Agnisotra: Origin Tails

This place is huge but the layout shouldn’t differ that much from the Misha academy. There were students here but not many. I did get strange stares though. Do I look weird? Maybe I stink? I inspected myself but nothing was off. I don’t look like I’m from here so maybe it’s that. I successfully located the canteen after half an hour, it was almost 11:00. I thought of my days pranking the Misha when I heard a voice.

“Hey you! You’re not skipping out on the first year’s orientation, are you?!”

Huh, what? I thought lectures start next week!

I realized that this sounded like an excuse a skipping student would give. A tall middle-aged man with short curly black hair looked at me. He walked toward me and his footsteps echoed in the quite empty canteen.

Wait you’re wrong! I’m not a student here, I’m just sightseeing!

“Nice try! Who in their right mind would go to a university for sightseeing. Luckily, I know how to deal with skipping students!”

Ok, you have a point, what you say makes sense but I really am not a student here! I’m ehh, too dumb! Yes, too dumb to study here! I just wandered in here to get some food and be off again!

“Interesting excuse, now you have the choice to either go back to the orientation or get your ass kicked and dragged in front of the headmaster.”

Hey isn’t getting dragged in front of the headmaster quite outdated? How about you expel me?

“Expelling students will close off their opportunity from learning from their mistakes but I see you have chosen the latter, now let’s see how proficient you are in magic!” He started up a magic circle but I interrupted it.

“Impressive! How about this!” He tried something interesting; it was the same magic skill but a bit scrambled, unfortunately for him I’m quite an expert on magic circles and mana runes so I interrupted it again. I jumped into the kitchen section of the canteen to find some food.

“A prodigy I see, but that doesn’t mean the rules don’t apply to you!”

Can you just let me eat in piece? I will leave afterwards! I promise!

I ducked to dodge a [Magic Hand] and dodged another. This guy could control 3 [Magic Hands]. The name is very uncreative but it tells you exactly what they are, a better name would be [Arcane Hands] because they’re made out of arcane magic but I don’t think the term ‘Arcane’ was popular when the creator made this skill. I threw plates at the [Magic Hands] because they work a bit similar to [Dark Grasp].

This is not something I know but could read from the magic circle that created them. They would grab whatever comes near to them. So, I wasted this professor’s time by making his [Magic Hands] quite useless.

I found some lasagna but it wasn’t fresh. It then dawned on me, where is the kitchen crew? The professor jumped over the counter and rushed at me.

Decided to grab me from up close, eh?

I stepped to the side and jumped on the fridge. He sent a hand after me and I jumped to a low hanging lamp and swung to the other side of the kitchen and took a stack of plates and threw them at him like frisbees. He seemed occupied with making sure that I don’t break any plates. I flashed a smile.

“Oh no you don’t”

Oh yes, I do! I grabbed a cart that was loaded with plates, pushed myself off to get it going and kept throwing plates at this professor.

How do you like this plate drive-by?!

“Are you this cocky that you think you can get away without using magic?!”

It’s not cocky if I can get away with it right? I kicked in a door and left the kitchen on the cart full of plates.

So far, this professor was doing well in catching all the plates but that would change after I had escaped from the kitchen.

“Ugh, these students are becoming more troublesome by the year!” he augmented himself and started running after me. he still caught most of the plates I threw. He couldn’t do anything about the plates that weren’t aimed at him.

I’m not a student! I’m a sightseer! I got attacked by another professor while I was wondering why I didn’t do this at the Misha Academy.

“Lisa help me with this troublesome student! He escaped the orientation of the first years!”

I’m still not a student!

I kept throwing plates and interrupting troublesome magic that they were trying to cast. I had to spend some of my attention to take a corner so they were able to use some magic. I had to snipe [Lightning bolts] down with plates. As I raced through the corridors, more and more professors started to pursue me. Now I had a big problem. I was running out of plates to throw.

I crashed the cart in a wall and dove into a lecture hall. It was empty and spacious. It had many rows of red seats.

It was time to play hide and seek. I messed with the runes in the device that would illuminate the hall and I hid in the 4th row of chairs. I will cheat and use some shadow clones and shadow magic to mess with the professors. 4 professors entered the room and tried to turn on the lights.

“We know you are here! You have nowhere to go!” Handguy shouted as he tried to find out how to illuminate the dark hall.

I had made 7 shadow clones and we all talked at the same time.

That is assuming you can find me!

“Ugh, what a troublesome guy, let’s spread out!” Handguy issued orders to the other professors.

“But we can’t see anything in this darkness!”

“Neither can he! Also pay attention he is adept at interrupting your magic circles!”

The humans think they can find someone who has no problem with seeing in the dark? I made a [Shadow Tendril] and tapped on the back of a professor.

