Reader Mage 159-It’ll All Be Over Soon

Plan D was a rather simple plan.

Nora had assud that whichever students their path of ambush led them to would also split up their manpower. She was not sure for what exact reason as there were more than just a couple in the grand sche of things, so she had employed the reasoning of her teammates and they had all thought about the various possible scenarios they could et. One was that the students were planning the exact sa thing as they were, which was simply engaging the professor assigned to them while they proceeded to ambush another team.

However, Nora and the team had not t anyone during their approach, so they had discarded that thought process as quickly as it had co. And when the ssage of Crown Academy taking their castle arrived, they equally discarded the other assud scenarios, stemming from considering Crown Academy being a threat.

Which left them with only three other possible scenarios. Nikita Academy’s students couldn’t get past Dr. Elias Namgoong. Or they had succeeded and headed to take the castle and defend it from any incoming ambush. And lastly, they had split their strength in two, with one remaining behind to intercept any ambush, while the other went ahead to ensure their victory.

The last of the scenarios was the one playing out. Only different in that only one single person had gone ahead to ensure their victory. Nora had been assuming that they would have sent more. But they were smart. She could see that. Splitting their strength too much would be stupid, and since their greater force was right here, they could hold back any advances from the opposition.

They were mistaken, though. The students of Prestige Academy had no intention of proceeding together. They only needed one or two to slip through the cracks. And since only one individual from Nikita Academy had gone ahead, then perhaps only one person slipping through would be the best course of action.

“You!” the girl with platinum blonde braided hair scread, pointing at Chima, her eyes burning with red hot flas. “Fight ! Alone!” Her teammates glanced at her and she snorted. “There’s seven of them and nine of us. I’ll take out the guy alone, you guys do what you need to do to the rest of them.”

Nora tilted her head. “That sounds preposterously smug.”

“Mind your business, large forehead,” the girl sneered. “My team can take care of ourselves.”

Oh Jihye snorted, suppressing a laugh. Nora’s eyes twitched.

It was one thing for her geek of a brother to insult her outstanding features, it was another thing for a stranger to, and further grant her obnoxious roommate the chance to have a laugh.

Heated, Nora stepped forward, the wind blowing erratically in a spin around her body. But before she could take even one more step, a sturdy hand stretched out to halt her.

“I’ll accept your challenge,” said Chima. “Head on and win this thing for us, Nora.”

Nora’s nose wrung up. She glanced at Oh Jihye, and still witnessing that her crooked face plastered with bright, overzealous make up made her even more annoyed. She was about to argue about her being the one to head to the castle as they had agreed and ask that soone else did it just so she could beat the Russian girl into the ground when Lee Jaehyun grabbed her shivering arm.

“Calm down,” he said. Nora turned around to see the ferocious glint in his eyes. “We’ll do the beating for you.”

Now that she was looking straight at him, it was the first ti she was seeing so much resilience in his eyes. After their abysmal first encounter, she had studied him to figure out if he was just pretending not to be an asshole like almost every other silver spoon, and she had noticed that he was a laid back individual. Now, however, he was giving off a different vibe.

She wouldn’t lie, besides just the thrill of coming out on top, she wasn’t particularly motivated to do too much to win. But this tournant ant sothing to Lee Jaehyun—to all her teammates—and most especially to rlin. He had sothing to prove, and she would not let her anger ss it up.

Nora sighed, her heavy breaths relaxing sowhat.

“All right. I got it. Let go of .” She pulled her hand free.

“Hey, Anastasia,” said a boy with light brown hair as he hurried over to the Fire Mage Russian girl. “I think she’s the only one who plans to proceed onwards.”

“Yeah, I get that, Maxim.”

“What do we do?”

Anastasia narrowed her eyes, thinking up an answer for that question. After a second she sighed.

“We let her go.”

Her teammates went ballistic.

“Let her go?!”

“That was not the plan.”

“Oh, shut your traps,” she growled. “What do you think will happen if we try to stop her from advancing while still fighting the others? Even if we have the numbers it’ll destroy our concentration. If it’s only her, then I’m certain we’ll still win. There’s no way Ivan will lose.”

Kim Yiseo scoffed. “Ivan. The blood mage. I see. He’s the one who went ahead then?”

