Dragon-Scale Sword Academy, Twelve Days since [Gold-rank] Quest

  Alec panted as his legs shook, bent forward and only kept on his feet thanks to the wooden practice sword held in his grasp loosely and pressed firmly against the ground of the training room that he and Olivia stood within.

  At his side, Olivia was fairing a lot better than he, as she still had her mana to rely on, but was still far from what someone might consider ‘energetic’. While she was still able to stand under her own power and could move around without threat of collapsing from a slight divot in the ground, she was still coated in sweat and panting quite heavily.

  “You kids really have to tell me what happened on that [Gold-rank] quest of yours.” Xyn grinned while twirling his own wooden blade stylishly.

  It was a taunt to egg the both of them into continuing to fight him. They both knew it, they’d both fallen for it enough times over the last few days.

  That did not change the fact that they both wanted too yet again though.

  “You both went on that quest ready to tear each other’s heads off and now you come back actually trying to work together? Something must have scared you both stiff, huh?”

  “Do you….ever shut up?” Olivia huffed with a dark look, getting a cheeky grin in return as he started to walk around while still twirling his blade.

  “Only when all my questions are answered, so who knows with you two.” He snickered, more than aware that he was just torturing the two of them by this point.

  They were more than allowed to keep their own secrets, and he wasn’t the type to force them to divulge them if they didn’t want to. However, the opportunity to mess with them was just too great.

  He hadn’t had a dedicated student like this in a couple years now and had forgotten just how fun it could be to mess with them in the privacy of his own personal training room. Sure, one of the other public rooms didn’t exactly stop him from messing with students whenever he taught one of their classes, but there was just something about the privacy that got the best reactions out of them.

  “You suck…” Alec panted, some sweat dripping from his chin onto the floor beneath him.

  Xyn couldn’t help but let out a laugh at the weak words of his mana-less student, aware of how driven by exhaustion they were.

  Oh yes, he was aware of the teen’s current predicament as well. He didn’t know the details behind it, once again because they both refused to give any details, but it took him all of a few minutes to figure out that his blue-haired student was utterly incapable of using mana at the current moment.

  It was still there though, he could sense it, so the young swordsman hadn’t done anything too crazy. Though the fact that he couldn’t even pull on his mana, even unconsciously, meant that it had to be a Magic Contract behind his lack of mana-usage.

  The myriads of ways that he could have done so was more than Xyn could ever hope to count or guess, so he didn’t even bother trying, but the hypothesis’ that spawned into his mind were no less fascinating. An enemy that he’d had to push himself past his limits to beat? A threat that he had to abandon it all to escape from? A punishment for breaking a contract with the elder Kio sibling that they went with?

  They were all possibilities that floated through his mind, and he just couldn’t stop them from continuing to pick up speed and circle his conscious thoughts like the eye of a tornado. However, he was a long-practiced soul at centering himself even amidst such mental excitement.

  A deep breath came in through his nose, held in his lungs for a single second and exited out of his mouth. His thoughts focused once more back on the present and the two teens in front of him, even as the whirlwind of ideas continued in the privacy of his own mind.

  “I think that this is about enough for today’s training, how about the two of you?” He looked between them both, seeing the relief hidden amongst their exhaustion.

  That didn’t surprise him, he was pushing them hard. Honestly, harder than he pushed some of the [Gold-rank] classes that he had occasionally taught, comparatively to what they could output.

  However it was all for a good reason, he knew that to be equally as true.

  ‘After all, it’s not every day that Victor actually takes notice of someone in the here and now. I have to make sure that I keep a close eye on their Quest schedules so that I don’t book him for the wrong day. I’d hate for one of them to be away when he visits the Academy, let alone potentially both of them.’

  He shivered minutely at the idea. No, he couldn’t allow such a travesty to ever happen. Agents of Kronethia were notoriously difficult to get help from, even if all the riches in the world were offered to them, and he’d actually managed to get one of them to agree to come to the Academy for a day.

  Sure, the demonstration that he was planning on having Victor perform would be useful for everyone that joined in, that was undeniably true, but Xyn couldn’t help the feeling that having either Alec or Olivia miss out on said demonstration would be catastrophic.

