“Keep your eyes open, Kirito-kun!”
“They are open.” A closed eyed Kirito insisted firmly. “I can see just fine.” He was sitting up, his posture was correct and his head was forward, he was by all definitions [<awake]> 'except' for the part about having his eyes open.
“Kirito-kun…”
Cracking an eye, he made out Asuna's clearly displeased frown, the Maeve seated in the chair next to him, head leaned again her hand, elbow propped up on the table. It wasn't like she wasn't tired too.
When they had first arrived at the Champ de'Mars facility, Kirito hadn't been at all sure what to expect from military training. He had a vague idea, based on movies, documentaries, and news stories he'd watched and read in Japan, and to an extent, from his own miserable time practicing Kendo under the tutelage of his grandfather.
After their first couple of days, the Spriggan swordsman had decided that his expectations hadn't been entirely wrong. Waking up early, long before the sun was set to rise, being yelled at by instructors in a hoarse voice, and being assigned to what felt like countless drills and exercises, some which made sense, and some which he had to wonder what was the point.
He had never expected, however, just how much time he would end up spending in the classroom. It made sense, he supposed, and he should have realized sooner just how much work had to be done to fit Faeries into the army of Tristain, and how much of that work would involve studying, classes, and meetings.
Mouth opening wide, Kirito yawned. Getting up early for drills, and then sitting on his butt for the rest of the morning, it wasn't very good for keeping awake.
“The instructors aren't even here yet.” Kirito said simply. “I'm saving my emergency energy reserves for when they get here.”
Reluctantly opening his eyes enough to gain more than a tiny fraction of his field of vision, Kirito stifled another yawn as he surveyed the room that took up the entirety of one of the camp's wood framed buildings. The classroom was bigger than what he would have been used to in Japanese schools, wider, and longer, with a higher, lofted ceiling overhead.
The floor rose in steps from the front of the room so that the rear tables had a view over those in front, more like a university classroom, and instead of individual desks, there were simply made benches that were shared by four people, set three across and four deep. At the front of the room, a simple table and podium had been placed in front of a blackboard that dominated the entire front wall.
It was a sensible layout, Kirito thought, he'd been told that the room was used to teach officer cadets and Dragon Knight recruits, but that just made it feel somehow too normal, crazy as that sounded, like it didn't belong in this world at all. Maybe if Halkegenia wasn't full of so much mundane fantasy, but he'd seen mage officer receiving a package delivered by Pelican that morning at breakfast, the Pelican hadn't stopped pestering and left until it had gotten paid.
He'd had to ask Asuna and Klein to confirm that he wasn't hallucinating, both had declined to comment.
'They use Pelicans to deliver mail order packages…' Kirito's sleep deprived brain had turned this fact over and over again. 'I don't know if that's cool or justweird.'
“Well, just remember you have to keep some of that emergency energy for after class.” Asuna warned with all the authority and poise of her position. “We have a meeting with Lord Mortimer and General Eugene after this. They'll want reports on the new training exercises.”
“Right, right” Kirito waved a hand vaguely as he closed his eyes again. “Lots of paperwork.” Lord Mortimer had taken his joke about a twenty page report as a challenge. But it had to be done.
Crossing his arms and taking the opportunity to sit back in his chair, Kirito's close eyed frown deepened. “I don't think we're going to have much good to say about the flag capture exercise. We learned a lot about Dragon maneuvers because of it, but it really isn't a very good training simulation.”
“That's true.” Asuna's voice took on a discourage note. “Maybe we can make it work once magic training has made some progress, but it's not much use right now. Drat, and it looked so good on paper.”
“But to make it safe, we had to make it into too much of a game.” Kirito observed.
Asuna's answer only came after several heartbeats of silence. “That's right…” She agreed softly. Kirito cracking his eye again to regard his wife with concern. “We don't have much time to figure things out,” Asuna said with restored resolved, “We can't afford to take anything for granted.”
The Faeries of ALfheim were doing something that just months ago not a single one of them would have believed was possible, they were going to war. Joining with Tristain to defend against Albion's aggression and maybe even launching a counterattack to retake the floating continent.
It was something that almost everyone had been talking about for months now, discussion about the war effort was starting to take up big parts of the Arrun Daily in almost every issue, and the message boards were buzzing with opinions.
