Fate Alchemist - A Regression Academy LitRPG

Wulf and Kalee both ran out of the gym, then tucked around the corner and hid behind a hedge of shrivelling autumn shrubs. By now, all the trees had gone orange and brown, and most only had half their leaves.

Neither of them said anything. Wulf rolled his lips inward, then snorted. Kalee chuckled, and they both broke out into soft laughter.

"You should have seen his face," Wulf said. "Staring up at the roof, wondering how that happened to him?"

"Was that…very nice to do?" Kalee laughed lightheartedly. "Two sixty year olds beating up on a forty year old?"

"He had it coming," Wulf said. "Maybe he'll learn to respect his elders next time."

"Something tells me he won't learn at all."

Wulf chuckled. "Maybe. But I guess we'll just have to keep teaching him a lesson."

"And…and wait, does that mean you just beat an Iron?"

"Well, yeah, kinda, I guess." Wulf leaned back against the outside wall of the gym. "I don't think he was putting in all his effort up to the end, and he still didn't use a Skill."

"Neither did you, but you still caught his kick."

"Barely. One more, and I would've been done for."

"You're too humble," she said.

"Better to be humble than overconfident." Wulf stayed quiet for a little, then finally said, "When you were fighting me, it's almost like you were doing it with your eyes closed. You always knew where I was, even when your back was to me. It's weird. I wasn't picking up on it until then, but…"

"I learned to fight without my full senses in my last life," she said. "I had a wonderful teacher, too. Once I left the academy, and after my…family business. After I escaped the demon-spirit, but not before I made it back to my family. He tried to help me spiritually, too, but he taught me to feel the vibrations in the ground, so I could sense where my opponents were. That is, before I even got Marks and Skills that aided perception."

Wulf nodded. "Do you…know what happened to him? If you're willing to say." He wasn't sure how sore a topic it was, but he more than anyone was the only person who even had a chance of understanding what she was feeling—and vice versa.

"I have no idea, really. I left him in anger. I had convinced him to teach me, with him thinking that my need for revenge was behind me, and then later revealed that I hadn't ever left the desire behind. It stings, but…I abandoned him, and I don't know what happened to him."

"Do you think you could find him again?"

"I think I could try," she said. "But not right now."

"No." Wulf shook his head, but agreed. "Right now, we've got some chores to do."

"Right." She sighed. "You think Dr. Langold was helping us at all? So far, the punishments he's been giving have been incredibly mild."

"I wouldn't be surprised if he was showing us pity," Wulf said. "But at a certain point, that generosity is going to run out, and we're going to actually be in trouble. So we'd best get going."

They didn't change out of their gym clothes yet. Better to get those dirty than anything else. They crossed the campus at a quick saunter, then arrived at the border grove where Emerald Vanguard had flattened a set of trees and made an enormous footprint in the earth. Chef Kennet and a couple non-Ascendant workers were waiting at the edge, shovelling dirt in to fill the giant footprint.

"Ah, so you two are the troublemakers who tore up my grove in an Oronith," Kennet said. "You, Hrothen. I figured you were the maverick type to steal one of those, but with your eye for plants, I didn't think you'd be so careless to crush them beneath you."

"Sorry, sir," Wulf said, dipping his head.

"Yeah, yeah," Kennet sighed. "It's not the trees that annoy me so much as the gardens I had going in between the trees. And all that will take a few months to regrow, even in the winter."

"Only a few months?"

"Well, you didn't think they were normal, seasonal poplars, did you?" Kennet turned back to the others. Instead of his chef's apron, he now wore a tattered brown coat and a haversack. "Besides, I've got a few Skills to help grow gardens a little faster. Helps with the Chef Class, supposedly."

"What does the border grove do?" Kalee asked.

"The runes in their trunks make a natural defensive formation, keeping all sorts of beings that might do us harm out of the school grounds. Monstrous beings, 'course. Not humans or human-likes." He laughed and patted his belly. "Thalin told me all about your little escapade with the yetis. You know there's a reason they didn't follow you past a certain point, right? My formation does a school good."

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"Does it work against demons?" Wulf questioned.

"What, with the recent attack?" Kennet shrugged. "Dunno, boy. It's never been tested. I figure it'd hold up for a little, but get overwhelmed in time. One of those colossal fiends would cause us a right headache, and if I thought you were hazardous to my garden…"

He grabbed a pair of shovels from the non-Ascendant workers—probably also kitchen staff who Kennet had enlisted to help them—and passed them to Wulf and Kalee. "Well, get to work. We have lots of mud to shift around, and the formation won't repair itself."