“Gotcha! Huh what? Aaah!”

“Lisa?! What is going on?! Oof!” I made Handguy trip.

Welcome to the haunted lecture hall! I hope that you guys are well prepared!

I had a shadow clone use a Dawnlight to illuminate only his face in the darkness and it sent the female professor screaming and running out of the lecture hall. I also spread some wires through the upper part of the lecture hall and I had a shadow clone hang from it upside down and do some swings with a small Dawnlight.

“He... he’s flying!” A professor pointed at me and tried to find out what magic I used. “But I don’t sense any mana!”

Another clone had cleared his throat and mimicked a strange deep creepy voice. Another clone mimicked a high-pitched crazy sounding voice.

Help… me… aaagh! Nooo! I don’t want to die!

The deep voice responded from across the room. Muhahaha, you will become my sacrifice, but I need one more…

The clone that used the deep voice had used illusions and transformed into the Breathless and held a Dawnlight in front of his now ugly face.

I have spotted one!

It ran at another professor and the professor freaked out and ran away. The reaction of the professors was hilarious and I had to make sure to not give my location away by laughing too hard. Only 2 professors were left.

As I thought of something else to scare them off 2 female professors entered the lecture hall. One used [Illuminate] and another used [Levitate] on everything that wasn’t attached to something. So, all the professors, my shadow clones and me levitated. The professors just levitated 2 meters from the floor but me and my shadow clones levitated to the ceiling.

I guess playtime is over.

“Shadow clones eh, I can see how you had trouble catching this guy, now be a good student and come down here!”

You know I’d love to but you will have to cancel this [Levitation].

My clones still spoke when I did so it was hard for them to pinpoint the real me. A clone still had the high-pitched voice and the Breathless clone still had the low voice.

“The prankster type eh, I was wondering where they all went, I guess one of them skipped out, not surprising, John, Carlos, prepare to catch him and be careful this might also be a trick!” The Levitation professor dropped the [Levitate] and we slowly fell down.

“What is this strange magic. Fall down already!” Levitation professor used [Heavy] but that didn’t seem to work.

“Ugh, I will hand it to you, you are quite skilled in whatever you do!”

Thanks, I guess?

The first professor whose name is John used his [Magic hands] and caught me and my shadow clones. I decided to let myself get caught because I remembered that Crissy’s gramps was the headmaster here, he can confirm that I’m not a student here and let me go.

Take me to your leader!

“We have quite a strange student this year, bring him to headmaster Fugaku.”

I dispelled all my shadow clones and got carried by a big hand through multiple corridors. Some students who passed by looked at me. Some were interested, some guys gave a look of approval, probably expecting to have an interesting year with someone who got caught before the lectures started. Too bad for them I’m not a student! Although I might have to keep an eye out on Greg, he might enroll himself and possibly us if we’re not careful. I then saw 3 professors appear and they seemed to have caught Raishin. I waved at Raishin and he waved back.

“Another troublemaker, don’t tell me you’re friends!”

I see you got caught too, let me guess you were hitting on the students here?

Yup, and I might have embarrassed the ace of their basketball team…

Classic Raishin.

“Great… so they know each other…” We got lead into a big spacious room. It looked like one of those dojo’s Ted used to go to. An old man in some robe or something and a katana on his hip was talking to Crissy and Hayley.

Sup Crissy and Hayley!

“Huh, Agnis? And Raishin? Oh gramps, these are 2 of the guys I told you about. What are you 2 doing here?”

“Hehe, it seems they got into trouble Crissy, look even Agatha is here!”

“Headmaster Fugaku, these students skipped the first-year orientation and caused trouble, this one here made a mess out of the canteen and turned a lecture hall into a haunted house and this one here flirted with students and professors and beat up the ace of the basketball team!”

A haunted house? Damn to think that I missed that!

You even flirted with professors… do you have no shame?

“Hmm, I see, thank you Agatha but these aren’t students, they are the adventurers responsible for helping my granddaughter out. My name is Teppei Fugaku, I’m the headmaster, my little Chris here just finished her story about her adventure with you.”

Ehh, nice to meet you Crissy’s gramps. See guys? I kept telling you that I’m not a student here!

“And how were we supposed to believe that? You are the same age as our students and really? You came to sightsee? Nobody is going to believe that even if it was true!”

That! Ok you’re right but I’m still not a student!

Yeah! I hate studying! Now let us go!

The professors let us go and left the dojo room.

“I can’t believe you guys went on another adventure without us!”

“They didn’t go on an adventure Hayley; they were causing trouble… This here is Agnis and this is Raishin. Where is Greg?”

Probably buried in books somewhere in the library.