  One did not make it to his level of power and fame without having at least mildly accurate instincts, and he had fairly honed ones if he did say so himself.

  “YeahhhhhhHHhh….” Alec whined, huffing out all the air in his lungs and greedily trying to inhale as much as possible seemingly at the same time.

  “Sounds marvellous.” Olivia groaned, the bruises from her end of the sparring having no doubt caught up with her mind by now.

  That was the benefit of having her mana still available to her, he could whack her harder and she could take it without breaking in half. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Alec at the moment, so he may have been a little more gentle than intended with his strikes against the teen.

  ‘Ah well, his exhaustion will teach him a lesson. No need to beat him black and blue too.’

  “Great! I’ll see whichever one of you is still on Academy grounds for a lesson in a couple day’s time. I have a few things that have to be handled for the next couple of days.”

  “Oh no. Don’t leave usssss.” Olivia deadpanned with a tired slump

  “Hah! You’d regret those words if I chose to bring you too.” He let out a singular bark of laughter before he responded, clearly humoured by her sarcastic response.

  “Probably.” Alec groaned, slowly shuffling his way toward the doors.

  “Have fun and remember to rest you two!”

  All he got was two loud, tired groans as both of the teens waved their hands dismissively at him and left the room. Finally, mercifully, letting the man collapse into a fit of laughter and giggles that he had been holding in for the past three hours.

  XXXxxxXXX

  With an exhausted exhale, Alec made his way back into his room. His hair still slightly damp from having just washed it in the communal bathrooms and his borrowed robe clung to his chest thanks to the small bits of moisture absorbed into the fabric.

  He had to thank Olivia for at least helping him to the entrance of the bathrooms, he was fairly certain he wouldn’t have even bothered trying to go if he’d been by himself. It would have just been far too much effort for him to go through.

  He could have done without having her complaints about how sweaty he was the entire way there, but considering the look on her face as she was saying it, he was fairly certain that she was just trying to give him a bit of a hard time.

  At least he was pretty sure, it was hard to tell with Olivia sometimes.

  Opening his door with a small curse as his hair clung to the ridge of his eyebrows yet again, something which he was quick to fix, he made his way into his room.

  “At some stage, I need to go grab my blade from Olivia’s room.” The teen muttered to himself, walking over to his closet and grabbing some of his clothes out.

  They may not have cost much, but the payout from a [Gold-rank] quest was nothing short of legendary for a poor country-kid like him, and he had immediately used a small fraction of it to actually get himself some sturdier clothing.

  The nicest thing he owned was still the shirt that Calliope had bought for him over two months ago, but now the rest of his clothing didn’t look so out of place when compared to it. A new blade had been added to his small but growing list of personal items as well, though there was nothing special about it nor did it look any prettier than his previous one.

  It was a blade, plain and simple. What point was there in having something flashy and gaudy if it didn’t swing any faster or cut any better?

  At least, that was how Alec saw it.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  The teen stretched his arms above his head after slipping his shirt on and doing up three of the bottom-most buttons, a shimmer of green in his periphery catching his attention.

  Without warning or preamble, he froze on the spot, his head robotically turned to stare at the origin of the flash of green. Limply his arms fell towards the floor and minutely his lips parted as he blinked owlishly at the creature on his bed.

  There, curled up on his bed, was a small rich-green dragon. Even curled up, Alec knew that it couldn’t have been more than a meter and a half from snout to the tip of its tail and it appeared far more lithe than the stone body of Fron, the medic dragon from his initiation test.

  However apart from Fron, and the few statues around the academy campus that he was absolutely certain were other members of Fron’s bloodline, he had never been this close to a dragon before, let alone interacted with one.

  A quick flick of his eyes to the side confirmed that –yes– he had left his window open, which explained how it got in. Now the only question left on his mind was still the largest and most prevalent; Why had it chosen to come into his room?

  It wasn’t a mana construct like what Noelle and other [Summoner]’s made, it was pretty easy to tell that even for a magic dunce like himself, and it wasn’t a messenger of some kind either. There was no note or parcel anywhere in sight.

