The following day, the school’s more gossip-prone students were finally starting to spread word about Samantha’s disappearance. Samantha had been missing since Monday, and it was Wednesday now. Even though there hadn’t been any public announcements similar to the ones after the hunting trip, Samantha’s disappearance wasn’t a private matter. Several members of the Crown estate and the Mage estate were furious, and both political factions had begun rallying manpower together to put the fear of the System in the Society. After a day and a half, due to the efforts of more well-connected [Students], everyone was becoming increasingly aware of the fact that the Society had kidnapped a Mage in the middle of Metsel, and her whereabouts and safety were completely unknown. Even if Samantha didn’t have major connections with anyone, most of the [Nobles] and Mages in the country had been brought to the sudden realization that it wasn’t just helpless tramps getting abducted anymore. This time, it was a relatively unimportant Mage, but next time, it might be one of their children, or even a [Noble] or fully grown and trained Mage that disappeared. Thus, plenty of Mages who had retired from the battlefield were pulling together under various factions, preparing to punish the Society for their actions while [Nobles] started complaining about the Crown for not properly securing the city while they raised the patrols and security measures of their houses and villas.

When it came to [Students] spreading information about Samantha’s kidnapping, there were two other things Alice noticed that were quite important, at least to her. The first thing was that most people had already started to give up on Samantha. She had been missing for a day and a half now, and most people were starting to assume the worst, and were preparing to avenge her and punish the Society. This, obviously, was only partially what Alice hoped for, and idea that Samantha might already be lost reaffirmed her decision to get some other high level people involved. Frankly, most people weren’t worried about Samantha herself – they were only worried about what the implications of her being kidnapped were, and how it applied to them. Alice still hoped that Samantha would come out of this incident alive, even if the possibility of Samantha’s survival was slim, so having a group of high level people dedicated to getting Samantha out alive at least raised the odds of a happy outcome for this incident.

The final thing that interested Alice was that any mention of her participation in the incident was gone, and even the better informed [Students] had no knowledge of her presence during Samantha’s kidnapping. Nobody stopped by to ask her for more details about the incident, and nobody even seemed to be aware that she had been asking about Samantha’s health the day that Samantha had disappeared. The only person who displayed any awareness of Alice’s involvement in the incident was Arsi, who she had directly consulted on Monday. But when Alice saw him again, Arsi had simply winked at her and then pretended he didn’t know anything.

Alice quickly realized that Ethan, her new… boss, had done something behind the scenes to stop people from talking about her presence. Which wasn’t that difficult, now that Alice thought about it. The only people who really knew that Alice had been involved in Samantha’s disappearance were Arsi, Taylie, the [Guard], and [Knight] Arin. Arsi was someone who wasn’t too hard to convince to stay quiet – after all, Arsi was intelligent enough to know that Alice facing off twice against the Society and having partial success both times might put her in danger, and Arsi wasn’t the kind of person to put his friends in danger for no reason. The [Guard] and [Knight] both ranked well below Ethan, making it easy for him to keep them quiet. That left only Taylie as a potential leak. Alice didn’t know Taylie particularly well, but she doubted it would be hard to get her not to say anything if an Immortal was pressuring her into it. And even if some people learned of Alice’s presence in the incident, according to [Guard] reports and such she would probably be written off as an unimportant side character in the whole story if at all. Thus, reducing Alice’s sense of presence in the entire incident was surprisingly easy as long as one had connections and the desire to do it.

As Alice thought about the changes Metsel had experienced over the past few days, she couldn’t help but wonder how Illa was doing in all of this chaos, down in Cyra. If the Society was increasing its activity even in Metsel, the capital of Illvaria, was it worse or better in the South? Alice wasn’t sure, but she hoped that her friends and acquaintances like Milo and Illa were doing well. If she had time later, she decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to send a letter to the South and see if she could get any news.

After Alice finished her classes for the day, she started heading towards her inn room, preparing to do some enchanting. However, less than two streets away from her magic academy, she noticed a high level person had suddenly appeared from behind her, stalking her from a few feet away. She frowned, trying to pretend she hadn’t noticed anything as she took another step forward. Meanwhile, she used her mana tendrils to grab cobblestones and various objects in her surroundings. A moment later, the stalker spoke to her.