One thing that was very clear to Kirito was that they didn't really have a choice one way or another. As soon as they had been reborn in this world, the Fae had been destined to oppose Reconquista's ambitions. That had been true even if they hadn't fought to rescue Asuna and the other SAO survivors and helped to save Prince Wales.
But it was turning out to be harder than he had expected, and from much earlier. The problem was that no one was quite sure how Faeries should fit into an army. Fighting a war was very different from organizing raids against other factions in ALO, or even the life and death boss battles of SAO.
Even Lord Mortimer and General Gramont, two of the best military minds in Tristain, had many, many questions.
What were Faeries capable of? How could they be used best? Were they good scouts, or did their limited flight time and glowing wings make them too obvious? Were Cait Syth dragoons better for fighting battleships or attacking ground formations? How strong and fast was an 'average' Faerie? What was their endurance? And how did Faerie magic work and interact with Halkegenian magic?
Those were just some of the questions that they were working hard to answer with exercises like the one this morning and the day before. What worked would be kept and improved, and what didn't work, they'd learn from and throw out.
It wasn't simple, but that was the way it had to be.
The sound of the classroom door opening again and everyone falling silent alerted Kirito, a pair of footfalls, it should be just about that time, the Spriggan leaned forward, his chair coming to rest on all four legs as he opened his eyes.
The room was filled to capacity with both Faerie and human attendants. The Tristanians too, needed to learn more about Faerie magic so that they knew what their allies were capable of, just like the Faeries needed to know as much as possible about the practical aspects of Elemental human magic.
People had taken seats as they arrived, pockets of Faeries and humans sitting wherever there had been room. Kirito seated beside Asuna, Lieutenant Gramont sitting cross armed beside his wingmate Sir Thetcher, and Klein further forward along with Schmitt and Caramella.
The arriving instructors were, in keeping with their audience, a Faerie and a human, and judging by the appreciative murmurs coming from the front rows, and the way that Klein's head had just perked up, one of them was probably female. Kirito was only half right, they were both women.
“Oh shit… “The Spriggan's ears perked at the curse spoken under breath by a Mage Captain seated a table over. “. . . It's her!”
'Her' being a severe looking strawberry blonde of average height and build, wearing a no nonsense blouse and skirt, and adorned with half-moon spectacles of the type that generally got adjusted a lot when their wearer was displeased.
A few of the other mages made very softly whispered comments that Kirito couldn't quite make out, but which he suspected were in agreement with the first before suddenly shutting up as the woman swept them all with a gaze that could have incinerated the deep jungles around Muisca with no trouble at all.
She didn't say a word until she was done taking the class in, simply nodding and making straight for the podium where she set down her clipboard and carefully extracted a collapsible wand from her breast pocket.
“Good morning Ladies… Gentlemen.” She seemed to glare the hardest at the men who had made noises earlier. Three mages in particularly, including the Captain who had spoken first, seemed to wilt away.
Leaning back at the podium, the disapproving look was wiped away as if by magic to be replaced by a pleasant enough smile. “Now then, is everyone here? Nobody is tardy right? Good! As I'm sure you're all well aware, today's lecture is an instructional introduction and summary to the practicals of applied magic theory of the Sacred Pentagonal Elemental Form magic and Magic Disciplines of the Faerie Races of ALfheim. I will be serving as one of your instructors, I am Eleanor Albertine Le Blanc de La Blois de La Valliere of the Tristain Royal Academia.”
Valliere? Kirito caught Asuna's look from the corner of his eye. The Valliere family was powerful, but not exactly numerous… And the Duke did have three daughters. Was that a coincidence?
The unspoken question was swallowed up as the second instructor stepped forward.
The impression of her was like someone had set a birch tree on fire, at the peak of fall. There was no doubting that she was a Salamander. Pale, and slight, to the point that her thick, and very messy, rust red hair made her look almost top heavy as it fanned past her shoulders and down to her waist. High forehead sprouted a pair of bushy eyebrows that would have been comical if they weren't scrunched up in a cute frown.
She was dressed in a blood red skirt and short jacket, an almost academic uniform, the sort of gear that most salamander mages had worn under their robes in ALO.
