Chapter 93 - Belgard Academy! (1)

"Noble family?" Arya looked at Abby with a confused expression. Sure he had been mistaken as a midget multiple times, but never once did anyone think he was nobility.

"Aren't you nobility?" asked Yuuki, mirroring Arya's confused expression. 

"What? N-no." hesitated Arya.

"Should I have lied? No, what if they start asking specific details about it, and plus being from nobility would not get me anything."

"Everyone else here is from nobility so I can forget about special treatment for just acting like a noble, if anything they might see me as competition." thought Arya as everyone in the group stopped to look at Arya with even more interest than before.

"Wait, then who taught you how to fight?" asked Sheela.

"I learned it by myself. Is something wrong?" Arya didn't know that it would be a big deal to be able to keep up with Averos, however, although Yuuki was the most powerful mage in the group, Averos was the best fighter.

"At first I thought he had been trained by high-level knights, it's the only way he would be able to keep up with sis. You can't tell me that he learned how to fight by himself."

"What's the big deal? It's not like I won that fight anyway." thought Arya as he continued walking leaving the group to think about what they had just learned.

"As expected of my rival. You are so skilled that you have trained yourself in combat to such an extent at a young age. I wonder what wonders you will achieve with thorough training." laughed Averos merrily as she walked up to Arya.

She seemed to be the only one who was not awestruck by Arya's revelation.

"W-wait. Does that mean he learned magic all by himself as well? If that's true, then even if he isn't hiding his true strength, doesn't that make him a genius?" thought Trent as he looked at Arya in envy.

"No wonder the elf girl likes him." 

Trent was under the impression that Arya and Marya were in some sort of relationship, ofcourse he was just blinded by his crush on Marya.

"Let's keep moving guys, we have to make it to the final ring as fast as possible if we want to collect more points," said Yuuki as he caught up to Averos and Arya.

"I feel like we met someone interesting." thought Yuuki as he looked at Arya in a new light.

The group traveled the rest of the way without coming across any more magical beasts. 

"It's as if they've all disappeared," said Sheela as the group set up camp on a tree.

"That won't last too long. Go to bed, we will need all the strength we have to go against the mythical beasts tomorrow," commanded Yuuki as he took first watch.

After a few minutes, everyone went to sleep, everyone except Arya. Arya stayed awake, not willing to place his life in the hands of a person he had just recently met.

Morning came and the group set off early. Running through the forest at a faster speed than ever before.

"Huh?" said Trent, surprised to find that they could already see Belgard.

"What about the final ring?" asked Sheela as he stared at Belgard in awe.

Belgard had high towers that were 50m tall, made of a brownish glittering substance. There were several white spiraling towers that crept above the high wall, with a single glowing tower in the middle going above the rest.

Above the single highest tower was a beam that connected to the clouds. 

"The floating city," murmured Trent as he looked towards where the beam was extending.

The group didn't stop their advance, they admired the scenery as they ran towards it.

"I've never heard of a floating city in Belgard," said Arya. Of all the people here he probably had the least information about Belgard, as most of his information came from the farmer back in the village he had found when he escaped the forest.

"You don't know about the floating city?" asked Trent, surprised by Arya's lack of knowledge.

"Well I wouldn't have said that if I did." thought Arya, but he actually just nodded his head.

"The floating city is where all the top mages of Belgard go. If Belgard is a city of mages, then the floating city is a sanctuary. But only 5-star mages and above are allowed to go up there."

"I heard that the mages in the floating city, live side by side with mythical beasts, exchanging information and learning new spells." 

"Wait? Humans and Mythical beasts?" asked Arya, surprised by the fact that humans would live together with wild animals.

"Well yes. Mythical beasts have intelligence, that's why they are mythical. Don't tell me you didn't know that either."

"Wait, so what about the Ryen that tried to kill us? Did that thing have intelligence as well?" asked Arya. Now believing that instead of acting on instincts Ryens were purposefully hunting him down.

"Pfft. No no. Magical beasts have almost no intelligence, of course, they do have it to some extent. Magical beasts like Ryens are one step away from evolving into Mythical beasts."

"Ofcourse that rarely happens, but the Ryen that you fought against did have a rather big build. It was probably close to its evolution, but even then it might take it a few hundred years."

"Shh, stop," whispered Yuuki as the group reached a clearing in the forest.

In front of them was a 10km^2 clearing of land. At the edge of it was a single portal and past that was a cliff.

"What? There's a gap between here and Belgard?" asked Trent, confused by the sudden cliff.

"Now that I look at it, there doesn't seem to be any doors on the walls," said Yuuki as he stared at the floating Belgard.

"Wait, so does that mean Belgard is also a floating city?" asked Trent.

"Probably not. If it were a floating city it wouldn't be so low, although there's a cliff between here and there, there are clearly on the same level.'

"They might've just used magic to give the illusion that it's floating, to prevent people from entering without permission," replied Yuuki as he noticed that there was a creature standing next to the portal.

The group was still too far to tell how wide the crevice between Belgard and the edge of the forest was, but they could clearly make out what type of mythical beast they would have to face.

"The headmaster is crazy, there's no way he expects us to fight that," said Sheela, for the first time fear visible in his eyes.

Even Averos, who was always happy to fight looked a bit hesitant.

Arya who didn't know what the beast was asked "What is it?"

"A manticore."