Gamer Reborn

The situation was tense, thankfully the attack had been launched by an academy student whose level was in the early thirties and could be ignored as a reflexive attack since he had his bow in hand.

“What are humans doing in the dungeon?” One of the more racist students directed his question towards Lioriel, that she had also just commanded him also didn’t sit well with the young noble.

“Their party has been given permission to delve the dungeon by the queen herself.” Lioriel didn’t bother to explain further even when the silence stretched uncomfortably.

“At what cost can we have other races enter the dungeon?” The silence was broken by an elven boy who didn’t look at the four humans with distaste.

While the boy wasn’t racist he had no issue letting slavery work out positively for his own fortune. His family had built a rather sizable wealth by buying and training slaves, it was simply what they were good at. They also had one of the largest stand alone armies, it was mainly formed of commoners who signed the right for the noble house to conscript them into a militia in exchange for training. This had been their way for years and almost all of the commoners who had entered the contract never ended up being called upon, the simple threat of being able to call them was worth a lot more to the family than the cost to train them.

“This was a one time dispensation.” Lioriel quickly crushed his hopes.

“So this is the group from Gryndor.” the duke's son finally joined the conversation as he cut short his examination of the four humans. “Mother told me that they would be coming.”

“They’re not even slaves and they are in our kingdom and delving our dungeons.” The racist elf began to heat up again. “What possible price would move our queen to accept such an insult?”

“I suggest you calm down Thaniel.” the duke’s son said coldly. “This special dispensation was given to prevent all out war.”

Both Aranor and Lioriel frowned at just how well informed the student was, despite that neither said anything as the boy was clearly smart and helping the situation go smoothly. The young noble had quickly herded his classmates and guards and moved them to one side of the clearing. While thankful for his actions Lioriel was feeling a little troubled by the fact that they weren’t leaving.

The whole situation had blown over and for over two hours and thirty minutes nothing seemed to be amiss before one of the students once again approached the humans, the rest of the group following behind her with a variety of different looks on their faces.

“Are you Xavier Gryndor?” The girl asked Xavier.

“I am.” While Xavier hadn’t joined in the previous interaction he wasn’t at all intimidated by the elves.

“Did you really already graduate from the Academy?” The girl’s excitement grew as she stared at Xavier’s classically handsome face and the blonde locks that framed it.

“Who cares if he graduated from the Academy?” one of the elven boys asked jealousy not giving Xavier a chance to speak.

“He’s half a year younger than I am and I still have two more years, he qualified at the age of sixteen!” The girl defended Xavier.

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“The human academy is just a lot easier.” The boy said as he nodded towards the humans with a sneer. “Barely any of them can use magic so they have to make it easier. He’s the same age as me but I could beat him, same as I could any other human my age.”

The boy’s had meant the statement as a challenge and an insult, however the reaction he got from the humans was one that nobody had expected. Instead of being offended and outraged or dismissive all four of them broke out into laughter. Their reaction even caught Aranor and Lioriel by surprise as they had been prepared to end any conflict.

“You think I am a joke.” The boy yelled as he took an aggressive step towards them.

“I very much doubt you could beat me.” Xavier said his face once more stoic an intimidating look contrasted to his previous laughter. “We just cleared the second floor of this dungeon while I am guessing you were here for the achievement of clearing the first. That however is not the reason I’m laughing.”

The change in Xavier’s deminor combined with his social skills was enough to intimidate the elf into retreating a step backwards unconsciously. That act in and of itself once registered only fueled the boy’s rage further.

“You think so little of me you -” The boy's words were cut off as the duke’s son put a hand on his shoulder to silence him.

This brought the entire group's attention on the duke’s son for a quick moment before it shifted back to Xavier as he started talking once more. “From what my inspection skill is telling me you’d have maybe a one in twenty chance to beat me in a fight, one in fifteen if I’m being generous. I know for a fact however that you wouldn’t be able to give Ajax a fight even if he took it easy on you.”

“Oh is that so?” the boy angrily yelled as he used his inspection skill on Xavier only for it to be blocked so he turned towards Benedict and tried it again. On Benedict the skill managed to take hold enough to let him know that challenging Benedict was a colossally stupid idea, just not yet a suicidal one. “Are you this Ajax?”

As if on queue following the words five more people stepped out from the arch, two elves, two humans and one beastkin. All five of them had a combat ready stance with three of them also holding a mana power shield around them.

Their entrance should have been a simple curiosity but the identity of one of the people was too much for the academy students to ignore.

“Is that…” one of them whispered.

“It’s her!” another barely got the words out as she stared in awe.

“The ice princess.”

As princess of their neighboring kingdom Arianwyn had previously made a trip into Deepwood about five years ago. On that trip she had taken part in a tournament and despite being five years younger than the tournament limit she had managed to pull out a hard fought win.

The students' trance-like states were broken by a slightly panicked scream “Ajax!” Lexi cried out as she dashed towards him, her eyes focused on a rather nasty looking cut that adorned his left arm. “What happened? Are you alright?”

Ajax didn’t hesitate to catch Lexi in a hug with his good arm while being careful to keep her away from his injured one. “I’m fine, I just got a little careless.” Ajax waved away her concern. “This mantis type monster however had a very interesting poison. It’s hemorrhagic but its strength is based around disrupting healing magic.” for the next part Ajax leaned in even closer to her ear and activated the privacy enchantment on her earring. “It’s right at the edge of my [Poison Resistance]. Both my Light healing and [Poison Resistance] should progress nicely.”

Ajax knew that he could easily heal straight through the poison by simply adding a Life mana based healing spell, he had in fact done that exact thing to heal Harold who had gotten more than a single cut during his own battle with a similar monster that gave Ajax his souvenir. But since the poison was actually inflicted during proper and appropriate combat Ajax’s skills would benefit from it a lot more than any self ingested poison so he was content to take advantage of it.

“So you’re Ajax.” the elf who had been previously screaming at Xavier murmured as he tried his inspect skill on Ajax only to be rewarded with a sharp jolt of pain that further fueled his rage.

As the elf took a step towards Ajax he was quickly obstructed by every single female in his class. His murmur hadn’t been as quiet as he had thought and none of the girls wanted to risk having this idiot attitude affecting Arianwyn’s impression of them.

“So that’s him?” the duke’s son addressed Xavier as he looked towards Ajax. “I have to admit he looks intimidating enough.” Ajax’s taller frame with wide shoulders but still slender build combined with his pitch black hair were rather intimidating.A brief twitch of pain cued Xavier in that he attempted to inspect Ajax. “The human prodigy who beat the ice princess.”

Those words sent another ripple through the group of students as they not all watched Ajax closely, most of them wincing in pain as they tried to inspect him.

“I thought humans aged like dwarves, is he half-elf?” Thaniel asked the duke’s son, he had calmed down following his first outburst and seeing how their enraged classmate had done when confronting Xavier he was glad his friend had calmed him down.

“He isn’t and they do.” The duke’s son said. “But just like prince Xavier mentioned earlier he is younger than us.”

Those words caused a blanket silence to land upon the group before a flurry of whispers broke out amongst the elves. The duke’s son didn’t miss the opportunity he was looking to create as he approached Lioriel. “Would it be possible for us to accompany you on your way to the capital, with their presence here I feel that the roads would be more dangerous than usual.”