘Deal’, before disconnecting and making their way down.
“And there goes my money…”
“Well next time don’t try to attack me, old man” Delta retorted, rubbing salt into the wound.
He really wanted to tell Delta that Athena was the reason he had let himself get captured, but that would be giving himself away.
“I’m not an old man! I’m barely thirty! And second of all, I have a name. The name is Angus Goldriver, but it’s Mr Goldriver to you.”
“Okay, Angus.”
“...”
