NOVEL NEXT 216 (II) Enrolled [I]
216 (II)
Enrolled [I]
"Seems like a lot of housing spots are still open too," Shiv said to Irons. "Got eight choices to pick from."
"Eight?" the captain said, betraying a hint of surprise. "More than I expected." And then a slight frown flickered across the man's face. "Tell me about the options."
Shiv did, and as he went through each one, Irons slowly shook his head. "You don't have eight choices. You have one."
The Deathless adopted a confused look as he scrolled through his dormitory options once more. "Why the hells not?"
"For political and convenience-based reasons," Irons explained. "You can technically still select some of the other options, but you will then promptly find yourself watched, surveilled, and then pressured to pledge yourself to certain secret societies."
Shiv frowned. "If they're secret societies, why are you talking about them openly?"
"Because it's the kind of secret that appeals to children who can barely be considered adults."
And that made more sense to Shiv. "So what, they're like street gangs?"
"If only it were so simple," Irons grunted with a slight hint of annoyance. "No, they're what the headmaster talked about earlier. Noble factions looking to boost their infrastructure and expand their base of support within the capital and the academy."
And that put things into perspective for Shiv. "Okay, so very, very messy politics."
Part of the Deathless was intrigued, however. He wanted to dip a toe in, just to see how messy things could get. Despite the constant carnage the System threw his way, he'd never really experienced purely political mayhem before. And despite all the warnings he got from Adam, the headmaster, and Irons, Shiv really thought he'd make a good politician. He could see himself being charming—bribing people with his food and stuff…
He wasn't that good of an actor, but his Deception was growing at a healthy pace, and his Psycho-Cartography was a great boon. But once again, he reminded himself of what was at stake. This cover was hard-bought and painful to lose. Marcus Unblood was enrolled at Phoenix Academy, not Shiv the Deathless. If he exposed himself in any way, or if his Perfect Semblance broke down, trying to establish a new identity could end up being both tedious and dangerous.
"Yeah, alright." Shiv sighed, giving up on his urge to stumble into some more mundane trauma than he was used to. "So that leaves one. Carrot? Why is it called Carrot? Everything else has a monster name."
"That's because it is a relatively recent addition to the campus. The name was taken from an Adept-Tier Martyr of the Republic who gave his life to signal the rest of our nation when the Storm King's assassins managed to slip through our borders and silence several monitoring posts in preparation of a grand raid. It is meant to symbolize that even mere Adepts or individuals without notable bloodlines or houses backing them can still achieve great things beyond themselves and not be limited by their tier."
"Alright, Irons, that sure sounds cute, but… is there some kind of political play to pander to the peasants here? Because… after everything, this seems like propaganda to me. People die doing this stuff all the time. It's not that it's not heroic, it's just that it's way too common. Plenty of Low-Tier Pathbearers go down making big differences."
The captain considered the question for a moment. "I cannot claim to understand the decisions or processes of the Auroral Council when it comes to delicate matters of culture and politics."
Deductive Reasoning 1 > 2
Shiv snorted. That was a plenty political answer in itself. "Let's go with a yes, then. Okay." He licked his lips as he focused hard on Carrot. After a few moments, it came alive with Divination mana, and the other options faded. A compass formed at the top of his perspective as well, and it pointed toward the exit of the auditorium. The rest of the notifications receded to the corner of his vision, and they only expanded when he looked that way suddenly.
"You can disable its indicative functions by staring at it for a few seconds," the captain explained.
Shiv tried that, and as soon as he did, every bit of text and visual symbology winked out before him, leaving his field of view mostly clean, at least until the System decided to start spewing its information at him as well.
"Alright, I think I got the hang of this thing somewhat," Shiv muttered. "I'm gonna go find my dorm and get settled in so I can pretend to be a normal person for maybe an hour or two before the System makes me fight some kind of Divination-Chronomancy dragon deity thing from another realm that's also the single greatest swordsman devil-god-dragon kind in Integration."
"I don't think you're in that much danger facing a dragon swordsman," Irons said confidently. "Most of them are primal beasts, with few ever reaching sapience."
At that, the Deathless simply threw his head back and barked a laugh. The captain squinted and cocked his head. "Why did you just laugh?"
"If you keep staying around me, you're gonna run into one of my friends one day. His name is Marikos, and when that day happens, I'm gonna bake you a pie."
Irons still seemed a bit confused. "Marikos? And why a pie?"
"Nah," Shiv just said, "I'm not telling. I'm just gonna wait for the day to come first. Can't promise you'll love him."
A beat followed. "The fact that you are telling me this fills me with worry," Irons grumbled under his breath.