She didn't appear even close to as intimidating as the human woman beside her, in fact, she was almost tiny. Coughing loudly into her hand, the Salamander girl introduced herself. “Good morning to you all, for those of you who don't know me, my name is Enya, I am one of representatives of the Faerie Court to the Tristain Academia and have been asked to furnish you all with synopsis of our findings in the practical applications of Faerie magic.” Bowing politely, she finished. “Please try to keep up, I have no patients for stupid people. Thank you.”
Stupid people? Kirito tilted his head towards Klein who was in the middle of giving the small salamander girl an enthusiastic thumbs up that went thankfully unnoticed by the other attendants. Wait, hadn't Klein mentioned a girl named Enya before? A mage in his squad during the Dunkirk evacuation and…
Kirito glanced from Klein and back to the female Salamander who seemed to be very carefully avoiding minding any attention to him.
A few chuckles rose up from the Faeries in the room after Enya finished her introduction, mostly from the Salamander and Undine Mages who had arrived after Kirito and Asuna and stuck cliquishly to themselves, they weren't from any of the Knight training Cadres, he could tell that much at least, so probably defense force volunteers or mob patrol trainees.
“Oy, Enya-chan, so the Crimson Witch is a teacher now? When did this happen?”
“Is there a problem with that?” Enya faced the seated Salamander, brow curving archly. Suddenly, she looked exactly as dangerous as the Valliere woman.
“It just doesn't seem like you to be a teacher, Enya-sensei.” The Salamander mage chuckled. “It doesn't suit your personality at all.”
“You can go burn in hell, Jiitakasu.” Enya replied conversationally, raising her left hand with her index and middle fingers pointed upwards in a gesture that primed a prepared spell, a dangerous little ember of light dancing like a flame atop her fingertips. “In fact, I can send you there if you like.”
The Salamander and his small group of fellow mages weren't laughing anymore.
“While you chuckleheads were busy exterminating previously unknown and uncatalogued mob species, and risking mass arson incidents on a daily basis, some of us were getting more productive work done. Things like quantifying the magic system that we barely know anything about but use every single day.” Enya waved the flame at her fingertips away and crossed her arms. “Namely, cataloging the attributes of our magic and how it compares and contrasts with the native magic of Halkegenia. Believe me, everyone in the research division has been working hard to summarize our findings, Lord Mortimer and the Faerie court would not have asked me if I wasn't up to the task. Now then, any more questions before we begin?”
There were none. “Good.”
Eleanor returned to speaking next, reading over her notes. “Now then, the first order of business is a brief overview, discussing Pentagonal Element Theory will be a review of your school days for half of you buy please bear with it, for now, we'll start with Miss Enya's findings about Faerie magic for those who haven't been keeping abreast.”
Nodding politely, Enya accepted a place behind the podium. “Right, I'm sure that just about every Faerie here has a little experience using magic by now. Raise your hand if you don't.”
There were no raised hands. Like Enya had said, even those Faeries with little interest in fighting had taken time to learn a little basic magic by now, particularly the [<Utility Class]> of spells, originally a branch of noncombat puzzle and entertainment magic, which had become more broadly appreciated in the absence of laborsaving technology.
Even Asuna and Caramella, who hadn't had much need to cast magic in self-defense, had mastered the basic spells by now, learning to channel their magic to cast lights, create small fires and reflective barriers, energize certain magic items, and perform simple elemental manipulation. The beginner spells were arranged so that almost anyone could master them immediately.
And so, Enya looked satisfied that she could proceed. “Alright then, I'm going to assume then that all of the Faeries here can name the basic disciplines of ALfheim magic.”
Somehow, Kirito wasn't surprised that Klein raised his hand the second the question was asked. A few more rose slowly, and inevitably, Enya went about picking an Undine to supply the answer.
The slim, silver haired man stood up from his seat, holding a fist resolutely over his chest. “There are ten basic classes of magic within the ALfheim spell system, nine are specialties of the different ALfheim races and the tenth is not affiliated with any faction. Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, Darkness, Shadow, Enchantment, Music, Nature, and Holy.”
As the Undine spoke, Enya occupied herself with writing out the list of magic types on the board, first in earth script and then in the Halkegenian standard alphabet for the benefit of the human mages.
The result was ten neat rows of laser-leveled handwriting that became only slightly sloppier when copying the unfamiliar Tristanian letters.
