Chapter IV.XXX (4.30) - Sprites

  The entire world felt wobbly. Kizu was profoundly grateful that Ione’s summon was the one steering him as he took flight from the raft. He took off just as the other contestants started smashing through Finn’s ice barrier and climbing aboard the raft.

  His throat burned from the troll piss drink. It did indeed carry the acidic taste of piss. But he was decently sure it wasn’t actually troll urine. Like maybe eighty percent sure. Though he did worry that maybe his brain wasn’t functioning at full capacity at the moment. So maybe those numbers were off.

  Ione’s summoned bird had its talons buried into his shoulders as it flew. Their next goal point was pretty obvious. A wooden boardwalk floated up in the sky above them. As far as Kizu could see, it was a straight shot there.

  The bird flapped its massive wings, slowly ascending toward the objective.

  “Nice and easy,” Kizu mumbled to himself.

  And, of course, Kizu spoke too soon. A gust of wind blasted into his side. His uniform tore under the bird’s talons and he slipped from its grip.

  Acting purely out of instinct, Kizu created a barrier under himself and he slammed into it with an oof. The world below him spun, though whether because of the alcohol or a newly formed concussion, Kizu didn’t know.

  “Ow.”

  He peeled himself up from the barrier and let the summoned bird grip him again. This time, as they flew, Kizu created a force barrier on either side of them to prevent the wind from buffeting them again. Not a perfect defence. It still left him exposed from the front, but he didn’t currently trust himself enough to get a barrier in front of the bird. If he didn’t move it in time, the bird would crash into it. And the last thing he wanted was to break the neck of Ione’s summon and leave himself stranded on a barrier a hundred meters over the ocean.

  “Is that one of them?”

  “I think so.”

  “He’s casting magic though!”

  “Don’t whine, we were told they knew spells.”

  “They’re supposed to be baby mages.”

  “Just do your job.”

  The wispy voices came from all around him. Kizu swung his head back and forth, trying to locate the speakers, but they were invisible to the naked eye.

  His spellsense, however, showed an entirely different picture. Magic swirled around him, swelling up against his barriers. He reinforced his left barrier right before a surge of magic slammed into it, threatening to puncture it.

  “Ha! Idiot! You have to go under!”

  “Or behind!”

  “Or in front!”

  Their laughter sounded like the tinkle of breaking glass.

  “What are you?” Kizu asked, hoping to distract the creatures and buy himself a bit of time. He still needed to get closer to the objective. And his brain felt a bit muddled from that last drink.

  “What are we?”

  “He dares?”

  “So rude!”

  “No respect these days.”

  “As if we received respect in past days.”

  “Not my point!”

  “Oh! I got him! Watch, watch!”

  Another massive blast of wind slammed into Kizu, this time from below. The bird soared upwards in a manic trajectory, completely lacking control, but this time the talons remained gripping his shoulders. Kizu winced as they pierced through his skin, but wasn’t about to complain.

  The bird squawked, then steadied itself in the air, sloppily flapping its massive wings.

  “Again! Again!”

  “Me this time!”

  With barely enough time for the bird to even right itself, wind once again slammed into them. This time, from above. Kizu quickly formed a barrier below him and landed on it in a crouch, the summon now in his arms. Then he boxed himself in with more spatial barriers. He felt the wind attempting to pierce his shields but he held firm.

  “No fun! He’s stuck himself inside an invisible box!”

  “It’s a little visible. See the vines?”

  “That doesn’t make it more fun!”

  “Look! Look! More of them come!”

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  With a whoop of the magical creatures dispersed. He listened to their chittering as they went in for an assault on the next wave of students flying up from the raft.

  “At least they’re easily distracted,” he muttered.

  He watched as they delivered wreckage to the different students. Once he was certain they were gone and bored of him, he released the roof of his makeshift shelter and he and the summon took flight once again.

  “What’s this?” Basil’s voice said. “While Kaga Kizu has secured his lead, his teammate is not following suit! Kajima Ione appears to be chasing the sprites!”

  He glanced backwards and held back a groan when he noticed one student among all the others not fighting against the invisible creatures. Indeed, Basil’s assessment was correct. Ione was chasing the winds, trying to get closer to the magical creatures.

  “Will this difference in priorities cost their team first place? It appears she is actively attempting to communicate with the sprites! Oh! That looked painful! Will she surrender or continue on to the objective? Nope! She’s at it again! Lucky for everyone else though, she’s distracting the monsters!”

  His brain muddled, Kizu could not for the life of him think of any way to pry Ione away from the sprites. He simply continued on.

  The second he touched down on the boardwalk the summoned bird began to disintegrate.

  “Welcome Kizu,” Faible said cheerily. “Your brother and I were chatting and we decided I should go first. Since I’ve got stubbier legs. You got the cup?”

  Kizu passed it to the gnome with some trepidation.