The headmaster stroked his long beard. He looked old but he still seemed quite strong. He is the sword hero after all. “Hmm, they look quite normal for mythical beasts…”

You told them?

“I didn’t! Hayley blurted it out!”

“Hey how are we else going to explain how we got out of those impossible situations?” the chicks started to bicker again.

I’m more surprised that your gramps believed that.

“My dearest Chris doesn’t lie, if she says she has met a god I would believe her. You two seem interesting. Even ignoring the story Chris and Hayley told me, you have piqued my interest. I want to ask you to consider becoming students here but I realize that asking this of mythical beasts might be a… waste of resources.”

Exactly!

Yes! We don’t want to become students!

“I want to thank you for saving Chris and Hayley but I can’t very well ignore my own interests. I’m quite curious in your strength. How about a wager?”

Bring it on old fart! We will kick your ass!

The old man smiled. I got a bad feeling about this. “You really are as impulsive as they told me.”

Raishin you idiot how many times do we have to tell you to hear the terms first before agreeing! Now he can make up whatever rules he want and we will never know!

But that doesn’t matter if we beat him up!

And you know that because? He could make a rule that we become students if we manage to beat him up!

Then we don’t beat him up!

Yes, and what I’m trying to tell you is that now he can just set the rules to suit his agenda regardless of what happens!

Wait what? That’s cheating!

I facepalmed.

Who needs enemies with allies like you…

The old man smiled and sent out a Teleroad message.

“The preparations will be done in 30 minutes, Chris can you bring them to the hall where the practical exams get conducted?” This old fart seemed happy. It seems we are screwed, yet again.

“Sure! You guys certainly screwed up but I am a bit happy that we will be able to study together!” Hayley seemed ecstatic and started taping on a small tablet.

“Yeah! Thank you for screwing up, guys!”

Noooo!

The headmaster was talking to some of the professors that ‘caught’ us. They also found Greg and Greg was scolding Raishin but he didn’t seem super upset. He was hiding the fact that he was ecstatic that he could enroll here.

I sighed. I don’t want to study here. Nothing they can teach us here will be useful to me anyways. The only one who will benefit from this is Raishin. Maybe we should leave him here for a year to ‘git gud’ and then pick him up and continue looking for Hourai.

“So here are the courses you can follow, these are the ones I’m following.” Crissy pushed a folder in my hands. I’m not going to study here…

“Come on it will be fun!”

“Ugh, studying isn’t fun but this year certainly will be more interesting with you guys.” Hayley disagreed with Crissy. She did seem like the more outgoing type and not the studious type. Crissy seems like the person to diligently take notes and Hayley like the person to fall asleep during lectures. Not that I blame her, lectures are boring. There were very few Misha lectures that were interesting.

Why do you assume we will be put in the same year?

“Well, Greg and Raishin seem to be better at using magic than most of the same year, I don’t think I’ve seen you use magic a lot though… I hope you get into the same year as us…” Crissy said fully convinced that we will end up as students.

Ugh, humans and their lame rules.

“So, Sebastian and I will face off against you 3.”

Heh! 3v2 easy!

You are forgetting that Teppei Is the sword hero and I think Sebastian was his companion so he is probably on a similar tier.

Yeah, and the old guy has a katana, he is probably way faster than you 2. He might cut you down before your magic circles finish.

Will you be taking him then?

I think I have to, if this old man knows Iai, both of you are fucked, I think I can only save myself from that.

Also, we seem to have quite an audience so no blowing up the place Raishin!

Hey why don’t you say that to Agnis?

Because there is a high likelihood, he’s going to use his sword skills, if Teppei has a magic weapon, which he probably has, he will be too fast to deal with conventional magic, his leylines also seem to require him to need a bit of time to move so it’s very unlikely he is going to blow up this place.

Yeah, to be honest I’m excited to see how I fare against probably the best swordsman on the continent. I will get my ass beat but at least I will be able to learn from it.

Huh, aren’t we going for a win?

Accepting a match without knowing the terms makes winning lose its value.

A suggestion, stick to mainly using the relic magic weapons I gave you 2. The activations of their skills is faster than conventional magic. It might save you from stray slashes.

Oh, that is a very good idea, I haven’t fought with a hammer in a while.

My buddies got their weapons out. Gregory studied the notes I had attached to it. Raishin was just messing around with his spear. I got Shirayuki out and attached the sheathe to my hip. I wondered if I should take out my other unnamed sword but I decided against it. We got led to the hall where we would face a crushing defeat. We might win this fight but the headmaster was free to choose what happens because Raishin’s blunder. So, we will most likely end up as students. Gregory had tried to wrestle the terms and conditions of the match out of the old man but he just gave a mysterious smile.

I sighed. This is going to suck.