A murmur rose up from the Tristanian mages as Enya finished writing on the board. The noises weren't hostile, but they didn't sound pleased either. It was because of what had just been said, Kirito mused, Halkegenian mages took their magic system almost as a dogma, one that just happened to be able to get tangible results. Faerie magic, like the magic used by Firstborns and Spirits, must have been seen as verging on the sacrilegious.
“Pardon me.” Sir Thetcher raised a hand and waited to speak.
“Yes?”
“If I may be so bold, you referred to the magics of ALfheim by discipline just now, not element? Was this deliberate, or was it an error with your Gift of Tongues?”
Eyes returned to Enya, the small salamander's expression holding a satisfied glint. “I'm happy that someone was paying attention. ALO's lore refers to the different magic types as elements, and it isn't a bad way to describe them, but among the Academia and independent researchers, we've started to think of them as disciplines because of the variety of overlaps from element to element. For instance,” Enya sketched out a stick figure with stylized Sylph wings and scribbled in a lightning bolt striking, and frying, a Dragon Knight. “Wind magic is the basis of the Faerie spell Fenrir Storm, which delivers an ultra-high voltage electrical attack by means of a plasma medium, in other words, a lightning strike.”
Enya remained silent as what she had said was allowed to sink in. After being on the receiving end of a Halkegenia-style lightning attack, Kirito was pretty sure he knew what the mages were all thinking. Among Halkegenian magic, manipulating electricity was an exceedingly rare ability, but for Faeries it was just a standard, albeit high level, spell.
Satisfied that she had their undivided attention, the Salamander went on, sketching a stick figure with Salamander wings producing a giant of flames to burn a stick skeleton to ashes.
“But unlike Halkegenia's elements our Fire magic can achieve a similar effect with the close range single target spell [<Plasmoid Spear]>. From experiments we can safely say that both spells achieve their effects by different physical phenomena but have similar results in creating and directing a high energy and extremely devastating plasma.”
Spinning back to face the classroom she concluded. “This isn't the only overlap either. All of the racial aligned magic can be used to cast barriers and single target attack spells effectively, and more esoteric spells like Searching Tracer, Scanner, and Peeper are available across all disciplines. Most notably, both Darkness and Holy magics possess clairvoyance related spells and Holy magic shares healing abilities with Water Magic.”
“I've been informed that Sacred Elemental magic is usually considered the imposition of the users will on the world by means of harnessing the elements which they then direct on their behalf. So it would therefore be deceptive to use the term element to describe what each of the Faerie magics governs and it is better for now to think of them as different disciplines, each comprising a theme. Does that explain the question?”
Sir Thetcher blinked owlishly as he absorbed the information like a punch to the chest, visibly rocking back in his seat. “Y-yes, I do believe that is good enough. Quite a bit more detailed than I was expecting.”
“Of course.” Enya admitted calmly. “This is simply conjecture based on studying patterns in the spell language and observing the phenomena that result. Now then, ten points for being able to name the ten basic disciplines, that's like remembering to breath while walking… ”
“As you all no doubt also know, each of these magics with the exception of Holy Magic is associated with one of the Faerie Races who possess its elemental affinity. Wind Magic is the Domain of Sylphs, Fire Magic belongs to us Salamanders, Earth Magic is Gnomes, and Water Magic is Undines. Those are all pretty self-explanatory and follow the usual fantasy tropes.”
“Now.” The Salamander rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “This is where things get interesting. The Cait Syth have a truncated spell list comprising Nature Magic which is pretty environmentally dependent and includes spells that are very effective at manipulating mobs and wild beasts. This complements their natural aptitudes as beast tamers almost perfectly.”
The handful of cat ears in the room perked in delight.
“Puca have their Music Magic, which other than sounding absolutely awesome, is the best at casting wide area buffs and debuffs along with a wide range of other status effects. Even better, Pucas can Harmonize their music to amplify their magic even further in groups, and when led by a Maestro, every musician following her lead benefits from the Maestro's casting efficiency.”
Kirito blinked as he sat back in his chair, he'd known that Pucas got stronger when casting as part of a band, which was why they were always kept together rather than being divided up for Mob patrols, but the comment about a Maestro had been news to him. It explain why Noel, the Puca watch Captain, always had a mage-like wand on her person.
