The next morning :
Louise slowly awakens from her sleep, the side of her face feeling decidedly worse than the rest of it. She rubs her cheek with a scowl, but it quickly fades as she remembers the prior events yesterday...
Was her familiar able to escape? She remembered Colbert's voice interrupting their escape attempt and pales slightly... While he might not look it, Professor Colbert was one of the most powerful Mages in the academy.
The academy had the teachers occasionally put on mock duels to show their prowess, and make the students unable to question their teachings. This revealed how powerful Professor Colbert was, and how adept he was with manipulating fire... Even the Academy's water mage was unable to touch him, despite her having a great elemental advantage.
She shakes her head and quickly gets up, dressing herself and applying some makeup to cover up her bruised cheek. Despite only having her familiar for a couple days, most of which was spent trying to heal him, his absence left an uncomfortable feeling within her... Perhaps she'd need to hire a servant?... Though, she doubted her time in the academy would last much longer.
Louise pats herself down and nods at herself in the mirror, she needed to head to breakfast, but first, she needed to find out what happened to her familiar.
*Knock-Knock*
...
"Enter!" she calls out, wondering who'd be knocking on her door this early... She imagined her familiar walking in for a moment, but quickly squashes such a fantasy.
The door opens, revealing Professor Colbert who had a hard look on his face, "Miss Valliere, the Headmaster needs to speak with you."
...
Louise releases a sigh, knowing that this was probably for her expulsion... Though... "What for? Did my-*Ahem!*, that rogue familiar manage to escape?" she asks after correcting herself.
Colbert rubs the bridge of his nose and adjusts his glasses after a moment, "Somewhat..." he says, raising a brow at the grin that tries to form on his student's face.
Louise pushes down the feelings of relief and demurely nods, "Very well, lead on."
With that, the two leave for the Headmasters office at the very top of the academy...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professor Colbert leads Louise through the heavy wooden double doors and walks over to stand next to Osmond's desk as the Headmaster looks at Louise analytically.
Louise' back straightens unconsciously as she spots the rest of the faculty also here, though, Mrs Chevreuse looked far more tired than she usually did... They almost looked like a tribunal of judges, waiting for her to make a wrong move...
She walks inside and stands with her hands lowered and clasped together, a stance of submission Louise mentally notes, clearly remembering this from her childhood etiquette lessons. "You required me, Headmaster?"
The elderly mage nods, afterwards resting his chin on his hands, "Indeed... I understand that yesterday's events must've been hard on you, Miss Valliere, but it seems we require your aid... Your familiar had been captured yesterday by Professor Colbert and imprisoned at the top of the Void tower... However, during the night, he seems to have escaped..." he states. He and the rest of the faculty take notice of the relieved look that crosses Louise's face however, raising many flags in their minds.
Osmond ignores it for now however, continuing his explanation, "While Mrs Chevreuse was guarding the cell, your familiar seems to have... Teleported away?" he says, more questioning than anything.
Mrs Chevreuse releases a cough in response, a blush illuminating her cheeks as she nods, "Y-yes... Lost magic, teleported away right in front of me..."
...
Obviously, the rest of the faculty didn't believe her... Partly because the lost magic of Brimir shouldn't be usable by 'some familiar', but also partly because they could see the faint bruising on her face that was barely covered by makeup... If the familiar did teleport away, there'd be no way of explaining her injuries...
Again though, Osmond ignores it, allowing the woman to retain some of her pride. Even if it was seemingly misplaced. "So, Miss Valliere, if you have any information pertaining to your familiar's abilities, destination, or even a motive to why he murdered Guiche de Gramont?"
...
Louise lowers her head in thought, unsure how to go about answering the Headmaster's questions... She could tell the truth, telling them that her familiar didn't actually intend to kill anyone. But that might call into question whether or not she was actually taken hostage...
Obviously, she could just proclaim him a villain, but she didn't think she could force herself to make her familiar's life any harder than she already had... Thus, she decided on the middle ground.
"I don't know why he hurt Guiche... But I heard him saying something about returning home... I think he's trying to get to Romalia!" she states, causing the faculty to slowly nod.
"From what I can tell, if he's able to teleport it must have a short-range, as his tracks indicate that he's headed North West, but that might be a ruse to throw us off as he circles around and goes South... I suspected he was from Romalia, but he'd need to pass through Gallia to make it there..."
Osmond nods and pulls out his pipe from seemingly nowhere, puffing it a few times... "Tristain's relationship with Gallia is worse than one would want... I find it unlikely that we'd be able to get Gallia to extradite him..."
"Then, we must catch him before he's able to reach the border. We can't allow such a criminal to escape. It will sully the reputation of Tristain and the Academy." Longuevuille, better known as Fourquet states.
All the while, Louise can't help but be internally smug. Her familiar should be headed East towards Germania if he actually listened to her, so his safety was all but assured... "Is there anything else, Headmaster?" she asks, breaking the group from their thoughts.
Osmond releases a heavy sigh as he looks at Louise, but, knowing that there wasn't any other way, he forces himself to look her in the eyes. "Miss Valliere. Your failure to summon a loyal familiar during the Sacred Ritual disqualifies you to learn any more magic in this institution. I would advise you to start packing your possessions, as a letter has already been sent to your parents." he states, taking no pleasure in the despairing look that overtakes Louise.