  He, of course, had never heard of a single country or organization that used dragons as couriers when they had the ICS and Psy-hawks, but considering the fact that there was one on his bed, he would have been willing to believe it.

  Which left him right back at square zero and very, very confused by all of this.

  Regardless of why it was here, though, it seemed to be in a pretty deep, if peaceful, sleep. Even the noise that Alec had been making earlier having not seemed to make it so much as twitch.

  That was good, that meant that Alec didn’t have to worry about it being frightened and melting him the instant he cleared his throat or something….hopefully.

  And it was on his bed too. He had been wanting to rest after all the work he’d been forced to do today and now he couldn’t even do that.

  “Ugh, whatever…” He muttered, grabbing a spare blanket shoved in the back of his closet and using it as a –very thin– cushion for him to roll his sleeping bag out on and rest.

  It was no nice, cushioned bed like he had originally planned, but it proved to be more than enough after he fell asleep after about five seconds of resting there. Drifting into unconsciousness in the way that only the truly exhausted ever could.

  XXXxxxXXX

  The Next Morning, Dragon-Scale Academy

  Alec woke up with a small, quiet, yawn. One of his eyes cracked open to stare at the ceiling and his arms came up and out of his sleeping bag to stretch above his head.

  He felt a bit sore from lying on the floor all night, even with the blanket and sleeping bag to help soften it, but that was something that he could either ignore or fix easily. The worrying thing was this weight and heat on his chest that made it harder to breathe than normal.

  ‘I haven’t caught some kind of disease ri- ah.’

  Blue eyes stared blankly down at his chest with his arms limply curled above his head, unable or just unwilling to comprehend what it was that his eyes were showing him.

  There, curled up on his chest, was the green dragon that just last night had taken his bed as its own. The small, comparatively, creature just as soundly asleep as it had been the night before.

  Except now it wasn’t stopping Alec from lying down, it was stopping him from getting up. An ironic juxtaposition, but not one that Alec was currently in any kind of position to enjoy currently.

  ‘You’re kidding me. Really? I have to deal with this now? How am I meant to get up? Can I even get up?’

  For a few moments he lay there silently, just thinking over the options that he had and what the chances of being immediately injured were if things went poorly.

  He still had a day left until his mana returned to him, so unless this was a particularly weak dragon that only just hatched from its egg, then he was completely and thoroughly fucked if it turned hostile.

  It was thoughts like that that kept his next movements as slow and gentle as he could possibly make them.

  Slowly his hands slid across his chest and underneath the surprisingly smooth scales of the winged reptile. Once far enough underneath he slowly rose them, raising the dragon off his chest and allowing him to finally, mercifully, breath properly.

  With all the core strength he had, the teen sat up in a slow yet smooth arc and turned, depositing the dragon back on his bed with just as much care as he had lifted it from his chest.

  Still, the dragon breathed deeply and calmly, as deep asleep as a creature could possibly be without being in some kind of coma or hibernation.

  Alec counted that as a win, even if he was about 90% certain that his heart was hammering in his chest loud enough for even Olivia to hear next door. Though he had no desire to stay around the dangerous creature any longer than required.

  Which meant that he was up, dressed, equipped, and out of his room in a, quite frankly, impressive display given that he didn’t want to be too loud and potentially wake the dragon up amidst all of that.

  He did, however, make sure to leave his windows as wide open as he could possibly keep them before he left his room. He didn’t know why the dragon had decided to stay in his room, but if it was just a random whim, then he hoped that those very same whims would lead the dragon back out.

  XXXxxxXXX

  A few hours later, Dragon-Scale Academy Trainarium

  “So, where’s that white-haired girl you’ve been hanging out with recently?” Callum teased Alec as he battered the teen’s defences relentlessly, their wooden blades clacking against each other and sending shockwaves through the poor teen’s arms.

  “D-Don’t know!” Alec twirled his blade to throw Callum’s out to the side, only to curse as the other teen merely pulled his blade back in and struck out at him before he was even able to do anything.

