Fallen Mage Regressor

The students were quickly shuffled out of the room while Keepers marched in and rolled over the place like they owned it. Mal and the others were shuffled off to Igna’s office for the interrogation. Cassandra gave Philo and Rolam some kind of draught to keep them awake and ward off the exhaustion.

The most interesting part of Igna’s office, to Ma,l was how every single wall was covered with books. Top to bottom, side to side. He ran his hand along the spines of a few of them. She had books on the history of the Archons, advanced spellcasting technique, and the latest innovations in Transfiguration spells.

”Mr. Patoal,” Igna said. ”I would appreciate it if we can remain on task. Please don’t disturb my personal library.”

Mal took his hand away from the books. ”Apologies, Professor. I was just impressed by your collection.”

Igna raised an eyebrow at that and nodded. ”As you should be. But for now, how about you three explain what happened?”

Vigil scoffed. ”What do you think happened, Igna? Inferno-type mana coating that room from top to bottom. Every inch of furniture destroyed—they were fighting a demon.”

”Professor.” Puck rested his hand on Vigil’s shoulder. ”Be that as it may, we should listen to their testimony firsthand.” He looked over at the students. ”With that said, can you three explain what happened, as Igna suggested?”

Philo and Rolam squirmed in their chairs. Mal rolled his eyes at their ridiculousness.

”Philo and Rolam had a fight,” Mal said.

The two winced like children who’d been caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

”I mean, I wouldn’t really call it a fight,” Philo said. ”That’s a rather dishonorable way of putting it. Especially given that as circle mates, we’re called to a higher standard —”

Philo nodded up and down. ”Philo agrees. It wasn’t a fight. More of a civil disagreement, er, broken tables aside—”

Headmaster Puck’s lips quirked up. ”Peace, students. You aren’t the first circle mates to have a disagreement that spiraled out of control. You won’t be the last. Nobody here blames you for that. It seems to be more a case of bad timing than anything else.”

Mal frowned, then quickly corrected the expression.

Although this was technically true, a disagreement bad enough to result in violence—one that nearly resulted in the death of multiple students…

There was a very good chance this could lead to expulsion.

”Yes,” Philo said. ”Just a little bit after the elf—Philo means Rolam—left, the alarm rang.” He glanced over at Mal. ”And that’s when Malfrasius —”

”I got lost and ran into Philo. He said that we should go after Rolam,” Mal said.

Philo’s jaw dropped.

”Mal?” Philo asked. ”This does not align with Philo’s memories.”

”I know you’re just trying to be humble and pass off the credit,” Mal said. ”But that’s the truth. You felt bad, and you realized that despite how much you disagreed with Rolam, he was still your circle mate.”

Rolam looked over at Philo, his eyes wide. ”Really? You did that?”

Philo looked completely confused. ”This is technically true, but the order is wrong.”

Mal shot Philo his sternest glare. Philo clamped his jaw shut and nodded.

”… Yes. Malfrasius is right,” Philo said.

There were two reasons why Mal was doing this.

First of all, he needed to absolutely ensure there was no chance of Philo and Rolam getting expelled. It would be impossible to hide the fact that they had come to blows. He had no doubt that Keepers were checking their dormitory and that they would find all of the damage. Violence was somewhat expected in a combat school—but not amongst circle mates. If you couldn’t even control yourself like that, you wouldn’t be able to work in a unit. Exodi Academy had no use for those sorts of people.

By making this story and setting it up where Philo and Rolam were the heroes, that helped to make up for any mistakes made.

Secondly, Mal needed to obtain as little attention as possible from this sequence of events.

As far as the teachers and the outside world were concerned, Mal was just a bystander who happened to be dragged along. He had done nothing, contributed nothing, and it was Philo and Rolam who had saved the day.

So I just need to sell the biggest load of complete bull that I’ve ever sold before, Mal thought. Shouldn’t be too tricky.

”So you two rushed off to find Rolam. How did you pick up the trail?” Vigil said.

”Philo had seen the general direction where Rolam had run off to,” Mal said. ”We followed the trail into the spellcasting department.”

”But Mal helped a lot!” Philo shouted.

Mal frowned. ”No, that’s not true.”

”But it’s true! Mal was able to find the trail with ease! You were just able to smell Rolam and where he’d been!”

Igna stared at Mal in abject shock. ”Smell?”

Mal looked over at Cassandra, widening his eyes to send as much of a message as he could.

Cassandra sighed. ”I can verify that. F grade cores have a lot of mana sensitivity. Enough to where the ones who trained that ability can act like bloodhounds for mana signatures.”

Igna shot a look over at Cassandra and gave a thin smile. ”Interesting. I had no idea that F grade cores had such capabilities.” She looked back at Mal. ”Continue.”

”After we got there, we had the bad luck to run into the demon. I was taken out early. Rolam and Philo worked together and managed to defeat the demon.”

