Everyone froze in shock—Pompadour Boy’s gang and the chefs.

Elly now thought that he should’ve stopped Suki. He hadn’t known the damage would’ve been this extensive. I didn’t think this through. But at the same time, he had enjoyed seeing the look on the boy’s terrified face. Still, regret began to gnaw at him. Quickly searching his mind for ideas, he came up with some.

He appeared at the double doors for the room and swung them shut. Pieces of board popped up midair. With great speed, he grabbed the boards one after another and hammered them across the doors with nails to make a barricade. They were enhanced with magic, so they wouldn’t break easily if someone tried to blast open the doors. He had enhanced his speed to make things quicker.

He paused to think. But what could he do about teleportation? The skilled students could simply teleport in. He needed to teleblock them somehow. Spatial Lock… That spell prevented teleportation. In theory, if he cast it on the room, it should prevent teleporters from teleporting in… The space, which was the room, would essentially be “locked”, so no one in could teleport out, and no one out could teleport in. It should buy him some time.

 Elly opened his hand. A spellbook from home appeared in it. He opened it and skimmed through the table of contents then the rest of the pages. He found it: Spatial Lock and more details on it.

Suki just watched everything. “May I help?”

“No, you’ve done enough damage.” He couldn’t trust her one bit. If she had trouble with the simple tasks involved in getting ready for school in the mornings, she would surely fail at masonry. He had to help her. What did dragons know?

“Should we—?” A chef began.

“Shh! I need focus,” Elly replied without looking up from the book.

Some of the boys who sat on the floor were trembling. Pompadour Boy had fainted from shock.

Elly looked up from the book and shut it. Disappeared. His theory was wrong. Damn wrong. He needed the library. He turned around to everyone. “Don’t do anything. I’ll be right back.”

He appeared in the library and raced around quietly, searching book after book after book. Dozens… hundreds… 200…300… 900… 2000… 5000… First floor. Second floor. Third floor. Fourth… Then his forgetful brain remembered to follow the alphabet and signs. He followed them and zipped through the aisles. He grabbed the book and appeared back in the cafeteria, not bothering to check it out at the front desk. It all took about 3 minutes. He skimmed through it and found the perfect spell, panting heavily.

By God, he needed talismans. DAMN TALISMANS. WHERE WAS HE SUPPOSED TO GET THOSE?! He dropped the book, sprinted to the open space of the missing wall, flew back to the library, and then scrambled in through the door and remembered that he could’ve just teleported back.

Elly flew up the stairs and checked every floor until he reached the tenth. He raced around, checking all the supply cabinets. WHY WERE THE CABINETS ALL ON THE TENTH FLOOR? WHY WERE THERE EVEN TEN FLOORS?

All the drawers were empty, except one that had one talisman. Ah, crap.

One was nowhere near enough.

And then he remembered that he had left the library’s book at the cafeteria. He needed to return that before the grumpy librarian noticed.

Elly appeared back in the cafeteria and reached for the book on the floor. It floated up and into his hands. He appeared back at the library. He froze. Where did I take this from?

…Actually, he could’ve just opened a portal to retrieve it from the cafeteria… But the mistake was already made.

He ran through the books in the aisles again. Dozens… hundreds… 200…300… 900… 2000… 5000… First floor. Second floor. Third floor. He tripped and fell back down to the first. He scrambled back up—having a headache and a few other aching parts—to the fourth… fifth… Then he just remembered—again—to follow the alphabet and signs. He followed those.

Oh.

First floor.

He dashed back down the stairs from the sixth floor, unsure why he had gone to the sixth. He put it back in a corner shelf where it belonged.

The talismans… He highly doubted anyone at the cafeteria had any by chance, given his luck thus far, but still, he should check to make sure.

Once he was back at the library, all the conversations stopped, and all eyes focused on Elly. “Does anyone have any talismans? I need 20.”

“I have some,” a chef replied. He and the other chefs had calmed down and had grown accustomed to the mess.

ARE YOU FU— He had run around for nothing? “Can I have them?” He was drenched in sweat. His uniform was soaked. If Marcy saw him, she would be ecstatic about it.

The chef crouched down behind the counter and stood up.

Elly ran over, took them, and speed-counted. 19. Then he recalled the one at the library. Son of a—

He teleported back to the ninth floor. No, it was the tenth. He raced up to the tenth and opened the cabinet. It was missing. Bloody hell. He looked around.

A tall girl held it as she walked into an aisle. He followed her. But how should he approach her? I’ll just use my impeccable charm. Easy. 

He walked up behind her, still panting. “Hi,” he said weakly.

She turned around and met his eyes.

Elly forced a smile. “Do you mind if—”

She saw his armband then furrowed her eyebrows and wrinkled her nose in disgust. Her armband was silver. “Don’t talk to me.”

“But…”

She turned her back and continued walking away.

