The Extra of The Lunerra

The existence of spirits has been officially introduced to the world. And even though it was known to be a dangerous territory for most races... the left side of the Neutral was given to them, approved by all of Lunerra, as a place to live.

Day by day, people accepted their presence. A few were even among the first to realize that they could make a contract with them before the official announcement.

The mana that was causing highly unstable changes in the planet’s atmosphere was stabilized by the spirits in the Neutral.

In just two weeks, Lunerra became... a quite different place.

But the people were quick to adapt to this change. They had always been. And, well... they had little to complain about, after all.

Because those who signed contracts with the spirits were quite happy with their lives. The weak began to enter the ranks of the strong, thanks to their newly acquired spirit magic mastery... And some of the strong became even more powerful than they already were.

Change was abundant...

And the ones in my life were quite a lot, too.

The Tenebra Group continued to grow. And a month after the spirits landed on the planet... Ulka and Alex were finally able to open their own research lab. And with that, they gathered employees into this building, and they started their work very quickly...

Cassandra and Maeve, now allies, kept the academy under my control as much as possible. Jack... continued to attend his classes without making a sound. He probably took his father’s warning quite seriously... because he didn’t even look at me anymore.

Basically, life was... good. A month and a half passed in an almost peaceful way. Without any problems, calm...

But everything had an end.

And one of these endings... was the written and practical exams where the ranking would be done again.

The written exams were the same as always. Alex was first, Lucia second... me third.

The main thing was the practical exam, anyway...

And the practical exam the academy had chosen for the second-year students was quite simple.

Arena combat!

How exciting, isn’t it?

...

No, it wasn’t fun in any way.

What fun was there to be had when everyone I faced during the practical exam withdrew from the fight before it even started?

Only the fights of the people at the top of the rankings were fun.

Although... Adrian and Lucia were literally beating the crap out of everyone in front of them, so after a while, their fights started to end before they even started too. So they also got boring after a certain point.

Julian had a few high-ranked people that he struggled with, but he got through it pretty easily.

Celine’s were... fun.

Focusing on her training must have paid off as she won her fights without much difficulty. In particular, her control over her electric magic mastery had improved considerably... she almost fried one of them with her electricity. But, well... he was asking for it... so it wasn’t a big deal.

Alysia was not an overpowered person from the beginning, although she tried her best. She won a few fights thanks to the arrows she created using mana, and lost a few because she was a bad match...

Sue was the one that really intrigued me.

When she had her first fight... I had high expectations for her. She was really trying to get stronger, after all.

And... her efforts paid off.

She won her first fight by beating the girl with her long staff.

In her second fight, she had a hard time because her opponent was a gigantic student. But then... she finished the job with one word.

"Freeze."

And the other student literally froze in place. Then he took one blow after another from Sue and lost the fight like that.

Sue... usually tried not to use her Absolute Voice ability much, only when she had to.

And yet, the stronger her opponents became, the more she began to rely on it. After all, her General Level wasn’t too high... only a few days ago she had reached D- grade.

Other matches that were fun to watch were those between my friends.

Julian and Celine matched up in a fight, for example. It was pretty competitive, Celine gave a performance that was definitely not expected of her...

But in the end, she was never able to break through Julian’s defenses, even though she was using electric magic against Julian’s ice magic. As a result... she lost.

In the fight between Adrian and Julian, everyone expected Julian to withdraw before the battle started. But that didn’t happen... and Julian resolutely expressed his will to fight by taking a stance with his sword.

And the result?

Well... even if Adrian didn’t go too hard on him, there was no way he could win against him. So he lost.

In the battle between Lucia and Celine, Celine lost again. But at the end of the fight, she didn’t look disappointed or upset. On the contrary, she had a smile on her face. As if... she had held up even better than she thought she would.

The fight between Lucia and Julian was won by Lucia, both because of the great advantage of using flame against ice and because she was statistically superior to him.