***
With Shiv's three-person admission process done, he and Irons left the auditorium to attend to their own problems. As it turned out, being a new vigilante trying to save a missing student didn't mean you could avoid your actual duties in the meantime. So, while Irons set out to his office to get some grading done and prepare his classes for the following week, Shiv followed his new marker and explored the campus grounds. He played around with his lapel pin a bit, but ultimately settled into taking in the sights and sounds on campus—that, and the comforting fact that he could walk in the open on his own without anyone trying to kill him.
This would have been nice before my life turned into a System-favored mess, Shiv thought to himself. His earliest fantasies had been of becoming a Pathbearer and adventuring the world. Kill monsters. Explore. Cook. Meet new people. People that wouldn't despise him for who he was or what his parents did.
With his Perfect Semblance and the academy as a cover, he could do that for a bit. Depending on how well things went… Maybe he'd last longer than a bit.
Night had fallen, but when the Deathless looked up, instead of seeing dark clouds and fragments of the broken moon, it was a glossy sheen of glowing midnight gliding across the firmament like oil over water. Harlock and the city still had the campus on quarantine, but despite this, the students didn't seem to notice, and the instructors didn't seem to care.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
By now, the glow coming from over the horizon where the Yellowstone Supervolcano resided had dimmed as well. Shiv didn't know if that meant the Prismatic Guard had defeated the prisoners or simply contained them to an adequate degree. With how many Legends had broken out, Shiv suspected things weren't quite over yet. If nothing else, he strongly doubted that Andra and her band of misfits were the only ones to slip through the wards.
He followed his compass around the length of Miriam Hall, just to hear the sound of clashing melodies in the distance. Squealing horns and resounding strings tore through the air in a clash of symphonies. Voices rejoined the song, but rather than being harmonious, they struggled as well. A battle was taking place between rival bands for some reason, and with every passing second Shiv endured the melodies, he actively fought the urge to dance.
Some students around him, however, succumbed. A group of well-dressed, elven students with pointed hats went from walking normally to skipping every step.
One of the elves buried her face against her book in silent agony. "Looks like Black Iconics and the Jackal's Scale are at it again. So much for being able to study and sleep in peace tonight."
A taller elf with an eyepatch scoffed. "Yes, well, it's better that they resolve things this way. It's not like we got to sleep last semester when the Manticore and Griffin dorms decided to have that messy brawl right on Minerva Meadows."
The elf buried against her book groaned even harder. "Maybe they should be allowed to bring their weapons out. If one of the dorms killed the other, surely there would be peace again. Surely."
"If one of the dorms killed the other, then a few noble houses would be at war, and we would all be in the shit," the elf at the back of the group grumbled.
"Like they're not already at war," the first elf muttered under her breath.
Lots of noble tensions, it seems, Shiv thought. Don't know much about them; might be good to ask Adam about what's up with that.
Getting past Miriam Hall took some time. It was like a fortress bulwark unto itself, and the way it curved added additional distance to the walk as well. The moment he cleared its left corner, another layer of the inner campus revealed itself to him. The tip of a gateway glimmered against the backdrop of Ascendant-stained night, and it cast a glow on a maze-like sprawl of interconnected buildings.
There were so many structures that ran on like fortress walls, each one resembling a complex geometric shape or a symbol. The structures resembled sloping tidal waves frozen mid-collapse. Their roofs were curved over, and they were things shaped from alloy, glass, and mithril. Windows were open, and balconies jutted out from the sides. The students that could traverse the air regularly leaped from structure to structure without care. Those who couldn't took a longer, easier path. The buildings and dorms were linked to nearby or adjacent structures through wood-paneled trenches and overpasses in equal measure, but between the gaps were meadows, gardens, patios, pagodas, and other areas sculpted toward the benefit of community and socialization.
The inner grounds of the campus left him staggered by their sheer size and expansiveness as well. Then, there were a dozen or so towers that hovered around forty meters in the air. Each of them had those looping aerial rings at their tops. However, the steps leading up to each of the towers were practically stacked with students as well. Said steps seemed to cascade downward in transparent outlines, allowing students to walk right through them, or alternatively, step upon them and rise up to join their fellows.
There were young Pathbearers of all races clustered together. Some of them were actively debating, gesturing animatedly at the bottom of the steps in a clash of words. Others shaped fascinating skills together, weaving serpents of fire and flame. They soared across the air as if they were kites, held up, leashed by invisible strings.
From the nearby trench lines, more diligent Pathbearers were moving along quietly. More students emerged, battling along the edges of the snow, climbing up, and controlling festivities. Names were called, hands were clasped. More groups assembled around him with every passing second. The Deathless came to a brief stop as he took them all in.