Louise just nods, knowing that this was coming... "Thank you all for your teachings... I apologize for not achieving your expectation..." her eyes moisten as she bows deeply, "Thank you all very much."
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Michael sucks in deep breaths as he jogs through the forest, branches occasionally nicking him and causing cuts in his skin and tears in his clothes. Luckily, he still possesses his shoes from earth, otherwise his feet would be incredibly injured by now...
Eventually, he has to stop and take a break as he was so exhausted he might just pass out... He barely did any exercise back on Earth, so it was no surprise that even with adrenaline pushing him forward, he'd only be able to jog haphazardly through the forest for around an hour...
Not to mention how hungry he was, he'd stupidly left the food provided to him back in his cell, leaving him on his last legs... Now just walking felt like a monumental task, and Michael was honestly afraid of getting ambushed by whatever animals lived in these forests...
He knew this place couldn't be that dangerous, as it was close enough to the Magic Academy that any threat would've long been dealt with, but that didn't mean he was safe... At this point, even a stray dog might be able to put him down... Those two Hex's he cast had actually been around half of his magical pool. While he could feel his mana slowly regenerating, it wouldn't be full for a while.
"Hah... Hah..... Maybe I shoulda just let them cut my head off... Would have been easier than this." he mutters, resting his hands on his knees to keep himself upright.
Michael stays there for a bit to recover. Once he catches his breath he starts moving again, this time at a slowly, more reserved pace. After all, there wouldn't be a point for him escaping if he was eaten alive by some random animal.
He doesn't really know where he's actually going, and despite the thousands of stars overhead, he doubted there was something like the 'North Star' he could infer his location via... Louise had told him to go to Germania, but since Michael knew of future events, he knew he had to start gaining strength quickly, otherwise he'd be helpless when that Ancient Dragon eventually come to destroy the world...
Albion would eventually be taken over by that rebellion and try to invade Tristain... In the story, Saito and Louise use Void Magic to destroy the army, but that obviously isn't going to happen this time... It might actually be a good opportunity to gather EXP to level up, so maybe interfering in the war would be beneficial...
Though, come to think of it, he'd probably die if he tried... Ignoring the army of soldiers, dragon riders, etc, the leader of the Albion rebellion is in possession of that mind control ring... Considering he couldn't even block a curse from Fouquet, he doubted he'd be able to resist such a thing...
Michael releases a sigh, no, without getting far more powerful than he was now, any ideas concerning wars and large scale conflicts could be unilaterally ignored...
As Michael was thinking this, he accidentally trips on a root, stumbling forwards and falling out of the treeline, onto what seemed to be a road... "Thank god." Michael mutters, "If I'd gotten lost I'd be royally fucked."
*Pat! Pat! Pat! Pat!*
...
Michael glances down the dirt road where the sound was coming from, from the darkness, a carriage pulled by two horses appears. The coachman was wearing a hood that concealed his face, and there seemed to be two people sitting behind him. Lucky! Michael mentally comments as he goes over to try and talk to them.
The carriage slowly comes to a stop as he approaches, the oil lamp swinging side to side as its momentum continues on. "Hello?" Michael asks while hoping this wasn't some sort of 'Ghost Rider'...
"Do you need something, child?" the coachman asks, his voice gravelly and hard on the ears.
Michael nods, "Yeah, I was just wondering where I am... I got lost in the forest and need some directions... Or a ride if you'll have me?"
The coachman chuckles as the other passengers perk up and looks towards him, "Strange how you got lost at this time... Lest you've been walking all day?"
Michael shrugs, "Definitely feels like." he jokes.
The coachman nods, "Well, East of here is Tristainia, the capital... Ah, also the academy if you wanted to know. North-West and where we're headed is the port city of Antomiers. You can hop on back if that's where you need to go." he explains.
Michael chews his lip in thought, it wasn't in the direction of Germania, but at least he'd be able to rest his legs a bit. "Alright, thanks !" he says, climbing onto the back of the carriage and taking a seat a good distance away from the other two cloaked men who were present.
"Er, hey." he greets awkwardly as they turn to face him.
One of them lower their hood, revealing a gruff, weathered face with missing teeth. The ones that were still present were yellowed and slowly turning black, showing just how poor their dental hygiene is... Michael has to force himself not to grimace at them, quickly promising himself to find a way to brush his teeth in this medieval world.
"How you doin' kid, wonder how'd you end up this far out. Not a village that near to here..."
Michael shrugs ambiguously, "I've been walking for a while... What're you guys doing travelling so late at night anyway?"
The two men laugh, soon followed by the coachman, "Hehe, well, what do you think a group of men riding the roads at night would be doing?"
...
Michael pauses, suddenly feeling a bit worried about the way both men were looking at him... He glances over to the sacks of goods partitioned at the side of the coach. He pales slightly as he makes out a dark red splotch on one of them under the light of the oil lantern. Unless that was spilt wine, he was probably in a lot of danger here...
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