He was about to cry. WHY IS THE WORLD SO CRUEL TO ME? His sweat probably undermined his appeal too. At least she was decent: she didn’t have a sweat kink, unlike a certain girl he knew. She left him no choice: he had to snatch it from her.

Elly raced up to her and poked her shoulder.

When she turned around, he yanked it out of her hand and tele’ed back to the cafeteria.

YES! 20 TALISMANS!

He dashed around the room and stuck talismans on the floor and remaining walls. But before he could add the twentieth, he heard a voice.

“What is this?!”

In deep fear, Elly turned around stiffly.

A boy looked around the room in bewilderment. The same boy he had seen at the entrance exam next to the prez. He was dignified, neat, and had a certain authoritative air. His uniform had lots of badges on it. He reminded Elly of the prez. “Who is responsible for this?” His accent was posh.

Oh no.

All the boys and chefs pointed to Elly.

Wow. Just wow.

“I can explain!” Elly said.

“Yes, please do.” He put his hands on his hips. His posture was firm and threatening.

“Well…” THERE’S NO TIME TO EXPLAIN ANYTHING. STOP EATING UP MY TIME. In a swift motion, Elly appeared behind him and hit him in the back of the head with a magically reinforced brick. He had enhanced it just in case the boy had some sort of magical defense.

He collapsed on the floor, out like a light. 

“You hit the vice president?!” several of the boys exclaimed at once.

“Eh? He’s the what?” Elly noticed the silver armband with the letters “VP” on it below his M (for marquess). Not good, not good, not good, not good. His heart was racing. Okay, Elly would deal with him later… somehow. I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. But he had no clue how he would wiggle out of this big mess unscathed. 

The chefs were equally as shocked.

“Isn’t he one of the best wizards in the school?” someone whispered.

“...Yeah…” someone whispered back.

At least now he could add the last talisman. He ran over to a wall and slapped it on an empty space. Good. He pointed to one of the walls and repeated the spell name in his head: Zone Lock.

He waited.

Nothing happened.

Zone Lock.

Nothing happened.

Elly screamed. “WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?!”

“Are you sure you’re using the right talismans?” one of the chefs asked, wearing a white hat and uniform to match like the rest. She was sitting behind the counter, enjoying a nice bowl of soup with noodles in it.

Damn her and her stupid noodles. He wished he were in her position right now: she hadn’t a care in the world. Plus his noodles had been ruined, thanks to a certain moron. He would make sure to exact vengeance on the pompadour boy—his burned hair wasn’t enough. He still planned on shaking him down for his wallet, even though he didn’t actually need the money.

“The right ones?” Elly looked at the talismans on the walls. They were red.

He opened a portal, stuck his hand in, pulled out the same library book, and skimmed through until he found the page. He shut it and flung it against the wall. Blue talismans, not red. Blue ones were used for spatial magic.

“WHERE AM I SUPPOSED TO GET BLUE TALISMANS?”

“Oh, you wanted blue?” the stout man next to her asked. He was the one who had given him the red ones. “I thought any color would do. I have a bunch in the back.” He unhurriedly went to the back, as if he was taking a stroll through the park. Didn’t he understand the situation?! 

Elly wanted to yell and tell him to move faster. He looked around the room.

Suki had fallen asleep, her head down on the table.

“We’re just gonna dip and stay out of your way.” A boy started lifting Pompadour Boy’s unconscious body onto his back.

Several others nodded, their eyes tense with anxiety. They began getting up.

Elly narrowed his eyes at them. “You’re not going anywhere.” He didn’t want anyone ratting him out. Everyone in the room would stay in the room until he was done.

They sat back down.

He was beginning to grow apprehensive. What if they could use telepathy? No, they didn’t look smart or skilled enough. Teleporting out before he was done would be even worse. He couldn’t trust them one bit. While the chef was busy fetching the blue talismans, he appeared in his bedroom in a flash and ran around until he found magic-resistant rope, courtesy of Sapphire. She had given him a few things before she left the last time in case he might need them when she wasn’t around. And while he was there, he quickly washed his hair and face after taking out the last of the noodles and swapped his clothes for clean ones. He didn’t bother drying his hair.

Elly made it back with rope in thirty seconds to see one of the boys flying out of the wall space. 

“Screw this. I’m out!” he shouted.

Using telekinesis, Elly mentally pulled him back into the room and dropped him in the center with the rest of the boys.

The long rope flew around all of them at least ten times and bound them together tightly as a group including the VP.

The chef came back and looked quizzically at the tied up boys.

“Don’t mind them.” Elly took the blue talismans from his hand. 20 exactly.

He raced around the room and swapped the reds for blues. Zone Lock.

The walls and floor glowed blue. A translucent blue barrier filled the space of the missing wall.

And now, he had to figure out how to repair the wall…