“The fact you noticed me right away is pretty good, Lady Alice,” said the [Messenger], stepping out of the shadows and giving her a respectful nod. Alice realized that she wasn’t being stalked by the Society, as she had first assumed. Instead, Ethan’s [Messenger] had come to find her. “However, your reactions need a little bit more work. If you notice someone is preparing to ambush you, it’s good that you pretended not to notice anything while searching for a way to turn the tables. However, your first reaction when you saw me was to pause for a fraction of a second. This isn’t a huge reaction, but it’s a dead giveaway to anyone paying close attention to you. It’s fine if they’re busy with other things or distracted, or if they dismiss you as a nonthreat. But Honored Immortal Ethan has told me you might be targeted heavily by the Society in the future. That means they’ll be paying very close attention to you, and your instinctive pause might be a dead giveaway. You should make sure you train yourself a little more, in order to make your reactions look more natural. Perhaps look into getting the {Acting} Skill – it’s quite helpful for situations like these, and also helps with interacting with [Nobles] if you ever feel the need to do so. The requirements to access the skill are a bit annoying, but it’s not too bad. But anyway,” said the [Messenger], giving her a more relaxed smile now. “My employer requests that you join him. The research base that kidnapped your friend has been found.”

“Really?” Alice felt a surge of excitement. “Is she all right? Where is she?”

“I don’t know,” said the Messenger. “She hasn’t been rescued yet, and the base hasn’t been raided yet either. We only found it an hour and a half ago. That’s why Ethan wants you to come.”

Alice felt a bit surprised by Ethan’s efficiency, but also pleased. The faster they found Samantha, the better the odds of her survival. She followed behind the [Messenger] as he used his Perk to increase their walking speed. They quickly arrived at an inconspicuous house a few streets away from the [Guard] station.

“Lady Alice, it is good that you have come,” said Ethan, greeting her with a nod.

“Thank you, Honored Immortal Ethan,” said Alice.

Ethan turned to the [Messenger] and nodded. “How was her reaction to being shadowed?”

“Not terrible, but not great. She noticed me, but a high level [Assassin] would notice that she found out and make preparations. However, she’s not a lost cause either.”

“Thank you. You can leave now,” said Ethan, and the [Messenger] took a few steps back before suddenly flashing with rainbow mana and suddenly speeding up, before quickly departing from the area. Alice turned back towards Ethan and gave him an inquisitive look.

“Your [Messenger] told me that Samantha was found?”

“More accurately, we tracked down the base of the [Flesh Trader] who kidnapped her in the first place. While there is some possibility that she was moved away using a different Perk that can store prisoners, odds are pretty good that she is still there,” said Ethan. Then, he turned to her and gave her a polite, happy smile. “Now, I have another question for you. Do you have any combat related classes?”

“Kind of?” Alice wondered if [Survivor] counted as a combat-related class. [Kinetic Manabinder] also sort of gave her combat skills, although the class was unquestionably focused more on enchantments. However, it was also… kind of a combat class. And [Scholar] and [Explorer of Magic] also gave her a few random combat boosting Perks, even if the classes definitely weren’t focused in that direction.

“What do you mean by kind of?” asked Ethan.

“I have a few classes that sometimes give me combat related Perks, but are fundamentally geared towards other concepts. However, the combat abilities they do give me are still decent, even if they aren’t the focus of the class,” said Alice.

“Hmm… Is that so? Show me. Defend yourself.” Ethan took a step towards her, and suddenly, from out of his body, twenty mana tendrils launched themselves towards the floorboards, before twenty wooden planks suddenly flew straight towards her body.

Desperately, she used her mana tendrils to start deflecting the floorboards sailing towards her head and stomach. She used {Extended Organics} to materialize and dematerialize her mana tendrils at will, grappling with the twenty objects as she tried to deflect the floorboards. Some of them went flying in random directions, and some of them were fired back towards Ethan. Once the smaller floorboards were dealt with, Alice found the three biggest objects and used {Reflection}, instantly sending them straight back towards Ethan with no pause or concentration needed to redirect them. Alice also used {Combat Seed} to attach an extra layer of her mana to these three objects, making it harder for Ethan to stop them.

 “Not bad, Lady Alice,” said Ethan, giving her a courteous nod and smiling at her.

