Over time the tornado grew weaker while the animals were slowly overwhelming the two young mages, who tried to protect the place from being overrun. The ground continued to tremble more and more. The pile of dead animals getting thrown out by the tornado slowed the other herd animals down.
Luz and Francis slowly backed down while continuing to shoot them.
With every shot, an animal fell, and their agonizing screams haunted the two.
'If only I weren't a mage apprentice, I could have been useful,' were the regrets that went through Luz's head while he started to back down.
"Francis, where should we escape," Luz stammered as he continued shooting.
Slowly he felt the cold sweat rolling down his back. To him and Francis, it was pretty evident that sooner or later, the two would be overrun.
"Fuck it. We only had one goal, and that was to buy as much time as possible for the workers," told Luz before resuming with:
"Now we're trying to stall the animals as long as we can before reinforcement arrives. But you know what? Fuck it, we're leaving now. I've got no desire to put my life at risk."
While telling Luz the change of their plan, he grabbed him from the back.
"Hey, what are you doing," Luz replied as he continued firing mana arrows.
"Stay still," Francis commanded him before casting a spell [rise].
Francis gradually ascended from the ground while holding Luz.
30 seconds later, the two were around 10 meters above the ground navigating back to the housing complex.
"Only a few kilometers till we are in safety," muttered Luz as he continued shooting down.
Unfortunately, hitting a running animal can be pretty hard, especially if one isn't on steady ground.
"Luz, my mana reserves will soon be emptied. Be prepared to carry me on ur back," Francis told the disappointing news to Luz.
"Better than nothing, I guess," Luz replied grimly, preparing himself for the task and putting away his crossbow.
After flying like 2 Minutes, Francis slowly descended. Even though both of them were fleeing via flying, the distance between them and the animals continued to decrease.
"Why are we so unlucky?" cursed Luiz while carrying Francis via piggyback.
Luz ran for his dear life, and he didn't even dare to look back out of fear.
'I can't die yet. I can't die yet,' were the only thoughts that shot through his head while running. The ground, on the other hand, continued to tremble more and more.
"You better start running faster, or else I'm going to beat ur ass if you continue walking," Francis screamed while hugging Luz for his dear life.
"Be quiet before I'm gonna throw you down …" cursed Luz as he ignored the ground on which he was running.
As one might expect, he fell to the ground out of misfortune.
Francis crawled above Luz and remarked: "I wish we started our escape earlier."
Both of them gave up on their hope of escaping from the herd.
"Me too. My friend me too," replied Luz while slowly continuing to shoot as he expected his death by getting trampled.
On the other hand, Francis has already given up and slowly counted the distance between them and the animal horde down: "twenty…fifteen…ten…five."
'I'm sorry, my dear brothers… I still hope all of you can still meet each other even without me.'
Luz closed his eyes, but the pain of getting trampled never came. However, a loud spell could be heard ushered.
A barrier appeared in front of the two. The animals running against it were crushed by their counterparts from behind. But that wasn't the only thing that got summoned. Unlike Francis's tornado spell, the tornado appearing in front of the two was about 3 times the size while having a ten times stronger suction force.
Naturally, all animals were diverting from their previous path into it.
After Luz opened his eyes, he saw a man standing in the air who wore a white lab coat. On his shoulder sat a beautiful parrot chanting fire spells into the tornado.
The fire tornado was unlike Francis one, the real deal. It glowed crimson red, and the agonizing cries of animals were something else.
"Thank god, you came, Master Simon," shouted Francis in tears.
The man high up in the sky slowly but steadily descended with an open book in his hand while pushing his glasses up on his nose.
"After realizing that my research could be interrupted by the death of my guinea pig, I felt the urge to stop the experiment I was doing to save the two padawans. I just can't let my research subject die, without getting any note-worthy research data from him," Simon stated bluntly.
'Damn you. You could have interrupted your research much earlier instead of forcing us into a fight for survival.' Luz cursed in his head while grabbing his crossbow as hard as possible.
Francis nodded as he laid his back on the ground breathing in relief. Luz followed Francis and Master Simon left the two boys in order to take care of the rest of the herd.
It didn't take long before one could see three tornados bringing carnage to the animals. Also, other mages arrived as reinforcement.
Most of them, unlike Master Simon, wore uniforms with one to three emblems on their chest. They looked a lot more professional and suited the image of an army or a combat mage. Most of the animals got captured and stored alive by some of these magicians.
The rest of the mages were busy looking at the root cause of this issue since such herds of low-ranking magic herd animals shouldn't be expected in such a place. Either they were fleeing out of fear because a new magic monster began hunting them, or something must have attracted them here.
All of them hoped the latter was the case. The fields were scanned, and some of the mages unleashed their canine-like magic animals to help them with finding the cause.
"Are both of you ok," a female mage the same age as the two asked them.
"We should be ok. But my comrade already depleted all his mana reserves," Luz told her with a tired voice.
"Let me fill your mana reserves," she replied with a nod as she transferred some of her mana into Francis, whose body accepted it.
Through Luz's body went a strong impulse and his body told him greedily that it also desires a piece of the cake.
"My mana reserves also should be almost nearly depleted," Luz stated with a sigh.
"You don't look like that, but ok," she replied before some of the mana got transferred to him.
His body greedily accepted it. Instead of her mana flowing through his mana circulation system and getting diluted with his own mana, it got however devoured by the parasites in his mana core.
"I must thank you two for having sent the civilian away. You two will be compensated for your hard work," she told them before leaving the two.
After catching enough breath, the two got up from the ground to leave into their dorm. All the adrenalin and running made the two tired.
Alfred, who visited the two by now, said: "Thank god nothing has happened to the two of you. It would have been a shame."
The two nodded before departing.
Luz slept peacefully for a few hours before he was woken up by one of his roommates.
"What's going on," Luz replied with a yawn.
"Brian is expecting you," one of them replied.
"Shit, I better hurry up," Luz replied, fully awake.
Five Minutes later, Alfred escorted Luz to Brian's office, where Francis was already sitting. Brian looked at him with a serious expression and folded hands.
'I'm fucked,' went through his head as he took the seat next to Francis.
"So explain the situation, Francis," Brian told them.
Francis told the story of the events, and their master only nodded and sipped on his tea.
"So you two morons thought it was a good idea to defend the position? Just to buy time for the lazy guards, who would have jumped anyway in the situation to help you if things had gone south," Brian sighed.
With a short "yes," Francis responded.
Brian remained silent while the atmosphere in the room got more and more intense.
"You did some stupid things, but at least you two got the civilian to leave the field before they reached the place. Even if your actions were moronic, the reason for it was still noble. I'm not really disappointed in your actions and proud for trying to buy time," he commented before sighing.
Luz and Francis glanced at each other for a brief moment before Brian continued with: "But please, both of you should stop doing such stupid things. You shouldn't risk your life, and you two better thank Simon for saving you two."
The two nodded in approval, and it didn't take much longer for Brian to send them out.
