Ambient Mage

I started to move towards the north side of the wall.

This was supposedly where one of the 5th tier beasts would show up.

The intel wasn't verified yet.

During the last waves, we had recalled Harry, back to camp, since we had essentially mapped the entire labyrinth.

On his way back, if he was fast enough we could recieve his intel on the locations of the monsters.

Currently he was incoming on the north side, so I moved here to face the beasts and receive him.

"Charlotte, the wave is about to begin."

I squinted my eyes towards the corridors in the dungeon.

Harry wasn't coming.

Not yet.

The beasts started to move out of the halls and into the outer area of our camp.

"Remember no one jumps down until we've given the clear command."

All three admins shouted.

Rose was near me and I heard her voice.

As for Michael and Maria, they were away likely near the inside of the base on the center part of the wall.

Claudia was separated from me, and stationed on the south side of the wall.

As the beasts moved down I watched and waited for them to hit the line of dead monsters.

Then, one stepped on it.

Vwooosh.

Magic mines.

Or a makeshift version of them.

We used some of the mana crystals within the smaller beasts we found to experiment with unstable mana to create grenades and mines.

The grenades weren't very successful, as you might imagine with unstable mana, but the mines worked great.

They killed any monster directly in it's path, and injured everything else in a 5 meter radius.

The wave stopped for a moment as they lost 20 of their own count instantly.

That's when I began to conjure my spell.

A hand touched my shoulder.

"Not yet, Charlotte."

Rose said.

I left the spell suspended, and looked at her.

"This wave isn't behaving like normal."

"They aren't rushing at all."

I turned back to the monsters.

"That's not good. I don't like it when my enemies are unpredictable."

"I get that."

The students on the wall and the monsters stood in deadlock for a few minutes, before the two fifth tier monsters arrived.

"There's our reason."

On my side a thunder lion showed up.

This shouldn't even exist in a labyrinth.

In most of our teachings about battling in ruins and underground, is that, fire monsters and thunder monsters do not come naturally.

In fact most monsters inside are naturally adapted to the dark.

This labyrinth was unique in that, it had lights, inside.

From the bottom of the walls, to the top of the ceilings.

That explained why many beasts here didn't have night vision.

However, it didn't explain the appearance of the thunder lion.

"Charlotte, Claudia reports a mutated fire schrew."

This didn't make sense.

This couldn't be a test right?

We've had so many close deaths in our camp alone, much less for the other students in the other camp and outside of them.

Fire and thunder beasts don't show up underground for two reasons.

One, fire and thunder attacks are destructive and create a mess of underground structures, leading to a collapse, and loss of food for the monsters.

Two, the added use of those powers attracts larger monsters.

"Rose, get Harry on the line, we need to know how this is possible."

"No need, he discovered something in the southwestern side."

"Parts of the prison down there, had some beasts."

"They were chained down there, and there were many broken shackles."

"He speculates that the freeing of the Tyrant or the simple ground shaking moves it made when it was fighting Lucas, freed some of the odd monsters from their underground prison."

"Great."

I resumed watching the monsters. They began to toe the line near the other bodies.

I clenched my hands.

Then the signal came.

Whistle, boom.

The first strike was ours.

Then with that I pushed my arms down bringing down all of my suspended spells down on the monsters.

They began to rush the wall, our swordsmen and women began to slash out at the beasts near our wall.

The beasts clawed and slammed against our wall, and we shot them down and cut them down.

They were many, but we were not going to back up. The wall could not fall.

So the fighting got harsher as the beasts began their mindless, aggressive push towards the wall.

They were relentless, but we didn't give up.

"Switch out center part A, and replace them."

"We need a healer over here."

"Turn your spells towards the left."

We moved like a well oiled machine, we had nothing to say about grievances about how hard we worked, everyone was.

The healers moved like fighters, the fighters, like strategists, and the strategists like both.

We all manuevered around each other changing out when someone had a better elemental advantage over certain beasts.

Claudia wasn't being pushed around and people were starting to support her.

She became their main fire power, with everyone else, taking care of the stragglers, and the ones that didn't die from her firepower.

Eventually the massive wave died out and the only ones left were the 5th tier beasts.

"Claudia, Charlotte, please."

Rose said over comms.

We jumped down from the walls to engage the enemies.

The lion did not hesistate, and swung his paw down as he lunged towards me, I backed up and shifted left around his right paw allowing me a spell directly at his stomach.

The beast turned towards me, and backed up with a jump.

It was fast, unnaturally so, but that was the case with 5th tier beasts, they scarcely resembled the animals they looked like.

The lion then began to roar, letting out a vicious fire.

I waved to the side.

Someone caught my action and moved people off the north side walls.

The evacuation was swift and while it's head was tilted up I took my chance to swing my greatsword at it's neck.

It turned once again and backed up.

And then it did something horrifying.

It smiled.

I immediately reached for my comm orb.

And the smile quickly vanished off the monster's face as it was replaced by a menace.

"Charlotte, to public, these monsters are intelligent, near human like."