“Leprechauns are a bit more unusual still, their specialty is smithing and crafting and their magic affinities have almost everything to do with Enchantments.”
“Powerful elemental enhancements.” Lieutenant Gramont muttered seriously.
“Thank you so much for doing my job for me.” Enya's eyelids drooped dangerously. “But that's not incorrect. Enchantments can provide temporary improvements to materials like weapons and armor, or as we've discovered in our experiments, other inanimate materials such as the walls of castles and hulls of warships. Leprechauns can also temporarily imbue weapons with elemental properties and create durable magic enhancements by combining spell casting with their crafting.”
Which would probably make Liz happy, Kirito thought, she'd always joked about making an authentic 'magic' sword in SAO, now she'd really have the opportunity.
“That leaves Spriggans and Imps and their affinities of Shadow and Darkness Magic respectively.”
Kirito was all ears for this part. Too many close calls had finally convinced him to buckle down and take Suguha's often repeated advice to become familiar with magic. He'd been reluctant at first after his experiment with Mimic, which had been stupid on his part, and then letting himself get distracted as things unfolded hadn't helped much either.
It would have been excusable in ALO where the point was to have fun and death had no consequence but a reduction in stats, he probably would have focused entirely on his swordsmanship and trying to replicate his Aincrad play style if that were still the case, but that sort of thinking would just get him, and other people, killed.
Kirito watched Asuna, focusing intently on every word. Her old drive had really come out since they'd arrived for training and he knew she had every intention of fighting with all of her strength. He'd resolved to use every tool at his disposal from now on.
“And don't ask why two different magic types have similar names, I didn't come up with them.” Enya said. “Shadow magic is the specialty of Spriggans and governs illusion spells as well as a wide range of constructs. Smoke screens, shadow clones, optical illusions, altering physical forms, and transforming into beasts are all governed by this type of magic. In particular, anyone whose studied up on the transmogrification type spells probably knows by now that [<Bestial Form]> has become even nastier in this real world, so it's apparently not a complete waste of time to learn it if you've got decent stats, just mind winding up in the buff.”
The fire mage who Enya had called Jiitakasu was looking decidedly paler now, and again, Kirito felt familiarity nag at him. He was sure they'd met before.
“Which brings us to the Imp specialty, Darkness Magic, or as Darkness mages like to call it, bottled chaos. I'm sure anyone who had picked a fight with the Imps or a renegade Gank squad knows that Darkness Magic covers a wide range of destructive and status effect spells, and esoteric magic like the rapid linear movement spell [<Blink]>. This is a very destructive magic, and some are also very difficult to use safely when they aren't outright suicide spells.”
A lot of the Halkegenians were growing uncomfortable again. Darkness magic really hadn't gotten a very good reputation in Halkegenia and it was problem that only partly due to its sinister name. The fact that it was a magic style preferred for its destructive element and that it was most often wielded by Imps, who bore an uncanny resemblance to native Vampires, definitely didn't help either.
“Don't give me that look!” Enya declared smartly. “Darkness Magic has a lot more going for it. For one thing, [<Clairvoyance]> type spells like [<Moonlight Mirror]> and [<Astral Projection]> are also part of Darkness Magic and some of the strongest spells in ALfheim are in its domain.”
“That leaves the unaligned discipline, Holy Magic, which comprises non-elemental spells and certain types of healing and purification magic. Mostly though, it’s a magic that enhances or adds properties to other types of magic. The highest level of Darkness Magic spells are actually reached by combining with this element, and resurrection magic used to be a combination of Water and Holy type Magic as well. Those spells may not be able to bring back the dearly departed anymore, but they can still draw you back from death's door so don't underestimate them!”
“Now that we have the basic disciplines of magic all account for.” The Salamander girl pointed a finger back to the Undine who had answered her first question. “You said ten basic classes.” Enya answered with another question. “So what are the non-basic classes?”
The Undine paused and then grimaced. “Pardon?”
“There are the ten basic disciplines, and there are also advanced disciplines that come from combining more than one, what are they?”
The man didn't answer, beginning to fidget.
“Never mind.” Enya sighed. “Next person.”
