Aether Engineering

Chapter 12

Maston Academy

The Town of Maston in the Candis East District

Sweat dripped down Myles’ forehead as he shifted into the third step of the core arcaner’s way of the fist. The iron turtle was a deceptively difficult move to pull off. The physical effort and motions were simple enough, but in order to get any use out of it, it required evoking a massive amount of mana.

Myles stayed in the form for only an instant, blocking the cudgel that Kate swung at him before he smoothly pivoted into the first step, delivering a palm thrust into Kate’s sternum. Despite being off balance, Kate took the blow well, evoking just enough pure mana to avoid any damage. Still, she fell into the sand they fought in, groaning in annoyance.

She pushed herself up slowly. “Your turn now.” Kate tossed the cudgel over.

Over the past few weeks, their morning combat trainings had evolved from practicing the four steps to actually sparring. Now, they were practicing against weapons. Primrose had insisted they needed to be prepared to fight just about anything. If she had her way, she probably would have brought whole packs of monsters in to fight them, but instead, she had settled for a backpack that was overflowing with weapons.

The variety had been even more frightening than the quantity. The cudgel was on the tame side. Next to Myles, Silas was sparring with Seth who awkwardly wielded what looked like a halberd except there were blunted blades on both ends, a point that proved quite challenging for Seth. Past them, Mercy defended against Jane who was wielding a chain whip with far more skill than Myles would have expected.

Oddly enough, the wielder of the weapon was losing more times than not. Myles picked up the cudgel with resignation. Despite Primrose insisting that they needed to swap partners constantly so as not to get used to any one person’s tendencies, Myles had frequently ended up as Kate’s partner. Silas, Jane, and even Mercy had yet to forgive Kate for her comment on their first day, even nearly a month later.

Jane was by far the angriest. Myles had grown increasingly confident that she had been impacted a lot more than Myles by being a yellow band though he hadn’t worked up the courage to ask exactly how. Silas and Mercy were mostly angry by extension. Neither of them had ever wore yellow bands—their parents weren’t arcaners—but they both took offense that Kate had never thought to so much as apologize for what she had said. For his part, Myles had never been all that offended. The comment had been more than a little offensive, implying as it had that his father had disobeyed laws to teach him to use the aether space, but he simply took it in stride.

All of that meant that Myles was more than aware of how he stacked up to Kate in combat. The bruises he bore spoke of how much more skilled she was.

Myles gripped the cudgel firmly, not knowing how to properly wield a cudgel, he adopted a grip he was used to using for a smithing hammer and charged. Kate was gone before Myles even got close. That was the difference between them though. Kate was fast, faster than anyone Myles had ever met—well aside from Primrose, but Myles suspected there was more to that than simple natural ability.

Myles jumped back, dodging a falling javelin, the fourth step they had learned. Myles made to swing the cudgel, but Kate had already dropped under the blow, naturally transitioning into the second step, a brutal leg sweep that she delivered with enough force to not only sweep his legs out from under him, but to deal some serious damage to the legs if she hit them unprotected. It spoke to how brutal the last month of training was that Kate fully expected him to be able to react and defend himself by evoking mana at the point of impact.

Myles’ aether well had grown large enough that he actually could have stopped the kick in place with only evoked mana if he really wanted but evoking that much mana that quickly would be very inefficient and they were nearly done with combat training. Myles decided to take the loss now rather than trying to delve with next to no mana in his aether well.

Myles had learned the hard way that the less mana you had, the harder it was to delve. Myles much preferred taking a few small blows to spending the rest of the day with a splitting headache from the concentration needed to delve with a nearly empty aether well.

After a few more rounds of back and forth, Primrose announced the end to the combat training, but to their surprise, she didn’t instruct them to start delving. Instead, she gently settled down on the ground with her usual cup of tea, calling for everyone to gather around her.

“Your first month of training is now over.” Primrose pulled out a folder from behind her. “Now its time to test what you have learned.”

The six of them leaned forward, hanging onto every word. They had been waiting for this moment with dread. Primrose had made no mention of their monthly tests since that first day. Because of that, Myles had been hopeful that they would get out of it for the first month. It seemed that was hopeless now.

“Platoon seven, squad 13.”

Mercy, Jane, and Seth all looked at Primrose nervously.

“You are hereby tasked with aiding the town of Laxtooth. The Candis river has been polluted with disease just upstream from them. It is suspected that a plaugutoise has settled into the river.” Primrose sipped her tea evenly. “You are to find it and hunt it down, making the river water pure again.”