Anastasia frowned. “If you could afford to rember his na and Hex, the least you could do is recall his face, bitch.”

Kim Yiseo’s brows furrowed. Park Yuri stepped in.

“That’s enough,” she said. Sparks danced around her palms, and Anastasia raised a brow. “Did you miss that I was a Fire Mage too? Since you’re interested in fighting Mages of the sa Hex as you, then maybe you would fancy taking on both Ken and I?”

“Call Chima.”

Anastasia scoffed. “I didn’t miss it, princess,” she said. “I’m only interested in fighting the strongest in each category. I did my research, and the boy was apparently in the team that finished first in the entrance examination for your academy. But if you insist, then co on.”

Before Park Yuri could fla up like every single person Anastasia had interacted with, Nora activated her spell. Wings made of air sprouted behind her, connected to her back by her mana. In the next second she rose to the sky above.

“Well, then,” she started. “I’ll leave you guys to it.”

Nora zood off, exploding through the air as she rushed towards victory. And imdiately, the sll of battle stord her nose, coming from behind her. Explosions sounded in the wake of magic hitting magic. On paper, it would seem like their team ought to co out on top. They had not only S-Class Mages, but A-Class Mages, and the Russian students didn’t have Mages of the forr Class. However, the importance of teamwork couldn’t be understated. She had no idea how the lessons at Nikita Academy were done, but in situations like these, it was normal to assu that the students of the academy were all versed in fighting together. Prestige Academy, however, she was familiar with. And from how their curriculum had gone so far, there hadn’t been many monts for large scale battles that required teamwork. So, for their team, things were definitely rusty on that end.

Which was why she was glad that what she would be faced with was a 1v1 battle.

Blood magic was just as scary as it sounded, despite the fact that she didn’t know much about it, so Nora repeated to herself that she had to be on her best behavior against this Ivan guy. Kim Yiseo had tried to feed her details on what she had found out about the lad through nefarious ans, which was simply relying on the information the Consortium had in its possession, but Nora had rejected. She wouldn’t be caught in hell accepting nepotism even if she was friends with a nepo-baby. This battle would be fought cleanly, and she would win with her abilities.

A second later, Nora’s eyes narrowed as she saw spires of black, unweathered brick jutting upwards from between trees. As she neared, the scenery spread out more, with the trees shifting further away as though paving a path for her, and then she saw the castle in all its glory. Dark and damp. It gave off the vibe of an abandoned fort, and subsequently the perfect place to have a fight.

Nora gulped and lowered herself to the clearing in the castle’s courtyard. There was a fountain in the center, with nothing gushing out of it, but vines wrapped around its chipped structure. The grass in the courtyard was overgrown—more of weeds, to be fairly honest. And every place her eyes swept across sent chills down her bones. For a mont she tensed, expecting so monster to jump out and rush at her. But when none of that happened, she breathed a sigh of relief and put her attention on the open castle doors and the darkness staring straight at her like an abyss from its opening.

Nora was taking her first step forward when her smartwatch beeped. She hurriedly glanced at it. There staring back at her was a notification of what had just occurred in the building before her.

[Nikita Academy has taken their castle.]

[Instructor faced: Dr. Elias Namgoong.]

[Ti: 40:10]

“Less than twenty minutes left,” Nora muttered to herself with a frown. That was all the ti she had not to disappoint her brother. And she wouldn’t.

Nora walked up the stairs of the castle and into its doors. Imdiately, she froze where she stood, involuntarily. Her blood clotted, solidified by an unseen force, and her limbs which were supposed to move freely creaked in place whenever she tried even the slightest movent. Her face, on the other hand, was free to do whatever. So her brows pulled in as her eyes moved from studying her body towards the obsidian throne upon a dais to the far end of the courtroom she had walked into, and the boy with pale skin, dark-brown hair, and grey eyes seated on it. His Grimoire hovered to his side as he leaned his chin on the back of his hand while resting his weight on the throne’s armrest.

Ivan Morozov. B-Class Mage and Blood Mage.

“Your doing?” Nora asked, her voice coming out a bit more croaky than she would have liked. It seed the boy’s magic had affected her speaking too.

“We don’t have to fight,” Ivan said. “Just remain still for the remaining minutes. It’ll all be over soon.”