The First Battle

Mikhail walked out of the library, his head filled with numerous thoughts now.

But just as he took a step into the outside air, he sensed a familiar presence in front of him.

And surely enough as he looked upward, it was Daniel standing before him with a contemplative expression.

"Mikhail."

"Yes?" he asked, looking up.

"You are needed in the investigation rooms right now."

"Oh? What for?"

Mikhail had already expected this.

After all, his route was awfully near to the team's routes.

So it was reasonable to suspect that he had been behind their mur-

"Nothing much. As you might have heard, the squadron was tragically found killed by worm monsters toda-"

"Huh?" Mikhail couldn't hide his surprise and Daniel raised an eyebrow.

He quickly feigned ignorance.

"I hadn't heard about this news before so it's totally new to me."

"Oh, well they were found dead by the guards in the vicinity after their trackers went off. Even their bodies looked as if they were ravaged by monsters."

"Oh."

Inside, Mikhail felt his head spinning from the incoming thoughts.

'What monster? There was no monster there.'

Had the group purposefully cut up bodies in such a way that it throwed off suspicion of someone killing them?

It was plausible.

But then, according to Daniel's words, all of them were cut up in the same manner.

Even that messenger, who was perfectly intact at the time he was with him.

It all didn't make any sense.

"In any case, it seems that the management saw that your tracker was close to the group at one point. They want to ask for a recount on what happened there."

Mikhail listened to him intently before nodding.

"Okay, I understand."

With that, Daniel started leading his way to the investigation rooms.

***

[2 Days Later]

Mikhail stood in the academy grounds along with his squadron.

A day was left before the arrival of the Dominique and the announcement had already been made.

It was partly the reason why they told the cadets for extra-time in the physical training today.

"We'll change the pairing up again. I'll fight Modric and Amariel, Icarus, you'll fight Raviel." Mikhail directed them.

"Alright." Modric agreed with the pairing.

"I'm fine with whoever as well, as long as I get to fight." Icarus shrugged.

"Wait right there." A voice interrupted them.

Mikhail calmly looked to the side where he saw a squadron leader coming up.

His whole team followed behind him with smug expressions on their faces.

'5 members huh, they are strong.' He noticed their member count.

But it was too early to judge their strength yet.

The squadron leader came to talk straight with Mikhail.

"You must be Mikhail right? The squadron leader? One even favored by Sir Daniel because of his strength?"

The leader sneered, his smile stretching from ear to ear.

Mikhail, however, showed no reaction at all, waiting for him to talk.

The leader's face twitched.

"Well, in any case, I'm Morlo Desmond and these are the rest of my crew members." He gestured behind himself.

"And?" Mikhail asked, showing his lack of interest so he could proceed.

For a split moment, he saw the face of Morlo falter, a look of hate coming on his face.

"We saw that you were trying to pair up with each other and still have a member left to sort out. You see it's the same problem for us with those numbers."

Mikhail said nothing.

"So I wanted to propose that why not our two squadrons fight each other. You know, just a friendly tapped-to-the-ground you lose fight."

"Sure."

"I kn- Wait what?" Morlo had a dumbfounded expression on his face.

"I said sure. Since you want to fight, it will be up to us to do the pairing, is that fine?"

Mikhail saw Morlo's breath catch in his throat.

But since he had come up here with the challenge, he couldn't back off.

"Oh yes, sure, go ahead.'

Mikhail nodded.

"I'll fight you." He pointed at his little forehead.

He gestured to a bulky guy in the back.

"Icarus will fight him."

Then he gestured to a sneering woman right behind Morlo.

Probably his right hand.

"Modric will fight her."

He gestured to a tall, slim guy with glasses in the back.

"Amariel will fight her."

And then lastly, he gestured to a short girl in the back, almost the height of Morlo.

"Raviel will fight her."

Morlo looked at the pairings, his brows furrowing with displeasure.

But since it was done, there was nothing he could do.

"Okay fine, it's acceptable. So how will we go about this?"

Mikhail nodded.