So... the practical exams ended without incident. In a way that I almost didn’t enjoy.

When the results came out, there were those who were quite surprised and those who didn’t react at all...

<<------------------------------

1-) Aiden Tenebra

2-) Adrian Caleo

3-) Lucia Quie

4-) Julian Virhen

...

7-) Celine Potenbea

...

21-) Alexander Callidas

...

38-) Olivia Sue Gemma

...

102-) Alice Liate

------------------------------>>

Six of the top ten places were ours. Which was... perfect. It was literally amazing. The most surprising thing was that Sue had a tremendous rise, I guess. But that was... partly because of the Absolute Voice. So it was debatable how ’powerful’ she actually was.

Being an Apostle was more than enough of a contribution, after all.

Still, it wasn’t enough to get her into the top ten. She still had a long way to go.

So I focused on one of the names in the ranking, the person at the center of an issue that I hadn’t paid attention to for a long time... but now that I was dealing with so many things, I wanted to get it out of the way.

*******

~tick

~tock

~tick

~tock

I paused, my eyes shifted to the clock on the wall of the room.

I watched the moving minute hand for a while. Sometimes... doing that would relax me.

But then a completely different sensation enveloped my body. Not peace or something like that... but an uncomfortably cold feeling.

The moment I felt myself getting cold, I took my eyes off the clock and popped one of the pills on my desk into my mouth. Within seconds, the chill disappeared and the mana in my body became still.

Then I paused again, this time looking down at the table, at the spot where I had taken the pill.

What I saw was... nothing.

I was out of pills.

I had to take new ones.

And that meant... I had to beg them or wait for them to send me more.

"Tch."

I leaned back in my chair, watching the ceiling, and all I could do was wait, frustrated.

Under normal circumstances, in August, they would have launched an operation to lure Adrian to Laute Manor. It was my job to provide information about him.

But he disappeared out of nowhere. He literally vanished into nothingness...

And when he came back, the kingdom protected him to such an extent that even the Laute family could do nothing.

Not that I was complaining, of course. It suited me that the mission was postponed indefinitely. Because life as ’Alice Liate’ wasn’t so bad. Life at the Academy was... quiet, calm, and beautiful. For the most of the time, at least.

So much so... it felt like something was wrong.

~beep!

I paused as my wristwatch started to ring, I looked at the number, and then... all I could do was stare at it for a while.

I sat up slightly, cleared my throat with a cough, and then answered the call.

"You have a new mission, Alysia."

It had been so long since I had heard that voice.

Not that I missed it one bit.

"Start communicating with Adrian Caleo again. In a month or so, Saligia will launch an attack on Wiathen as the second major terrorist movement. We plan to take advantage of the chaos to kidnap Adrian Caleo. In the meantime, you need to be with him, give us information and his location."

"Understood."

Normally, she would hang up the call right after that, taking care not to talk to me too much.

But this time, I didn’t let her.

"I’m... out of pills."

A silence fell over the call. I hadn’t heard the hang-up, so I kept waiting, and then...

"The new ones will be delivered tomorrow evening."

She hung up the call instantly, leaving me back in the silence of my room.

"Bitch..."

She can send it tonight, she can even make sure it gets here in just two hours.

She does it on purpose... she deliberately makes me wait until tomorrow night.

She wants me to suffer.

"Haaaah..."

I took a deep breath in and out, calmed myself down, and then fixed my eyes on the ceiling, thinking about the mission... or rather the target of it.

The reason I had stayed away from Adrian until now was because of orders. They told me not to get too close to him. So I kept my distance.

And now they’re back to square one.

They can’t make up their minds, huh...

First they wanted to kill him, then they put the mission on hold, then they wanted me to spy on him, then they wanted me to bring him to the mansion, then they put the mission on hold again, and now they are planning to kidnap him...

What a mess the Laute family has become... just because of one person.

Funny, almost.

But I have no choice but to do what they say... right?