Then, another twenty mana tendrils popped out of his body, bringing his total up to forty mana tendrils.

Alice’s eyes barely had time to widen before her sloppy countervolley of floorboards was neutralized in midair. Only the three objects Alice used {Combat Seed} on kept moving for another quarter of a second, before another three tendrils attached themselves to each object and shredded apart her extra layer of mana like tissue paper. Then, Ethan sent all of the objects right back towards her, with another twenty floorboards added on for good measure.

Since {Adrenaline Rush} was still on cooldown from her fight with the Society Mage two days ago, there were too many objects for her to defend against now. She began dodging backwards, hoping to avoid some objects from the wave of attacks with her physical abilities instead, but this time the objects flashed with rainbow mana. Then, they accelerated in midair and began tracking her, as if they had turned into guided missiles. Alice’s attempts to dodge the floorboards failed miserably, and she hurriedly began repositioning her mana tendrils to fend off the wave of attacks.

Sluggishly, she tried deflecting a few more objects, but there were simply too many to stop now, and Alice only had four mana tendrils against forty objects. A fraction of a second before the first object would have torn a fist-sized hole through her brain, all of the objects flashed with rainbow mana again, and then stopped dead in their tracks. They clattered to the ground, before Ethan picked them up with his tendrils and shoved them back into the floor of the house.

“Hmm… it looks like you’re very used to a Perk that is on cooldown right now. {Deadly Crisis}, perhaps? Hmm… it could also be another Perk with similar effects… {Adrenaline Rush} or {Accelerated Perception} could also be one of your Perks, or some variant of them… Hmm…” Ethan took a few steps closer to Alice, as if he was looking at a student who had just scored well on a test, before giving her a grin.

“I’m not going to lie, I was expecting less when you said you didn’t have a dedicated combat class. Based on the way you fight, you’re very used to having boosted reflexes from some kind of Perk that you don’t have active right now. Perhaps it’s on cooldown? In any case, you seem overly reliant on it. However, even with that flaw, and with your limited access to combat related Perks, you’re not a bad fighter for your level. With the Perk active, maybe you can even be considered top tier for however long it stays active. However, this has also created some major flaws in your fighting style. You’re too used to deciding fights quickly and efficiently – you aren’t good at dealing with a prolonged encounter. Once any temporary Perk ends, you lose a lot of your combat ability, and while it’s only natural to be weaker afterwards, you shouldn’t be so used to fighting with a temporary Perk that you can’t function without it.”

 “May I ask what the point of this assessment was?” asked Alice, still reeling from the sudden near death experience.

“I needed to get a feel for how good you are at fighting, Lady Alice,” said Ethan, still giving her a pleasant smile. “Fundamentally, there are always going to be situations where a [Hidden Bodyguard] can’t protect you from the Society, and while I’m doing my best to tamp down on the spread of information regarding your entanglement with the Society, I doubt it will hold forever. Sooner or later, the Society will learn that I’m paying special attention to you, and they will make a variety of guesses about what that means. I have some ideas for solving this problem, but… well, in any case, you may eventually come under threat of Society attack, and your bodyguard won’t always be able to keep you safe. The combatant you fought with last Monday also escaped, meaning the Society will also be receiving a report that you’re surprisingly dangerous from him. In that case, the best thing to do is ensure you’re able to defend yourself. I was trying to figure out where you sit on the combat spectrum so that I can figure out what targeted training needs to be applied,” said Ethan, giving her a strange, slightly sadistic grin. Alice got a strange feeling in her stomach.

“So I’ve decided that, in addition to being protected from the shadows, you also need to learn how to fight better. Your weird Perk that added a layer of magic coating to the objects threw me for a loop, and if I had been a Mage around your level, there’s a good chance it might have just killed me on the spot. Whatever Perk is letting you freely move your mana tendrils around gives you a reaction speed most combat Mages won’t have, even if it only works when close to your body. For your level you can be considered a decent combatant. But there’s a lot more that could be done,” said Ethan. “As a potential future Immortal, you’re going to need to be more well-rounded than this if you don’t want to get assassinated. So I’m going to run you through some targeted training. And I don’t mean basic combat exercises, or just throwing objects at you and making you dodge them. That’s fine for normal Mages, since they will mostly fight in the back of an army and will pick up better combat experience when they actually join the army. And if they don’t join the army, odds are pretty good they won’t need more than basic self defense skills anyway. But you don’t have that luxury anymore.”