"Since there's not much space for all of us to fight at once in different areas. We'll go one by one."

Morlo looked around, noticing the definite lack of space.

"Okay, I'm fine with it. Who goes first?"

"Squadron leaders. You and me."

Just for a moment, Mikhail almost saw an horrified expression emerge on Morlo's face.

But he quickly composed himself.

"Ah, yes, we start with the strongest. Sure, we can fight."

Mikhail nodded.

"Good enough."

***

Mikhail and Morlo stood against each other at a considerable distance.

Meanwhile, their squadrons stood far at the side, giving them ample space to fight.

In the middle, Modric stood as the referee.

"The rules are simple. For squadron leaders, the match will go until one of them forfeits. That's all."

Both of the leaders nodded and Mikhail saw Morlo smug as he touched his guns.

Mikhail knew what he was planning to do.

Unlike Mikhail's guns, the ones that Morlo had extended to quite a range.

The short squadron leader was hoping to get rid of him in one go with his pulling speed.

'Unfortunately, his logic is heavily flawed.'

From the start, Mikhail knew what the squadron leader was planning to do.

He had come up to a match, thinking that they were all weak except Mikhail.

Only that this thought couldn't be more wrong.

It was one of the common misconceptions about his squadron that only he, himself, carried it to the top.

The short leader hoped to beat all of them to the ground today so he could take the spotlight in Dominique's visit tomorrow.

Mikhail resisted a sigh.

'Taking the spotlight won't send you back to the Empire.'

If only he could tell these delusion heads.

Moving back to the battle, Mikhail readied up. It was going to be his first battle since regressing and..

He couldn't be more anticipated.

The battle wasn't going to last long but Mikhail wanted to experiment many things in the short time span.

And one of them was his now inverted-Rosaryth.

Modric looked at both of the leaders, waiting for a confirmation that both were ready.

"Both of you, get ready with your pre-formed spells."

Mikhail immediately saw Morlo construct a borealis pre-spell.

Spells in this world were basically a chain of magic nodes strung together.

And a singular magic node in a spell was a significant property of that spell such as its element, structure, shape etc.

The difference between pre-spells and spells was their construction time and strength.

As a mage, there were different kinds of node structures you could use to form a spell.

Higher ranks allowed you to construct spells with complex node structures, consisting of many nodes of different properties.

The more complex a structure for the spell, the harder it was to break it.

At early ranks, the most you could alter for a spell was its shape and size.

But there were also pre-spells.

Pre-spells were shorter basic spells a mage could use within an instant.

Of course, compared to spells, they were weaker because all of their node properties had been set to base value by default.

You couldn't tweak around with the spell structure unlike in a spell, where you formed the spell from the start.

But in life or death situations, pre-spells saved a person from many situations.

In this battle's case, what Morlo had just done was created a pre-spell to save himself time.

And it was also expected for Mikhail to do the same.

To the opposing squadron's surprise, however, he did not create any spell.

Because he did not need to.

'This battle will be over in one shot.'

He placed a hand on his right gun.

Generally speaking, there was no use shooting from here.

The range of the gun didn't extend that far to reach him.

But…

Mikhail could make oaths.

Unlike other elements, Mikhail's oath element was completely unique.

As when using the element, you weren't making spells. You were making oaths and contracts.

Because of that, there was no need for a node structure for his oath-spells.

All he needed…

Was a verbal oath on himself.

"In the name of God of Oaths, I will hereby not move from my position throughout the whole battle."

Immediately, Mikhail felt chains binding to him inside his soul.

The oath was being set.

"As a compensation for the said condition, the shooting range for my guns in both magical and non-magical spells will be doubled."

The more specific you were in an oath, the stronger and better it served you.

Mikhail felt the chains string around his soul, almost setting to completion.

Now there was only one phrase left to complete it.

"This oath has been signed under the name of God of Oaths and I, the Oathkeeper, shall abide by it," he whispered.

Clink!

The oath was complete.

"Go!" Modric shouted.

And in the next instant, two gunshots were heard in the air.

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