  “Faible, are you sure you can handle another cup of this stuff? It’s not too late, we could probably reorganize and make Sene go now and Ione could take her place in the final leg.”

  Faible waved away his protest and grabbed the cup. “I’ll be fine. Plus, between you and me, I doubt your brother will trust Ione with the last bit.”

  Kizu watched on with dread as the cup magically filled with a pink liquid. It swirled, a tiny whirlpool inside the glass.

  “Bottoms up.” Faible raised the glass to Kizu then swallowed it in five giant gulps.

  “You good?” Kizu asked.

  Faible frowned and cocked his head, staring at the bottom of the cup. Then he suddenly looked up. “Yeah. Actually. I don’t feel much of anything. Alright! I’m off! Give my best to Ione!”

  With those parting words, Faible began jogging down the boardwalk. He barely got fifty paces before the boardwalk flipped upside down and he disappeared from view.

  “Looks like Faible is the first one onto the boardwalk! Good luck to him on there! Let’s hope that specialty brew keeps him anchored!”

  A few seconds later the boardwalk flipped back and Faible was still there. Now fallen over, but still on the boardwalk.

  “A potion?” Kizu muttered to himself. “Maybe to alter the body’s relationship with gravity? Or magnetize him to a wooden surface?”

  He wished he’d gotten to taste the potion. Instead he’d been stuck with troll piss.

  It would take some time before Faible made it to the end of the boardwalk at his current pace. But it would be best for Kizu to get down to the final point sooner than later.

  “Your pal isn’t moving very quickly,” Finn remarked as Kizu started toward the portal.

  “He’s a gnome. They have short legs.”

  “Not that one. As far as your associates go, he’s actually decent. I meant the crazed monster girl. She wasted six minutes and twelve seconds pursuing those sprites.”

  “Wasted? Past tense?”

  “She just finished.”

  Kizu let out a sign of relief. All things considered, six minutes was pretty considerate of Ione. She must have gotten all the information she needed from the things.

  “Where’s she at now?”

  “Approaching the middle of the pack. Would be in the front if she wasn’t braindead.”

  “Finn. Stop with the insults. Now.”

  “Like she—”

  “One more jibe and I will sabotage this,” Kizu warned darkly. “I want to win, but I care about Ione a lot more than I do about this contest.”

  Finn opened his mouth to retort. After a few seconds he closed it with a grimace and muttered, “At least her bird is fast.”

  Kizu decided to leave it at that and move on to the final area. If he stuck around here he might toss his brother off the floating boardwalk down to the sea below.

  “I’ll see you at the finish line. You’ll be fine here?”

  “Yes. I know what I’m doing.”

  Kizu left his surly brother and stepped through the portal to the final area.

  Basil had called this area the ‘palm tree’ section. There was no such tree in sight, though that was hardly surprising. He stood on the beach of a small island off the coast of Shinzou Island. The bulk of the island was obscured by a heavy magical fog. Kizu assumed they’d be required to climb palm trees beyond that mist. To the side, the boardwalk descended from above in a steep incline, nearly perpendicular with the ground. It led down from the sky to the beach. Kizu could see students in the distance beginning to navigate their way down.

  “Good, you’re here,” Sene said, approaching him. She dusted off her uniform and examined him head to toe.

  “Faible has a head start on the boardwalk but I’m not confident he’ll keep it,” Kizu informed her. “And Ione isn’t anywhere near the front yet.”

  “I’m aware. We should not have placed her on a leg that involved magical creatures. With her skill, she should have long since surpassed the others.”

  “You say that as if we had any idea what sort of challenges Basil would throw at us.”

  Sene frowned and said nothing.

  “Do you want to go first or should I?” Kizu asked.

  “I will pick up the slack.”

  Kizu hesitated. Sene was confident in herself and not without good reason but…. “Sene, you realize where I was raised, right?”

  “Hon.”

  “The Hon Basin. I grew up in the jungle. I grew up climbing trees. Like, a lot of trees.”

  Not to mention, his new grafted leg was perfectly suited for climbing, but he decided to leave that out of the conversation. It wasn’t public knowledge yet. Most people seemed to have simply forgotten about his crippled leg, or hadn’t yet noticed him. Ione, Basil, and Aoi were the only three students who knew about it so far.

  “I can fly,” Sene said dismissively.

  “You think it will be that easy? We already did one flight obstacle area. You think Basil is going to have us do the same thing twice? Plus, I can make barriers to carry me up.”

  “Fine. I’ll go first. Why did you ask me if you were going to force your own opinion?”

  “I just want you to know all the information before making a decision,” Kizu said. “If you honestly think you’re still in the best spot to pick up slack, then go for it. Make the decision fast. I see someone coming.”

  Sene turned her attention over to the boardwalk, her scowl not disappearing from her face. “I’ll go first,” she repeated. “But if you let us down, you’d better be ready for pain.”

  Fifteen Blood Curse Academia chapters (7 weeks) ahead of Royal Road on Patreon!