“…and then, once we’re finished in the Red Barrens, we can wrap up the last stretch of training in Graybarrow,” Moxie finished, looking over Noah’s shoulder at the paper in his hands. She’d sketched out a rough lesson plan on it, depicting several different areas that they’d be travelling through. The paper was covered with scribbles and crossed out thoughts that had been added over the past hour of discussion.

“I think that looks good,” Noah said with a nod as he gave the paper one final scan.

They’d been working on it ever since the sun had fully risen. Moxie had done a great job cataloguing all the potential monsters in the areas they’d be going through to make sure nothing would be too far out of their students’ capabilities while making sure the challenges would still push them.

The only problem was that there were too many places to go. Noah had known that the area around Arbitage had a lot of locations around it, but he hadn’t realized quite how many there were until Moxie listed them out.

There were dozens, each with unique biomes and sets of monsters. Many of them had been intentionally cultivated by Arbitage for training and research purposes – such as the Scorched Acres – while others were naturally occurring.

Of the naturally occurring locations, there were two general kinds. The first was the one that Arbitage had either cleared themselves or had hired adventurers and soldiers to clear out. The second was an area that had monsters or dangerous entities strong enough to make them entirely unsafe and strictly prohibited for safety reasons.

Moxie had picked out a long list of training areas. They were a mix of the Arbitage established locations and the safer natural ones, of course – but there were just far too many to visit all of them and spend a substantial amount of time in each one.

As such, the duty had fallen to Noah to help her trim down their trip plans. By the time they’d finished, what laid out on the paper before them was neat and concise.

1. Vibrant Woods
   1. Focus on basic survival techniques and strategies in the first half of the day, then train fighting and Runes in the last half.
   2. Gradually ease the kids into everything rather than just dropping them off the deep end.
2. Red Barrens
   1. Begin stepping back from survival training and have the students take over more. See where they’re lacking and focus on improvement, but continue overseeing combat and Rune training.
3. Graybarrow
   1. Let the students completely take over and plan all of what they’re doing. Only step in if absolutely necessary.

“You think just three places will be enough?” Moxie asked.

Noah nodded. “Yeah. It should be better this way. Going to a lot of different areas would obviously get them more exposure, but I don’t think they’d get the chance to really learn as much if we were traveling constantly. It’s better to put them in more realistic survival scenarios, especially toward the end.”

Moxie nodded. She shuffled her papers around, pulling three out from the pile on her lap and positioning them on top. They were summaries of the dossiers on each location, including basic information on the monsters and environment.

They had no plans of giving the information to the students. Discovering the abilities of the monsters they were up against was an important part of learning to survive in the wild. Noah had scanned through the papers himself, but there hadn’t been anything particularly interesting that had caught his eye.

The Vibrant Woods had the largest variety of monsters out of all the areas, many of them strongly resembling animals that lived in the jungle back on Earth. There were also two Great Monsters in the area. The first was the Conductor Boa, a monster with some form of Electric Master Rune. It was naturally occurring in the area, unlike the Hellreaver. The other Great Monster was named the Starhawk.

Between the two of them, Noah was pretty sure the Starhawk was a bigger threat. The book had little information on the monster, but it had mentioned that it was some sort of bird – Noah had guessed that much – but it was blindingly fast.

Luckily, the Starhawk was also reported to only target other monsters. Arbitage had apparently introduced the bird at some point to help control the population within the Vibrant Woods, and it had been marked as a training location for students by the school.

As for the other two locations – they had the dossiers for them already, and Noah had just given them cursory checks. Both were marked as training locations for students by the school, and the lists of monsters didn’t have anything too concerning within them.

Noah looked out over the grass before them, watching the sunlight break through the morning clouds and dance over the ground. It was oddly peaceful. There was just something about the mornings – even though it had been morning for several hours now – that just felt right.

He leaned against the stone wall, enjoying the breeze rustling through his hair, and looked up at Lee’s face floating in the amber clouds.

Noah blinked.

Lee grinned down at him.

“Hullo.”

Moxie let out a curse, nearly jumping out of her skin. By some stroke of magic, she managed to actually remain seated and didn’t mistakenly fling herself over the ledge. Lee swung her body down from the ledge she’d been hanging from like a bat, dropping to the ground behind them.

“You’re actually going to kill someone doing that someday,” Noah said, rubbing his forehead. “I thought you were sleeping.”

“I was. But then I got bored,” Lee said. “You two looked like you were having more fun than me, so I followed.”

“How’d you even find us?” Moxie asked.

Probably her nose–

“I just tailed you out.”

“What? I thought you were sleeping,” Noah said.

“I slept for about ten seconds. It wasn’t very comfortable. Your bed is too warm after you’ve slept in it,” Lee said with a pout. “So I just got up and left.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Moxie carefully swung her legs back over the wall and stepped back to safety. Noah followed after her.