  Before he knew what was even happening, his feet were thrown out from under him and his back hit the floor of the indoor training area. The friction of his body scraping along the floor caused his legs to flip high over his body and throw him into a chaotic tumble for a few moments before his momentum finally died out and let him slide to a stop.

  Face down on the floor, a low, pained, groan escaped his mouth and he placed two shaky hands on the ground beneath him to try and at least raise himself up a little.

  It was his first time sparring with Callum since his return from that ill-fated [Gold-rank] quest, and thus the first time facing that stamina monster without his mana to rely on. The difference that it made couldn’t have been more pronounced even if the green-haired boy had decided to flare it out with each and every strike.

  It was evident in everything that had just happened, no matter what Alec did he could never keep up with the kind of speed and strength that even a passive mana-flow granted the body. If he had been a dwarf or a beast-kin he might have had some hope in the strength department, but he wasn’t.

  “Really? I’ve been hearing nothing except rumours about you two for like two weeks now!” Callum said, barely even breathing heavier than normal, “So I totally thought that I’d get to see her in person today.”

  ‘You absolute monster. At least try and look tired!’

  “Well, I didn’t- ugh.” The teen lurched a little as his vision still swam from his chaotic tumble, using his practice blade more as a standing aid than the weapon it was mean to be, “Know you’d come demanding a spar from me today. Or that you’d want to see her.”

  He purposefully skipped over the freely given information that apparently there were rumours floating around about him and Olivia, they were completely baseless so it’s not like he had to freak out over them. Also, considering that Olivia was an, objectively, pretty lady they probably involved quite a few harsh insults about his own appearance too. He wasn’t too interested in listening to someone call him plain or ugly, he was well aware of what he was and didn’t need it shoved in his own face, thank you very much.

  “Darn! Say you should totally invite her over for some training one day. I wanna see how good she is with a blade.” Callum suggested with an enthusiastic grin.

  The instinctual retort, about how she was better than him with a blade, stopped dead on his tongue before he could even start to say it. Despite the fact that he still felt it was true, he and Olivia had finally sorted out all the bad blood between them and he didn’t want to rock that boat against just yet.

  “I’d have to actually know your schedule and when you’re going to pull me somewhere to spar to do that, Callum.” Alec huffed with a roll of his eyes, wiping some sweat off his forehead and one of his cheeks with one forearm.

  “I’ll be free pretty much all afternoon for the next couple days, just come find me.” He grinned, placing his practice blade across his shoulders and resting his arms on it.

  “Noted.”

  “Though speaking of, what happened man? Before you left you were handling yourself pretty well but now you’ve come back and I’m sorta –no offense– absolutely kicking your butt.”

  “That-“ Alec sighed and finally tried to straighten himself out, stretching back slightly and stumbling when he felt his back pop a couple of times, “Is a story and a half.”

  “And do I get to hear this almighty story, oh-exhausted-one?” Callum hummed teasingly.

  “Just for that, no.”

  “Aw come on!”

  XXXxxxXXX

  Alec could feel his eye twitching. He knew that he should probably try and keep himself as calm as possible, considering the situation, but he just couldn’t help it.

  Because right there, curled up on his bed still, was the green dragon from this morning. Still deep asleep and pretty much dead to the world around it. Alec was about eighty percent certain that it was still in the exact same position that he’d left it in this morning as well.

  Had it just not woken up? Was that why it was still here? He couldn’t think of any other reason why it would have chosen to stay otherwise. However, that did mean that his bed was, once again, sort of just off-bounds for the night.

  Which was just what he wanted after already having to sleep on the floor for one night and getting thrown around like a ragdoll by one of the only two friends he had in this school.

  “Is this really happening? Am I seriously about to spend a second night in a room alone with a dragon?” He muttered to himself, his head in his hand just to add one more layer of muffling to avoid waking the dragon.

  As he undressed and laid down in his sleeping bag once more, he very quickly realized that yes, he was about to spend a second night in this predicament. Because, quite frankly, once he lied down he no longer had the energy to get back up, his eyes closing and his breathing evening out before he even realized he’d drifted off.