The chatter was definitely picked up, but no one responded.

I guess the information was too shocking.

"Move troops to assist Claudia, the schrew is smaller, and we need to defeat it to focus our attacks at one opponent."

I didn't wait for the positive response.

I put the orb away as I focused on the beast slowly walking towards me.

It roared and did another swipe.

Then another.

 I dodged, and dodged, and swung.

It dodged.

I needed to go faster.

I lodged my greatsword deep into the ground.

I then unsheated my rapier.

If cutting it's head off from it's body was impossible, then it would experience cuts, and stabs on it's body as if it were a piece of steak getting ready to be made.

>.

I launched myself at breakneck speeds towards the beast.

It was surprised, but ready.

It reared up onto it's hind legs, ready to slam down on top of me.

What it didn't realize was I was used to this counter.

I used another whirlwind to push me to the side, circling the lion, I stabbed my rapier straight through it's left hind leg.

It felt like like my sparring against Lucas was a preparation for this fight.

Down to the way he countered.

It dictated that I used whirlwind in more than one way, to offset my opponent.

I smiled once again, knowing he had taught me a good lesson.

I found a rhythm to the fight.

My mind felt better.

I was in a mental slump, but the thought that Lucas' sessions with me were directly being used in real combat.

The lion had both it's legs stabbed through multiple times.

At this point it was almost dragging it's rear legs.

It's face and howls sounded somewhere between anger and pain.

"Charlotte, we're her- wow, what did you do to it?"

"I stabbed it multiple times in each rear leg, until it was basically dragging them around."

I threw a happy face to the troops and Claudia.

"Well, that's a little terrifying."

Some agreed.

"Oh, well."

Claudia began.

"Then, Charlotte, should we compete to see, who can achieve the final blow?"

"Yes."

"Great."

I pointed at the other troops.

"You'll referee for us right?"

They nervously nodded.

"Great."

"Keep your eyes on us okay?"

Claudia said coquettishly.

Wow. Such a tactic wasn't unnoticed by me and the other girls.

With that, Claudia and my cooperation and competition began.

She got up close, despite her own personal risk and launched spells point blank at the lion as I slammed my rapier into it's back as if it were a pair of clothes in need of stitching.

Finally we rushed in together as I jammed my rapier into the back of it's head, Claudia also hit it with a devious gravity spell crushing it's head into the ground.

I honestly couldn't tell if she let me win.

"Hey so I won right?"

Claudia said to me.

"Keep telling yourself that, my sword definitely killed it."

"Okay, princess."

I think today I don't like that nickname.

***

After the wave I was called into the admin room.

"Charlotte, I'm not here to demand a better performance out of you, but I need you to be mindful of others."

"You and Claudia are completely different from the rest of the troops."

"You two are more than superhuman."

"They can't sustain such long battles like that, and if another wave had hit, you all would have been in the middle of it."

"Despite that I'm glad you're back safe."

"Oh, and one more thing, next time just fling your great sword over the wall, someone with wind magic will receive it."

"Okay."

"Thanks for the feedback Rose."

"Oh, and Charlotte, between you and me, what made you smile so much on the battlefield."

"You never smiled like that, aside from when you were listening to Lucas plan."

"Well let's say it was a shared moment for me and Lucas alone."

"Keeping all the happy moments for yourself huh?"

"That's fine, but princess, are you sure you can keep it forever?"

"And what do you mean by that Rose?"

"I think, maybe I would be a good person to stand by Lucas."

And with that she left the room.

Lucas.

You always did leave an impact with people huh?

No matter, I will still triumph over Aura and anyone else.

***

*Aurelia's Pov*

Charlotte came into the room.

"Hey, Aura."

"Hey."

"We have a new rival and some bad news."

"So only bad news?"

I frowned.

"Technically. It's Rose."

I was surprised, she was a merchant and not one easily swayed by emotions.

"You look surprised."

"I am, of all of your group I thought it would be Lauren or Claudia."

"Honestly I don't think Claudia is interested, but I have no clue as to Lauren."

"Alright, so what about the other news?"

"The next wave is going to have the final five 5th tier beasts in one go."

"What?"

"I know."

Charlotte looked down again.

"We need you to leave Lucas' side."

"And if he dies?"

"Well, he dies anyways if the wall crumbles."

"Do you care more about the stupid wall than Lucas?"

I began to get angry.

"Look, I know you're angry, but have some faith in your future husband."

I calmed down, Charlotte's words had a calming effect like that.

"Fine, but if he dies, I'll hold everyone here accountable."

"The empire will make the proper sacrifices if that occurs."

I narrowed my eyes.

"It better not."

Charlotte hugged me.

"Aura, sis, it will never happen, I will die before I let Lucas."

Her words really did have a way of calming me down.

"Alright, leave him here, Aisha is going to watch over him, while the rest of us able to fight will be up on the wall."

"Also, Harry is back."

"Really? Since when?"

"Since a few minutes ago, so we have a specialized support mage now."

"Then let's remove these monsters from sight, and go back."