“Was more fun to watch,” Lee replied. “The sun kind of looked like an egg, didn’t it? Do you think someone could eat it if they got strong enough?”

“I certainly hope not,” Noah muttered as visions of a galaxy sized Lee chowing down on planets floated through his mind. “That’s the last thing anybody needs.”

“Oh well.” Lee shrugged. “The plan sounded pretty good to me, even though I have no idea about most of what you were talking about. I’m sure everything will work out, though.”

“Did you listen to literally everything we said?” Moxie asked, aghast. “What are you, a ghost?”

Lee giggled. “I’ll meet you at the transport cannon. I’m going to go get Isabel and Todd.”

“How do you know where they–” Noah started, but Lee vanished from sight right before their eyes before he could even finish the sentence. He let out a huff and shook his head. “She’s terrifying sometimes.”

“Too sneaky for her own good,” Moxie muttered. She jerked her chin toward the stairwell. “Shall we get moving? Emily will probably be waiting to meet up with us soon as well, and there’s no point wasting good time.”

Noah nodded, and the two of them headed out of the ruins and made for campus.

When they arrived at the transport cannon, much to both of their surprise, all the students had beaten them to it. Isabel and Todd both stood, their travel bags slung over their shoulders and a new healing potion hanging from each of their hips.

Emily sat on the bench to their side, her bag on the bench beside her. Unlike Isabel and Todd’s, it was completely stuffed to the brim and bulging at the seams. Emily noticed their glances and narrowed her eyes.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Noah replied with a chuckle. “That just looks a bit heavy.”

“I’ll be fine.” Emily crossed her arms and sent him a cross glare. “I know all about survival stuff. Moxie already taught me.”

Noah blinked, then glanced at Moxie. “Really?”

“Only theory,” Moxie replied with a thoughtful expression. “I didn’t think you were paying attention during those lessons, though.”

“I always pay attention!” Emily exclaimed. Todd and Isabel both snickered, and she shot a glance at them when they weren’t looking.

Ah. She’s trying to show off. Well, maybe she picked up a bit more than what it looks like. Only one way to see.

“Shall we?” Moxie asked.

“Yeah,” Noah said with a grin. “Let’s get this started.”

***

Neir strolled through the streets of Arbitage, chewing on a leftover toothpick from a food stall that had been selling meat skewers. It had been weeks since he’d started on the case with the Hellreaver, and he hadn’t found a single damn shred of evidence anywhere.

It wasn’t like he’d expected the case would be cut and dry. Any group that was bold enough to take on Arbitage would have put extensive planning and thought into their moves. But… to leave nothing more than a charred corpse in their wake was something entirely new.

Whoever I’m up against is some sort of tactical genius. Probably a very highly Ranked mage, 5 at the lowest. Maybe even someone as strong as the Headmaster at Rank 6. But, if they were that powerful, why would they even bother with the Hellreaver, knowing the Linwicks would replace it?

Gah. This makes no sense. There weren’t even any Runes on the corpse. How do you rip the Runes out of someone that perfectly? I didn’t even think that was possible – it was like the body was dead for years rather than seconds.

Or was it all a ruse in the first place? Maybe the corpse really was old, and it was just put there to mislead us entirely. But the clothes were new. Maybe the corpse was old and the clothes were put onto it?

The toothpick snapped in Neir’s mouth. He grabbed the piece that fell, then pulled the other half out of his mouth with a sigh. Neir stuck both of them into his pocket, shaking his head. The whole damn case was cursed. His two main suspects were a pair of idiot Rank 1 and 2 mages, neither of which had any reason to kill the Hellreaver.

One of them was even part of the Linwick family, and the other seemed attached to him at the hip.

If they’d been planning something, why make it so obvious?

Neir was so lost in thought that he nearly walked straight into someone on the road. He froze as they entered the edges of his domain, jerking his eyes up as his mind brushed against something that sent a tremor down the back of his spine and froze his blood.

A gray haired man in a blood red coat stood before him. The man’s salt and pepper hair framed his weathered face, and he slightly favored his right leg, which was a construct of pure silver engraved with flowing Runes – none of which were recognizable to Neir because of the expert Imbuement process the leg had gone through.

“Silvertide?” Neir asked, his eyes going wide.

“Fancy that,” Silvertide said, a smile playing across his lips. “I didn’t think I’d be running into an old student while they were throwing a temper tantrum, but I should have known. It feels like every time I see you, you look like you ate something sour.”

“Leave it to an old man to misremember things.” Neir scoffed. “There was a Rank 5 monster attacking a town the last time we met. I’d say that’s reason enough to look sour.”

“There’s a difference between being serious and an irritable little brat. What’s got your back screwed up, Neir?”

Neir let out a huff. “I’m stumped on an investigation. Someone killed the Hellreaver, and I don’t know who or why.”

“Oh?” Silvertide raised a bushy eyebrow. “Now that sounds like fun. Why don’t you tell me a little more?”