Despite being Pathbearers, they were just so carefree, unburdened from worries and woes.
As he watched, a large automaton stopped before him. Its body resembled a mass of compacted steel. The gathered students saw its approach, and they cheered aloud, as if a savior had come to deliver them from bleak circumstances. Shiv soon discovered why. The front of the large automaton fell to its hands and knees, and then its back opened, revealing a grill within. A flood of students broke away from the steps. Arguments were abandoned, books left behind, and from underneath rows and within spatulas, people pulled out food, meat, and vegetable skewers of all kinds.
"The grill-bot is here!" one of the students declared. The others had heard what he just said, and raucous laughter erupted from the gathered crowd.
"Grill is hot, and food is nigh," the automaton said, droning in a full voice of heavy metal. "No crowding, enough for everyone." Drinks were dispensed at the front, and almost immediately, people started putting jugs underneath the golem's head, where a fizzy fluid that glowed with a bright-yellow hue was produced from a faucet.
Shiv shuddered and muttered under his breath, "A bar and grill bot. If we'd had someone like that back at the Swan-Eating Toad..."
While this was happening, another group of aerial Pathbearers did another fly-by, and with each tower they threaded, a loud voice would boom about which student was still in the lead. Beyond the towers and the dense crowds stood towering curved buildings that resembled frozen waterfalls made from alloy and glass. And at the very top, Shiv could see a few uniformed individuals.
He activated his Farsight, and that's when he realized that the students standing on top of the buildings were holding instruments. They were the members of the dueling bands playing in the background. And from their instruments spewed whistling notes, music as if infused with mana. It was as if the world were a sheet, and each note could slide across. They impacted each other in midair, and detonations followed.
The Deathless stood still and just breathed in; soaked in the world. There were people all around him, and they weren't running away, weren't trying to kill him, weren't actively hunting him; they weren't people he had to keep an eye on. Even if he was clad in a lie, everything felt—
"MARRCCCUUUUSSS? MARCUS? IS THAT YOU?"
An uncontrollable shiver passed through Shiv's body. He closed his eyes and tried not to lose his shit. "One second. One felling second, System. Just give me one moment to take this shit in before I have to murder some other poor bastard."
"MMARRRCCUUSS! YOU FUUUCCKKK!"
Shiv opened his eyes and saw most of the students around him looking past his shoulder. The Deathless fought to keep his rage-tremors under control as he turned to see what kind of bullshit he was going to have to deal with now. He promptly saw Magnolia walking behind three heavyset boys and one girl. The males in the group were all wearing academy robes, while the girl was wrapped in furs—but there was something else: there was a slight bulge to her abdomen.
Immediately, Shiv felt the urge to kill everyone around him or kill himself to escape the situation.
Marcus, if you knocked that girl up too, and these are her brothers about to kick the shit out of me on her behalf, I will breach the gates of the afterlife and beat you to super-death with my bare hands.
"YOU PIECE OF SHIT!" The boy at the front of the group was built like a small bear, and he sounded like one too. Shiv couldn't tell if the guy was bigger than he was without Perfect Semblance active, but damn, it was probably close. He had some blonde peach fuzz developing on his face, and there was a bear tattoo imprinted over his right eye. The other two boys looked much like the first, and one had something like a goat tattoo, while the other got painted with a gray eagle.
"The fuck do they feed you guys in Old Brunswick?" Shiv muttered to himself. "I had to get a Skill Evolution or two before I changed." He began to awkwardly shuffle away, deciding that he didn't really want to deal with this annoyance right now. He had a dorm to find. "Yeah, listen, I'm not Marcus. You got the wrong guy. Happens."
And then he started running. Straight into the crowd gathered around the grill-bot. Several students cried out in alarm as three sets of loud stomps hammered behind Shiv in close pursuit.
"Unblood! Motherless bastard! You cannot escape us! We'll chase you to the ends of Integration! Your fortune was to die in that ambush; to live means you answer to us! To live means your life is ours for spilling your bastard seed in our sister's woooomb!"
Every bit of pity and sorrow Shiv felt for Marcus evaporated entirely. He regretted doing that bullshit funeral thing back at the coliseum. Marcus, you felling fuck, I'm going to breach the gates of the afterlife and beat you to super-death with my bare hands.
And with that, he ducked between two students, manifested his temporal shell, and launched himself up into the air just before the wards came crashing down.
When the flow of time resumed, the four students and Magnolia were still searching through the crowd, but Shiv sprinted away deeper toward the maze of dorms where the two bands played on in the direction of Carrot—because if he had any hope of getting settled in before any more madness happened, it would need to happen quickly.
Fuck you, Marcus. And fuck you too, System. Just… fuck you.