Alice started to get a bad feeling about where this was going. Ethan smiled at her, and the grin tugging at his lips started to remind her of a Cheshire cat.

“No, you’re going to learn to fight by actually fighting. Some Immortals have died to level 80 or 90 [Assassins] in the past, however rare it is, and it’s always quite an embarrassing way to go.”

Alice noticed that Ethan wasn’t referring to her as a Mage, but as a potential Immortal. At the same time, a few vague comments she remembered Allira making about Illa drifted through her thoughts.

“A decade ago, Illa was considered to be one of the people most likely to join our little community of Immortals, so I spent some time getting to know her.” This was a remark that Alice remembered Allira making when she had been back in Cyra. Alice hadn’t thought much about it at the time, but suddenly, she felt that she was being given a similar treatment. Not only was an Immortal relevant to her field of expertise personally looking over her experiments and helping her develop a way to make mana baptisms safer, he was also explicitly pushing her to see how Immortals worked behind the scenes, as well as develop well-rounded combat skills. After all, if Ethan was only interested in pushing her to finish her research project as fast as possible, there was no reason for him to encourage her to learn more about combat, or encourage her to develop more resource channels that she would be able to use with or without his help. This wasn’t really the treatment a researcher with potential would get – it was closer to training for how to operate as an Immortal in Illvaria.

Alice was so immersed in her thoughts that she missed a few words from Ethan, until she snapped back to reality and heard the tail end of his words.

“-why I’ve decided that you’re going to personally rescue your friend. You need some more practice in a real fight, especially without using your more limited, reaction-boosting Perks. Do you already have the {Murderer} Achievement? If not, you will be getting it today. Also, do you have any remaining limited-use Perks? If you do, tell me so that I can help you get rid of them for the day. I want you to fight without them this time.”

Alice was stunned, before taking a glance at her Status Screen.

“I don’t have anything left that’s useful for combat besides a healing Perk.”

“Keep that one ready. I want you to learn from this experience, not die because of it. We’re going to rescue your friend, or her corpse, in three hours. You are going to join us. Don’t worry about enchanting for the night – you need to work more on protecting your own neck first, and I’ll be giving you your first payment this weekend. You won’t need to worry about money anymore. Instead, you are going to be on the front lines during this rescue operation, fighting for your life and developing the skills you need to avoid dying in an ambush in the future. Don’t worry – I’ll be near you the whole time to save you if you screw up badly enough. And your [Hidden Bodyguard] will also be following along, as per usual. But don’t count on our aid, either – both of us will be hidden, and you must do your best to fight without our aid.” Ethan chuckled a bit at Alice’s confused expression, before she slowly thought through Ethan’s proposal… no, Ethan’s demands would be a more accurate term.

Alice felt a strange mixture of fear and concern after she worked through her thoughts. She knew that these skills would probably be useful in the future, now that she was hoping to out-develop the Society’s ability to harm her. However, she was also nervous. She was going to be facing high level combatants in an open fight soon. The other party wouldn’t be fleeing for their lives, the way the [Flesh Trader] who had kidnapped Samantha had been, and also wouldn’t be overwhelmed by high level combatants on her side, the way they had been in most of her previous combat encounters with other humans. Instead, she would be fighting them in their home territory. At the same time, this was a legitimately useful way to train. Alice wouldn’t always be able to fight under the umbrella of other high level people, and the small test against Ethan had shown her just how terrifying an Immortal Mage could be. If Alice wanted to stay alive and free in the future, she needed to develop her combat skills a bit more heavily, and this was a good way to do so. If Alice wanted to become someone able to defend herself against most unexpected scenarios, she needed to make sure she could at least match most other combatants of her own level.

Mixed in with her nerves about how well she would do during the fight, however, was a different fear. She was afraid of what she might find in the research base. For some reason, the Society had gone crazy recently, and wasn’t afraid to kick over a hornet’s nest to conduct research as fast as possible. Alice didn’t know why that was the case, but she might find the answer in this base. And on a more personal note, Alice had spent the last two days wondering if Samantha was still alive. In three hours, she would have her answer. For better or for worse.

acaswell

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