Seth’s face had gone pale with the mention of the plaugutoise. Myles knew that he and Kate had been intensely studying up on local monsters. The look certainly did not help with the butterflies going through his stomach.

Primrose continued without pause for them to digest the information she had just given out. “Platoon seven, squad fourteen.”

Myles looked at Silas nervously. Silas returned the look before turning back towards Primrose. Myles looked over at Kate too, but she was focused completely as if missing even one word could lead to her death.

“The village of Severence requests urgent aid. Their flocks have taken heavy casualties. The monster responsible strikes by night, leaving slaughtered sheep behind in droves. You are to track down this unknown monster and slay it.”

Myles moved to ask a question, but Primrose put her palm out and shook her head, cutting off a stream of questions from all six of them.

“That is all of the information I can give you regarding your assignments. You are responsible for arranging for travel and purchasing supplies for yourselves. The academy will give you credit for up to 25 gald in expenditures.” Primrose gave Mercy a glare when she tried to ask a question. “You have the rest of the day to prepare. Your assignments begin tomorrow and will last the three additional days until the end of the month.”

All further questions were left unanswered, so, soon after, Myles found himself walking through Maston’s market with Silas and Kate.

He had been so busy the last month that this was the first time Myles had been in the town since he had arrived. Stepping out of the academy and into the streets was jarring. Where the academy had a mix of old brick buildings and newly built ones, all built on large greens, the town was far less grandiose. The buildings had no gaps between them, effectively serving as additional defensive walls.

It made sense then that the nicest areas were in the innermost areas of the town. The main market was no exception, located directly in the center of everything, it wrapped around the noble manor where according to Silas, every important government operation took place.

As they walked through the market, Silas told them what he knew about the village of Severence, noticeably avoiding looking at Kate who walked alongside him. “As I recall, Severence is one of the many villages that supports Candis. I don’t really know a whole lot about Severence in particular, but most of those villages are spread over a large area. They need the space to grow food and raise cattle, but it also means they rarely have any form of protective wall.”

“How do they deal with monsters then?”

Silas shrugged slightly. “It depends on the village. Some of them are important enough to warrant giving them protections from soldiers, others are forced to hire on shikari or retired soldiers.”

Kate spoke up, surprising Myles a little. “They still have to rely on good healers though. If every farmer who got mauled by a monster died, the village wouldn’t have anyone left.”

Silas frowned at Kate, clearly annoyed by how blunt she had been. “Admittedly, healers are usually held in high esteem in places like that. Their services are certainly in high demand.”

As they were talking about healers, Myles noticed they were walking past an apothecary. “Think we should take that as a cue to grab ourselves some medical supplies?”

“That would probably be a good idea.”

“I’ll wait for you out here.”

Myles turned around to find Kate with her back turned, looking everywhere but the store. Silas ignored her and kept walking, but Myles couldn’t help but notice that it almost seemed like she was shaking. That seemed odd. “Are you okay?”

Kate looked back at him with what looked distinctly like a pained grimace. “I’ll go gather food supplies. We should get back as quickly as possible. I want to use tonight to strategize. I have a few ideas on what we might be up against.”

Myles agreed quickly before heading after Silas who hadn’t made much progress. There was a family arguing at the counter. It looked like they didn’t have the money to pay for the supplies they needed. The father looked pale, and Myles noticed his shirt was stained red with blood slowly seeping out from what must have been a bad wound.

A woman at the counter wrung her hands, pleading. “Please! We’re only five gald short. My husband was jumped by some monster that leapt over the wall. He needs help!”

The man behind the counter sighed, clutching his head. “I’m sorry ma’am if it were another month, I’d tell you its on the house, but I’ll lose the shop if I don’t make money right now. These supplies have been getting more and more expensive to get.”

Silas looked at Myles slowly as he walked up. Then came up to him, whispering. “We already determined that food and travel bags would cost us 20 gald, right?”

“Are you thinking…”

Silas nodded quietly. “Only if you agree though. We might very well need those supplies soon too.”

Myles shook his head. He remembered how he had felt as his mother was sick and dying, and how much it had meant to him when his dad’s old co-workers—the ones he had before he joined the war effort—had pitched in to pay for her care. In the end it was a simple choice. “We’re not hurt yet, he is.”

Silas nodded and stepped forward. They were thanked profusely before the family rushed out of the store, holding on to their precious supplies.

They found Kate waiting for them at the market’s exit. “Did you get the medical supplies?”

Silas and Myles gave each other guilty looks before Myles explained to her what happened. Kate just nodded before turning around and heading in the direction of their dorms.

Myles followed uncertain. “Are you…mad?”

“No. If I do my job right, none of us will get hurt.”