Philo gripped the sides of his head and groaned. ”Philo doesn’t really remember what happened at the end, but he’s pretty sure that you played a bigger role than that.”

Rolam nodded quickly. ”Humility is a virtue, Honorable leader, and I commend you for it. But there can be too much of a good thing, you know.”

Mal felt the overwhelming urge to strangle these two imbeciles. He was offering them glory and fame up on a silver platter, and they were completely screwing him over!

A sense of lightheadedness hit him and he caught himself before his head drooped. He forced his body into a straight position and shook his head in response to Rolam.

”I really didn’t do much,” Mal said. ”All I did was get choked out and nearly die.”

”All you did?” Rolam stood up and slammed his hands against the table. ”You’re the one who laid the final blow! You killed it!”

Mal gave a loud, strained, obviously fake laugh. He stood to his own feet and slammed his own hands against the table.

”Rolam, there’s no need to make up stories!” Mal shouted. ”We all know that it was you who killed it! Your physical ability was just enough to take it out after it expended its energy on that huge attack!”

”Honorable leader, I don’t want to do this, but I must remain true to my conscience! You were the one who killed it! Not only that, but you led us in combat when we both wanted to run away! You rallied us! You told us that we had a chance, and we did! We beat it because of you!”

By the end of it, Rolam was panting from how loud he had gotten. Everybody was staring at him in shock.

Mal’s lips twitched. They were frozen in a facsimile of a smile.

He was going to kill that elf. Slowly.

He looked over at the professors. ”I think that the stress has gotten to Rolam. He is seeing things.”

”But that’s not true —!”

”Oh dear,” Mal said. ”That blow to the head really did a number on you, Rolam.” He looked back at the professors and sighed. ”As much as I wish I had been of use, I really wasn’t. Keep in mind, I’m only an F grade core. What was I supposed to do in such a situation? No, it was Philo and Rolam who did the lion’s share of the work.”

Igna’s face, which up to that point had been getting a deeper and deeper frown, sprang back up into a smooth smile at the mention of an F grade core.

”Very true, Mal,” Igna said. ”And your honesty in such a situation is greatly appreciated.”

Vigil raised an eyebrow and looked at Igna. ”Don’t tell me you’re actually believing that brat.”

Puck stroked his chin. ”The shape of a deception comes in forms most unexpected.”

”Yeah, exactly, Headmaster,” Vigil said. ”Besides, at the end of the day we’ve got two witnesses saying one thing and only one saying another thing.”

Mal looked at Cassandra once more. She gave a soft snort, unnoticed by anybody else in the room.

”Igna’s right,” she said.

Vigil turned at Cassandra. ”Are you joking? Not you too.”

Cassandra shrugged and leaned back against Igna’s bookcase. Igna frowned before her expression reset.

”Look, the facts are the facts,” Cassandra said. ”You really expect me to believe that some random F grade core managed to lead the charge and defeat a demon? Come on, let’s get real.”

Mal could have kissed his teacher. Except not, because that would’ve been weird.

”It seems that it’s two on two,” Headmaster Puck said. He shook his head. ”We’ll compromise on the report. It doesn’t really matter who gets the credit, yes? The important part is that the circle defeated the demon.”

Another bout of lightheadedness hit Mal. He gripped the bottom of his chair and prevented himself from falling.

”Mr. Patoal?” The Headmaster said. ”Are you all right?”

Mal forced himself to nod.

”Yeah, just a little bit tired.” He blinked. His vision wavered like he was underwater. ”How’s Lusia?”

”Lusia? Is that a student?” Headmaster Puck said.

”No, she’s my servant.” Mal’s entire body was falling asleep, one limb after the other. ”The demon took the form of her at the start. Can you make sure she’s okay?”

”We’ll check in on her,” Vigil said. ”Don’t worry.”

Mal stood up and it felt like the ground had shifted underneath him. ”I need to check on her. What if that thing killed her and stole her identity?”

How could Mal have forgotten? He was such an idiot—he’d gotten so wrapped up in this stupid interrogation that he’d forgotten all about how much danger Lusia had been in.

Cassandra stood up abruptly. ”You’re completely pale.” She walked around the desk and got closer to Mal. ”Did you sustain an injury?”

”Just a cut to the stomach,” his words blurred together like a drunkard’s.

Cassandra stiffened. She rushed over to his robes and inspected them closer. She pulled apart the cuts that had been made by the demon’s claws and as soon as she saw the injuries, her jaw dropped.

”You absolute dumbass!” she shouted. ”Why didn’t you tell me about this as soon as you came out! You’ve just been leaking blood for the past ten minutes!”

Mal looked down at his chest. ”Oh, that’s probably not good.”

”You think so?!”

His vision darkened and his knees crumpled. Cassandra grabbed him and prevented him from falling to the floor.

”Just make sure Lusia is okay,” he said.

”We will, just don’t fall asleep—Mal? Mal! I just said don’t fall asleep —!”

But it was already too late.