There were considerably fewer raised hands this time around, those that remained were inevitably among the mage build players. “Jun.” Enya pointed to one of the companions of the Salamander who had spoken earlier, a slight and effeminate boy that Kirito thought looked naggingly familiar.
“It's a trick question.” Jun supplied as soon as he was called and then corrected by adding, “Well, not a trick question exactly, all of the different magic disciplines can be combined with spells from at least one other discipline, so there are at least one hundred sub classes of spells, but…”
“There aren't nearly that many sub classes in the official spell lists.” Enya agreed. “There are also boss-only spells that can combine magic properties of three or more magic disciplines which probably means that even more complex spells are possible and may have even been hidden in ALO as special rewards for people who completed hidden quests or cracked the language code. But I digress,” The fiery little Salamander turned sharply on her heel to pace beside the board, “The important things to take from this is that there are two classes of spell, mono and composite types and how these further complicate magic progression. In addition there are advanced specialties of the mono type spells, like lightning magic, which can also be considered separately.”
“In ALO it was well known that when a spell caster's magic level increased, the mana consumption for lower level spells in their discipline diminished in turn. This seems to be true now as well, experienced magic users can cast many more times before exhaustion begins to set in and they can no longer form their magic. We have had reported cases of people managing to overcome this limit and continue casting under extreme circumstances but the side-effects have ranged from nausea and vomiting all the way up to unconsciousness and severe hemorrhaging from the nose, ears, and eyes. Please do not try to replicate their stupidity! I really don't want see someone adding death to that list.”
“With that said, the fastest way to gain useful proficiency in magic is to pick a discipline and start practicing.” Reaching for a parcel she had left on the front table, the Salamander held up a small, simply bound booklet that Kirito had grown to know very well recently having received the first edition for free from the author. “You should all have had one of these issued when you arrived.” Enya pointed to the title.
'Beginner's Magic Vol. 1: Don't Worry It's Argo's Grimoire!'
“I happen to have helped the author put this together, its full of good stuff, I especially like the mnemonics that she came up with for memorizing the spells and the visualization techniques that she's described to help perform them properly. It's a lot like the suggested spell list that's been posted in towns, you should all have no difficulty using them safely. There are ten basic spells from each of the ten magic types, and ten shared spells that you all should be sure to know.”
Enya looked up, sweeping the room with a serious gaze. “I'm not going to tell anyone which magic type to choose as their focus during training, just that you're an idiot if you don't develop your affinity before branching too far into the other magic types. Practice for the next four weeks will be gaining perfect mastery of the ten general spells and ten spells of your chosen discipline. Make sense? Any questions?”
Klein was one of the first hands up again, this time Enya picked him. “Yes?”
“Oy, I just wanted to ask, Enya-ch… Sensei. You said you were studying patterns in the Spell Language and that some spells might be hidden as rewards for people who figured it out. Does that mean people could, like, make up their own spells?”
A ripple of curious murmurs rose up all over the room. It had definitely been talked about before. Speculating about magic, either idle theorizing, or outright experimentation in the case of the more reckless, was practically a pastime for some Faeries. Kirito hadn't heard of anyone making a break through, but if Enya was trusted by the Faerie Court she was probably the closest thing they had to an expert on the subject.
“That's difficult to answer at this time.” Enya replied shortly. “Given the shear level of realization of the rest of ALfheim, it's definitely a possibility. My colleagues and I have been researching the magic language extensively to try and dissect these patterns. We'll get back to you if you we make any headway.”
There were other questions, some of which Enya answered politely, others which she put down with complete contempt before eventually handing the rest of the class over to Miss Eleanor.
Between her cheerful tone of voice and the way that she cracked her wand dangerously against the table whenever she thought that the class' patience was wondering, nobody took their eyes off of the human mage as she provided a summary of human elemental magic, describing the Five Elements Theory and the way that Elemental Magic stacked to form more sophisticated spells through the geometric system, from dot, to line, to triangle, and ultimately square.
The mages in the room simply gave small nods as they listened, like they knew it all by heart, which they probably did. Magic was to them what math and computer logic classes had been for Kazuto in Japan, before SAO, before ALO and all of this.
There was a lot take in and most of the rest of the class was given over to Enya and Eleanor taking turns summarizing observations about how Halkegenian and Faerie magics interacted with one another, a subject that felt like it could have been, and probably would be several class sessions in length.
