“Listen up! Our objective this time is to utterly destroy the front gate of Avelina Academy and bring down the Mage Tower, leaving them powerless to retaliate.”
At the same moment, on a small hill not far from the front gate of Avelina Academy, a man dressed in the enemy nation’s officer uniform was loudly repeating the team’s goal.
“All the high-ranking mages have been subdued. Only a handful of students and teachers remain—there’s nothing to fear.”
“The gods will bless us all!”
“Hoo-ha!”
As the army assembled and shouted their battle cries, around a hundred new students and a few leading teachers were gathered at the front gate of Avelina, a true motley crew.
“You want us to guard the gate? Based on what?”
A hot-tempered student, his face twisted in fear, grabbed Alan by the collar, as if convinced Alan was leading everyone present to their deaths.
“Hey, hands off.”
The towering Gus, standing nearby, brushed the student’s hand away with a magitech device.
The pressure of his large size and hefty weapon made the student release his grip.
“Alan, guarding Avelina is our responsibility. There’s no need for students to bear this burden. You all should run…”
A few teachers in front, who had just recently reached the peak of the third rank as mages, had used their mana to scout the number of enemy troops nearby—over a thousand, all at least peak first-rank warriors.
They were simply not opponents these teachers could contend with.
Even as mages, the blades of war could still shred them to pieces.
Just then, Lilian, who had gone to investigate inside the academy, came out dragging the snoring Yuan, her brows tightly knit, clearly bearing no good news.
“How is it inside the academy?”
“Not good at all. Everyone has fallen asleep. Professor Lia is nowhere to be found. We can’t even open the high mage quarters…”
She dumped Yuan on the ground, only to find the kid sleeping like a pig, impossible to rouse no matter how much she tried.
“How did he fall asleep?”
Gus gave him a couple of kicks, noticing he was grinning and muttering in his sleep, as if having a sweet dream.
“After being inside for a bit, he dozed off as well… That red glow seems to have the ability to create illusions. Illusions? Yuan, Yuan!”
After kicking him around three or four times, Yuan finally woke up, a trace of drool at the corner of his mouth.
“…Is it morning already?”
“Morning, my foot!”
Gus punched Yuan on the head to wake him up properly.
“But if the red glow can create illusions, why wasn’t Lilian affected?”
Alan asked, confused, recalling what Lin Yue had once said.
Lilian shook her head, saying, “I don’t know. Not only did I feel fine in there, I even had a strange sense of reassurance…”
“Then why don’t we just drag all the teachers lying on the street out and wake them up the same way we did him?”
Gus tugged at Yuan’s cheeks as if he were playing with putty.
“Ow! You big oaf!”
“I’m afraid that won’t work… Yuan was only inside for a short while, so waking up quickly is normal. They’ve been steeped in that red light for too long to wake so easily.”
Lilian’s analysis dashed the group’s hopes of just waking everyone up for protection.
“This is a problem…”
After all, this was war.
What could these few students, who hadn’t even studied magic for long, possibly do?
As everyone fell into gloom, Alan, his face grim, suddenly walked onto a large rock to the side.
He looked down at the panicked students below, took a deep breath, and spoke in a voice steady yet filled with a power that cut through all the chaos and fear: “Everyone, listen to me!”
The crowd immediately quieted, looking toward the boy who stood out in the heavy atmosphere.
“My name is Alan… I’m just like you all, an ordinary freshman living here at this academy!”
“I know that right now, everyone is filled with fear. Facing an army of over a thousand enemies, we, students who have never witnessed slaughter or the battlefield, are like lambs to the slaughter.”
His gaze slowly swept across every face, not accusing, only resolute: “I’m not even a second-rank mage…”
Alan paused, then continued, “Faced with this situation, I too feel deep despair. I want to run away, to just abandon everything. But I know even more clearly: we can’t retreat, nor do we have anywhere to retreat to.”
“What is Avelina?”
Alan raised his hand, pointing to the academy behind him, his voice gentle yet unyielding.
“Avelina is the holy land for mages across the continent. It’s the place we’ve longed for, the place that can change our lives.”
“Think carefully, everyone—does Avelina truly have nothing to do with you?”
“In just a few short months here, I went from a plain country bumpkin to someone who found like-minded friends, teachers who care for us, and countless unforgettable moments.”
“Now someone wants to destroy this place. They want to occupy our academy, to take away this shelter from the wind and rain. They want to harm the teachers who are still sleeping, the very people who protect and teach us day by day.”
“Our comrades, our friends, even our families and dreams—are you all going to abandon them and run?”
“And even if you run, where can you go? If Avelina is left undefended and quickly taken, who’s to say they won’t send people after us?”
“We are the empire’s most crucial source of mages. Would the enemy nation really let us go so easily? No! As you said, this is war! And war has no mercy!”
Alan spoke to the critical point, clenching his fist tightly.
“I once knew someone who, even under threat from high-level magic, gave everything to protect people who had nothing to do with him, even those who had once been his enemies!”
A figure with black hair appeared in his mind.
He looked so frail, and yet it was only natural for him to save them.
“I am not as great as he is, and I don’t expect everyone to risk themselves to help. But know this— As long as we hold fast to Avelina and wait for reinforcements, it’s our best hope for survival!”
Although their fighting strength varied, most were only first-rank mages.
But they had the Mage Tower and rune magic of Avelina at their backs—so long as they had mana, they could hold out for a good while.
The front gate was easy to defend and hard to attack.
If they held out for half a day, the situation might improve.
What’s more, he had these reliable companions.
No matter how dire things got, he was confident he could see it through.
Just as Lin Yue had done back then.
Even the weak could do things only the weak could do!
This was the greatest quality Alan had learned from Lin Yue.
After all, most of Avelina’s students were quick-witted types.
The slackers wouldn’t have come out here to train in the wild.
Hearing Alan’s words, even though their hearts were full of fear, irritation, and a rebellious streak,
Just as Alan said—some had left family behind to come here, some worried for their friends, and some simply had no other way and were forced to stay.
No matter what, they all had reasons they couldn’t run from.
“Alan, that guy—he just has to be cool.”
Gus looked on with satisfaction at Alan’s speech, thinking to himself that he really hadn’t chosen the wrong person.
Ever since the exams ended, he’d wanted to be Alan’s friend, to face crisis and challenge together.
“Can we… really win this?”
Yuan was uneasy, but Alan wasn’t wrong—if they surrendered, they’d die even faster.
Alan had chosen him as a companion; he absolutely couldn’t be the only coward here!
He was a member of the Rudel family, someone who could bring people back from the dead—how could he be a coward?
“Alan…”
Lilian gazed at the now-radiant Alan, recalling that little boy from her childhood, beaten up by a bunch of kids, wiping away his tears as she comforted him under the big tree.
What doesn’t kill him only makes him stronger.
As the main character of this story, it should be so.
“If it’s war they want, then let’s fight till the end!”