For the next few hours, until the sun began setting, they shovelled mud back into the footprint, or spread it around and flattened what they could. Lots of the ground had been compressed, so they took mud from outside the campus grounds and hauled it in, then used it to form a ridge where the trees would've crossed.

"I figure we can give ourselves an easier time by only putting a ridge in the center," Kennet said. "And we can let a pond fill up on either side. Put some water-borne herbs and such in it…hmm, where's my list…"

But still, by the end of the first day—when the sun began setting, and they were all drenched in sweat—they'd only made a portion of the central ridge.

"Might take us a few weeks," Kennet proclaimed, "but that's enough for now. I'll call it."

They packed up their equipment into a trunk, but left it by the edge of the footprint. No need to haul it inside if they were just going to use it tomorrow.

As they were putting their shovels in the trunk, Kennet bent down beside them and whispered to Wulf, "If you do really well, and get us this ridge fixed within the month, I'll let you have access to my herb garden in the grove. What, with your interest in the plants at all. Deal?"

"Deal?" Wulf asked. "Uh, sure."

"Well, only if you want."

"I kinda thought you were mad at me, sir."

"I was. But then it turns out, you saved a great many people, and my crushed trees probably aren't the biggest problem in the world at the moment." He sighed, then looked up at the sky. "I don't suppose that will be the only wave of demons, if it goes anything like the last demon war did."

"I…don't think so, sir. Sadly."

"Well, be on your way, you two. I hear you have another chore to do as punishment, now. So scram."

"Yes, sir."

Afterward, Wulf and Kalee jogged to the bathhouses—just in time to find a couple non-Ascendant janitors already getting started. An aging man with long gray hair, who Wulf had previously seen sweeping the Artificers' Labs, turned toward them.

"Ah, there you are. A little late, though I suppose we can blame that on Chef," the man said. He wore sturdy woven overalls and carried a mop and broom. "Well, then, take your pick. I'm Wyll, and this here is Marsa." He pointed his thumb over his shoulder at a middle aged woman behind him, with a mop and broom, who'd already started sweeping the floor of the lobby. They both looked like locals from the villages

"If we get done here quickly," Marsa said, "you both can use a fresh bathhouse to clean yourselves up before heading off to bed."

"Got it," Wulf said.

They didn't rush, but they didn't exactly go slowly, either. They navigated through the bathhouse, scrubbing the tiles with soaps and some sort of cleaner that registered as a weak potion:

Anti-Infectant Potion (Low-Wood Quality) (Splatter)

Cleans off infectants and other dirt upon contact.

Wulf didn't remember exactly what it took to make one, but he hadn't been expecting them to use potions to clean with. He also began wondering how much stronger of a potion he'd be able to make with his abilities, or how weak the people who'd made these potions were.

As he cleaned, scrubbing down the walls and floors with a broom, or kneeling down, he registered the splatter potion affecting him—if only slightly. It was applying its cleansing effect to him, and though the others were certainly also experiencing that, the potion hadn't been made by him. He didn't get any strength boosts, though an aura did spring up around him. Nothing to fuel with it, sadly.

His thoughts wandered. Next, the most important task was to figure out what weapon he was supposed to use. He'd need one before the next tournament fight—which was coming up in a week.

Not even supposed to use. Crafters wouldn't have an assigned weapon that the Field preferred. They could have anything, not like Mages, who were better suited to staves, or Pilots, who would be better with swords, hammers, axes, or spears (which was, admittedly, still a broad range).

He considered a staff or a spear, but neither seemed right. But perhaps he just needed to give it a try?

He shook his head. That wasn't right. If he, as a crafting Class, was truly going to have a useful weapon, he'd need something that could also help improve his other main abilities. Potion making, the like. He didn't know why, but he just got a feeling.

Besides, if he was going to spend a lot of time and energy creating a weapon for himself, he needed to make something that he'd actually want to use, that felt right, and that suited him and his abilities.

A giant stir-stick, then?

But that was basically just a staff.

Hit someone with a giant cauldron?

But that was barely a weapon. No good there.

Tongs?

Maybe, but still, barely a weapon. At least it was a tool that was meant to be held in the hand, though. Just…not big enough to actually do any damage with.

"I reckon we can call it a night," Wyll announced, cutting through Wulf's thoughts. "You two, clean yourselves up, then head back to your dorms. It's quite late."

"Thank you, sir," Wulf and Kalee both said. They went their separate ways, to their separate bathhouse halves, then cleaned up. It was oddly peaceful, so late in the evening, with only a few lanterns still going. A warm bath welcomed Wulf, and he gladly sank into it.

Maybe not as productive of a day with potion-making, but productive nonetheless. At the very least, he had a deal with Kennet—access to the herb garden, which he could use to make all sorts of potions.