And Kirito had thought he and Asuna had been helping to figure things out, it seemed like the research groups had been collecting an amazing amount of information themselves. It must have been making Argo super happy.
“So in conclusion, a Halkegenian Mage is likely to have an advantage in terms of speed and diverting elemental type spells, using your spells creatively and keeping mobile is essential!” Enya finished. “Everyone please make sure to select an element for practice and have the mnemonics memorized by next week!”
“That's all the time we have.” Miss Eleanor announced. “Class is dismissed!”
'Did she have to say it like that?' Kirito wondered. Some of the Faeries in the room might have been younger than they looked, but all of the Dragon Knights and mage officers should have been adults. Instead, they were hurrying for the door like school kids, speaking among themselves and some of their new Faerie allies as they departed in for their next engagements or in search of lunch. ​
“Mmmm-man!” Caramella groaned as she stretched worked her shoulder, accompanied by Klein. “Thought that was never going to end. You know, if I'd known we'd be taking lessons, I would have packed my old school uniform. Come to think of it,” Caramella gave an experimental wriggle, “It'd probably still fit.”
“Guess this means I'll be getting a lot of practice with fire magic.” Klein grunted. “Like I haven't singed my poor eyebrows enough.”
“I thought Salamanders were fire proof.” Caramella chided, ribbing Klein gently in the shoulder.
“Fire resistant!” Klein corrected. “There's a difference. By the way,” Klein grew more serious, “I know Kirito is sticking to his shadow magic, but what about you and Caramella, Asuna?”
Asuna smiled sincerely. “I've been thinking about it a little, the problem is that I don't really know what I'd be good at, I sent a letter to Kimura-kun at TRIST to see if he remembered anything when he peaked at my stats in ALO, but he said he was rushed when he read them and couldn't remember if I had any racial bonuses. I was going to experiment to see if anything clicks, but if I not, I think I'll probably focus on wind magic since it's a more highspeed style.”
“Us Nymphs don't have any special affinities either.” Caramella said, using the catch all phrase for the generic beta test race that each of the SAO survivors save for Asuna had been reborn as. “But we also don't have anything we suck at, so I'm kind of free to choose whatever. I thought I'd try Shadow magic, seems pretty cool, plus that Bestial Form spell is pretty badass.”
Kirito grinned sheepishly. “That's only really because of how broken my stats were.” He defended. When he'd talked with Morgiana about it she'd mentioned that the boss mob he transformed into was even tougher and stronger than her own [<Black Hawk]> transformation. It really was a totally unfair advantage, but without it, he'd have probably died twice by now. And if that was how it was, he'd keep his feelings about fairness to himself.
“Hey, the army wasn't that far behind the front lines. I should at least be able to pull off a kickass Dire Wolf or Reap Claw!” Caramella grinned with delight. It seemed she'd really gotten into the mood to learn magic recently.
“Oy, knowing you, you'd probably turn into a giant badger. Violent and ill tempered.” Klein pointed out.
“And awesome! I mean, have you ever seen a badger? They're like a miniature bear! A giant miniature bear with magic!” Asuna smiled nervously as Caramella began to cackle.
Kirito traded looks with Klein. They might have just created a monster.
“Well then, we have to on our way.” The Spriggan youth patted his oldest remaining friend on the shoulder. “Asuna and I have to meet with Lord Mortimer and… gah!” Kirito nearly walked out from under himself as the collar of his shirt was locked perfectly in place, pinning the rest of him along with it.
“Not so fast.”
“Kirito-kun!” Asuna spun back around at his shout, meeting the perfectly serene and calm smile of the strawberry blonde Eleanor de La Valliere at the same time that she let go of Kirito.
“So you are Sir Kazuto. Good, then I didn't waste favors getting this assignment.” Even before her eyes opened, revealing a gaze far more icy than her smile, Kirito was also on alert.
“Excuse me?” Kirito coughed politely. “Uhm, Valliere-Sensei… Do you need something?
The woman in front of him planted hands formidably on her hips. “As a matter of fact. I need some answers. Mother and Father haven't been very forthcoming.” And then she did something interesting, her smile vanished completely without ever fading. “I'd like to know what happened to my little sister.”